Political conflict and democratization patterns effects on party nationalization in Latin America

Abstract

Increasing the homogeneity of a party’s support across the nation -party nationalization- is a key concern to democracies. This paper tests the impact of country and intra-party variables in explaining party nationalization changes in Latin America. During the early 1980s and 1990s, several Latin American countries experienced transitions to democracy. Although there are similarities in this process, both the democratization pattern followed by the country and the prevalence of civil conflict decrease the nationalization of parties. In addition, the more fragmented the political party system and the more diverse the ethnic composition of the country the less nationalized the political parties. These results are robust even when controlling for time and other contextual effects.