Decentralization Against Parties?
The Effects of Decentralization on Political Parties in
Bolivia, Colombia and Peru
Eduardo Dargent, University of Texas at Austin
Alberto Vergara, Université de Montréal
Beginning in the eighties, decentralization reforms swept Latin America.
Hundreds or even thousands of sub-national authorities with fiscal autonomy were now
elected by popular vote. The creation of these new institutions attracted considerable
academic attention. Scholars first explored the causes of decentralization reforms in the
region (Willis et al 1999; Grindle 2000; Garman et al 2001; Montero and Samuels 2004;
O’Neill 2005). Later, they turned to analyzing the effects of these reforms on diverse
political phenomena; among others: democratic governance in the newly created subnational governments (O’Neill 2006; Faguet 2009); the balance of power between
national and sub-national governments (Falleti 2010); the emergence of sub-national
authoritarian enclaves (Gibson 2005); or the impact of decentralization reforms on
political parties (Harbers 2010).
In this paper we focus on this last literature. Some scholars have argued that
decentralization reforms had unintended negative effects on national political parties in
Latin America. A recent study comparing the effects of decentralization in sixteen Latin
American countries, for example, concludes that there is a trade-off between a
decentralized political system and a national party system (Harbers 2010). Similarly,
Sabatini (2003) blames decentralization for weakening fairly strong traditional parties in
1
Colombia and Venezuela, and less strong but still relevant ones in Bolivia and Peru.1
These and other authors propose that, in one way or another, “decentralization conspires
against party aggregation” (Leiras 2006).
We explore the soundness of this alleged negative relationship by examining the
cases of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, three countries that adopted similar decentralization
reforms in the last decades in two waves. First, the three countries went through a process
of municipalization, the creation of hundreds (more than a thousand in Colombia and
Peru) of considerably autonomous local governments (Bolivia in 1995, Colombia in 1986
and Peru in 1980). Later, in a second wave, the traditional departments —territorial
administrative units— served as the basis for regional governments at the meso level
(Bolivia in 2004, Colombia in 1991 and Peru in 2002) (Table 1). Although all these
countries suffered the weakening of their traditional party systems after decentralization,
once we look at the sub-national level we find some interesting contrasts among the cases
that will allow us to clarify the hypothesized negative relation between decentralization
and political parties.
Table 1 Decentralization reforms in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru.
DECENTRALIZATION REFORMS
Year of
creation
BOLIVIA
COLOMBIA
PERU
1994
1986
19802
TOWARDS
LOCAL LEVEL
80s-90s
Number of
decentralized
units created
195 provincial
municipalities
337 municipalities
1098 municipalities
1583 district
municipalities
1
See also Penfold 2004; Bracanti 2008; Centellas 2009.
Municipalization in Peru was adopted in the sixties. Nonetheless, after two elections, a military coup
eliminated all elections until the return of democracy to the country in 1980.
2
2
Name of the
authority
elected
Mayor
Mayor
Mayor
2004
1991
2002
Number of
decentralized
units created
9 departments,
became 9 regions
32 departments first,
then 36
25 departments,
became 25 regional
governments
Name of the
authority
elected
Prefect first,
afterwards Governors
Governors
Regional president
Year of
creation
TOWARDS
MESO LEVEL
90s-2000s
Does the “decentralization against parties” hypothesis hold in these cases? Does
decentralization explains the weakening of traditional parties in all these countries? Or is
it the case that decentralization affects political parties differently under certain
conditions and —deviating from the hypothesis— can even contribute to strengthening
parties? By drastically changing the rules of political competition and the distribution of
resources in countries where these resources are scarce, decentralization reforms would
appear likely candidates for institutions capable of “ruling” politics. Are these reforms
meaningful independent sources of political change?
Our findings precise the conditions under which decentralization affects
negatively political parties and those instances in which it is irrelevant or may even
contribute to party aggregation. The Colombian case shows that decentralization
weakened traditional parties, but it did so because these parties already lacked
programmatic linkages and relied heavily on clientelism to maintain their dominance.
The Bolivian case runs contrary to the hypothesis by showing that if ideational or
programmatic cleavages are present in the country, decentralization is not a substantial
3
barrier for the emergence of strong political parties such as Movimiento al Socialismo
(MAS) party. The Peruvian case, on its turn, shows that decentralization was of
secondary importance for traditional parties’ collapse and confirms that current party
weakness is rooted in deeper causes than decentralization. Our main conclusion is that
deeper causes, and not institutional reforms, are relevant to the decline or emergence of
political parties.
To answer these questions the article proceeds as follows. In the first section we
provide an overview of the causal mechanisms identified in the literature that suggests a
negative relationship between decentralization and political parties. We also describe the
changes over time in party strength in the three countries and explain why a proper
assessment of the effects of decentralization on parties requires evaluating party
performance in local and regional elections. Next we discuss our three cases. Each case
offers relevant information to assess the overall soundness of the “decentralization
against parties” hypothesis. We conclude by discussing our findings and, more broadly,
how our results inform the debate about the effects of institutions in developing countries.
I.
DECENTRALIZATION AND PARTY STRENGTH
Many authors propose that decentralization reforms can have negative effects on
political parties. These authors stress the negative impact of decentralization on party
system nationalization (Harbers 2010); party system institutionalization (Dargent and
Muñoz 2011); party system structure (Morgan forthcoming); party aggregation (Leiras
2006); and party strength (Sabatini 2003). Although their dependent variables are
conceptualized slightly differently, all these authors coincide that decentralization
4
reforms can negatively affect party strength, a term broad enough to encompass the
previous ones.3 By party strength we mean the ability of a national party to be stable and
competitive across multiple levels of government. A strong party is able to attract
competitive politicians on all levels and assure their loyalty over time. Conversely, party
weakness means low continuity and the proliferation of independent politicians at all
levels of government who change parties from election to election.
In this literature we identify three causal mechanisms linking decentralization and
party weakness. The first two mechanisms are two sides of the same coin; they highlight
how decentralization reforms shrink the resource asymmetry (opportunities for
patronage) between party leaders and local politicians, reducing the patronage incentives
for the latter to join and remain loyal to parties. The third mechanism focuses on
decentralization effects on voters’ attitudes, and how this change in voters increases the
incentives for local candidates to run independent campaigns.
a) Decentralization undermines the higher echelons of the party system by
weakening party leaders’ access to and control of patronage resources (funds,
bureaucratic positions, campaign goods, etc.) and, at the same time, enhancing the
demand for these resources by local politicians (Morgan forthcoming, Chapter 7).
After decentralization, parties have to distribute their limited pool of resources in
hundreds, or even thousands, of campaigns. Party elites also lose the possibility of
appointing local politicians discretionally, a process usually controlled and
negotiated between the central government and party leaders (Penfold 2004;
3
Although, as discussed in the conclusion, some of them stress that this relation only holds under certain
conditions.
