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External Appeal, Internal Dominance: How Party Leaders Contribute to Successful Party Building

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2018

Brandon Van Dyck
Brandon Van Dyck*
Affiliation:
Assistant professor in the Department of Government and Law at Lafayette College
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

Many successful political parties depend for their initial popularity and cohesion, and even for their long-term brand strength, on a leader. Nevertheless, literature on successful party building downplays the role of leaders. Thus, the question, what type of leader is good for party building?, remains undertheorized. This article presents and provides initial evidence for a leadership-centered theory of successful party building. It argues that externally appealing, internally dominant leaders facilitate party building by lifting new parties to electoral prominence and helping to prevent debilitating schisms. The article provides evidence for this argument through a most similar cases comparison of three new left parties in Latin America: two that took root (Brazil’s Workers’ Party, Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution), and one that collapsed (Peru’s United Left).

Keywords

Political partiesleadershiptheory constructionLatin America
Type
Research
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 University of Miami 

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