From Thaw to Deluge:

Party System CoZZapse in

vme~elaand Peru
Henry A. Dietz
DavidJ Myers

ABSTRACT
What conditions facilitate party system collapse, the farthest-reach-
ing variant of party system change? How does collapse occur?
Numerous studies of lesser types of party system change exist, but
studies of party system collapse are rare. This study draws on the
existing literature and the cases of party system collapse in
Venezuela (1988-2000) and Peru (1985-95) to advance some
answers to the important questions about the phenomenon. The
study posits three conditions that predispose political party systems
to collapse: the presence of an acute or sustained crisis that ques-
tions the ability of system-sustaining political parties to govern;
extremely low or extremely high levels of party system institution-
alization; and the emergence of an anti-establishment figure with
the desire and personal authority to generate a viable alternative to
the established party system. The study also posits a three-election
sequential process during which collapse takes place.

I s party system collapse an identifiable category of party system change?

Political party systems long have been a concern of political science,
although they are less studied than individual political parties. Scholars
looking at political party systems, like those examining individual politi-
cal parties, have identified and analyzed four core dynamics: emergence,
institutionalization, maintenance, and change. Four types of political party
system change also have been identified. They fall along a continuum
from the least extreme, supportive shift, to the most extreme, collapse.
Intermediate types of party system change include dealignment and
rea1ignment.l The most extreme variant of party system change, collapse,
is the least studied, and is the central concern of this article.
Party system collapse involves the disappearance of an entire party
system by democratic means. In the postcollapse landscape, individual
political parties that composed the party system before its implosion
either disappear or are transformed. Relationships among the political
parties or movements that replace them differ from those that structured
the precollapse system. This study draws on two cases of party system
collapse: Peru 1985-95 and Venezuela 1988-2000.

59
60 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

The Peruvian and Venezuelan polities share some broad similarities:

Spanish colonial heritage, constant military intervention in the political
process, the appearance of second wave democracies after World War I1
(Huntington 1991, 19-21; Molina 1998, 51-57; Roberts 2002, 15-18], and
prolonged crisis in which mixes of economic, political, security, and social
tensions fueled regime and party system change (Burgess and Levitsky
2003; Molina and P6rez 2004; Roberts 1996). Yet the political party sys-
tems of these two countries exhibit a critical difference that trumps the
similarities in their polities. Peru’s party system during the 1980s was
weakly institutionalized or “inchoate” (Mainwaring and Scully 1995, xii;
Cotler 1995; Mainwaring and Torcal 2005). In sharp contrast, Venezuela
boasted what observers characterized as a highly institutionalized two-
party system (Molina 2002; Myers 2004; Penfold 2001). Nevertheless, both
the Peruvian and Venezuelan systems underwent collapse, the extreme
form of party system change. Why and how the Venezuelan and Peruvian
party systems were swept away, despite their dramatically different levels
of institutionalization,is the central puzzle addressed in this study.
Extreme variation in the independent variable, institutionalization,
allows for Przeworski and Teune’s “most different” comparative strategy,
which centers on “eliminating irrelevant systemic factors” by focusing
on “variation of the observed behavior at a level lower than that of sys-
tems” (1970, 34). Thus, two lower-level settings (political party systems)
are compared; these exhibit at least one strikingly different characteris-
tic, but the same outcome (collapse) for the dependent variable (party
system change) has occurred. This strategy allows us to identify
common explanatory factors in settings (the Venezuelan and Peruvian
party systems) that differ along a critical dimension.
We approach our undertaking inductively and view it as a revelatory
case study.2Because party system collapse is largely unstudied, this study
begins by searching the literature that examines the less extreme variants
of party system change: supportive shift, dealignment, and realignment
(see Mainwaring and Torcal 2005, 2-3 for their encouragement of just
such a strategy). The goal is to identify variables and propositions from
this literature that may contribute to an understanding of party system
collapse. Another concern is the process of party system collapse itself,
especially with the likelihood that once the process gets under way, its
momentum becomes a factor contributing to that collapse.

PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE AND ITSCAUSES

The literature agrees that a party system is more than the sum of its par-
ties; it also encompasses the set of patterned interactions among those
parties (Mainwaring and Scully 1995, 4; Mair 2002; Seawright 2004, 3-4;
Lane and Ersson 1987, 155). How that pattern or set of patterns can be
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 61

described varies considerably, as Janda (1993) notes in his review of the

literature. Party system collapse obviously has grave repercussions for
any polity that claims or wishes to be democratic. After all, if voters
reject the traditionally dominant political parties and their party system
as mechanisms for aggregating demands, recruiting political leaders,
and transferring power, that rejection signals profound problems of
legitimacy for the broader political regime.
The collapse of a political party system occurs when large numbers
of voters desert the system-sustaining parties in a short period; the
weakened system-sustaining parties cannot regain support or recon-
struct the intrasystemic relationships that structured the party system
before the collapse began; and new political parties emerge and a dif-
ferent configuration of interparty competition takes shape.
The literature on less extreme types of party system change suggests
three factors that interact to bring about party system collapse: the
appearance of a crisis that shakes the foundations of the political regime
and that the dominant political class is unable to manage, a weakening
of party system institutionalization, and the appearance of an attractive
antiparty-system personality.

Crisis and Voter Discontent

Scholars find that a prolonged crisis leads to societal discontent,
expressed as withdrawal of support by the electorate from one of the
established or system-sustaining parties and voting for another system-
sustaining party. If the chosen alternative disappoints expectations,
voters turn their backs on all system-sustaining parties and support an
anti-establishment leader whom they view as an alternative to the exist-
ing political class (Crabtree 2001; Levitsky 1998, 2004; Miller and
Schofield 2003; Rose and Mackie 1988).3
Deteriorating economic conditions are widely viewed as a primary
source of discontent with the political class. Other sources include the
choking off of channels for participation (in either the government or
the system-sustaining parties), corruption, and high levels of citizen
insecurity. If these discontents are widespread among critical interest
groups (be they elites, the middle sectors, labor, or the poor) and
system-sustaining party leaders do not address them on any systematic
basis, then the discontented will search for alternative^.^ During the
1990s in Venezuela and Peru, neoliberal policies stimulated macroeco-
nomic growth, but the wealth created by that growth failed to trickle
down beyond the middle sectors. The political class in both countries
appeared self-absorbed, corruption ran rampant, crime rates increased,
and banditry in the countryside sometimes degenerated into insurgency.
A multidimensional crisis existed in both countries in the 1990s, and the
62 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS A N D SOCIETY 49: 2

respective electorates vented their frustration by voting the system-sus-

taining parties out of office.

Level of Party System Institutionalization

The literature dealing with Latin American democracy assigns high

importance to creating and nurturing stable political institution^.^ It goes
without saying that political party systems, along with individual politi-
cal parties, are among the most critical political institutions of the modern
polity. When the pattern of activity that defines a political institution is
stable, viewed as the norm, and citizens are more or less satisfied with
the results of those activities, the pattern is said to be institutionalized.6
Recent studies have argued that a high degree of party system insti-
tutionalization is necessary if political party systems are to aggregate
interests efficiently, recruit a broad range of political leaders, socialize
citizens to accept the legitimacy of elections, and hold corruption within
manageable bounds (Coppedge 1994; Mainwaring and Scully 1995,
chap. 1; Roberts and Wibbels 1999; Seligson 2002). Studies of party
system change, especially those examining the variant of realignment,
posit direct relationships between a high degree of party system institu-
tionalization and (to a lesser extent) the level of institutionalization
achieved by individual system-sustainingpolitical parties, and success in
resisting abrupt change (see Mainwaring and Torcal 2005, 61.’

Anti-EstablishmentPersonallst Leadership
A third variable, personalistic leadership, appears throughout discus-
sions of party system change (Mainwaring and Torcal 2005, 5). Weber’s
theory of leadership assumes that personal qualities come into play
when processes embedded in modernization undermine the authority of
traditional political institutions (1947, 328-49). The loss of legitimacy by
traditional institutions opens the way for claims of authority based on
personal qualities, but such “charismatic”authority cannot be transferred
to others and is limited to the lifetime of a single individual.
The twentieth century saw numerous leaders who substituted per-
sonal authority for discredited political institutions. Contrary to Weber’s
expectations, populist leaders in the twentieth century often used their
charisma to undermine institutions that were modern and democratic.
Latin American examples include Fulgencio Batista’s coup against
Cuba’s feckless democracy in 1952, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla’s dis-
carding of the fractious Colombian political party system in 1953, and
General August0 Pinochet’s overthrow of Chilean democracy in 1973.
Nevertheless, these examples confirm Weber’s insight that personal
leadership can undermine discredited political institutions.
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 63

Mainwaring and Scully (1995, 71-72) point out that political party
systems and political parties that retain a quotient of support have
proved resilient in the face of attacks against them. Thus an anti-estab-
lishment leader’s power to threaten a system of political parties reaches
a critical level only when dissatisfaction with the choices offered by the
system-sustaining parties is intense and long-lasting (usually for two or
more presidential periods; see Seawright 2004,4). Once this critical level
is attained, however, the antisystem leader can bring down the once-
dominant system or reconstruct it so thoroughly that it bears no resem-
blance to what it once was.