5
Lalander 2007; Morgan forthcoming). These rewards are key incentives that serve
to maintain party structure and discipline, as they make party careers attractive to
politicians. If other reforms (e.g. market reforms that reduce patronage positions
in public enterprises) or severe economic or political crises (e.g. hyperinflation or
guerrilla insurgency) also limit the availability of patronage, parties become even
less attractive as political vehicles.
b) Decentralization provides more autonomy to politicians at sub-national levels.
The creation of sub-national governments gives local authorities their own
resources distributed by objective rules of allocation. Local politicians in a
decentralized context depend less on national parties to negotiate budget funds in
their name, finance their campaigns, or contribute to sustaining their clientelistic
machines (Harbers 2010: 610-12; Morgan forthcoming, Chapter 7). If the new
sub-national governments have no hierarchical dependence on higher levels of
government (as is the case with municipal authorities in our cases), this
independence is even higher (Muñoz 2008). Furthermore, political
decentralization opens diverse channels through which politicians can access the
political system, reducing party control over this access. Local and regional actors
can create their own parties and become political entrepreneurs (Ryan 2004;
Bracanti 2008). If electoral reforms facilitate entry into the political system (by
reducing the number of signatures to register a party or newly allowing the
formation of local or regional parties), local politicians gain even more autonomy.
c) Finally, the third mechanism focuses on the effects of decentralization on voters’
attitudes. Decentralization, it is argued, makes voters more interested in local
6
issues rather than national ones. If debates on the national level resonate with
voters, national party candidates are competitive in local elections. But if
decentralization makes voters more focused on local issues, independent
candidates advancing these issues become more competitive than party
candidates.4 Harbers, for example, argues that decentralized elections foster the
emergence of sub-national party systems centered on local issues (Harbers 2010).
Similarly, Sabatini claims that with the opening of local competition, national
issues lose importance, and “(Q)uestions about roads, schools, and trash pickup
dominate local elections” (Sabatini 2003, 140). In what follows we do not explore
this mechanism systematically; however, as will become clear in the Bolivian
case and in our conclusion, we show that decentralization does not prevent
citizens from still mobilizing around national issues even if they may have grown
more interested in local ones.
In order to evaluate the “decentralization against parties” hypothesis we must first
describe the independent variable, party strength, across time for our cases. A first look at
this variation is presented in table 2, using the index of party institutionalization created
by Mainwaring and Scully (1995) whose original measure was from 1970-1990, and a
subsequent of this same index by Payne et Al (2006) up to 2004 (but with an emphasis on
the period 1996-2004). According to this index, the Colombian case is the only one in
which a strong party system evolved from the original measurement into a considerably
weaker one after decentralization reforms, while the other two cases suggest inchoate
4
For a similar argument, see Chibber and Kollman 2004
7
party systems that failed to take root. Nonetheless, an actualization of this index would
provide a different picture. Although we’ll find small variation in the scores of Colombia
and Peru, Bolivia will certainly achieve a better score. The last national election
considered by Payne et al is 2002. Since 2005 the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS)
party has gained hegemony in this country, achieving good scores in all the dimensions
of M&S’s aggregate index (stability, roots, legitimacy and organization).
Table 2. Party System Institutionalization Index
Mainwaring and
Scully (12 point
index)
1970-1990
Payne et al
(3 point index)
Bolivia
5.0
1.66
Colombia
10.5
1.66
Ecuador
5.0
1.33
Peru
4.5
1.50
Venezuela
10.5
2.24
Andean Average
7.1
1.68
Latin American Average
8.3
2.03
Regional Highest
11.0
2.72
Regional Lowest
4.5
1.33
Country
1980-2004
Sources: Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Payne et al 2006.
However, one dimension of party strength over time that these indices fail to
capture is party performance at the sub-national level. A problem with M&S’s index is
that it focuses exclusively on the national level (presidential and legislative elections) to
assess party stability.5 This index does not take into consideration the capacity of national
parties to be competitive in sub-national levels of government across time. This is no
small shortcoming. Presidential and Congressional votes alone do not provide us with a
5
M&S include territorial comprehensiveness as part of their organization dimension but do not develop
this aspect in detail. Payne et al exclude this dimension from their calculations.
8
proper measurement of parties’ territorial dominance. As argued by Vergara: “In
increasingly decentralized political systems, the national reach of a party depends not
only on its presence in the legislature but also on its ability to be competitive on multiple
levels of government. A party could be highly nationalized on a horizontal dimension
(national legislature) but not on a vertical one (between levels of government), which
would still pose a challenge for the articulation of the political system” (Vergara
forthcoming). Thus, national aggregate data can conceal important information about the
strength or weakness of political parties in sub-national elections.
As shown in table 3, when we evaluate this sub-national dimension we have a
better image of variation in party strength across time in our cases. First, we confirm that
traditional parties also weakened at the sub-national level, but while this decline was
abrupt in Bolivia and Peru, it is less dramatic in Colombia where traditional parties
remain competitive at the regional and municipal levels. Second, and more important for
our argument, current party strength varies more among the cases than suggested by the
national aggregates. In Bolivia we confirm that MAS has become a strong hegemonic
party, winning consistently at both national and sub-national levels of government. In
Colombia, traditional parties and some new ones, such as the incumbent Partido de la U,
are relevant actors across all levels of government, although independents are also quite
strong. Finally, in Peru, national parties, both traditional and new, are extremely weak at
all levels of government with a multitude of independents and regional parties having the
upper hand. In what follows we explore the “decentralization against parties” hypothesis
to evaluate whether or not it explains (a) the weakness of traditional parties and (b) these
divergent outcomes.
9
Table 3: Electoral results for traditional parties at the first and last municipal
elections
Countries
Year
Year
1995
2010
40,4%*
0,89%°
1988
2007
85.9%
41%
1980
2010
92,7%*
9.23%°
Bolivia
Colombia°
Peru
*Percentage of the national vote
°Percentage of the total number of municipalities
Work in progress
Sources: Bolivia: Romero 2003 and Corte nacional Electoral; Colombia: Miguel García’s data base of sub-national elections 19872004 y Registraduría Nacional del Estado civil; Perú: Tanaka 1998 and ONPE.
Table 4: Cases and Outcomes.
BOLIVIA
COLOMBIA
PERU
Collapsed
Weakened but still
relevant, specially at the
sub-national level
Collapsed
New strong hegemonic
party
Medium/Low
Low
TRADITIONAL PARTIES
CURRENT PARTY
STRENGTH
II.
COLOMBIA: WEAKENING CLIENTELISTIC PARTY LEADERS
AND FOSTERING ATOMIZATION AT THE LOCAL LEVEL.
