Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Breakdown of Governing Parties in Latin America

政治学博士论文研究：拉丁美洲执政党的崩溃

• 批准号: 9905823
• 负责人: Herbert Kitschelt
• 金额: $ 0.9万
• 依托单位: Duke University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-09-15 至 2001-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9905823&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

If parties are composed of rational politicians who seek reelection, why do parties sometimes break down? Recently, many established parties in Latin America have experienced breakdown, which is defined here as losses in elections and the defection of party leaders and activists. These losses threaten the parties' survival as organizations. Evidence suggests that current theories cannot explain adequately the magnitude or the variance of the party breakdown. This proposal briefly analyzes existing explanations and suggests an alternative framework for analyzing party breakdown that focuses on the public demand for policy and other government action, the competitive environment that the parties face, and the choices of the individual leaders and activists inside the party. Based on this framework, three specific explanations are proposed for party breakdown in Latin America: clientelism, ideological intransigence, and decentralized authority. To test these explanations, the proposal outlines a twelve-month study of five established and four new political parties in Chile and Venezuela. NSF funding enhances this project by allowing the investigators to carry out interviews more quickly than if they relied on their own resources and by giving them the time and means to analyze their data thoroughly while still in South America.

如果政党是由寻求连任的理性政治家组成的，为什么政党有时会分裂？ 最近，拉丁美洲的许多老牌政党都经历了崩溃，在这里被定义为选举失败以及政党领导人和活动家的叛逃。 这些损失威胁到政党作为组织的生存。 证据表明，目前的理论不能充分解释的规模或党的崩溃的变化。 该提案简要分析了现有的解释，并提出了一个分析政党崩溃的替代框架，重点是公众对政策和其他政府行为的需求，政党面临的竞争环境，以及党内个别领导人和活动家的选择。 基于这一框架，提出了三个具体的解释，在拉丁美洲的政党崩溃：庇护，意识形态的不妥协，权力下放。 为了验证这些解释，该提案概述了对智利和委内瑞拉的五个已成立政党和四个新政党进行的为期12个月的研究。 美国国家科学基金会的资助加强了这一项目，使调查人员能够比依靠自己的资源更快地进行访谈，并使他们有时间和手段在南美洲彻底分析他们的数据。