The Liberal and Conservative parties are therefore in a battle to "out-do" each other, in terms of producing the most workable, viable and therefore, acceptable, policy towards these issues, at any given time during their time in office, or their election campaigns. This model of Aldrich's therefore explains political party change within Colombia rather well: a focus on issues of immediate security concern at any particular time in history define the political strategies of Colombian parties.
Aldrich ends his book by saying, "In America, democracy is unthinkable, save in terms of a two-party system, because no collection of ambitious politicians have been able to think of a way to achieve their goals in this democracy, save in terms of political parties" (Aldrich, 1995; 296).
Dix (1989) synthesizes all of these opinions on the party political system in Latin America, in his paper on cleavage structures and party systems in the continent. This paper analyzes, for the first time, comparative questions within a Latin American context, such as why in some cases, conflicting interests and ideologies favour the emergence of broad aggregative coalitions, and in other cases, favoured fragmentation.
He concludes that the democratic experience has been brief in Latin America, and that it has often been interrupted by military rule, or (in the case of Colombia) by civil war. He also argues that, in Colombia, one problem faced by the construction of democratic government is that other groups, with conflicting interests have always tried to intervene, for example, the Church, or guerrillas, such that one party (or both main parties, as is the case) can never represent all interests from all sides. He argues, therefore, that there will always be oscillation between the parties, sustaining the parties, and that, as such, both Liberals and Conservatives have remained strong.
Dix (1989) also offers another reasoned argument as to why Liberals and Conservatives have remained strong within Colombia: they represent "continuous" party systems, that have not evolved, or changed much, over time, since their formation, despite marked increases in social and political mobilization. He argues, therefore, that party loyalty is a lifetime devotion, and that "party identification is practically universal" (Dix, 1989).
He says, further, that the coming of universal suffrage in Latin America did not lead to the "class-mass" parties familiar in Western party systems, but rather led to 'catch all' parties (Dix, 1989). Single-class parties are not usual in Latin America, especially Colombia, and the "catch all" parties that arose, instead, "eschew dogmatic ideology in favour of pragmatism, and appeals to 'the people', 'the nation'...that electorally seeks (and receives) the broad spectrum of voters that extends the party's reach well beyond that of one social class, or orn religious denomination, that develops ties to a variety of interest groups instead of relying on the organizational and mobilizational assets of one (such as labour unions)" (Dix, 1989).
He then moves on to point out that Colombia does not fall within this "catch-all" party model, but rather has 'vertical' parties, similar to Uruguay, Honduras, and Paraguay (Dix, 1989). Whilst not classified as "catch-all" under his definition, he does liken vertical parties to his "catch-call" parties because they are both non-ideological, and pragmatic, and both can successfully mobilize the support of a broad range of social classes (Dix, 1989). He argues, though, that they are perhaps less than...
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