In Colombia, decentralization and electoral reforms adopted in the late eighties
and in the 1991 Constitution to strengthen democracy and reduce pervasive clientelism
weakened the traditional system in which the Liberal and Conservative national parties
10
shared dominance. As described in mechanisms I and II, decentralization reforms
diminished the power of clientelistic party leaders at the regional level and gave local
politicians more autonomy, breaking the pyramidal clientelistic linkages that had held the
system together. Nevertheless, we argue, decentralization reforms had this effect due to
the previously existing conditions in the country: a clientelistic party system with weak
programmatic linkages and atomized at the local level. Also, we explain why it is
difficult to evaluate whether or not decentralization has contributed to current party
weakness in the country.
For more than 150 years the Conservative and Liberal parties ruled over
Colombian politics. Since the time of the National Front agreements (NF) (1958-1974)
this domination was based on the two parties’ almost monopolistic control over state
resources. To end the dictatorship of General Rojas Pinilla (1955-1958) and put an end to
strong partisan violence, both parties agreed to support a single presidential candidate for
four presidential terms and share all elected positions equally (Hartlyn 1988; Archer
1990; 1995).
Table 5: Presidential Vote Share in Colombia: Traditional Parties vs. Other
Candidates
Year
Liberal and Conservative Parties (%)
Others (%)
1978
96.09
3.91
1982
98.78
1.22
1986
94.77
5.23
1990
85.43
14.57
1994
91.3
8.7
Source:
Gutiérrez 2007.
11
According to Mainwaring and Scully (1995), Colombia had up until 1990 one of
Latin America’s most institutionalized party systems. Nonetheless, these authors showed
in their analysis an important flaw of Colombian parties: the weakness of party
leadership. National party leaders were incapable of enforcing their decisions on party
factions (Archer 1990; Gutierrez 2007). Colombia offered a curious case of an
institutionalized party system with weak national leadership and strong political factions.
The parties looked like a federation of political leaders, supported by regional clienteles
and competing against each other.
Most observers fault the NF for this state of affairs. The bipartisan control over
state resources caused a transition from traditional clientelism, based on party leaders’
private resources, to what was called broker clientelism, based on state resources (Dávila
and Delgado 2002. 320-322; Archer 1995; Leal Buitrago and Dávila 1990). But these
resources were not used for electoral competition. As the NF allocated elected positions
equally, there were no incentives for competition between parties. On the contrary,
competition erupted at the intraparty level, with regional factions gaining power and
competing against each other. Furthermore, local politics also became fragmented.
Institutional rules accommodated intraparty competition and factionalism by allowing
each party to present several lists for congress and municipal and regional councils.6 In
the process, ideological differences between the parries blurred, weakening programmatic
linkages (Gutierrez Sanín 2007).
6
Until 1988 when municipal elections were adopted, Colombians voted to elect the president, members of
congress, and the members of regional and municipal councils.
12
In spite of fragmentation at the local level and weak programmatic linkages, this
party system remained strong for several decades. The reason behind this stability is that
regional barons served as key actors, promoting party aggregation at the meso level by
keeping local politicians disciplined through the distribution of patronage. Regional
barons, usually occupying positions in Congress, controlled their own budget resources
(auxilios parlamentarios) which they used to support their clienteles. These leaders also
distributed patronage in the form of local and regional appointments. Formally, the
President appointed governors who in turn appointed majors, but these appointments
were negotiated with party factions and therefore mediated by the regional barons
(Pizarro 2002, 371; Eaton 2006, 542). Patronage resources in the hands of intermediate
politicians thus linked national and local politics and created upward incentives for party
aggregation (Pizarro 2002; Gutierrez 2007, Ch.3).
Electoral rules also favored these clientelistic strategies. National elections for the
presidency and both chambers of Congress, as well as local elections for regional and
municipal councils, were all conducted on the same day, which facilitated the
coordination of party machines: one clientelistic exchange was enough to deliver a vote
in all these elections (Morgan forthcoming, Chapter 10). Also, the voting ballot was
distributed by parties through their machines, giving established parties considerable
advantage over other parties lacking similar territorial organizations.
This clientelistic system came under scrutiny as early as the seventies. Reformist
politicians criticized the system for causing policy immobility and corruption (García
2000). Starting in the eighties, politicians were also associated with drug money and
13
criticized for being incapable of defeating guerrilla insurgencies. At first reformists failed
due to the power of traditional politicians (Gutierrez 2007, 148-165). But in the late
eighties, as scandals mounted, they achieved more leverage and adopted reforms to
reduce clientelism, strengthen democracy, and open the political system to new political
forces (Eaton 2006; Pizarro 2002).
Decentralization was part of this anti-clientelistic and democratizing effort. In
1986 Congress mandated the election of mayors and in 1988 the first elections were held.
Reformists also achieved a constitutional reform adopting a single, universal ballot and
the separation of municipal, congressional and presidential elections (Pizarro 2002).
These reforms also aimed to contribute to peace talks with guerrilla insurgents by
showing that the political system could be considerably more open to new political
options, a core demand of these groups (Eaton 2006; García 2000).
The 1991 Constitution adopted even more reforms to invigorate democracy and
reduce clientelism. Traditional politicians opposed the formation of a Constituent
Assembly, but finally achieved a deal with reformists: constituent assembly members
were not allowed to run for the new congress to be elected after the Convention.
Traditional politicians stepped out of the constituent process and waited to return to
politics afterwards (Falleti 2010, 124-133). Without clientelistic networks operating, the
Convention was elected by only 25% of the voting population. This vote also
overrepresented the interests of urban, more programmatically-oriented citizens. As a
result, the Constituent Assembly was controlled by reformist politicians from traditional
parties as well as from a new political group formed by demobilized members of a
14
guerrilla group (M-19). The assumption made by reformists was that the Constitutional
reforms will lead to a more programmatically-oriented multiparty system (García 2000).
The most important reforms were:
a) Regarding decentralization, the reforms included the election of Governors. The
Colombian decentralization model, however, remained highly municipal. The
reforms included the allocation of significant political jurisdiction to
municipalities. The share of total government expenditure at the municipal level
increased from 10.5 percent in 1980 to 17.3 percent in 1990, and the departmental
share decreased from 16.7 percent to 15.7 percent after decentralization (Willis,
Garman, and Haggard 1999: 13).
b) The reforms also aimed to weaken regional barons. The Constitution banned
auxilios parlamentarios. Although congressmen were able to informally negotiate
some of these benefits back shortly after, they were no longer based on fixed
allocations. Additionally, the Senate would now be elected in a single national
district, eliminating the advantage of concentrating votes in regional strongholds.
c) Finally, electoral reforms favored the incorporation of new political forces. The
abovementioned senate reform aimed to promote nationally-oriented political
actors reaching congress. Other reforms reduced the requirements for electoral
participation, hoping to foster the incorporation of new parties.
In the following years it appeared that little had changed for traditional parties.
Liberals and Conservatives maintained their dominance in national and local elections
(García 2000). As late as 2001 some commentators argued that traditional parties had
adjusted to the new institutional rules (Gutierrez and Dávila 2000). Nonetheless, a closer
15
look such as that provided by Boudon (2002) showed a system under stress. An
independent candidate and former Conservative party member, Noemí Sanín won 27% of
the vote in the 1998 presidential election. Starting in 1994, Congressional lists
skyrocketed, showing increasing atomization at the already atomized local level.
