Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T22:00:32.831Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Party Organization Still Matters: The Workers’ Party in Northeastern Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Brandon Van Dyck
Brandon Van Dyck*
Affiliation:
Government and Law at Lafayette College. vandyckb@lafayette.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Does party organization still matter? Much of the party literature suggests that politicians, who can use substitutes like mass media to win votes, lack incentives to invest in party organization. Yet it remains an electoral asset, especially at lower levels of government. Evidence from Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) indicates that party elites invest in organization when they prioritize lower-level elections and that this investment delivers electoral returns. In the mid-2000s, the PT strengthened its support across levels of government in the conservative, clientelistic Northeast. Drawing from underutilized data on party offices, this article shows that organizational expansion contributed substantially to the PT’s electoral advances in the Northeast. While President Lula da Silva’s (PT) 2006 electoral spike in the Northeast resulted from expanded conditional cash transfers, the PT’s improvement at lower levels followed from top-down organization building. The PT national leadership deliberately expanded the party’s local infrastructure to deliver electoral gains.

Type
Research
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , Summer 2014 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Medina, Abal, Manuel, Juan. 1998. Partido Frente Grande: análisis de una experiencia inconclusa. América Latina Hoy 20: 101–10.Google Scholar
Ames, Barry. 1994. The Reverse Coattails Effect: Local Party Organization in the 1989 Brazilian Presidential Election. American Political Science Review 88, 1: 95–111.Google Scholar
Borges, André. 2011. The Swan Song of Political Bosses: Vertical Competition in Brazilian Federalism. Latin American Research Review 46, 3: 21–45.Google Scholar
Boudon, Henry Lawrence. 2001. Colombia's M-19 Democratic Alliance: a Case Study in New Party Self-Destruction. Latin American Perspectives 116, 28: 73–92.Google Scholar
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Household data. www.ibge.gov.br/home. Accessed Winter 2012.Google Scholar
Cyr, Jennifer. 2012. From Collapse to Comeback? Explaining the Fates of Political Parties in Latin America. Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Dornbusch, Rudiger, and Edwards, Sebastian, eds. 1991. The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Leon. 1980. Political Parties in Western Democracies. 2nd edition. New Brunswick: Transaction.Google Scholar
Figueiredo, Miguel de, and Daniel Hidalgo, F.. 2009. Does Targeted Redistribution Create Partisans? Evidence from Brazil. Paper presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, April 2–4.Google Scholar
Fried, B. J. 2012. Distributive Politics and Conditional Cash Transfers: the Case of Brazil's. Bolsa Família. World Development 40, 5: 1042–53.Google Scholar
Hale, Henry. 2006. Why Not Parties in Russia? Democracy, Federalism, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hunter, Wendy. 2010. The Transformation of the Workers' Party in Brazil, 1989–2009. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hunter, Wendy, and Power, Timothy J.. 2007. Rewarding Lula: Executive Power, Social Power, and the Brazilian Elections of 2006. Latin American Politics and Society 49, 1 (Spring): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA). n.d. Household data. www.ipeadata.gov.br. Accessed Winter 2012.Google Scholar
Katz, Richard. 1990. Party as Linkage: a Vestigial Function. European Journal of Political Research 18: 143–61.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret. 1992. The Workers' Party and Democratization in Brazil. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Tomz, Michael, and Wittenberg, Jason. 2000. Making the Most of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation. American Journal of Political Science 44, 2: 341–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitschelt, Herbert, and Wilkinson, Scott, eds. 2007. Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landi, Oscar. 1995. Outsiders, nuevos caudillos y media politics. In Partidos y clase política en América Latina en los 90, ed. Perelli, Carina, Picado, Sonia, and Zovatto, Daniel. San José, Costa Rica: IIDH. 205–17.Google Scholar
