Party Systems, Economic Change, and Electoral Volatility in Latin America

当代拉丁美洲的民主政权一直受到选举极不稳定和许多传统政党消亡的困扰。先前的研究表明，这种波动在很大程度上可归因于20世纪80年代的区域性经济危机；然而，在20世纪90年代经济普遍好转期间，波动性有所增加。尽管对欧洲政治的研究有深刻的见解，但没有研究充分探讨政治制度和社会分裂对拉丁美洲选举波动的影响。同样，人们也不太了解为什么传统的政党制度能够在一些国家幸存下来并适应新时代的紧急情况，而在另一些国家却在瓦解。该项目的主要目标是确定当代拉丁美洲选举动荡的根源，并解释为什么一些政党和政党制度比其他政党和政党制度更成功地适应了市场自由主义的新时代。该项目首先对16个拉丁美洲国家自1978年最近一波民主化浪潮开始以来的总统和立法选举的总选举波动性进行了汇总时间序列回归分析。这一统计分析检验了选举波动的三种基本理论解释：(1)经济投票模型，该模型将选举波动与总体经济表现联系起来；(2)将波动性与政党制度属性或不稳定的游戏规则联系起来的制度论点；(3)将选举稳定性与阶级分裂的组织性“关闭”联系起来的结构性解释。本项目第二部分对大n统计分析进行了补充，对两个政党制度分解案例（秘鲁和委内瑞拉）、一个适应案例（智利）和一个中间案例（阿根廷）进行了更详细的比较分析。比较设计将注意力集中在“关键时刻”的政治特征上，即具有劳动动员政党制度的国家从国家主导的发展模式过渡到以市场为导向的发展模式。假设政党制度的适应或分解是在这一关键时刻政治成本和回报分配以及既定社会政治分裂的加强或扩散的函数。来自这四个国家的民意调查将被用来衡量总体（即个人层面）选举的波动性，并确定支持不同政党的社会或阶级构成的变化。这种定量和定性研究方法的结合，应该为拉丁美洲代表性机构的侵蚀、适应和转变提供新的视角，同时加强对民主稳定条件的学术理解。

Democratic regimes in contemporary Latin America have been plagued by exceptionally high levels of electoral volatility and the demise of many traditional political parties. Previous research has suggested that this volatility can be attributed largely to the region-wide economic crisis of the 1980s; yet, volatility has increased in the 1990s during a period of generalized economic improvement. Despite insights from research on European politics, there is no study which fully explores the impact of political institutions and social cleavages on electoral volatility in Latin America. Likewise, there is little understanding of why traditional party systems would survive and adapt to the exigencies of a new era in some countries while decomposing in others. The main objectives of this project are to identify the sources of electoral volatility in contemporary Latin America and to explain why some parties and party systems have adapted more successfully than others to the new era of market liberalism. The project begins with a pooled time series regression analysis of aggregate electoral volatility in both presidential and legislative elections in 16 Latin American countries since the onset of the most recent wave of democratization in 1978. This statistical analysis provides a test of three basic theoretical explanations of electoral volatility: (1) the economic voting model, which associates electoral volatility with aggregate economic performance; (2) institutional arguments which link volatility to party system attributes or unstable rules-of-the-game; and (3) structural explanations which associate electoral stability with the organizational "closure" of class cleavages. The second part of this project complements the large-N statistical analysis with a more detailed comparative analysis of two cases of party system decomposition (Peru and Venezuela), one case of adaptation (Chile), and one intermediate case (Argentina). The comparative design focuses attention on the political characteristics of the "critical juncture" in which nations with labor-mobilizing party systems make the transition from a state-led to a market-oriented model of development. Party system adaptation or decomposition is hypothezied to be a function of the distribution of political costs and rewards during this critical juncture and reinforcement or diffusion of established sociopolitical cleavages. Public opinion surveys from each of the four countries will be used to measure gross (that is, individual-level) electoral volatility and identify changes in the social or class composition of support for different parties. This combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods should shed new light on the erosion, adaptation, and transformation of representative institutions in Latin America, while enhancing scholarly understanding of the conditions for democratic stability.