The chapter, termed Legalized Politicization Era (2010–present), examines the role of law in securing a new political–economic equilibrium. In this era, the consequences of state capitalism, China’s economic turning point, and a legitimacy crisis in the Party-state’s rule, advanced the use of law in two directions: intensifying the presence of the regulatory state in the market on the one hand while shifting market governance powers directly to the CCP itself on the other. The chapter describes how in these developments the law has been assigned a meaningful and more explicit role in steering capital flows and structuring markets. It argues that taking notice of the two functions of law has become ever more relevant.

Launched as a leftist vehicle for the presidential candidacy of Rafael Correa, the Alianza País (AP) dominated Ecuador’s electoral politics for a decade. Electoral success, however, was never paired with a democratically minded project of party building. Wielding expansive executive powers as president from 2007 to 2017, Correa consolidated his personal control over the AP and set the country on a course of democratic backsliding. Horizontal coordination among elites and operatives inside the party was enforced through a top-down command structure. Decisions about messaging, candidates, and discipline were tightly controlled by Correa and his inner circle of hand-picked loyalists. Eschewing grassroots participation in favor of technocratic governance, Correa systematically undercut independent groups in civil society and used executive-branch resources to subsidize select groups and maintain electoral support. For the most part, the AP was consigned to the sidelines, purposefully diminished by its leader. While mobilizing effectively for elections, the AP failed to develop as a conduit for citizen participation and interest representation. Rather than acting as a democratizing agent of change, the AP evolved into a caudillista-style vehicle reminiscent of personalistic parties in the country’s past.

During Argentina’s 2001–02 crisis, new political groupings were created. Most of them were derived from preexisting parties and most failed to survive much beyond that juncture. The Republican Proposal (PRO) is one of the rare cases of successful party building. From a small group centered around an entrepreneur, it was built up with political newcomers from the business world and NGOs and with long-standing politicians – radicals, Peronists – from the traditional Right. Its success marked a break with the historical weakness of center-right parties in Argentina. However, due to the conditions of its emergence and the strategy carried out by its leaders, PRO is more rooted in some parts of the country than in others. In the City of Buenos Aires, its stronghold, and in certain other provinces, it behaves like a fully functioning political party, while in other districts it would be better defined as a diminished subtype, specifically an unrooted party. This chapter focuses on the PRO’s centralized horizontal coordination strategy and the impact of this strategy on the party’s uneven rootedness throughout the country. In this way, the case of the PRO helps elucidate the subnational variations of the theoretical model proposed in this volume.

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.

This chapter departs from the classic definition of parties and applies a novel theory that casts doubt on the validity of the minimalist definition using two Costa Rican cases. Discussion of horizontal and vertical mechanisms as applied to the National Liberation Party (PLN) and Citizens Action Party (PAC) reveals strong similarities in terms of party organizations and challenges for policy consistency at the local level combined with marked contrasts in their capacities to process collective demands. The main finding of this chapter is that the PLN and PAC, two of the most prominent parties in the country, are quite different one from another. Regardless of their remarkable differences, both parties share the feature of having evolving constituencies, though their respective constituencies are evolving in opposite directions. The PLN fits the classic definition of a party with a well-organized and fully developed constituency suffering from decreasing membership over the last two decades. The PAC, on the other hand, does not have a sufficiently developed constituency to be considered a fully functioning party. The PAC does, however, have activists and is developing its membership.

Even before arriving in Hong Kong from Moscow, Ho Chi Minh had prior experience in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, having set up there in November 1924 (one year after Tan Malaka). The period coincides with the First United Front between Kuomintang government under Sun Yat-sen and the communists and with Soviet advisors moving in. Drawing in part upon materials supplied by French agents and Comintern records, this chapter explains how Ho Chi Minh bonded with a core group of confidants and comrades in Guangzhou, including youth trainees, many of whom would return to center stage in communist party organization in Hong Kong as well as in future actions. However, he was obliged to move this group away from anarchist and other ideologies in the interest of setting down a secretive Leninist-style cell system. Besides teaching and writing, Ho Chi Minh devoted much time to propagandizing among Vietnamese youth. The chapter also identifies the role of one Vietnamese double agent in brokering his local marriage, shortlived as it was, owing to the collapse of the united front and major repression of the Left.

What role do popular sector associations play in party building in contemporary Latin America? While corporatist ties to hierarchically organized labor and peasant associations have diminished, a bevy of “dissident” popular sector organizations have emerged, such as neighborhood associations, indigenous movements, and informal sector associations. These organizations have played contrasting roles in party building for new left-wing parties such as Brazil’s PT, Bolivia’s MAS, Mexico’s PRD, Uruguay’s FA, and Venezuela’s AD, varying from durable and programmatic neo-corporatism to contingent patronage ties. Based on these cases, this chapter inductively identifies founding party traits that shape linkage type. Parties that established formal rules for incorporating organizational allies in party leadership and included a major segment of the labor movement in their founding coalition were most successful at institutionalizing spaces for allied organizations’ programmatic influence. This argument is tested through a subnational analysis of Mexican state governments under the PRD.