THEPROCESS
OF P o m w PARTY
SYSTEM COLCAPsE

What sorts of observations or empirical measurements can be used to

understand party system collapse? Does the collapse of a party system
intensify voter alienation, or is it the other way around? For instance, can
the threat of party system collapse persuade voters to return to their his-
torical partisan allegiances (at least temporarily), or does it feed their
disaffection? No clear-cut answers exist to these questions, but ulti-
mately, disaffection and collapse appear mutually reciprocal and rein-
forcing (Mair 2002, 105; Miller and Niemi 2002, 183-84).
Lipset and Rokkan (1967) are among the few scholars to model
party system change. Their pathbreaking work viewed socioeconomic
cleavages in Western Europe as having created party system land-
scapes that froze following the extension of suffrage and the mobi-
lization of new partisan supporters. Thus, the party systems of West-
ern Europe in the 1960s reflected cleavage structures that had been in
place for more than four decades, which means that most party organ-
izations were older than much of the national electorate. However, Dix
(1989) found the concept of socioeconomic cleavage to be of limited
utility for understanding party system change in twentieth-century
Latin America.
Studies of supportive shift, realignment, and dealignment have iden-
tified party system landscapes that appeared “frozen”for extended peri-
ods but actually experienced rapid and significant thaw. Instances
include post-World War I1 party systems in Europe, Canada, and Japan
(Mair 2001, 2002, 101-6; Mair and Sakano 1998; Stewart and Clarke
1998, Wellhofer 2001). This body of work raises questions about the
validity of Lipset and Rokkan’smodel of political party systems as frozen
landscapes. It also suggests that once thawing begins, it creates political
currents in which the remnants of the once-“frozen”party system inter-
act in new (and not so new) ways. In other words, when voter affect
for the dominant system-supportive political parties falls below a certain
64 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

critical threshold (or “tipping point”), changes in the party system have
been set in motion that may be irresistible.8
A glance at political party system change in Venezuela and Peru in
the 1980s and 1990s suggests the metaphor of glacial dynamism as a
replacement for Lipset and Rokkan’s frozen landscape model. Glaciolo-
gists know that the surface of a glacier may appear little affected as
atmospheric warming sets in motion deepseated change. If unchecked,
however, these changes will bring about a meltdown. Analogously,
during the early phase of party system collapse, the party system’s visi-
ble landscape can retain its familiar features; but deep within the
system, changes are accumulating. When the cumulative pressures
caused by these changes reach some tipping point, fractures in the party
system become visible. Signature landmarks that gave the party system
its structure are transformed or disappear. If the changes continue
unabated, the party system is swept away in a deluge.
The extreme changes experienced by political party systems in
Venezuela and Peru also suggest that party system collapse occurs in
stages, anchored by three presidential elections. First, following the
baseline presidential election, a hidden thaw begins under the party
system’s frozen landscape. An example of such a thaw might be an
abrupt rise in abstention rates, which occurred in the Venezuelan pres-
idential election of 1988, when abstention increased to 18 percent (in
mandatory voting) from a previous high of 12 percent. Next, the second
anchoring presidential election reveals a fractured party system land-
scape that confirms massive, deep-seated deterioration, or thawing.
Such deterioration took place in Venezuela in 1993, when Caldera
became the first non-AD/COPEI president, and large chunks of the vote
went to AndrCs VelBsquez, the CAUSA R candidate. This realization
alarms the political class, leading it to undertake efforts to contain or
reverse the thaw or to resort to finger pointing and blaming. If the thaw
continues unabated, it creates the conditions for an antisystem leader
who may use personal authority to accelerate the fracturing of the party
system. The third presidential election constitutes the deluge that
sweeps away the fractured party system. Again in Venezuela, the deluge
in 1998 occurred when AD and COPE1 both abandoned their own can-
didates. In its aftermath, remnants of individual political parties that
structured the collapsed party system may cling to existence or recover,
but the institutions and processes that characterized the earlier configu-
ration are lost irretrievably.

PARTY SYSTEM THAW: VENEZUELA, 1985-1993

The political party system that formed the heart of Venezuela’s democ-
racy over four decades evolved from a multiparty configuration to a
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 65

two-and-a-half-party system by the early 1970s. The core competition

was between Accion Democritica (AD), a social democratic party occu-
pying the center left, and the Social Christians, ComitC de Organization
Politica Electoral Independente (COPEI), which dominated the center-
right. These two political parties received more than 90 percent of the
popular vote in presidential elections throughout the 1970s and 1980s
(Kornblith and Levine 1995). A third party, the Movimiento a1 Socialismo
(MAS), was a reformist offshoot of the Venezuelan Communist Party; it
occupied an ideological position to the left of AD but became increas-
ingly centrist as the 1980s progressed (Ellner 1988). After fleeting suc-
cess as vehicles for personalist leaders, political parties on the far left
and far right played no significant role in Venezuelan politics from 1969
to 1993 (Myers 2004).
The last national election dominated by AD and COPEI occurred on
December 4, 1988, when they received more than 94 percent of the
presidential vote and almost three-quarters of the votes for seats in the
legislature (see table 1) . The only cause for concern was an unantici-
pated 6 percent rise in the rate of abstention. However, on assuming
power, President Carlos AndrCs PCrez (AD) encountered an economic
crisis of staggering proportions. The new government was forced to
seek financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund and to
adopt austerity measures as a condition for the loan. P6rez’s maladroit
implementation of these measures, following a campaign during which
he implied that Venezuela would return to the halcyon days of petrobo-
nanza prosperity, led to three days of rioting in ten of the nation’s
largest cities (Romero 1996, 393-4031.
An eerie post-riot calm was interpreted by many observers as the
return of political normalcy, and this mistaken perception was rein-
forced ten months later when most voters supported AD and COPEI
candidates in regional and local elections. However, two developments
suggested that change was occurring beneath the paay system’s appar-
ently stable glacial landscape. The militantly leftist party Causa R won
the governorship in the industrial state of Bolivar; and the rate of
abstention approached 55 percent. Few alarm bells sounded, however,
because abstention in regional and local elections had always been
higher than in balloting for president and the national congress.
Venezuela’s macroeconomic indicators improved during the early
1990s, but optimism among the elites gave way to shock on February 4,
1992, when junior army officers led by Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chtivez
mounted a coup that came within an eyelash of overthrowing the gov-
ernment. To make matters worse, President PCrez granted ChQvez
access to television on the condition that he urge his followers to lay
down their arms, but Ch5vez used the opportunity to justify his resort
to force as an attempt to end corruption and reverse the neoliberal eco-
66 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

Table 1. National, Congressional, and Local Elections in Venezuela,

1988-2000
YO % Non-
System- system-
Election WinnedParty sustaining sustaining %
Tvwe YOVote Parties Parties Abstention
1988 Dec. Presidential Perez AD 53 94 6 18
1988 Dec. Legislative AD 43 74 27 18
1989 Dec. Regional/Local AD 40 71 39 55
1992 Dec. Regional/Local COPEI 42 78 32 60
1993 Dec. Congressional AD 24 46 54 40
1993 Dec. Presidential Caldera CN/MAS 31 46 54 40
1995 Dec. Regional/Local AD 35 56 44 55
1998 Dec. Presidential Chkvez MVR 56 11 91 36
1998 Nov. Congressional AD 25 37 63 46
2000 July Presidential Chkvez MVR 59 0 100 44
2000 July National MVR 46% of 21% 79% 44
Assemblv seats of seats of seats
2000 Dec. Municipal MVR 39% 28% 72% 74
Councils of seats of seats of seats