Traditional parties began losing elections at the municipal level, especially in major cities
(García 2002). Also, although the barons still won positions by relying on their regional
strongholds, their dominance was contested by congress candidates running national
campaigns (Rodríguez Raga 2002). And party switching, uncommon in the past, became
frequent (Pizarro 2002).
Table 6: Number of Lists for Senate and Chamber
Source:
Year
Senate
Chamber
1970
206
316
1974
176
253
1978
210
308
1982
225
343
1986
202
330
1990
213
351
1991
143
486
1994
251
628
1998
319
692
2002
322
883
Pizarro 2002; Muñoz Yi 2003.
Table 7: Presidential Vote Share (1998–2010)
Year
Liberal
Party
Conservative
Party
Sí Colombia
(Sanín)
Uribe’s
Party
Polo
Democrático
Partido
Verde
1998
34.6
34.3
26.9
–
–
–
2002
31.8
–
5.8
53.1
–
–
2006
11.8
–
–
62.4
22
–
2010
4.4
6.1
–
46.5
9.2
21.5
Source:
Political Database of the Americas.
16
Decentralization reforms, in conjunction with electoral ones, had a meaningful
impact on traditional parties (Dargent and Muñoz 2011; Morgan forthcoming, 261-274).
First, decentralization and electoral reforms put more stress on party leaders, especially
regional barons, who now had to provide funds for thousands of local candidates. Also,
congressmen no longer had auxilios parlamentarios to distribute at will. And national
party leaders could no longer appoint loyalists to sub-national positions. In the words of a
faction leader: “he no longer has 60 mayors that he could appoint at his whim, rather he
had to fight for votes in 125 municipalities in order to obtain victories for loyal mayors”
(Gutierrez Sanín 2007, 259; translated by Morgan forthcoming). To make things worse
for party leaders, elections were now held on separate dates, weakening incentives for
clientelistic coordination and multiplying the resources necessary to achieve votes in each
election. Furthermore, the Single National District for the election of the senate forced
political barons to campaign outside their regional strongholds. As a result, these barons
eventually lost their power and relevance (Dargent and Muñoz 2011; Pizarro 2002).
Second, local politicians gained more autonomy, further atomizing an already
atomized party system. A radical process of municipalization had created more than a
thousand small feuds at the local level. Politicians no longer depended on party leaders to
win offices or to extract resources from the central government; they now had resources
distributed by budget rules to develop their own clientelistic machines (Garman et al
2001: 226). Local politicians became electoral entrepreneurs, seeking resources to run
autonomous careers, sometimes from illegal sources of funding. Also of consequence,
local politicians had more roads by which to access power. As a result, concentrated
17
clientelism at the regional level broke down, and a less concentrated form of clientelism
developed and became entrenched at the local level (Pizarro 2002; Dávila y Delgado
2002; Eaton 2006). A recent study showing considerable stability in local politics relates
this stability to solid local clientelistic networks. Although mayoral reelection is
technically not allowed, in 134 out of 607 rural municipios the same political group has
remained in power through four municipal terms (1998-2007). And in 95% of the cases
there was at least one instance of reelection (UNDP 2011).
Thus these processes broke down the pyramidal, clientelistic ties that helped to
institutionalize the party system (Morgan forthcoming, chapter 10; Pizarro 2002). When a
popular outsider, Álvaro Uribe, emerged in the 2002 election, campaigning with an antiguerrilla discourse, the system imploded. Uribe was a Liberal politician, ex-senator and
governor of the wealthy region of Antioquia, who had left his party when he was denied
the presidential nomination. Defecting party members and independents quickly
gravitated to him, and even the Conservative Party supported Uribe’s candidacy. Uribe
won the election with 54% of the vote and although he did not have a congressional list,
he quickly garnered the support of 60% of Congress through the combined allegiances of
congressmen from more than sixty political groups. After altering the Constitution to
allow for his reelection, Uribe won with 64% of the vote in 2006. This time he was
supported by an alliance of five national parties, among them his own Partido de la U. In
2010 Juan Manuel Santos, Uribe’s Minister of Defense, ran under the banner of Partido
de la U and won the election with 46.5% in the first round and then 69% in the runoff.
18
The current party landscape is markedly different from the traditional one.
National parties, both new and old, are weaker than in the past. National politics in
Colombia are more fluid, personalistic, and volatile. Candidates, not parties, determine
the outcomes of presidential elections. And party switching is quite frequent (Dargent
and Muñoz 2010). An ambitious electoral reform in 2003 aimed to provide incentives for
party aggregation by forcing national parties to present a single list of candidates for
congress. Some scholars are moderately optimistic about the overall effects of the reform
(Pachón and Shugart 2010; Botero and Rodríguez, 2008). Nonetheless, we find that the
party system remains consistently fragmented at the national level.
Can we blame decentralization for the current party weakness? Colombia does not
offer a definite answer in this respect. On the one hand, as mentioned, local politicians
have achieved considerable autonomy, making party aggregation difficult to achieve in
this fragmented polity. Independents won 36% municipalities and 31% regions in the
2007 election. But on the other hand, sub-national politics are also a source of strength
for some old and new parties that profit from winning regions and municipalities. In
contrast to the other cases, Conservatives and Liberals remain fairly relevant actors in
regional and municipal elections. In 2007, Liberals won 19% of municipalities and 19%
of regions; Conservatives 22% and 16% respectively. As noted by Gamboa (2010),
traditional parties were able to keep alive some of their clientelistic ties at the local level,
especially in regional and municipal councils. The Uribista party, dominant at the
national level, also achieves moderate results: 11% of municipalities and 22% of regions.
19
In conclusion, decentralization reforms in Colombia contributed to weakening the
clientelistic ties that benefited traditional parties, but this outcome is tied to preexisting
conditions within this clientelistic party system and its atomized base. It is less clear that
the current party weakness is caused by decentralization; instead, some parties (including
the traditional ones) might be benefiting from sub-national competition, since they are
more competitive at those levels and less so at national ones.
III. BOLIVIA: WEAKENING DELIGITIMIZED TRADITIONAL PARTIES
AND THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW HEGEMONIC PARTY.
The Bolivian case refutes the “decentralization against parties” hypothesis by
showing that decentralization is not a substantial barrier to party aggregation when strong
cleavages exist; in fact, it can even contribute to the nationalization of a strong party.
Moreover, in Bolivia, decentralization had only a minor impact in weakening traditional
parties. Decentralization affected these parties by reducing their control over patronage
(Morgan forthcoming) and by contributing to the initial emergence of a new party with its
origins in local government (MAS). Nevertheless, decentralization was not a major cause
of traditional party system collapse nor does it explain why MAS achieved national
hegemony; these processes are related, we argue, to the emergence of a neoliberal
cleavage in the country and social mobilization against a market economy. The case also
exemplifies that decentralization does not necessarily make citizens less interested in
national issues, as proposed by the third mechanism presented in Section I.
