Democracy Against Parties

Reviews / Votes

In this insightful, impressive, and well-documented study, Brandon Van Dyck challenges the conventional wisdom that democracy facilitates party building. The organizational analysis he develops convincingly explains the divergent fates of a broad array of new left contenders in Latin America while offering important and broader lessons for party building in our media-driven times. -- Wendy Hunter, University of Texas at Austin Why do some new parties remain significant electoral contenders for an extended time while most fade away? In this well-researched book on the Latin American left, Brandon Van Dyck argues counterintuitively that contemporary democracy has been an unfavorable breeding ground for successful and durable new parties, but that liberalizing electoral authoritarian regimes sometimes generate favorable conditions for party building. The book is a major contribution to the literatures on political parties and Latin American politics. -- Scott Mainwaring, University of Notre Dame This book is a powerful assertion of the importance of organization for party building, and a compelling challenge to the conventional wisdom that democratic competition breeds strong parties. Van Dyck provides a strikingly original account of the varied success of new left parties during Latin America's 'third wave' of democratization, and he makes an important theoretical contribution to our understanding of the organizational and leadership factors that foster sustainable party building. -- Kenneth M. Roberts, Cornell University