“Party alliances varied from electoral district to electoral district. Consequently, it is

impossible to calculate the national percentage of the National Assembly vote
received by each political party.
Source:Authors’calculations based on official statistics of the Consejo Supremo Elec-
toral 1958-98 and the Conseio Nacional Electoral 2000.

nomic policies that were “oppressing the people.” His appearance put
a face on extraconstitutional opposition to the Punto Fijo party system
(L6pez-Maya 2003, 78). On November 27, 1992 a second unsuccessful
coup, this time led by air force and navy units, fatally weakened the
PCrez government (Aguero 1995,215-30). Perez himself was impeached
the following May. Nevertheless, in the regional elections of December
6, 1992, the two pillars of Venezuela’s party system actually increased
their share of the total vote. COPEI was the overwhelming beneficiary
of open military dissatisfaction with President PCrez.
The national elections of December 5, 1993, however, revealed
unprecedented party system fragmentation. N o presidential candidate
received a third of the popular vote, and the combined AD-COPE1 total
fell under 50 percent for the first time since 1958. MAS joined with par-
tisans of Rafael Caldera and propelled the octogenarian to a second
presidency. Causa R finished only a few percentage points behind AD
and COPEI. These results constituted a political earthquake.
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 67

How and why did Venezuela’s party system thaw so dramatically

between December 1992 and December 1993?Obviously, in the years
leading up to December 1992, significant melting had occurred beneath
the outwardly frozen party system landscape. The event that rearranged
that landscape was the struggle inside COPEI. Rafael Caldera’s decision
to seek the presidency independently of COPEI (the party he had
founded in the 1940s) opened old wounds inside the party. In 1988,
younger party leaders gave’the presidential nomination to Eduardo Fer-
nindez, who, although he was defeated, continued as COPEI’ssecretary
general. Following Chivez’s unsuccessful coup attempt in 1992, Fer-
n5ndez threw his support to Perez’s AD government. Caldera, in con-
trast, stopped just short of endorsing the coup attempt. While this posi-
tion was in tune with the sentiments of most Venezuelans, his candidacy
remained anathema to those who had wrested control of COPEI from
him. Thus, by 1993, a severely splintered COPEI was no longer a mean-
ingful alternative to AD.
But other alternatives did exist. One was Rafael Caldera as an inde-
pendent, promising to restore state-centered economic management
and subsidies for the poor and to break the AD-COPE1 stranglehold on
power. More radically inclined voters could opt for Causa R, whose
presidential candidate, And& Velisquez, emphasized his opposition to
neoliberal policies and promised aid to the urban poor. He thereby
played to the alienation felt by voters who had been left behind during
the petroleum bonanza of the 1970s and by groups that were experi-
encing downward socioeconomic mobility in the 1990s.
Caldera’s 1993electoral triumph signaled that Venezuelans were not
prepared to abandon post-1958 democracy, despite their disillusionment
with AD and COPEI. As one of the two godfathers of that democracy,
Caldera had an authority that his AD and COPEI opponents lacked.
Caldera promised a return to the social justice policies of his first admin-
istration (1969-741, an orientation that AD, COPEI, and MAS had shared
until the neoliberal second Perez administration.

PERU“ PARTY POLITICS, 198&2000

Peru’s three-election sequence toward collapse begins with the presi-
dential elections of 1985 (baseline), 1990 (thaw), and 1995 (deluge). But
Peru’s party system actually collapsed in far less time than ten years, and
subnational elections were critical straws in the wind for observing the
onset of a thaw.
Peru has seldom had institutionalized political parties, if that term
implies organizations with deep-seated ideologies, coherent rules,
and lives beyond a particular leader or f ~ u n d e rParties
.~ first formed
in the 1850s; most were led by elites who competed for a small
68 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

number of votes, as suffrage was severely restricted by gender, legal

status, and wealth. These elites controlled Peru during its so-called
Golden Age of Aristocracy and comprised what Dahl (1971) would
term a competitive oligarchy. Mass politics did not emerge until the
presidential election of 1931, when two anti-establishment figures
(Luis Sanchez Cerro and Victor Raul Haya de la Torre) appeared on
the scene. Haya de la Torre’s APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria
Americana, or American Popular Revolutionary Alliance) proved to
be the best-organized and most coherent political party in Peruvian
history. But constant interventions by the military made it difficult for
all parties and their leaders to practice their craft and for constituen-
cies to develop loyalties.
In 1963, Peruvian democracy seemed to be entering a new era.
Competitive elections saw Fernando Belaunde of Acci6n Popular (AP)
win on a centrist platform that included municipal elections throughout
the country (previously all mayors had been appointed). But this exper-
iment in democracy was abruptly canceled in 1968 when the military
seized power and ruled until 1980.
The year 1980 saw the restoration of civilian rule, the emergence of
an unprecedented,, if wobbly, party system, and the onset of an unpar-
alleled stretch of democratic rule. The Peruvian political party system
throughout the 1980s consisted of four parties or groupings: the United
Left (IU), a fractious coalition of several Marxist groups; APRA, com-
prising the center-left; AP on the center-right; and the Partido Popular
Cristiano (PPC, in later elections also known as CODE), representing the
business right. By either winning elections (presidential or municipal),
winning seats in the congress, or being major players during the decade,
these four constituted Peru’s party system, inchoate as it might have
been by other standards.
Peru made what appeared to be significant advances in the 1980s
toward a sustainable democracy, at least in procedural terms. All parties
that wished to compete could do so; national (presidential and legisla-
tive) and municipal elections were held as scheduled (every five and
three years, respectively); claims of fraud or corruption in the electoral
process were virtually absent; incumbents relinquished power to their
successors, thereby allowing alternation of power; and the military
showed no interest in interfering with the electoral process.
Table 2 reveals how changes in partisan control of the presidency
occurred during the 1980s: first a move from AP to APRA and then from
ARA to Albert0 Fujimori’s Cambio 90. In addition, municipal elections
showed that a variety of parties were viable power contenders. In Lima’s
mayoral races, AP won in 1980, followed by IU in 1983 and APRA in
1986, suggesting a healthy turnover of power (not to mention adherence
to the rules of the game).
 DIETZ AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 69

Table 2 . National, Legislative, and Municipal Elections in Peru,

1980-2000

Yo Vote,
System- YO
sustaining Independent
Election Winner/Party/% Vote Parties” Vote
1980P Presidential Beladnde/AP/45.2% 89.3 3.2
1980s Senate AP/40.9% 86.4 -
1980D Deputies AP/38.9% 84.0 0.6
1980M Municipal 0rrego/~~/34.7%~ 92.6 7.4
1983M Municipal Barrantes/IU/36.5% 93.3 2.7
1985P Presidential Garcia/APW53.1% 97.0 3.0
1985s Senate APW51.3% 95.8 4.2
1985D Deputies APW50.1% 94.0 6.0
l986M Municipal del Castillo/APRA/37.6% 99.2 0.8
1989111 Municipal Belmont/Obras/45.2% 49.9 50.1
1990P1‘ Presidential Vargas Llosa/Fredemo/30% 68.0 32.0
1990s Senate Fredemo/32.3% 72.0 28.0
1990D Deputies Fredemo/30.1% 70.0 30.0
1990P2d Presidential Fujimori/Cambio90/64% 32.0 64.0
1993M Municipal Belmont/Obras/45.0% 14.8 85.2
1995P Presidential Fujimori/C90-Mayoria/64.4% 10.0 90.0
1995L Unicameral C90-Mayoria/51% 16.0 84.0
legislature
1995M Municipal Andrade/Somos Lima/52.1% 0.0 100.0
1998M Muncipal Andrade/Somos Peru/58.8% 8.6 91.4
20O0PlC Presidential Fujimori/C90-Mayoria/49.9% 1.O 99.0
2000L Unicameral C90-NM/42% 8.0 92.0
legislature
2000P2d Presidential Fujimori/C90-Mayoria/74% 0.0 100.0
2001P1 Presidential Toledo/Peru Posible/36.5% 25.8 74.2
2001L Unicameral Peru Posible/26.3% 23.9 76.1
legislature
2001P2d Presidential Toledo/Peru Posible/53.1% 46.9 53.1

““Party systeim” refers to IU, APRA, AP and PPC national totals combined. The inde-
pendent votes are for all others combined.
bThe individual/party/percentage noted refers to Lima’s mayoral race.
P1 refers to first round, presidential race.
dP2 refers to second round, presidential race.
Source: All statistics are from Tuesta 2001.
70 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

