Parties and Party Systems in Latin America: Perspectives from an Expert Survey 2009

Abstract

This research note presents a classification of Latin American parties and party systems, according to mainstream ideological currents and country-specific competitive patterns. This classification is based on a preliminary analysis of the results of an expert survey on Latin American party systems that was carried out from 2007 to 2009. We factor-analyze parties' positions on a wide set of issues and estimate three (talent) ideological dimensions: statism, conservatism (moral, religious, nationalist), and attitudes towards democracy. On the basis of these three ideological dimensions we perform a cluster analysis and classify the political parties of the region in ten "ideological families".