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#108 "Parties of the People" in Latin America: A Theoretical Revision and Survey of Recent Trends

By Torcuato S. Di Tella

"Parties of the people" are defined as those that are based on theorganiz ational efforts and active support of the mass of the lower strata, including workers, peasants, and the lower middle classes. They can be expected to perform a particularly important role in any possible politics of reform in Latin America, although they are not the only ones: military regimes of the Peruvian type, or upper-middle-class-centered regimes such as those of the Christian Democrats, can also be reform-oriented, but they may be considered as belonging in a different category due to the type of support they enjoy.

Four subtypes of "parties of the people" are proposed: (a) syndicalist workers' parties ("labor"), (b) middle-class populist parties ("apristas"), (c) social revolutionary parties ("fidelismo"), and (d) populist workers' parties ("peronismo"). Their main traits are analyzed in terms of the organizational requirements of mass movements having roots among the lower strata of the population, movements to which some strategic upper strata elites can in some cases be added, forming a coalition. Political behavior of these parties, and their impact on the national scene, should be studied in connection with their organizational traits and type of social class support, rather than in terms of their ideology.

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