The 1980s, however, were a decade of economic travails for Peru,

beginning early with slow growth and rising foreign debt under
Belaunde and then collapsing rapidly during Alan Garcia’s administra-
tion, when overextended heterodox economic policies, accompanied by
a catastrophic effort to nationalize the banking industry, led to a sharply
decreasing GNP, drying up of foreign and domestic investment, and
hyperinflation that reached 7,600 percent in 1990 (Crabtree 1992). In
addition, the presence of the Shining Path movement (Sender0 Lumi-
noso) throughout the 1980s produced widespread political violence,
intimidation, and a military that became notorious for human rights
abuses. The combination of economic collapse and sociopolitical vio-
lence brought crushing levels of poverty, un- or underemployment,
public health problems, and a litany of other ills.
Given this context, table 2 shows the progressive decline in support
for Acci6n Popular. In 1980, AP’s presidential victory was accompanied
by approximately similar wins in the Senate and the Chamber of
Deputies. But Belabnde’s economic problems made 1983’s municipal
elections a referendum on AP, whose mayoral candidate in Lima garnered
only 12 percent in Lima and whose municipal candidates totaled 17.5per-
cent nationally. In contrast, IU and APRA together took more than 60 per-
cent of the national vote, and IU’s Alfonso Barrantes won Lima’smayoral
race. AP had had its chance with the electorate; it had failed.
For a moment, APRA and IU appeared to be ascendant. IU’s 1983
victory in Lima precipitated much rejoicing on the left. But when Bar-
rantes ran as IU’s presidential candidate in 1985, he was soundly
defeated by Garcia and APRA, and then a year later lost a close re-elec-
tion race to APRA. These successive defeats brought on a spate of
anguished self-examinations and recriminations that left IU splintered
and fatally weakened (Crabtree 1992, 164-70).
APRA, meanwhile, seemed triumphant. Garcia’s presidential victory
was accompanied by majority wins in both the Senate and the Chamber
of Deputies and then its 1986 win in Lima. APRA had all the reins of
power in its hands. But ineffective policies against Shining Path, deteri-
orating economic conditions, and constant rumors of corruption and
fraud brought about a vertiginous slide in public approval ratings.’O
What is notable here is the failure of the parties that made up Peru’s
party system to address the deepening economic and social crisis of the
late 1980s.

Two basic reactions of system-sustaining party elites once deepseated

tensions cause frozen party system landscapes to buckle were identified
earlier: efforts to contain, reverse, or otherwise manage the thaw, and
 DIETZ AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 71

attempts to place blame for it. In Venezuela and Peru, both reactions dis-
played proactive and defensive variants. Proactive variants included
reaching out to newly mobilized groups that expressed discontent with
the party system. The established political class made at least halfhearted
attempts to strengthen safety nets for the poor, grow the economy, pro-
vide temporary work for the unemployed, root out corruption, and make
political participation more meaningful. Defensive tactics sought to stem
the erosion of support for system-sustaining political parties by increas-
ing the flow of patronage to party militants and allied independents.
Attempts to place blame for the thawing of support for system-sus-
taining political parties in Venezuela and Peru occurred both within
these parties and across them. Such recriminations often led to an “every
party for itself” mentality, in which party leaders acted as if politics were
a zero-sum game (if you win, we lose, and vice versa); or a rupture in
the interpersonal and interinstitutional relationships that had given the
dominant party systems their strength.

Venezuela

The December 1993 national elections fractured Venezuela’slong-frozen

party system landscape. AD and COPEI continued to have the largest
congressional delegations. MAS, together with the Caldera government,
had more deputies and senators that at any time in its history, but fewer
deputies than either of the newly influential political parties, Causa R
and Convergence. In spite of its many years of opposition to AD and
COPEI, MAS did not emerge as the party system’s major leftist alterna-
tive. That honor went to Causa R, which, in the presidential and con-
gressional elections of 1993, came within 3 percent of the AD and
COPEI vote. Indeed, some Causa R leaders maintained that their candi-
date, Andres Velssquez, had actually won the presidential election, and
that AD and COPEI had stolen the victory. Although the allegations
were never proven, many Venezuelans believed them, thereby discred-
iting the political party system and post-1958 democracy.
During the first half of Caldera’s administration (1994991, AD and
COPEI leaders made few joint efforts to contain, reverse, or manage the
party system thaw that had deprived them of the presidency. AD and
COPEI had cooperated in 1989 to pass legislation increasing the power
and autonomy of local governments, following the urban rioting on
February 28-29, 1989. AD and COPEI also backed President Pkrez after
ChBvez’sunsuccessful coup of February 4, 1992.
President Caldera focused on saving Venezuela’s liberal democratic
system, but he was ambivalent toward AD and MAS and intensely hos-
tile to COPEI. Caldera had been elected in 1993 because of his opposi-
tion to the economic policies of the Pkrez government. In 1993 and
72 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

1994, however, state revenues from petroleum sales remained low, and
declining investor confidence dried up foreign investment. These and
other constraints made it impossible for Caldera to resurrect state capi-
talism and import substitution industrialization, as he had promised to
do in his campaign.
At the beginning of the third year of his term, Caldera reversed
course and announced a new economic program, Agenda Venezuela,
which was essentially a return to neoliberal economic policies. This shift
led to a split in MAS; most of the party actively opposed Agenda
Venezuela. In order to govern, Caldera turned for support to AD. In
return for helping pass legislation through Congress, Caldera gave AD
leaders resources they needed to sustain the party infrastructure (Alfaro
Ucero 1997). This arrangement made AD Secretary General Luis Alfaro
Ucero the second most powerful individual in the country, but the deal
also identified AD with a government that became even more unpopu-
lar than its predecessor.
A final effort to deal with the thaw occurred in 1998, when AD and
COPEI approved nonconcurrent legislative and presidential elections
scheduled for December 6. The former were moved to November 8 in
hope of minimizing the coattail effect of Hugo ChPvez’s burgeoning
presidential candidacy (Molina 2002, 226-28). Initially this change
appeared to contain the thaw. ChPvez failed to capture a majority in the
Chamber of Deputies, and the two system-sustaining political parties
won well over half the governorships. However, after ChPvez won the
presidency, he drew on his popularity to dissolve the opposition-con-
trolled congress.
A strong showing by AD in the 1995 regional elections made Alfaro
Ucero’s position inside AD unassailable (Maingon and Patruyo 1996).
But his ascendancy drove most youthful leaders out of the party. His
presidential candidacy failed to attract even a 10 percent approval rating
in 1998 campaign polls. When party leaders stripped Alfaro of AD’S
presidential nomination, blaming and recriminations were so bitter that
Alfaro was expelled from the party.
Anger, bitterness, and tension also permeated COPEI in the wake of
Oswaldo Alvarez Paz’s third-place finish in 1993.11 Distracted and in
shock, COPEI made only halfhearted preparations for the regional and
municipal elections of 1995. The results showed that support for COPEI
candidates had declined by almost 50 percent from two years earlier. At
this juncture, COPEI’s national organization turned to former president
Luis Herrera Campins for leadership. Herrera gambled COPEI’selectoral
fortunes in 1998 on independent Irene Siez, a former Miss Universe
who was mayor of the affluent municipality of Chacao in metropolitan
Caracas. When SPez’s standing in the polls fell below 10 percent,
COPEI’s national leadership retracted the party’s presidential nomina-
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 73

tion. Their new choice was Henrique Salas Romer, the maverick gover-
nor of Carabobo State, who seemed to have an outside chance of
defeating Ch5vez (McCoy 1999). But less than 2 percent of the voters
cast their ballot for Salas using the COPEI ballot. Herrera’s influence
within COPEI evaporated.
As the 1998 campaigns drew to a close, AD, COPEI, and MAS were
discredited and dispirited. They appeared incapable of coping with the
country’s decadelong downward economic spiral. The old guard in AD
and COPEI had marginalized or driven out most young leaders, and their
once-vaunted party organizations were in tatters. A charismatic military
officer had arisen whose popularity rested on opposing the existing polit-
ical party system and the liberal democracy its leaders had nurtured.
Efforts to contain, reverse, or manage the 1993thaw had been for naught.