Decentralization in Bolivia was adopted as part of the efforts of newly elected
President Gonzalo Sánchez de Losada (1993-1997) from MNR to counteract the
20
declining legitimacy of the political system.7 Decentralization was the main mechanism
chosen to regain this legitimacy, although it was not clear to the President how to
decentralize. An important group of politicians, most notably a group from the eastern
side of the country, demanded a meso-level decentralization with an emphasis on
regionalization. Sánchez de Losada and MNR preferred municipalization instead,
concerned that regionalization would create centrifugal forces that could threaten the
unity of Bolivia. After all, MNR was the party that conducted the 1952 nationalist and
centralist revolution. Decentralization was launched in 1994 with the Ley de
Participación Popular (LPP) (Van Cott 2008). The law created municipalities, mandated
the election of mayors, and entitled municipal governments to 20% of the national
budget, to be distributed objectively according to their population.8
Why was decentralization a remedy for the weak legitimacy of the political
system? To explain this aspect and understand the ensuing collapse of the party system
we have to go back a decade before to Bolivia’s transition to democracy. After a
troublesome transition to democracy, Bolivia entered an unanticipated period of political
stability in 1985 (Pachano 2006). The new political era was built on three pillars. First,
the three main traditional parties (MNR, ADN and UDP) controlled the state and almost
monopolized political representation in what was called a “moderate multiparty system.”
Second, the system was supported by a series of alliances in Congress in order to give
stability to the executive branch, a system praised by external observers as a
7
Evidence of this awareness is that Sanchez de Losada picked a prominent indigenous leader as his vicePresident in an effort to approach disenchanted indigenous citizens.
8
Before the law only some urban municipalities used to elect their mayors and lacked any fiscal autonomy.
Also important, according to Mayorga, between 1994 to 1999 the tax revenue transferred to municipalities
doubles from 10 to 20% (Mayorga 2005, 169).
21
“presidencialismo parlamentarizado.” Finally, the parties shared a strong economic
consensus around drastic, orthodox economic policies launched in 1985. These pillars
explain why between 1985 and 2002 Bolivia was labeled a “democracia pactada.”
On the eve of democratization the system was programmatically diverse, as
parties occupied the political spectrum from left to right (Morgan forthcoming, 273-275;
Mayorga 2005). In subsequent years, however, those differences blurred and parties came
to be perceived as part of the establishment. As mentioned, the three traditional parties —
and even the new urban populist parties that gained ephemeral importance (such as
CONDEPA and UCS)— all supported neoliberal economic policies. Although popular
among elites and part of the citizenry for reducing a severe hyperinflationary crisis in
those years, the reforms were questioned by unions, civil society organizations, and an
increasingly active rural population, for their high social costs, their detrimental effects
on social organizations, and their ineffectiveness at poverty reduction (Mayorga 1992;
Morgan forthcoming, 274).
Thus the system of parliamentary alliances that seduced foreign political scientists
came to be perceived domestically as a closed system of give-and-take among the three
traditional parties (Malloy 1992). Again, even the new parties (CONDEPA, UCS) that
employed an anti-party discourse to gain congressional seats supported the traditional
parties’ agenda once in office. This situation was especially acute during Hugo Bánzer’s
government (1997-2002), a coalition in which almost all Bolivian parties participated
(with the exception of MNR). Hence, during the years of democracia pactada the
political system lost its ideological diversity with all parties supporting neoliberal
reforms; parties were exposed as patronage machines without any programmatic
22
pretenses. Parties “placed no importance on civil society and the political system
gradually lost contact with society.”9
As a result, parties were no longer able to accommodate the demands of a
population more and more dissatisfied with the status quo, especially with an increasingly
politically active indigenous population (Morgan forthcoming, 286). Peasant
organizations adopted a more indigenous and anti-market discourse that the party system
could not absorb (Van Cott 2005; Yashar 2005; Mayorga 2005). Furthermore, market
reforms also fractured old ties between social organizations and political parties
(Conaghan & Malloy 1994). The reforms even broke alliances forged in the National
Revolution in 1952, such as the one between MNR and the Confederación de Obreros
Bolivianos (Gray Molina 2008; Morgan, forthcoming 281). Interestingly, some of the
members of these dislocated organizations, especially miners from Oruro and Potosí,
migrated to coca-growing areas of the country such as Cochabamba. According to several
authors, the organizational abilities of these leaders were crucial to reinforcing the
cocalero movement that would soon develop in this region.
Out of this democracia pactada were born two strong cleavages in the country
that eventually overlapped. First, there was an economic cleavage opposing supporters of
neoliberal policies with those negatively affected by market reforms. Additionally, a
political cleavage emerged opposing the party establishment that had lost its roots in
society with new social movements that had strong social roots.
This background is crucial to understand the ensuing events and to explain why
we reject any substantive relation between decentralization and the collapse of traditional
9
José Blanes, Bolivian decentralization expert, personal interview, La Paz, October 2009.
23
parties. As mentioned, the LPP adopted by Sánchez de Lozada aimed to regain some of
the political legitimacy lost by the system. Nonetheless, the market cleavage grew in
importance during the following years, reducing the legitimacy of the system even more,
and eventually leading to the collapse of traditional parties.
The LPP brought about a consequence unforeseen by party reformists (Van Cott
2005: 69). The cocalero movement that had grown considerably since the late eighties,
especially in the Chapare region in Cochabamba, used municipal elections to enter the
political system. This movement had become increasingly politicized by governmental
efforts to forcefully eradicate coca crops (especially and violently during the Banzer
years, 1997-2001 in which Bolivia became the foremost coca producer in the world). As
mentioned, many of these coca growers were members of formerly powerful unions from
the dislocated mining industries of Oruro and Potosí. These organizational capacities
made the cocaleros a considerable political force in Cochabamba. LPP allowed these
leaders to become elected authorities in this isolated region.
We can observe this tendency beginning with the first municipal election in 1995.
In alliance with the small leftist party IU, the cocaleros won some municipalities in
Cochabamba. This was still a local process: in the rural districts of Cochabamba IU’s
Alejo Véliz won 40% of the presidential vote in 1997, but a mere 3% nationally. Notably,
in this same election, cocalero leader Evo Morales was elected for the first time as a
congressman for IU. This was made possible by a second institutional reform adopted in
those years that also aimed to legitimize the system: the adoption of Single Member
Districts. Morales was the diputado with the highest percentage in Bolivia, with an
impressive 61, 8% in his district.
24
In the 1999 municipal elections, the cocalero movement used the name
Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) for the first time. The results of this election were
notably similar to the previous one. Meanwhile, traditional parties were gradually losing
importance in presidential at the national and sub-national elections (Tables 7 and 8).