Levitsky, Steven. 2003. Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitsky, Steven, and Cameron, Maxwell. 2003. Democracy without Parties? Political Parties and Regime Change in Fujimori's Peru. Latin American Politics and Society 45, 3 (Fall): 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magaloni, Beatriz, Díaz-Cayeros, Alberto, and Estévez, Federico. 2007. Clientelism and Portfolio Diversification: a Model of Electoral Investment with Applications to Mexico. In Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007. 182–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott. 1999. Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Meneguello, Rachel. 1989. PT, a formação de um partido. São Paulo: Paz e Terra.Google Scholar
Montero, Alfred P. 2010. No Country for Leftists? Clientelist Continuity and the 2006 Vote in the Brazilian Northeast. Journal of Politics in Latin America 2, 2: 113–53.Google Scholar
Montero, Alfred P. 2012a. The New Boss Same as the Old Boss? Incumbency and the Decline of Conservative Rule in the Brazilian Northeast. Paper presented at the 2011 American Political Science Association meeting, Seattle, August 31–September 4.Google Scholar
Montero, Alfred P. 2012b. A Reversal of Political Fortune: the Transitional Dynamics of Conservative Rule in the Brazilian Northeast. Latin American Politics and Society 54, 1 (Spring): 1–36.Google Scholar
Montero, Alfred P. 2012c. Political scientist. Online conversation. February 9.Google Scholar
Nicolau, Jairo. n.d. Dados eleitorais do Brasil, 1982–2006. Website. http://jaironicolau.iesp.uerj.br/banco2004.html. Accessed Winter 2012.Google Scholar
Panebianco, Angelo. 1988. Political Parties: Organization and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Plumb, David. 1998. El Partido por la Democracia: the Birth of Chile's Postmaterialist Catch-All Left. Party Politics 4, 1: 93–106.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert. 1995. Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy 6, 1: 65–78.Google Scholar
Ribeiro, Pedro Floriano. 2010. Dos sindicatos ao governo: a organização nacional do PT de 1980 a 2005. São Paulo: EdUFSCar/FAPESP.Google Scholar
Ribeiro, Pedro Floriano. 2012. Political scientist. Online conversation. April 22.Google Scholar
Samuels, David. 2006. Sources of Mass Partisanship in Brazil. Latin American Politics and Society 48, 2 (Summer): 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarrow, Susan. 1996. Parties and Their Members: Organizing for Victory in Britain and Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shefter, Martin. 1994. Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Singer, André. 2009. Raízes sociais e ideológicas do lulismo. Novos Estudos–CEBRAP 85: 83–102.Google Scholar
Stokes, Susan. 2005. Perverse Accountability: a Formal Model of Machine Politics with Evidence from Argentina. American Political Science Review 99, 3: 315–25.Google Scholar
Terron, Sonia, and Soares, Gláucio. 2010. As bases eleitorais de Lula e do Pt: do distanciamento ao divórcio. Opinião Pública 16, 2: 310–37.Google Scholar
Van Dyck, Brandon. 2014. The Paradox of Adversity: New Left Party Survival and Collapse in Latin America. Ph.D. diss., Harvard University.Google Scholar
Van Dyck, Brandon, and Montero, Alfred P.. Forthcoming. Eroding the Clientelist Monopoly: the Subnational Left Turn and Conservative Rule in Northeastern Brazil. Latin American Research Review.Google Scholar
Ware, Allan. 1992. Activist-Leader Relations and the Structure of Political Parties: Exchange Models and Vote-Seeking Behaviour in Parties. British Journal of Political Science 22, 1: 71–92.Google Scholar
Zarazaga, Rodrigo. 2011. Vote-Buying and Asymmetric Information: a Model with Applications to Argentina. Paper presented at 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, September 2.Google Scholar
Zucco, Cesar. 2008. The President's New Constituency: Lula and the Pragmatic Vote in Brazil's 2006 Presidential Elections. Journal of Latin American Studies 40: 29–49.Google Scholar
Zucco, Cesar. 2013. When Pay Outs Pay off: Conditional Cash Transfers and Voting Behavior in Brazil 2002–2010. American Journal of Political Science 57, 4 (October): 810–22.Google Scholar
Zucco, Cesar. n.d. Poor Voters vs. Poor Places: Persisting Patterns and Recent Changes in Brazilian Electoral Patterns. Unpublished ms. http://fas-polisci.rutgers.edu/zucco. Accessed Winter 2012.Google Scholar
Zucco, Cesar, and Samuels, David. Forthcoming. Crafting Mass Partisanship at the Grassroots, from the Top down. British Journal of Political Science.Google Scholar
Zucco, Cesar, and Samuels, David. n.d. The Roots of Petismo in Brazil, 1989–2010. Unpublished mss. http://fas-polisci.rutgers.edu/zucco. Accessed Winter 2012.Google Scholar