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).

The adoption of proportional representation in Western Europe has been portrayed as either a defensive or an offensive competition strategy used by established parties to deal with the rise of new parties under majoritarian electoral rules. Neither explanation accounts for PR reform in other regions of the world, where the change took place in the absence of increased party competition. Analyzing the history of electoral reform in Latin America, this article argues that in a context of limited party competition, the initial adoption of PR was part of a strategy of controlled political liberalization promoted by authoritarian rulers. Subdividing this general reasoning, the article shows that PR reform followed different paths depending on the nature of the authoritarian regime and the events that called into question the existing majoritarian electoral system. This argument is supported with a comparative historical analysis of cases within and across each route to reform.

Studies of the electoral effects of cash transfer programs in Latin America have largely treated the poor as a unitary group. This study considers how the effects of social benefits vary across groups among the targeted poor by exploring the consequences of race for the electoral effects of Brazil’s Bolsa Família program. A matching analysis of LAPOP survey data shows that race shapes baseline propensities to participate in elections and to support the incumbent PT at the polls; these tendencies then shape the mechanisms through which cash transfers boost support for the incumbent. Benefits mobilize Afro-Brazilians to participate but have little effect on their vote choice. By contrast, benefits have little effect on whites’ participation but persuade them to support the PT over the opposition. This article deepens understanding of how social benefits affect the electoral behavior of recipients and highlights how race shapes political behavior among the poor.

What explains mayors’ collaboration with nongovernmental organizations in delivering public goods and services? While some successful collaborations are established, in other cases the call for NGOs to coordinate with governments goes unheeded. Collaboration minimizes the duplication of effort, maximizes information sharing, and builds capacity. Given the scholarly consensus on the importance of collaboration, we know little about it at local levels, where it may matter most. This article focuses on Bolivia, a country with deep decentralization reforms and an active NGO sector. It utilizes survey data on mayors from 2007 to provide insight into the variation in NGO–local government collaboration across a country. It argues that political context is important: mayoral turnover, greater community group engagement, and more municipal resources deter collaboration. The findings illustrate the strategic interplay between state and nonstate actors and explain the uneven geographies of partnerships in governance.

There is a growing scholarly consensus that Latin American regionalism has entered a new phase. For some observers, the increasing complexity of regional cooperation initiatives renders collective action ineffective. For others, the creation of new schemes signals a “posthegemonic” moment that has opened a space for collaboration on social issues. Both camps attribute this shift to the absence of the United States and the presence of left-leaning governments. By contrast, this study demonstrates that this agenda is not new, nor has the United States impeded similar initiatives in the past. In fact, the United States was instrumental in expanding regional cooperation on social issues in the early twentieth century. Instead, this article argues that agenda shifts are best explained by an evolving consensus about the role of the state. The “new agenda” is in line with historical attempts by governments to use regionalism to bolster their own domestic reforms.

This article investigates whether the overlapping of intergovernmental regional organizations in Latin America with regard to membership and mandate is harmful or beneficial to regional cooperation (with a special focus on mediation in domestic and international conflicts). The article begins by systematizing the discussion about the possible risks and potential benefits of overlapping regional organizations, and then outlines hypotheses that can be tested in concrete episodes of overlap of action. The article then analyzes nine episodes in which an overlap of action has occurred between two Latin American organizations, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). The results of the study are mixed. However, the effects of overlapping seem to be much less problematic than a large body of literature generally assumes.