Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America

by Scott Mainwaring (Editor), Timothy R. Scully (Editor)

This volume aims to fill the need for a comprehensive, up-to-date portrait of parties and party systems in Latin America. It includes chapters on all the large and medium-sized countries, as well as those smaller countries with older democratic Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The book is framed by an introduction that provides a theoretical and comparative conceptual map for charting Latin American party systems and a conclusion that looks ahead to the challenges and trends for party building in the 1990s. The 12 country case studies address five analytical themes. Finally, and most importantly, the authors characterize the nature of the party system in each country - how institutionalized it is, and how it can be classified. This book is a Stanford University Press title distributed and marketed by Cambridge University Press in all territories outside North America.

578 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1994

About the author

Scott Mainwaring is the Eugene P. and Helen Conley Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He is also a faculty fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, where he previously served as director for 13 years and is a current Advisory Board member.

In the fall of 2019, Mainwaring returned to Notre Dame from Harvard University, where he served as the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor of Brazil Studies at the Kennedy School and was faculty co-chair of the Brazil Studies Program from 2016 to 2019.

His research interests include political parties and party systems, democratic and authoritarian regimes, democratization, and political institutions in Latin America.