Table 7. Bolivian Traditional parties’
vote in Presidential Elections (%)
1985
63,7
1989
65,3
1993
53,8
1997
53,5
2002
39,0
2005
6,5
2009
0
Source: National Electoral Court.
Although MAS used local governments to enter the political system, what allowed
this party to gain national relevance was that it exploited the economic and political
cleavages mentioned above. MAS gained national legitimacy by putting itself at the
forefront of what has been called a “backlash” against neoliberalism in the 2000s
(Haarstad ad Anderson 2009). Both the “war of the water” in 2000 (protests against the
privatization of water in the country) and the “war of gas” in 2003 (protests demanding
the nationalization of gas resources) allowed MAS to place itself as the primary
opposition to the existing regime. In this national context MAS developed linkages with
diverse social organizations that shared its anti-neoliberal agenda (Madrid 2008).
Even as Sánchez de Lozada won the 2002 election (20.8% of the vote), the
traditional system was crumbling beneath him. ADN received a mere 3% of the vote. Evo
Morales, who had achieved 19.4% of the vote, launched a strong opposition campaign as
25
the new administration came into office. The protests, related to the war on gas, achieved
the resignation of Sánchez de Lozada shortly afterward, and Vice President Carlos Mesa
became president.
After succeeding in ousting the president and having successfully imposed some
conditions on Mesa, MAS focused on winning the 2004 municipal election. This election
was crucial in allowing MAS to “descend” into other regions where its anti-neoliberal
demands were also attractive. MAS was successful in 112 municipalities out of 337.
Beginning with these elections, political parties lost their monopoly on participation in
local elections due to a recent electoral reform that allowed citizens’ associations and
indigenous groups to present candidates. This electoral change facilitated MAS’s strategy
of parachuting across the territory using its linkages with social organizations.
Evo Morales was elected president in 2005 after Mesa resigned due to heightened
political instability. Morales won a historical 53% of the vote and the traditional party
system was buried (Romero 2007). Since his election, Morales has managed to adopt a
new constitution for Bolivia, maintain and provide considerably more stability than the
previous governments, and achieve reelection in 2009 with 63% of the vote. Traditional
parties have almost disappeared as none presented candidates in the 2009 presidential
election and they were swept in the 2010 local elections (tables 7 and 8). As results at the
national and sub-national level show, MAS has become the dominant party in Bolivia.
Were decentralization reforms an important cause of traditional parties’ collapse?
Has the new decentralized system prevented the emergence of political parties in Bolivia?
Our answer, obviously, is no. As discussed above, the main cause of this collapse is
26
found in the de-legitimization of political parties caused by their inability to adapt to the
cleavages that fractured the country. Decentralization reduced party control over
patronage (Morgan forthcoming, 286-288). The LPP also facilitated the establishment of
MAS as a local party. But the decline of traditional parties and the rise of MAS to the
national level largely exceed decentralization reforms. With or without decentralization
reforms the same outcome seems highly likely.
Two factors are key to explaining the emergence of MAS and neither relates to
decentralization. First, as mentioned above, during the 2000s Bolivia went through what
we could call a “constitutional moment.” Disputes over economic and political issues
were so acute that MAS was able to exploit this neoliberal cleavage to become a
hegemonic party. MAS was able to represent Bolivians’ growing dissatisfaction with
neoliberalism, especially in rural areas and among indigenous citizens. Second, MAS was
built over a mobilized and active civil society. The organizations protesting against
neoliberalism were rooted in a long history of social mobilization that has characterized
Bolivia for decades and that strongly re-emerged during the 2000s (Dunkerley 1984;
Hylton & Thompson 2007). Indigenous organizations, cocaleros, and unions, among
other groups, found in MAS a vehicle to channel their interests, and in doing so they
reinforced the nascent party (Anria 2010). In opposition to the “decentralization against
parties” hypothesis, the case illustrates that a decentralized political system is not a
significant barrier to the emergence of a strong national party if a sufficiently robust
social cleavage exists in the country.
27
The second wave of decentralization provides more evidence for the importance
of social cleavages for political organization. In 2004 Bolivia had launched a new process
of decentralization, this time adopting regional elections at the meso level, in the
departamentos. On this occasion, political elites, especially those in the more modern and
economically active Eastern region of the country, achieved the creation of regional
governments. These elites were worried about the emergence of MAS and pushed for
regionalization in an effort to limit the power of a MAS national government. In the first
regional election in 2005 MAS won 3 out of 9 departamentos. PODEMOS, the party of
the only viable opposition candidate to Morales in the 2005 election, won three regions.
After his ascendance to power, Morales prioritized relations with municipalities and
regions. In the 2009 elections MAS took 6 departamentos; and in the 2010 elections it
won 225 municipalities (68%). Hence, even if decentralization was not what took MAS
from the local to the national level, it aided the party to consolidate its power throughout
the territory.
TABLE 8: Traditional Parties and MAS results in Municipal Elections
MNR
AND
MIR
MAS
1995
20,8
10,8
8,8
3
1999
19,2
13,7
15
4,39
2004
6,1
2,3
6,5
17,4
2010
1.5
69
Source: National Electoral Court.
But also important for our discussion, in the three remaining eastern regions in
which MAS did not win the election, especially in Santa Cruz, the opposition has been
able to create fairly solid regional strongholds. In these regions, opposition parties do
28
fairly well, and their economic resources allow them to effectively oppose the power of
the central government (Eaton 2007, 2011). Finally, though it may be too soon to jump to
conclusions, a small party, Movimiento Sin Miedo (MSM, Fearless Movement) is
gaining importance as an opposition party helped by its success in sub-national
elections.10
In conclusion, decentralization is not an important factor to explain the different
outcomes in this case. The LPP reform did stress traditional parties by reducing their
control over patronage, but these parties were already delegitimized by this time. Also,
although the LPP contributed to the entry of cocaleros into the party system in the rural
areas of Cochabamba, this law did not play a major role in bringing about the emergence
of MAS on the national level. MAS gained national relevance by exploiting the antimarket cleavage and attaining the support of social organizations, not by winning
municipal elections. Most significantly, in direct opposition to the “decentralization
against parties” hypothesis, this case shows that decentralization did not impede MAS’
emergence and dominance. On the contrary, decentralization facilitated this party’s effort
to reach areas in which the neoliberal cleavage resonated among voters in the 2000s.
More broadly, this case shows that when strong national issues mobilize the country, and
political groups have the resources and organization to exploit those cleavages, then
decentralization is not a meaningful obstacle for party formation.
10
MSM won two major Bolivian cities in the last municipal elections: La Paz and Oruro. It also succeeded
in presenting candidates in all 9 departments and won 21 mayors in the country.
29
IV. PERU: POURING SALT ON THE WOUND: THE HARD LIFE OF
ALREADY WEAK PARTIES IN A DECENTRALIZED SETTING.