Peru

As the first hints of a system thaw started to appear in the mid- and late
1980s, the reactions of Peru’s party elites reflected both finger pointing
and unsuccessful efforts to sustain the system.
Whereas in Venezuela, elite members of the system-sustaining par-
ties attempted to implement a variety of reforms once a thaw had
started, their Peruvian counterparts found themselves more or less
stymied. Many of the reforms Venezuela undertook had been in place
in Peru since the 1979 transition, when a voting age of 18, universal suf-
frage (including illiterates), nationwide nonconcurrent municipal elec-
tions, no immediate presidential re-election, and other equally important
reforms were implemented. Throughout the 1980s, moreover, all partic-
ipants observed these rules, and all agreed that whoever won the pop-
ular vote would take office.
Therefore, when Peru’s thaw first appeared in the 1989 Lima munic-
ipal election, most reasonable and realistic reforms were already in
place. What happened in Peru was a clear sequential deterioration: one
system-sustaining party would win an election (e.g., AP in 19801, per-
form poorly while in office, and at the end of five years be replaced by
another (APRA in 19851, which would repeat the same pattern. But AP
could not recover from its defeat in 1985 to run successfully in 1990, by
which time APRA was also in tatters, as was the left. The PPC, while
important in Lima, never became a major national presence. All four
parties were thus discredited.
Support for and loyalty to the party system were either weak or
missing altogether. None of the leaders of the four system-sustaining
parties was willing to work for the survival of the system. Competition
was in zero-sum terms: if one party won, another one lost, and there-
fore electoral competition was fierce and highly personal, as opposed
74 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

to organizational. That the party system itself might also lose seldom
appeared as a factor in anyone’s calculations.
In addition, Peruvian political leaders were unable during the 1980s
to form any sort of elite settlement or accord. Tanaka (1998, 83-84)
notes several attempts to create such alliances, but all came to nothing.
He concludes that Peru’s society during this decade was becoming more
and more complex and thus more and more difficult for its political
party system to represent. Yet the tenor of the discussions between and
among the nation’s political class failed to focus on adjusting to the
changes and challenges of society at large.
What did appear were partial and largely evanescent agreements
between or among individual elites, who either could not speak for, or
had no desire to speak for the party organizations they represented. No
one demonstrated any interest in working for the system they putatively
supported and that supported them. By the time of the first Fujimori
administration in 1990, moreover, electoral politics had become almost
entirely personalist because of the widespread delegitimation that all
major parties had undergone and the virulent antiparty feelings in the
Peruvian electorate.
Not surprisingly, recriminations were sparked and reformist efforts
hindered by this increased personalism. AP depended almost entirely on
Fernando BelaGnde, but it could not pull itself back together after being
crushed in 1985, and its weakness weakened the system overall. The
PPC was a small party with severe limitations. Its center-right orientation
never extended beyond metropolitan Lima and the city’s middle- and
upper-class districts.
In 1988 AP and PPC formed an alliance known as Fredemo, which
supported Mario Vargas Llosa’s presidential run in 1990. This coalition
of two centrist-rightist parties was at least momentarily attractive to
many voters. But Fredemo’s appeal existed primarily because of the
nonpartisan nature of Vargas Llosa as a candidate. And while Vargas
Llosa’s militant neoliberalism scared off many.voters, support from two
discredited parties was at least as important in his defeat.
The left under IU showed significant strength in Lima in the early
1980s when it won the city’s mayoral race, but its appeal lay more
with its leader, Alfonso Barrantes, than with its ideological persua-
siveness. Barrantes performed admirably during his three years as
Lima’s mayor, but his two quick defeats in 1995 and 1996 brought the
tensions within IU to the surface (Roberts 1996). Many of the left’s
presumed constituency deserted the party, which, in turn, led to more
recriminations.
Even APRA’s vaunted organizational bedrock strength dissolved
quickly. When Alan Garcia took command of the party and then
assumed the presidency of the nation, the party seemed invincible. But
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 75

Garcia’s (and his party’s) often extreme partisan behavior offended

many independent supporters. By 1990, Garcia and the party had
squandered their opportunity to govern effectively.
Peru’s episodic history with democratic rule reveals that its political
parties have torn one another down with n o regard for the sustainabil-
ity of the system as a whole. Examples abound. In Peru’s truncated
democratic experiment of the 1960s, Belaunde’s AP party won a plural-
ity in the congress but not a majority. Instead of being able to form a
coalition with either APRA or the Uni6n Nacional Odriista (UNO, the
personalist vehicle for previous dictator Manuel Odria), AP confronted
an unlikely alliance of these two previously bitter enemies that consis-
tently blocked, emasculated, or claimed credit for AP’s initiatives. The
APRA-UNO alliance not only frustrated loyalists from all three parties
but also gave the Peruvian military, itself anxious for reforms to take
place, a justification for seizing power in 1968.
In the early 1980s, AP under Belalinde avoided major run-ins with
APRA, which was embroiled in battles of succession following Haya de
la Torre’s death in 1979. Yet as Garcia emerged as head of the party,
APRA did all it could to obstruct Belacnde’s government during the
runup to the 1985 presidential elections. AP could do little against
APRA’s superior organizational strength.
But Garcia’s presidency confirmed the worst fears and predictions
of APRA’s opponents. Once APRA controlled the whole of the political
system-presidency, Congress, Lima’s and most of the nation’s other
mayoral positions-the party and its leaders showed themselves to be
incompetent, partisan, and corrupt (Graham 1992). Thus they brought
on themselves widespread citizen frustration and allowed not only anti-
APRA but also antiparty system leaders to emerge (Mario Vargas Llosa
and Fredemo; Albert0 Fujimori and Cambio 90) in 1990.
All in all, as of 1990, none of the four system-sustaining parties
could demonstrate that it had the capacity to confront a multifaceted
crisis (economic collapse, organizational weaknesses, no new ideas, and
Shining Path). Conditions were ripe for a charismatic, anti-establishment
candidate to emerge.

THEOm SYSTEM
DELUGE: AWAY
SWEPT
Our conceptualization of party system collapse envisions the thaw
becoming a deluge, sweeping the old system away, when support for
the system-sustaining parties falls precipitously from one presidential
election to another and what remains is “post-alluvial.”’2In a change of
this extreme magnitude, the historical system-sustaining parties lose
their ability (or abilities) to attract votes in an electoral competition.
Instead, newly ascendant political parties or personalistic movements
76 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

win office by calling for an end to the existing system of political par-
ties and sometimes the political regime itself.
We see the final phase of party system collapse as having two basic
components: a swift and fatal decline in voter support for the histori-
cally dominant political parties, which obliterates the structural dynam-
ics of the old party system; and victory by a nonsystem alternative, fre-
quently led by a neopopulist figure who uses control of the national
government to bury the historically dominant political class.

The Venezuelan Deluge, 1998-2000

The presidential contest of December 6, 1998, the last held under the
1961 Constitution, melted the fractured party system landscape
bequeathed by the national elections of 1993. Dissatisfaction with the
economy played a major role, as Caldera’s presidency saw Venezuela’s
economic miseries accelerate. A banking crisis had eliminated almost 60
percent of total national bank deposits, and the price of oil on interna-
tional markets had fallen to levels not seen since the 1960s. Most
Venezuelans held the government and AD responsible, and viewed
Caldera’s alliance with AD as yet another example of corruption and
cronyism. COPEI was seen as corrupt, and so weakened by internecine
warfare with Caldera as to be incapable of governing (McCoy 1999).
Twenty months later, on July 31, 2000, Venezuela operated for the
first time under the new 1999 Constitution. In what electoral officials
called a “mega-election,”voters chose the president, all governors and
mayors, and all members of the new National Assembly. AD and COPEI
declined to contest the presidency. Support for Hugo ChAvez was simi-
lar to the backing he had received in the election of December 1998: in
both contests, voters preferred the one-time coup leader by a 3-2
margin (Carrasquero and Welsch 2OOl).’3
AD and COPEI together took slightly more than one-fifth of the total
seats in the National Assembly. Only AD won any governorships, all in
small states, although the party elected a respectable number of mayors.
This pattern was repeated in the municipal and neighborhood council
elections held on December 3, 2000; ChAvez and his allies won majori-
ties in most locations and AD finished a distant second (see table 1).
In 2001, AD and COPEI deteriorated further. AD split; one faction
was dominated by the national leadership while another drew support
from several of the party’s regional leaders. COPEI continued to hem-
orrhage middle-level leaders who could not be replaced. In essence,
neither AD nor COPEI stood any realistic chance of returning to power
in the foreseeable future.
Another event that contributed to the deluge of 1998-2000, how-
ever, had occurred in 1994, when then-president Caldera pardoned
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 77

Chavez for his 1992 coup attempt and restored his political rights. Soon
afterward, Chivez reassembled his team and added leaders of the
defunct Democratic Republican Union (URD) and the fossilized
Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV). Chivez’s populist Bolivarian Move-
ment subsequently took on a Marxist cast that attracted leftist intellec-
tuals. In late 1997, Chivez created a new political movement, the Fifth
Republic Movement (MVR), which subsequently swept the presidential
elections of 1998 and 2000 (Garrido 2000; Vivas 1999).
Thus, events between 1998 and 2000 constituted a deluge that
destroyed Venezuela’s system of political parties. Perceptions of eco-
nomic mismanagement and never-ending corruption convinced most
voters that AD, COPEI, and MAS were beyond redemption. Beginning
with the presidential election campaign of 1998, the traditional political
parties were overwhelmed by a youthful populist who pledged funda-
mental differences to give the masses a voice that the old party system
had stifled. The results of the mega-elections of 2000 saw the complete
collapse of Venezuela’s traditional system.

