democratic consolidation in different countries. ‘Institutionalization’ was
deemed to be found when:
●the rules governing party competition are commonly observed, widely
understood and confidently anticipated;
●there is stability in the number of parties competing for office;
●parties are strongly rooted in society, affecting political preferences,
attracting stable electoral support and demonstrating continuity in ideo-
logical terms;
●political élites recognize the legitimacy of electoral competition as the
route to office;
●party organizations exist independently of powerful leaders, with well-
resourced nation-wide organizations and well established internal proce-
dures for recruitment to party offices.
The more party systems are characterized by these qualities the more institu-
tionalized they are. The fewer the qualities the more ‘inchoate’ the system is.
Latin American democratization supports the hypothesis that an institu-
tionalized system encourages moderation, coalition building and compro-
mise, while ‘inchoate’ systems pose risks for democracy of unpredictability,
complicated government, weak legislatures, personalism and difficulty in
establishing legitimacy. Institutionalized party systems mean party organiz-
ers have a vested interest in party competition and party discipline makes
government effective. Citizens support parties rather than demagogues.
Interests are pursued through elections as policies and programmes are
compared and assessed. Conflicts are more easily mediated and managed.
Political competition is restricted to democratic processes and political
accountability is effective. Participation can be channelled and consent
expressed (Mainwaring and Scully, 1995).
While an institutionalized party system may not be a sufficient condition
for the consolidation of democracy, it would seem to be a necessary one.
However, in the ‘third wave’ of democracy the party systems in poorer
countries tend to be inchoate. Consequently their democracies are charac-
terized by personalism, weak accountability, electoral volatility, uncertainty
and, most significant for democratic consolidation, low legitimacy con-
ferred on parties and party systems (Mainwaring, 1998). Extending the
analysis of the effects of party system institutionalization to Africa, Kuenzi
and Lambright found wide variation in the level of institutionalization, but
with the majority of countries falling into the ‘inchoate’ category. They also
found evidence of a virtuous circle: an institutionalized party system is
Political Parties and Party Systems 149