The Peruvian case shows that decentralization can be an additional barrier for
party elites trying to rebuild parties from the top down. Presenting candidates in 25
regions, 195 provinces and almost 1600 districts is a considerable effort for weak party
organizations with little to offer to competitive candidates. Nonetheless, as the contrast
with Bolivia shows, decentralization is not the primary force keeping national political
parties weak and fragmented in Peru. The root of the problem is the absence of strong
cleavages and social organizations that those parties could exploit. And without strong
local clientelism, as in the Colombian case, all political groups —national, regional and
local— remain weak.
Two features of decentralization in the eighties are relevant for our ensuing
discussion. First, the 1979 Constitution recognized two levels of municipal government
—provincial and district— and assigned them a hierarchical relationship, with provincial
municipalities having some role in district governance. Most importantly, the law
established that some funds were directed to provinces which then redistributed to
districts, reinforcing the hierarchy between these two levels (Muñoz 2005). Second,
during the late eighties Peru underwent decentralization to the meso level when Peru’s
historically strong party, APRA, was in power (1985-1990). APRA created regions that
included two or three departments with regional assemblies in each of them. It seems that
APRA, facing certain defeat in the 1990 presidential election, saw these regional
governments as an adequate setting in which to conserve political power. Nonetheless, as
30
discussed below, this reform was short-lived. When President Alberto Fujimori (19902000) closed Congress in 1992, he also recentralized the functions of these regional
governments (Tanaka 2002).
As in the Bolivian case, party system collapse in Peru had little to do with
decentralization.11 Due to enormous challenges that parties could not solve, such as
mounting political violence and hyperinflation, parties lost their programmatic appeal.
Also, the economic crisis and the collapse of state enterprises limited important sources
of patronage for traditional parties. To add to that, political violence targeted thousands
of party cadres, especially in rural areas. Traditional parties did fairly well in municipal
elections in 1980, 1983 and 1986 (Tanaka 1998:104), but in the 1989 municipal election
showed clear signs of weakness. Independents and outsiders won several posts, including
all-important Lima.
This weakness became more apparent in 1990 when anti-party outsider Alberto
Fujimori defeated Mario Vargas Llosa, another outsider, who run under a right-wing
party alliance, and other traditional party candidates. There is some debate about what
finished off Peru’s party system. Some authors point to parties’ mistakes and Fujmori’s
actions after 1990, especially the self-coup in 1992 when the popular president closed
congress and centralized power (Tanaka 1998). Others focus on parties’ poor
performance and weak legitimacy before Fujimori (Lynch 1999). But it is clear that
traditional parties were already quite weak by the early nineties.
11
Morgan (forthcoming) even questions that the Peruvian case is an instance of party system collapse:
parties had not showed enough resilience and strength for the party system to count as a stable one.
31
Regarding decentralization, Fujimori’s government reduced the power of
provincial mayors and gave more resources to district mayors. The 1993 Constitution had
already eliminated references to hierarchical structures between provincial and district
municipal governments (Muñoz 2005). But what drastically changed the relationship
between these levels of government was a decree in 1993 that transferred resources from
provincial to district municipalities (Decreto Legislativo 776). Fujimori likely aimed to
reduce the power of large cities’ provincial mayors, especially the mayor of Lima, the
only national actors who could threaten his power (Tanaka 2002). As a result, provincial
majors saw their resources reduced while district mayors gained more fiscal autonomy
(Muñoz 2005).
During the nineties municipal elections became highly fragmented, with old and
new parties, including Fujimorismo, doing poorly in the 1993 and 1996 elections.
Throughout the decade Fujimori showed no interest in forming an incumbent party to
compete in national or sub-national politics, creating a new party as a vehicle for himself
in each election. The 1998 municipal election results suggested increased coordination,
with a Fujimorista party winning around 25% of the municipal vote and the party of the
mayor of Lima, Alberto Andrade, achieving a similar result. But this “realignment”
disappeared by the next local election when both parties lost their influence. Hence,
during the nineties, Peru saw significant fragmentation at the sub-national level with a
dominant player at the national level who lacked an organization, and furthermore, had
no interest in building one.
Peru’s second wave of decentralization occurred during the government of
Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006). Toledo was the candidate of the opposition in the highly
32
irregular 2000 election in which Fujimori achieved his second, and unconstitutional,
reelection. After Fujimorismo fell due to a corruption scandal a few months after the
inauguration, Toledo won office in the 2001 election. Toledo initiated a swift process of
regionalization that created 25 regions corresponding to the preexisting departamentos
and one constitutional province (Callao). Surprisingly, some traditional parties did
considerably better in comparison to their record during the nineties (Vergara 2007).
APRA won 12 regional governments. Eighteen out of twenty-five regions were won by
old and new national parties. Although independents still won in several districts,
provinces, and regions, some authors hypothesized that we could be seeing a reemergence of national parties in Peru (Kenney 2003).
The ensuing 2006 and 2011 national elections, as well as the 2006 and 2010 subnational ones, repudiated that optimism. Nationally, votes for parties varied strongly
between elections. Both incumbent parties, Perú Posible (2001-2006) and APRA (20062011), for example, were unable to present presidential candidates for the term that
would follow their terms in power, and their congressional groups fell from around 25%30% of Congress to less than 2%. At the local level parties also weakened between
elections (Tanaka and Guibert 2011). Volatility at the regional level is almost as
tremendously high as at the national level and regional parties struggle to achieve
continuity (Vera 2010; for an interesting exception see De Gramont 2009).
More importantly for our comparison, there are no significant linkages between
levels of government: these weak national, regional and provincial political groups
remain locked in their own levels of competition (Vergara 2007, forthcoming; Ballón
2010; Remy 2010; Muñoz and García 2011; Tanaka and Guibert 2011). Even applying
33
the label “national” to party candidates competing at the local level hides a precarious
reality: a good deal of Peruvian national parties have no reach in the territory, they just
give (or sell) their names to local candidates saving them the trouble of registering their
own organizations to compete.12 This weakness in party aggregation at all levels is the
reason for which Peru has been dubbed a “democracy without parties” (Levitsky and
Cameron 2003).
Table 9: Number of Regions and Provincial Municipalities won by National Political Parties
Source:
Year
Region (25)
Provinces (195)
2002
18
110
2006
8
109
2010
9
72
Remy 2010; Tanaka and Guibert 2011.
There are many examples that illustrate the dramatic disconnection between
national and local. The winner of the first round of the 2006 Presidential election (with
32% of the vote), Ollanta Humala, did very poorly in regional and municipal elections,
only winning one region later that year. Similarly, APRA won twelve regional
governments in 2002, but only two in 2006, and one in 2010. Currently, the “national”
party with the most elected regional governments is, in reality, a nationally registered
group strongly regionalized that won only two regional governments. And independents
won an astounding 63% of the provincial vote in 2010 (Remy 2011).
Does decentralization currently affect party strength in Peru? By some accounts,
the Peruvian case is an example of the first two mechanisms discussed in Section I.