The Peruvfan Deluge, 1984-1995

The 1989 municipal elections presented clear early evidence that a thaw
was under way and that Peru’s old party system was deteriorating rap-
idly. In Lima, Ricardo Belmont, a popular TV personality but a political
novice, won a 45 percent plurality; the next-largest total (26.8 percent)
was for the Fredemo alliance. APRA and IU could gather only 11 per-
cent apiece. The year 1989 was thus in many ways a watershed for the
traditional party system. From that year on, party system vote totals
decreased dramatically, falling first to around 70 percent in 1990 for con-
gressional elections and then to a startling 37.6 percent in the second
round of presidential elections. Henceforth, support for the old system
as such never rose above 20 percent.
As the 1990s proceeded, the once-dominant four-party system col-
lapsed in presidential, legislative, and municipal elections (see table 2).
In addition, President Fujimori made every effort to ensure that no
opposition parties received any help from the state (Tuesta 1996;
Conaghan 2001; Crabtree 2001). One sign of weakness occurred in
1992, when Fujimori seized power in an autogolpe. Despite much inter-
national criticism, Fujimori’s move received strong public backing, and
the old parties could mount no opposition to the takeover.
The party system of the 1980s had, by the early 1990s, collapsed.
AP and APRA, each of which had won presidential elections by sub-
stantial margins in 1980 and 1985, in 1995 took a total of less than 6 per-
cent of the popular vote. IU, which had won Lima’s mayoral race in
1983 and whose candidate finished second in the 1985 presidential con-
78 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

test, took half of one percent of the total popular vote in 1995. PPC in
1995 took slightly more than 3 percent nationally but posted no candi-
dates in municipal elections. Thus, each system-sustaining party
imploded, with all four falling into irretrievable collapse in little more
than a year.
From 1995 on, elections revolved around personalities. Fujimori’s
movement (Cambio 90-Nueva Mayoria) dated from 1990 and was his
vehicle for winning and maintaining power. In the 1995 elections, none
of the major opposition candidates carried labels from the four pivotal
parties of the 1980s. Likewise, local elections throughout the country
showed that individuals and their movements won much more fre-
quently than did party-label candidates.

CONCLUSIONS
At the beginning of this article, three propositions were extracted from
the literature on three types of political party system change (supportive
shift, realignment, dealignment) to see if they might be useful for under-
standing the causes of a fourth and less studied type of change, party
system collapse. We can now ask if our case studies supported these
propositions and whether our cases suggest modifications to them. In
addition, an inductively derived process of how party system collapse
takes place was sketched. Does probing for the causes of party system
collapse within the parameters of this process confirm its utility, and by
using it do we add to the understanding of party system collapse?
The first proposition posits the existence of an acute, prolonged
crisis as critical in initiating party system collapse. Collapse begins
because of the inability of those who lead the system-sustaining politi-
cal parties to manage the crisis. This lack of capability discredits them
and their party system. Data from the case studies here support this
proposition. Economic decline and impatience with corruption shaped
crises in both Peru and Venezuela. Blocked participation was a basic
component of the Venezuelan crisis; in Peru it also led to frustration
with political elites, but was less central in shaping the crisis. In contrast,
the rise in personal insecurity (because of Shining Path) was central to
the Peruvian crisis while it remained secondary in Venezuela. But the
important point is that in both countries there was a prolonged crisis,
and those who controlled the system-sustaining parties were perceived
by voters as incapable of resolving it.
The longer the crisis persisted, the greater was the tendency of
system-sustaining-party leaders to turn on each other, rather than to
manage it cooperatively. In both cases the crises fed on themselves.
Rising dissatisfaction with first one party and then with another pro-
duced disenchantment with the whole system. As voters either saw their
 DIETZ AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 79

quality of life slip further behind their expectations (Venezuela) or saw

themselves falling into desperate straits (Peru experienced 7,600 percent
inflation in 1990, along with terrorist advances by Shining Path), their
willingness to consider alternatives to the established party systems
increased as well.
The second proposition concerns party system institutionalization.In
general, the literature holds that the greater the degree of party system
institutionalization,the greater its stability and (conversely) the lesser the
likelihood that it will collapse. This idea has an appealing logic; after all,
strongly institutionalized party systems are less apt to give ground to
populist leaders, are more apt to have the support of other essential
groups in the society (business and other elites, the military), and are
better equipped to ride out the occasional storm that may overtake them.
But the Venezuelan and Peruvian cases suggest otherwise. The
party systems of these two countries experienced the same extreme
process of party system change (collapse over a short time and in sim-
ilar fashions), even though their party systems exhibited levels of insti-
tutionalization that were polar opposites. By all standards and defini-
tions, Venezuela’s party system was hyperinstitutionalized while Peru’s
was inchoate, a comparison that suggests an important modification to
the literature: political party systems located at either extreme of the
institutionalization continuum (inchoate and hyperinstitutionalized)
have a greater likelihood of collapsing than those in the center.
How do we explain this unanticipated finding? The predisposition
of inchoate party systems to collapse under stress seems obvious: sys-
tems having lower levels of institutionalization (Peru) would be
expected to have less staying power than those in which the compo-
nents exhibit greater cohesion. By this line of reasoning, highly institu-
tionalized party systems (Venezuela) should resist collapse; but this
proved not to be the case. Party systems that are centrally and hierar-
chically controlled tend to resist integrating new generations and to
renew the channels that tie them to sectoral organizations. They become
unresponsive and brittle, and like their inchoate counterparts, they lose
their capability to innovate when they confront crisis.
The third proposition asserts that once the legitimacy of established
political institutions has deteriorated beyond a certain point, their
authority is vulnerable to replacement by personalist authority and crit-
icism of their behavior. In the cases considered here, Hugo Chavez and
Albert0 Fujimori took advantage of discredited political party systems to
acquire personal authority. They also used that authority to further
undermine the established system of political parties and accelerate the
thawing process.
The case studies also support a conceptualization of party system
collapse as a process anchored by three presidential elections. In both
80 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

cases, a thaw occurred between the baseline and subsequent presiden-

tial elections. The second election fractured the party system landscape
as severe declines in voter support convulsed the previously dominant
party system. Low turnout and eroding support for the system-sustain-
ing political parties in regional and local elections appeared as straws in
the wind; nevertheless, precipitous decline in support in presidential
elections showed that collapse was under way.
The reaction of system-sustaining party leaders to the fracturing of
party system landscapes was ineffective and counterproductive. In nei-
ther Peru nor Venezuela could those elites craft countermeasures that
dealt effectively with voter alienation. They resorted to behavior that
proved self-destructive: blaming. Finger pointing and recriminations
over who was responsible for declining support increased tensions
between the system-sustaining parties. They failed to cooperate in any
meaningful sense. The choices made by voters in the subsequent pres-
idential election, the third of the three-election cycle, confirmed the col-
lapse. In this third election the discredited party system disappeared.
Whatever remained was post-alluvial and unrecognizable. Individual
parties might recover on their own under new leadership disassociated
from the old order, but a re-emergence of the previous party system as
such is not possible.
In sum, Peru and Venezuela had competitive party systems that
appeared, for a time, to make progress in legitimating their role as
aggregators of political interests and themselves as channels for recruit-
ing political leaders. Peru’s party system, with roots going back to the
1950s,-crystallized only following the demise of an ambitious but over-
reaching military regime that failed in its attempt to establish a single-
party state. Venezuela’s two-and-a-half-party system was a regional
model for decades, and generations grew up viewing AD and COPE1 as
legitimate and effective institutions. Party identification and loyalties in
Peru, with the possible exception of APRA, were shallow; and
depended heavily on personalities. In Venezuela, identification with the
system-sustaining parties was deep and institutional. Nevertheless, both
political party systems disappeared for many of the same reasons and in
a similar process of collapse.

