Article [Los sistemas de partidos en los países andinos, 1980-2005: Reformismo institucional, autoritarismos competitivos y los desafíos actuales]

Here I study the party systems in the Andean countries in the last twenty-five years. Facing the challenges of the exhaustion of the statist national-popular development model, these countries followed a path of intense institutional reform, opening and democratizing the political systems. In the middle of these attempts, the party system collapsed in Peru and Venezuela, while in Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador, the party systems manage to evolve despite significant crisis. The difference between the two paths is a significant one: the collapse of the party systems led to the establishment of competitive authoritarian regimes, while the gradual opening of the political system allowed the emergence of new forces and the presence of sectors previously excluded or subordinated under pluralistic schemes. In recent years, the exhaustion of market reforms and an adverse international environment places the region again in a new critical juncture, where the main options seem to be to continue through a path of more reforms and opening of the political system, which may lead to governability crisis, or attempt to organize and institutionalize the disordered opening produced in recent years.