Party Brands in Crisis

de Noam Lupu

Why have so many established political parties across Latin America collapsed in recent years? Party Brands in Crisis offers an explanation that highlights the effect of elite actions on voter behavior. During the 1980s and 1990s, political elites across the region implemented policies inconsistent with the traditional positions of their party, provoked internal party conflicts, and formed strange-bedfellow alliances with traditional rivals. These actions diluted party brands and eroded voter attachment. Without the assured support of a partisan base, parties became more susceptible to short-term retrospective voting, and voters without party attachments deserted incumbent parties when they performed poorly. Party Brands in Crisis offers the first general explanation of party breakdown in Latin America; it reinforces the interaction between elite behavior and mass attitudes. Technical jargon, mathematical equations, and complex regression tables are avoided Proposes a theory that links voter attachment to parties and party strategy, appealing to those interested in mass behavior or party politics Combines multiple methods: large-N regression analysis, case studies, and experiments--