institutionalized party systems helping to draw a clear line between
the left and the right.^23 Populism, personalism, and clientelism obscured
partisan and ideological divisions. The effects of this historical legacy
were compounded by the conditions that prevailed in the late 1970s
and 1980s, when democracy was re-established. Indeed, the new democ-
racies were less triumphant than “ushered in...by the effects of
economic crisis on incumbent authoritarian regimes.”^24 For more
than a decade, democratization was “associated with increased poverty,
economic inequality, and great declines in both relative and absolute
standards of living.”^25 In this harsh context, trade unions, social
movements, and even individual participation in politics declined.^26
Political parties were plagued by their difficulty in meeting the high
expectations raised by democracy and by their frequent turn toward
the neoliberal policies they had denounced to get elected.^27 To many
citizens of Latin America, democracy appeared more a personal contest
among like-minded politicians than an opportunity to debate con-
tending views about justice.^28
With the major exception of Uruguay, a country which inherited
from its past an institutionalized party system, the political orienta-
tions of the Latin American public thus seemed to be shaped in an
unconventional fashion. To put this conclusion in perspective, however,
(^23) Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens,
Capitalist Development and Democracy, University of Chicago Press, 1992,
24 p. 293.
Ibid., p. 216; Ruth Berins Collier,Paths toward Democracy: The Working
Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America, Cambridge University
25 Press, 1999, pp. 13, 187, and 197.
Marcus J. Kurtz, “The Dilemmas of Democracy in the Open Economy: Lessons
from Latin America,”World Politics, vol. 56, no. 2, January 2004, 262–302,
26 p. 280.
Ibid., p. 264; Kurt Weyland, “Neoliberalism and Democracy in Latin America:
A Mixed Record,”Latin American Politics and Society, vol. 46, no. 1, Spring
27 2004, 135–57.
Ibid., p. 148; Susan Stokes,Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by
28 Surprise in Latin America, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Frances Hagopian, “Democracy and Political Representation in Latin America:
Pause, Reorganization, or Decline?,” in Felipe Agu ̈ero and Jeffrey Stark (eds.),
Fault Lines of Democracy in Post-Transition Latin America, Miami, North-
South Center Press at the University of Miami, 1998, pp. 112–13; Jorge
I. Domı ́nguez, “Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America:
Taking Stock of the 1990s,” in Jorge I. Domı ́nguez and Michael Shifter (eds.),
Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America, second edition,
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, pp. 358–66.
52 Left and Right in Global Politics