This chapter empirically tests the theory about the micro-foundations of electoral support for new parties. It analyzes how individual voters respond to appeals based on different mobilization strategies in discrete choice experiments conducted in Bolivia and Ecuador. These experiments present voters with campaign posters that closely resemble real-world posters; the results illustrate that organizational endorsements are very effective at mobilizing electoral support, especially for new parties. Such endorsements are also effective across several different types of organizations and can sway organization members as well as people in their wider social networks. Furthermore, endorsements can influence voters even when they provide no direct information about policy platforms; unlike organization members, sympathetic nonmembers do not follow the endorsements. It also shows that endorsements can even overcome ethnic cleavages and foster electoral support when candidates’ policy positions are at odds with voters’ preferences.

This chapter explores the adoption of mobilization strategies in the case of the MAS in Bolivia. Drawing on extensive interviews with representatives of the party and societal organizations, as well as archival materials and ethnographic work in local organizations, it shows how the shared experience of moments of solidarity between the party proto-leaders and organizational allies during the party’s founding moments determined whether party–organization ties would later become institutionalized by adopting routinized rules and mechanisms that governed how candidates would be selected and factional disagreements would be settled. As it documents across different organizational allies of the party, where the party’s tie with an organization became institutionalized, these rules and mechanisms ensured that the party could rely on organizationally mediated strategies.

This chapter explores the resulting party identification in the three cases. Drawing on original and existing survey data, it shows that membership in organizations that regularly support a new party is strongly associated with whether a voter develops an attachment to the party. Further analysis of the poster experiments suggests that the frequency of attending organization meetings is associated with the robustness of the attachment. Additional analyses of the natural experiment reveal that repeated organizational expressions of support over multiple years help new parties gain new followers. It then compares and contrasts this organizationally mediated path to partisanship (organizational cultivation), which can account for the development of robust partisan attachments to the MAS and MORENA, with an alternative path to partisanship that can yield party identification even for parties without organically linked organizational allies. In the case of Alianza PAIS, which could not rely on organizational cultivation through organically linked organizations, partisan attachments have developed in direct response to voters’ evaluations of the party’s performance.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this book, the erosion of democracy has become pervasive. Countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa have seen the rise of executives with hegemonic aspirations. The threat of antisystemic populist outsiders has even spread to developed democracies in Europe and North America. In this chapter, I assess the theory outlined in the book in some of these cases. Doing so allows me to evaluate if, when, and how does the argument of this book work outside Colombia and Venezuela.

Creating new parties is hard. It requires the development of permanent or at least semipermanent mechanisms of (1) horizontal coordination and (2) vertical interest aggregation. In Latin America, new “electoral vehicles” – organizations that do not meet one or more of the above criteria – are everywhere. Few of these electoral vehicles become political parties in the full sense of the term This chapter offers an account of one of Latin America’s rare party-building successes – the Bolivian MAS (Movement toward Socialism). It explains an under-theorized path to party-building, via autonomous social movements, and shows how movements can shape party organizational models. The analysis reveals that the MAS meets the two criteria for successful party building but retains strikingly fluid organizational attributes. In the absence of strong national and local party structures that can serve as “transmission belts,” it accomplishes horizontal coordination and vertical aggregation through predominantly informal channels, rather than through party structures. The chapter describes these informal channels and discusses their effects on broader issues related to democratic representation, responsiveness, and accountability.