1. Supportive shift, the least disruptive type of party system change, occurs
when groups of voters change their partisan identification from one key player in
the established system of political parties to another. While it favors or inhibits indi-
vidual political parties, it does not fundamentally change the existing party system
configuration. Brooks and Manza (1997) and Miller and Schofeld (2003) found that
system-supportive shifting occurred in the United States between 1972 and 1992.
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 81

Dealignment is more pervasive. It occurs when large numbers of voters who

traditionally supported the major system-sustaining political parties cease to iden-
tify with any political party. They become independents. Some of the “dealigned”
may continue to vote, but others turn their backs on partisan politics altogether.
Most of those who do vote cast their ballot for an established power contender
(Poguntke 1996; Scarrow 2000). Dealignment surfaced in the United States during
the 1960s and characterized the partisan orientation of many U.S. voters as
recently as the 1992 presidential election (Clarke and Suzuki 1994; MacKuen et
a1.1989). It also has been common in the democracies of Western Europe since
the 1980s (Dalton et al. 1984; Dalton and Wattenberg 2000).
Realignment, a third and deeper kind of party system change, involves
shifts in partisan preferences, from identification with a traditional political party
to a new movement or party or to one that had been marginally important. His-
torically, realignment has occurred when a system of political parties underwent
profound changes, such as Germany between 1928 and 1932 (Neumann 1956;
Bernhard 2001), Mexico during the late 1990s (Klesner 1997), and Canada ear-
lier in the same decade (Carty et al. 2000; Clarke et al. 1996; Stewart and Clarke
1998). Yet despite the far-reaching nature of these transformations, at least one
major political party and critical interparty relationships from the earlier config-
uration survived.
2. Yin (2003, 43) argues that the revelatory case is an appropriate research
strategy when the investigator has access to a situation previously inaccessible
to scientific observation.
3. In extreme cases, dissatisfaction with the dominant political parties may
discredit the party system itself. Studies that examine the realignment of politi-
cal party systems suggest several indicators of alienation from the existing
system of political parties. They include higher levels of electoral abstention;
increased bloodshed, including escalating violent crime and insurgency; expan-
sion of the ideological distance separating the political parties; growth in the
number of political parties; and growth in the number of groups seeking to
bypass political parties and make demands directly on government institutions
(Bernhard 2001; Mainwaring 1998, chap. 2; Mainwaring and Scully 1995, chap.
1;Mair and Sakono 1998; Molina 1998; Myers 2004).
4 . Examples include Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Paraguay
(Barczak 2001).
5. This study adopts the treatment of party system institutionalization by
Mainwaring and Scully (1995, 4-21). They depart from earlier studies that
assigned primary importance to the number of political parties composing the
party system and the ideological distance between them (Sartori 1976). In a
more recent paper, Mainwaring and Torcal(2005) offer four dimensions of party
system institutionalization (volatility, rootedness in society, legitimacy, and non-
personalist control) to compare a variety of nations (Latin American and others).
6. Parsons (1951, 480-535) defines institutions as “patterns of action” that
persist over time. Declines in support, if unchecked, lead to the appearance of
new action patterns.
7. Mainwaring and Scully (1995,221 do acknowledge that some party systems
with middle levels of institutionalization, like those in the United States and Spain,
appear to be highly institutionalized systems, but they do not pursue this insight.
82 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

8. Mainwaring and Torcal (2005, 9) also note the limited utility of the
“frozen” metaphor for less-developed countries.
9. Mainwaring and Torcal classify Peru’s party system as “extremely
volatile” (2005, 8-9) and offer a variety of indicators to show how weakly insti-
tutionalized the system has been since 1980.
10. Crabtree (1992, 159) notes that Garcia, in July 1985, had over 90 per-
cent approval ratings. These slid steadily to under 50 percent by mid-1988, and
never surpassed 20 percent after July 1989. See also Graham 1992.
11. As late as July 1993, public opinion polls indicated that COPE1 might
regain the presidency. But one year later, party leaders found themselves in a
struggle for survival with President Caldera.
12. We do not posit a specific figure here. But if a party system were to
win two-thirds or three-quarters of the vote in one election and a third or less
in the next, such a drop would, we argue, suggest the magnitude of deluge we
have in mind. Seawright (2004, 4) posits a two-election cycle but does not
include a baseline election as we do here. Otherwise Seawright’s notion of party
system collapse agrees with ours; we both want “to exclude gradual changes in
party systems that consist of a slow ‘decline’ of the major parties” (Seawright
2004, 4).
13. ChAvez’s principal opponent in the July 2000 presidential contest was
Lieutenant Colonel Francis Arias Cardenas, his righthand man during the unsuc-
cessful military coup of February 1992. Arias received coughly one-third of the
total presidential vote.

REFERENCES
Aguero, Felipe. 1995. Crisis and Decay of Democracy in Venezuela: The Civil-
Military Dimension. In Venezuelan Democracy Under Stress, ed. Jennifer
McCoy, And& Serbin, William C. Smith, and And& Stambouli. Boulder:
Lynne Rienner, 215-36.
Alfaro Ucero, Luis. 1997. Former Secretary General, Acci6n Democratica. Author
interview. September 11.
Barczak, Monica. 2001. Representation by Consultation? The Rise of Direct
Democracy in Latin America. Latin American Politics and Society 43, 3
(Fall): 37-59.
Bernhard, Michael. 2001. Democratization in Germany: A Reappraisal. Compar-
ative Politics 33, 4: 379-400.
Brooks, Clem, and Jeff Manza. 1997. The Social and Ideological Bases of Middle-
Class Political Realignment in the United States, 1972 to 1992. American
SociologicalReview 62, 2 (April): 191-208.
Burgess, Katrina, and Stephen Levitsky. 2003. Explaining Populist Party Adapta-
tion in Latin America: Environmental and Organizational Determinates of
Party Change in Argentina, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Comparative
Political Studies 36, 8: 881-911.
Carrasquero, Jose, and Friedrich Welsch. 2001. Revoluci6n en democracia o
retorno a1 caudillismo. In Venezuela en transicibn: eleccionesy democracia
1998-2000, ed. Carrasquero, Thais Maingon, and Welsch. Caracas: CDB.
69-86.
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 83

Carty, Kenneth, William Cross, and Lisa Young. 2000. Rebuilding Canadian
Party Politics. Vancouver, BC.: University of British Columbia Press.
Clarke, Harold, and Motoshi Suzuki. 1994. Partisan Dealignment and the
Dynamics of Independence in the American Electorate, 1953-88. British
Journal of Political Science 24, 1: 57-77.
Clarke, Harold D., Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc, and Jon H. Pammett. 1996.
Absent Mandate: Canadian Electoral Politics in an Era of Restructuring. 3rd
ed. Toronto: Gage.
Conaghan, Catherine. 2001. Making and Unmaking Authoritarian Peru: Re-
Election, Resistance, and Regime Transition. Working Paper 47. Coral
Gables: North-South Center, University of Miami.
Coppedge, Michael. 1994. Strong Parties and Lame Duck: Presidential Part-
yarchy and Factionalism in Venezuela. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Cotler, Julio. 1995. Political Parties and the Problems of Democratic Consolida-
tion in Peru. In Mainwaring and Scully 1995. 323-53.
Crabtree, John. 1992. Peru Under Garcia: An Opportunity Lost. Pittsburgh: Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh Press.
-. 2001. The Collapse of Fujimorismo:Authoritarianism and Its Limits. Jour-
nal of Latin American Studies 30, 2: 287-303.
Dahl, Robert. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Hpven: Yale
University Press.
Dalton, Russell J., and Martin Wattenberg, eds. 2000. Parties Without Partisans:
Political Change in the Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Dalton, Russell J., Scott Flanagan, and Paul Alan Beck, eds. 1984. Electoral
Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies: Realignment or Dealign-
ment? Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Dix, Robert H. 1989. Cleavage Structures and Party Systems in Latin America.
ComparativePolitics 22, 1 (October): 23-37.
Ellner, Steve. 1988. Venezuela’s Movimiento a1 Socialismo: From Guerrilla
Defeat to Innovative Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Garrido, Alberto. 2000. La historia secreta de la revolucidn bolivariana. 2nd edi-
tion. Mkrida, Venezuela: Editorial Venezuela.
Graham, Carole. 1992. Peru’s APRA: The Elusive Questfor Democracy. Boulder:
Lynn Reinner.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. Irhe Irhird Wave:Democratization in the Late Twen-
tieth Centuy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Janda, Kenneth. 1993. Comparative Political Parties: Research and Theory. In
Political Science: The State of the Discipline, vol. 2, ed. Ada Finifter. Wash-
ington, DC: American Political Science Association. 163-90.
Klesner, Joseph L. 1997. Democratic Transition? The 1997 Mexican Elections. PS:
Political Science and Politics 30, 4: 703-1 1.
Kornblith, Miriam, and Daniel Levine. 1995. Venezuela: The Life and Times of
the Party System. In Mainwaring and Scully 1995. 37-71.
Lane, Jan-Erik, and Svante Ersson. 1987. Multipartism. In The Logic of Multiparty
Systems, ed. Martinus Nijhoff. Boston: Kluwer. 151-72.
Levitsky, Steven. 1998. Crisis, Party Adaptation, and Regime Stability in
Argentina: The Case of Peronism, 1989-1995. Party Politics 4, 4: 445-70.
84 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

