Party Brands in Crisis Partisanship, Brand Dilution, and the Breakdown of Political Parties in Latin America

Why have so many established political parties across Latin America collapsed in recent years? Party Brands in Crisis offers an explanation that highlights the effect of elite actions on voter behavior. During the 1980s and 1990s, political elites across the region implemented policies inconsistent with the traditional positions of their party, provoked internal party conflicts, and formed strange-bedfellow alliances with traditional rivals. These actions diluted party brands and eroded voter attachment. Without the assured support of a partisan base, parties became more susceptible to short-term retrospective voting, and voters without party attachments deserted incumbent parties when they performed poorly. Party Brands in Crisis offers the first general explanation of party breakdown in Latin America, reinforcing the interaction between elite behavior and mass attitudes.

1. Why do parties break down?; 2. Brand dilution and party breakdown; 3. Explaining party breakdown across Latin America; 4. Argentina - Peronism survives, radicals collapse; 5. Venezuela - AD and COPEI break down; 6. Party brands and mass partisanship - experimental evidence; 7. Party brands and mass partisanship in comparative perspective; 8. Parties, partisanship, and democracy: conclusions.

Noam Lupu is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Trice Faculty Scholar at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Political Behavior, and World Politics, among others. His dissertation, on which this book is based, won the Gabriel A. Almond Award and Juan Linz Prize. In 2014, he received the Emerging Scholar Award from the Political Organizations and Parties section of the American Political Science Association.