Vergara argues that decentralization reforms were not well integrated with other
12
National parties in Peru can automatically compete in all subnational elections, regional parties in
provincial and district level elections in the region, and provincial groups in all districts in the province.
34
institutional reforms (especially a new Political Party Law), diminishing the incentives to
join national political parties (Vergara 2009). Muñoz finds that Peru’s decentralized
institutional design creates an additional barrier for party aggregation. The design does
not establish hierarchical relations between different levels of government (regionalprovincial-district), and thus de-incentivizes coordination between them by giving
autonomy to local authorities (Muñoz 2008).
National political actors agree with this diagnosis and complain bitterly about the
enormous difficulty of being competitive in more than almost two thousand sub-national
elections (Vergara 2009). The only benefit weak and underfunded national parties can
offer to local politicians is their registration, and even this registration is of little value as
requirements for registration are quite low. The growing number of successful
independent candidates in sub-national elections clearly shows that registration is not a
sufficient enticement to attract competitive candidates (Remy 2010).
Nonetheless, the problem for party aggregation in Peru cannot be reduced to
decentralization; there are more compelling explanations for this outcome. For one, there
are no clientelistic networks as in Colombia that could sustain traditional and new parties
in the local and regional level. But more importantly, as highlighted by Vergara
(forthcoming), Peru lacks two important conditions for the emergence of political parties
highlighted in our Bolivian case: strong cleavages and social organizations that can
exploit those cleavages.
Although Peru also went through an abrupt neoliberal reform in 1990,
neoliberalism has not generated a radical cleavage in the country. During the nineties the
strongest divide in the country was between Fujimoristas and anti-Fujimoristas, a
35
cleavage that was not strong enough to provide a basis for party aggregation. A neoliberal
divide somehow appeared in the 2006 election, with candidate Ollanta Humala winning
the vote of highland rural areas not profiting from the economic model and losing in the
coast and northern parts of the country where this model has met with greater acclaim.
Nonetheless, this cleavage did not provide a strong enough foundation to allow for party
aggregation during non-electoral periods.
Not only is there no cleavage strong enough to promote coordination, but neither
are there are strong social organizations with the capacity of exploiting cleavages if they
emerge. Social organizations have historically been weak in Peru, but the eighties further
weakened these organizations when hyperinflation destroyed unions and peasant
associations and political violence and state repression took a large toll on social
networks in rural areas (Yashar 2005; Burt 2009). Market reforms in the nineties
dislocated the remaining organizations even more. Under these conditions, there are few
social actors that could exploit the existing cleavages in the country to become parties.
In conclusion, traditional parties did not collapse because of decentralization in
Peru. We find some evidence that decentralization impedes weak parties’ efforts to
become competitive at the sub-national level: top-down strategies of party aggregation
face an additional challenge in this multilayered polity. But, as the comparison with the
Bolivian case shows, these problems are more closely related to the absence of other
conditions than to decentralization itself; on the whole, social conditions in Peru are
decidedly unfavorable to the emergence of parties.
36
V. CONCLUSION
Our findings show some instances in which decentralization negatively affects
party systems and some instances in which it is irrelevant, or even aids party aggregation.
The Colombian case shows that decentralization can weaken political parties when these
parties rely heavily on clientelism and lack programmatic linkages. By breaking these
patronage-based linkages, decentralization reforms caused the Colombian party system to
atomize and become weaker. Nonetheless, as mentioned, decentralization in Colombia
allowed clientelistic parties to remain competitive at congressional, regional and local
levels. The Bolivian case runs contrary to the hypothesis by showing that if strong
ideational or programmatic cleavages exist in the country, decentralization is not a
substantial barrier for the emergence of strong parties. Finally, the Peruvian case
confirms that party weakness is rooted in deeper causes than just decentralization. These
findings allow us to present a more general conclusion about the effects of
decentralization reforms on parties in Latin America and two additional insights about
institutions in developing countries.
The main finding of our comparison is that deeper causes, and not just
institutions, are most relevant to the emergence or decline of political parties. Our
analysis supports the findings of previous works that conclude that reforms that affect the
distribution and control over patronage, as decentralization does, will affect negatively
clientelistic political parties that lack programmatic and ideological linkages with society
(Dargent and Muñoz 2011; Morgan forthcoming). Apart from Colombia, the case of
Venezuela illustrates a similar effect. AD and COPEI, Venezuela’s traditional parties that
37
had constituted a fairly institutionalized party system since the sixties, gradually lost their
programmatic identity and became more dependent on clientelism in the seventies and
eighties. When economic crisis and decentralization reforms in the nineties reduced these
parties’ access to patronage, the system collapsed entirely (Lalander 2007; Penfold 2004;
Morgan forthcoming). But in both instances something was already missing making the
party systems vulnerable: programmatic linkages.
Conversely, where strong cleavages and programmatic linkages exist, parties can
remain strong after decentralization. Brazil, México and Uruguay all experienced
municipalization and the reform did not affect party strength. In Uruguay, for example,
old and new parties were able to rely on new ideological linkages to survive a reduction
in availability of clientelistic resources (Morgan, forthcoming chapter 11). Similarly,
Hagopian et al conclude that a clientelistic party system in Brazil was replaced by a more
programmatic one in the late nineties due to the emergence of a strong neoliberal
cleavage (Hagopian et al 2009).
Our cases also show how politicians adopted reforms but failed to predict their
consequences. Either for strategic, self-serving reasons or in pursuit of reformist goals,
politicians who adopted institutions confident of their projected effects failed on
numerous occasions. Reformist politicians in Colombia were unable to create a
programmatic multiparty system, and meanwhile weakened the traditional one. APRA in
the eighties and Perú Posible in the 2000s did not benefit from creating regional
governments in Peru as they had hoped. The government’s legitimacy was not boosted in
Bolivia after the municipalization reform. Nonetheless, we do find an instance in which
the strategic decision of political elites seems to have worked as they predicted:
38
decentralization to the meso-level in Bolivia aided its proponents, political elites from the
Eastern side of the country, in building strongholds against the dominant MAS. The
earlier municipal system of government most likely would have not resisted MAS’s
siege. In this case the “success” of institutional reform appears strongly related to certain
socioeconomic interests having found protection in the regional government.
A final lesson offered by our cases regarding institutions is that they illustrate the
enormous barriers faced by reformists aiming to “create” parties through institutional
reforms. The cases show two roads to strong parties in Latin America: either the
emergence of political, social or economic cleavages that politicize societies or a strong,
centralized system of clientelism that keeps parties alive if ideological/programmatic
linkages fade. The first road is not open to institutional reformists, as they cannot
purposively create the structural conditions for party emergence. And the second road
seems unlikely because of the high costs it implies and the almost certain rejection of
existing political actors. Institutional reforms may contribute to force party aggregation,
but they cannot replace the deeper, structural conditions that seem necessary for the
emergence of stable, strong, political organizations.
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