-. 2003. Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Per-

onism in ComparativePerspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lipset, Seymour M., and Stein Rokkan. 1967. Cleavage Structures, Party Systems,
and Voter Alignments: An Introduction. In Party Systems and Voter Align-
ments, ed. Lipset and Rokkan, New York: Free Press. 1-64.
LBpez-Maya, Margerita. 2003. Hugo Chivez Frias: His Movement and His Presi-
dency. In Venezuelan Politics in the Chavez Era: Class Polarization and Con-
jlict, ed. Steve Ellner and Daniel Hellinger. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. 73-92.
MacKuen, Michael B., Robert S . Erikson, and James A. Stimpson. 1989.
Macropartisanship. American Political Science Review 83, 4: 1125-42.
Maingon, Thais, and Thanali Patruyo. 1996. Las elecciones locales y regionales
de 1995: tendencias politicas. Cuestiones Politicas 16: 91-1 16.
Mainwaring, Scott. 1998. Party Systems in the Third Wave. Journal of Democ-
racy 9, 3: 67-81.
Mainwaring, Scott, and Mariano Torcal. 2005. Party System Institutionalization
and Party System Theory After the Third Wave of Democratization. Work-
ing Paper 319. Notre Dame: Kellogg Center, University of Notre Dame.
Mainwaring, Scott, and Timothy Scully, eds. 1995. Building Democratic Institu-
tions: Parties and Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford: Stanford Uni-
verslty Press.
Mair, Peter. 2001. The Freezing Hypothesis. In Party Systems and Voter Align-
ments Revisited, ed. Lauri Karvonen and Stein Kuhle. London: Routledge.
2644.
-. 2002. Comparing Party Systems. In Comparing Democracies 2: New Chal-
lenges in the Study of Elections and Voting,ed. Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G.
Niemi, and Pippa Norris. Thousand Oaks: Sage. 88-107.
Mair, Peter, and Tomokazu Sakono. 1998.Japanese Political Realignment in Per-
spective: Change or Restoration? Party Politics 4, 2: 77-201.
Martz, John D. 1966. Accidn Democratica: n e Evolution of a Modern Political
Party in Venezuela. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
McCoy, Jennifer L. 1999. Chhvez and the End of “Partyarchy”in Venezuela. Jour-
nal of Democracy 10, 3: 64-77.
Miller, Gary, and Norman Schofield. 2003. Activists and Partisan Realignment in
the United States. American Political Science Review 97, 2: 245-60.
Miller, William L., and Richard G. Niemi. 2002. Voting Choice, Conditioning, and
Constraint. In Comparing Democracies 2: New Challenges in the Study of
Elections and Voting, ed. Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi, and Pippa
Norris. Thousand Oaks: Sage. 169-88.
Molina, Jose. 1338. Electoral Systems and Democratic Legitimacy in Venezuela.
In Reinventing Legitimacy: Democracy and Political Change in Venezuela,
ed. Damarys Canache and Michael R. Kulischeck. Westport: Greenwood
Press. 51-62.
-. 2002. The Presidential and Parliamentary Elections of the Bolivarian Rev-
olution in Venezuela: Change and Continuity (1998-2000). Bulletin of Latin
American Research 21, 2: 219-47
Molina, Jose, and Carmen Perez. 2004. Radical Change at the Ballot Box: Causes
and Consequences of Electoral Behavior in Venezuela’s 2000 Elections.
Latin American Politics and Society 46, 1: 103-34.
 DIET2 AND MYERS: PARTY SYSTEM COLLAPSE 85

Myers, David J. 2004. Venezuela’s Punto Fijo Party System: A Failed Corporatist
Mediator. In Authoritarian and Corporativism in Latin America Revisited,
ed. Howard J. Wiarda. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 141-72.
Neumann, Sigmund. 1956. Germany: Changing Patterns and Lasting Problems.
In Modern Political Parties, ed. Neumann. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. 354-94.
Parsons, Talcott. 1951. 7’be Social System. Glencoe: Free Press.
Penfold, Michael. 2001. El colapso del sistema de partidos en Venezuela: expli-
caci6n de una muerte anunciada. In Venezuela en transicibn: elecciones y
democracia 199&2000, ed. Jose Carrasquero, Thais Maingon, and
Friedrich Welsch. Caracas: CDB. 36-51.
Poguntke, Thomas. 1996. Anti-Party Sentiment: Conceptual Thoughts and
Empirical Evidence: Explorations into a Minefield. European Journal of
Political Research 29, 3: 3 1 9 4 4 .
Przeworski, Adam, and Henry Teune. 1970. i’he Logic of Comparative Social
Znquiy. New York: John Wiley.
Roberts, Kenneth M. 1996. Economic Crisis and the Demise of the Legal Left in
Peru. ComparativePolitics 29, 1: 69-92.
-. 2002. Social Inequalities Without Class Cleavages in Latin America’s
Neoliberal Era. Studies in Comparative International Development 36, 4:
3-33.
Roberts, Kenneth M., and Erik Wibbels. 1999. Party System and Electoral Volatil-
ity in Latin America: A Test of Economic, Institutional, and Structural Expla-
nations. American Political Science Review 93, 3: 575-89.
Romero, Anibal. 1996. La miseria delpopulismo: mitos y realidades de la democ-
racia en Venezuela. 3rd ed. Caracas: Panapo.
Rose, Richard, and Thomas T. Mackie. 1988. Do Parties Persist or Fail? The Big
Trade-off Facing Organizations. In W e n Parties Fail: Emerging Alternative
Organizations, ed. Kay Lawson and Peter H. Merkl. Princeton: Princeton
University Press. 109-34.
Sartori, Giovanni. 1976. Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scarrow, Susan. 2000. Parties Without Members? Party Organizations in a Chang-
ing Electoral Environment. In Dalton and Wattenberg 2000. 209-38.
Seawright, Jason. 2004. The “Demand Side” of Party System Collapse: Political
Preferences and Votes for Insurgent Parties. Paper prepared for workshop
“Analysis of Political Cleavages and Party Competition,” Duke University,
April 2-3.
Seligson, Mitchell A. 2002. The Impact of Corruption on Regime Legitimacy: A
Comparative Study of Four Latin American Countries. Journal of Politics 64,
2: 408-33.
Stewart, Marianne C., and Harold D. Clarke. 1998. The Dynamics of Party Iden-
tification in Federal Systems: The Canadian Case. American Journal of
Political Science 41, 2: 97-116.
Tanaka, Martin. 1998. Los espejimos de la democracia: el colapso del sistema de
partidos en el Pemi. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Tuesta, Fernando. 2001. Perti politico en cifras, 1821-2001. Lima: Fundacion
Friedrich Ebert.
86 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 2

Tuesta, Fernando, ed. 1996. Los enigmas delpoder: Fujimori 1990-199G. Lima:
Fundaci6n Friedrich Ebert.
Vivas, Leonardo. 1999. Chavezt la ultima revolucidn del siglo. Caracas: Torino.
Weber, Max. 1947. Max Weber: 7'be meory of Social and Economic Organiza-
tion. Translated by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons. New York: Free
Press.
Wellhofer, E. Spenser. 2001. Party Realignment and Voter Transition in Italy,
1987-1996. ComparativePolitical Studies 34, 2: 15686.
Yin, Robert K. 2003. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. 3rd ed. Thou-
sand Oaks: Sage.