The Emergence and Performance of Indigenous Peoples’ Parties in South America

Abstract

One of the most significant and unexpected developments in Latin America during the past 10 years is the emergence of parties organized around indigenous identity. The authors use subnational data from six South American countries (Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela) to examine the factors responsible for the variation in the emergence and performance of indigenous peoples’ political parties in the region. Using a pooled cross-sectional twin snapshot analysis, the authors find that although indigenous party formation is the result of favorable institutional, demographic, and political conditions, such as permissive electoral rules, optimal indigenous population size, and a regional diffusion effect with respect to indigenous activism, enhanced electoral performance of these parties is determined by structural and political conditions, including higher rates of poverty and less salient class-based identities, in addition to the favorable conditions mentioned above.

The politicization of indigenous identities in Peru

“…Contrary to previous arguments (Yashar, 1998), yet in keeping with the findings from other Latin American countries (Madrid, 2005b;Rice and Van Cott, 2006;Birnir and Van Cott, 2007 (García and Lucero, 2004), and to economic liberalization, which weakened the ties between parties and class identities (Rice and Van Cott, 2006 These findings suggest that the missing element to the formation of an indigenous cleavage in Peruvian politics has been the absence of political identities, which were not created until 2001 with the campaign of Alejandro Toledo. As the results of this study confirm the findings of previous research demonstrating the importance of political actors to the formation of political identities cross-nationally (Torcal and Mainwaring, 2003;Evans, 2000: 410-411;Evans, Heath, and Clive, 1999;Enyedi, 2005;Bartolini and Mair, 1990), the actions of parties in creating these political identities appear paramount to explaining the presence or (apparent) absence of indigenous political representation, not just in Peru, but in every other case of ethnic political competition.…”

“…While the indigenous politics literature emphasizes the cultural and organizational components of indigenous cleavages (Van Cott, 2005;Rice and Van Cott, 2006; on the three components of cleavages, see Bartolini and Mair, 1990: 213-20), we argue that the sociological component is the most important to explain the emergence of indigenous political representation, not just in Peru, but for cases like Bolivia and Ecuador as well. Previous research has argued that the incorporation of indigenous issues in Bolivia and Ecuador was achieved because indigenous voters in these countries are culturally distinct from the rest of the population and indigenous movements have launched indigenous political parties (Van Cott, 2005).…”

“…Other literature has argued that higher district magnitudes increase the likelihood of indigenous party success (Van Cott, 2003;Rice and Van Cott, 2006; see also Horowitz, 1985). Finally, Van Cott (2003) has also argued that other institutional barriers-like difficulties in gaining ballot access and centralized governmenthamper indigenous representation.…”

“…A long line of research suggests that permissive electoral systems (as well as other institutions) allow ethnic parties to emerge (see, for instance, Horowitz, 1985;Van Cott, 2003;Rice and Van Cott, 2006), while others stress that the size of the ethnic group matters as well (Posner, 2004;Madrid, 2005b).…”

Tendencias electorales de los grupos indígenas en Chile

“…Otra respuesta es la que elaboran Rice y Lee Van Cott (2006). Para las autoras, el auge de los partidos indígenas en América Latina se explica por diseños institucionales permisivos para la emergencia de estos partidos, reglas electorales que incluyen una alta magnitud de distrito y efectos de difusión o contagio (también denominado "efecto demostración") entre los países, al igual que por condiciones estructurales.…”