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This book develops a new political-institutional explanation of South America's 'two lefts' and the divergent fates of the region's democratic regimes.
List of contents
Part I. Puzzles and Theoretical Explanations: 1. State crises, the left, and democracy in contemporary South America; 2. Explaining divergent party system trajectories and regime dynamic; Part II. Venezuela and Brazil: 3. Venezuela: development of a highly polarizing party system; 4. Brazil: development of a weakly polarizing party system; 5. Democratic erosion in Venezuela, representative democracy in Brazil; Part III. Perspectives across South America: 6. Bolivia and Ecuador: high polarization and democratic erosion; 7. Chile and Uruguay: low polarization and representative democracy; 8. Paraguay and Peru: low polarization and polyarchy; Part IV. Conclusion: 9. Longer-term legacies and comparative perspectives around the world; Appendix A. Operationalization of state crisis and left-wing infrastructure; Appendix B. Operationalization of polarization and regime categories; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Samuel Handlin is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Utah. He is the co-editor and co-author of Reorganizing Popular Politics: Participation and the New Interest Regime in Latin America (2009, with Ruth Berins Collier). He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2011 and was previously a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
Summary
The transformation of South American politics in the twenty-first century challenges scholars to rethink the sources of regional variation in party system polarization and regime dynamics. Where existing accounts focus on economic variables, this book presents a novel political-institutional explanation and deepens our understanding of polarizing populism around the world.
