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Eduardo Alemán provides a definitive institutional account of how Chile’s party system was remade—and ultimately undone—after authoritarian rule.
In Political Institutions and Party System Change in Chile, Eduardo Alemán offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of Chile’s party system, tracing its evolution from the 1930s through the early 2020s. He begins with an analysis of how parties interacted before 1973, establishing a historical baseline both for understanding how the post-authoritarian configuration diverged from its predecessors and for tracing how patterns of competition evolved. Alemán then examines how a major realignment following the end of military rule (1973–1990) produced a distinctive, remarkably stable post-authoritarian party system and investigates why that system unraveled nearly three decades later.
Drawing from extensive original data on presidential cabinets, congressional voting, bill initiation, and elections, Alemán explores interparty competition across three core arenas: governmental, electoral, and legislative. He documents the importance of institutional arrangements inherited from the military regime by the new government and dissects how the 2015 electoral reform that eliminated the binomial system contributed to its demise.
Ultimately, Alemán challenges sociological and continuity-based interpretations of Chilean politics and presents a conceptual framework for analyzing stability and change in party systems more broadly.
"For more than two dozen years, Chile’s post-authoritarian party system was considered an exemplar for Latin America, with two relatively stable partisan coalitions constituting a key pillar of the widely praised Chilean political and economic model. Eduardo Alemán’s outstanding book expertly analyzes the ancestry, birth, life, and death of Chile’s post-authoritarian party system, underscoring the powerful contribution of a pivotal 2015 electoral reform to the system’s demise. Alemán’s book is a must-read for everyone with an interest in Chilean politics and government as well as for scholars of political institutions more generally. The former will benefit from the detailed and insightful examination of the Chilean party system and functioning of the country’s political institutions over the past hundred years, whereas the latter will greatly appreciate the sophisticated linkage between electoral system reform and party system change revealed by the book’s pathbreaking analysis." —Mark P. Jones, Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and professor of political science, Rice University
Eduardo Alemán is professor of political science at the University of Houston. His research focuses on political institutions, parties, and legislative politics, particularly in Latin America. His most recent book is The Law and Politics of Constitution Making: Lessons from Chile, coedited with Sebastián Soto Velasco.
Introduction: Party System Change
1. Party Competition and Presidential Cabinets, 1932–1973
2. The Congressional Arena 1957–1973: Policy Ties and Plenary Votes
3. Party System Realignment
4. Inherited Institutions: The Binomial Electoral System
5. Constitutional Constraints: Designated Senators and Supermajority Rules
6. The Breakdown of the Post-Authoritarian Party System
Conclusions
Bibliography