Inside Revolutionary Parties: Coalition-Building and Maintenance in Reformist Bolivia

Abstract

This article explores the coalitional success of mass-mobilizing, reformist parties once they achieve power. Why are some of these parties more successful than others at managing the potentially conflicting interests of their diverse social bases? We argue that organizational strategies adopted early on matter greatly. The nature of the party’s core constituency, together with the linkage strategies undertaken by party leaders in crafting a coalition of support, shapes a party’s ability to maintain that coalition over time. When coalitional partners are intensively rather than extensively integrated, they are more likely to compromise over policy disagreements rather than defect when defection becomes attractive. We develop this theory by comparing the evolution of two Bolivian parties: the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement and the Movement Toward Socialism. Against conventional explanations that are overly dependent upon structural factors, our argument stresses the impact of strategic choices in shaping a party’s ability to maintain its coalition.

Party-Base Linkages and Contestatory Mobilization in Bolivia’s El Alto: Subduing the Ciudad Rebelde

“…In ally relationships it is also more likely that there will be extensive and intensive linkages between base and party. Extensive linkages are “loose political ties based largely on an exchange of particularistic goods” including clientelist/selective side-payments and patronage payouts (Anria and Cyr, 2017: 1256, 1268). Intensive linkages include the integration of popular organizations into the formal bureaucratic party structure (Anria and Cyr, 2017).…”

“…Extensive linkages are “loose political ties based largely on an exchange of particularistic goods” including clientelist/selective side-payments and patronage payouts (Anria and Cyr, 2017: 1256, 1268). Intensive linkages include the integration of popular organizations into the formal bureaucratic party structure (Anria and Cyr, 2017). Where intensive linkages are built, popular organizations are more likely to become deeply invested in the party and to prove dependable allies.…”

Revolution from Below: Cleavage Displacement and the Collapse of Elite Politics in Bolivia

“…Initially founded as a multiclass, hegemonic party in the style of Mexico's PRI, it denied the existence of ethnic or indigenous cleavages and sought instead to mix the races and build a new, mestizo middle class. 29 The effect of that stance was to suppress Bolivians' ethnicities and rewrite their identities in class terms. Although the MNR did mobilize many (initially most) indigenous voters and channeled benefits to them, it did so as workers, not as indigenous people.…”

“…In sharp opposition to the parties discussed above, the MAS is a bottom-up political organization, formed initially in the rural Chapare region by militant coca growers and displaced miners. The MAS's origins-described with analytical insight by Anria, Anria and Cyr, and Van Cott and a huge wealth of empirical detail by Zuazo 62 -lie in rural, highly local social movements of self-government and agricultural producer groups. Bolivia's decentralization created over 300 spaces of local politics that had not previously existed in a highly centralized country where politics were by construction national.…”

Losers together? Grand coalitions in the EU member states

“…However, when a post-electoral coalition game is needed, the officeseeking approach also becomes crucial. Because other motives here apply: the wish to keep other parties out of government, the desire to stay in power, and not to go to new elections (Anria and Cyr, 2017). Or as Bäck et al (2011) pragmatically illustrated: 'ministerial portfolios are the most obvious payoffs for parties entering a governing coalition in parliamentary democracies'.…”