In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America
  • Katrina Burgess
Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America. By Steve Levitsky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 290. Tables. Notes. References. Index. $70.00 cloth; $25.00 paper.

This book provides a fascinating analysis of Argentina's Justicialist (Peronist) Party (PJ), one of Latin America's most important yet poorly understood political parties. Levitsky achieves two important objectives in his study. First, he offers a rare look into the inner workings of the PJ and how it has survived for more than half a century despite proscription, repression, electoral failure, and radical policy shifts by Peronist governments. Second, he uses the PJ case to make a broader theoretical argument about the conditions under which labor-based parties are likely to adapt successfully to major changes in their external environments. Although the book is occasionally repetitive, Levitsky presents his arguments very clearly and complements them with examples and quotes that lend richness to his scholarly analysis.

As Levitsky demonstrates in his conclusion, the PJ responded more effectively than other labor-based parties in Latin America to the programmatic and coalitional challenges posed by economic globalization and evolving class structures in the 1980s and 1990s. Levitsky attributes the PJ's success to two features of party organization: [End Page 540] strategic flexibility and social rootedness. Strategic flexibility, he argues, is a function of "(1) leadership renovation, or the ease with which old-guard leaders may be removed and reformers may rise up through the ranks of the party hierarchy; (2) leadership autonomy, or the room for maneuver available to party leaders; and (3) structural pliability, or the ease with which the party's organizational structure can be modified in response to environmental changes" (p. 19). Social rootedness derives from stable linkages with a mass base that identifies strongly with the party. Challenging much of the literature on party organization, Levitsky argues that these two features can vary independently of one another. What distinguishes the PJ from many of its counterparts and explains its rapid adaptation to change is "a party structure that is mass-based but weakly institutionalized" (p. 3).

Levitsky's theoretical argument and comparative analysis are compelling and make an important contribution to our understanding of party politics. But the book is at its best when explaining the inner workings of the PJ. After tracing the party's origins as a populist party with weakly routinized organization and strong ties to organized labor, Levitsky provides an intriguing account of the party's transformation in the 1980s and 1990s. This transformation occurred in two related areas: first, a change of leadership from the old guard (Ortodoxos) to a group of reformists (Renovadores) seeking to retool the party's image, structure, and strategy in response to changing conditions; and secondly, a shift in the nature of the party's linkages with its mass base. He uses survey data, extensive interviews, and local news reports to document these changes.

The Renovadores emerged in response to the PJ's devastating electoral defeat in 1983. Convinced that the Ortodoxos were fatally out of touch with Argentina's new realities, the Renovadores set out to broaden the party's electoral appeal, democratize its internal mechanisms of leadership selection, and strengthen its territorial structure. Levitsky explains how they took advantage of the party's weak formal rules and decentralized power structures to win control of the national party leadership in 1987. Their triumph set the stage for the PJ's electoral and programmatic adaptation in the 1990s by prompting a shift to catch-all campaign strategies to attract independent and middle-class voters, and weakening the power of party-affiliated unions to block policies that did not conform to traditional Peronism.

Remarkably, both kinds of adaptation came with a minimal loss of support by the party's mass base. Levitsky attributes this outcome to "a profound transformation of [the party's] base-level linkages, as an increasing number of party activists abandoned traditional forms of base-level organization in favor of material exchange-based relationships" (p. 203). Newly flush with state resources, Peronist activists built local machines that exchanged material benefits for votes. These machines proved...

pdf

Share