Uruguay: A Counterexample of Malaise in Representation: A Propitious Transformation of the Old Party Democracy

STIpolicy conventions in Uruguay. An analysis of political party platforms 2004–2019

“…However, the legitimacy in this case is mostly based on the capacities of private firms and private entrepreneurs to generate welfare for the whole society. This general position is in line with the historical basis of this party (Alcántara & Luna, 2004; Lanzaro & Piñeiro, 2017), and, coherently, is associated with a positive agenda of the promotion of market rules to facilitate action by firms.…”

“…From the nineteenth century onward, the Nacional and Colorado parties have configured broad vote‐taking schemes that represent wide segments of the electorate. With the founding of the left‐wing coalition Frente Amplio in 1971, three large parties began competing (Lanzaro & Piñeiro, 2017).…”

“…Moreover, this source allows analyzing the parties' semantics, usually expressed by the so-called "ideological labels". In particular, the discussion about the role of the state and the markets has been a recurrent label, which differentiates the ideological orientation in the programmatic agenda of political parties in Latin America as a whole (Zechmeister, 2010) and, specifically, in Uruguay (Lanzaro & Piñeiro, 2017).…”

“…schemes that represent wide segments of the electorate. With the founding of the left-wing coalition Frente Amplio in 1971, three large parties began competing (Lanzaro & Piñeiro, 2017).…”

“…These two traditional parties were born with the beginning of the independence of the country and their ideological matrix has evolved to the right-wing in the last decades. Actually, since 1985 the governments of the Partido Nacional (1990Nacional ( -1994 and Colorado (1985Colorado ( -19891994-1999and 2000 functioned as governmental coalitions where these parties played the main roles, promoting a pro-market liberalizing agenda, based on the privatization of state-owned firms and reducing labor regulations (Lanzaro & Piñeiro, 2017). Conversely, the Frente Amplio evolved from the more left-wing radical postulates to a social democratic agenda, strongly based on the role of the state as welfare provider and promoting redistributive policies (Buquet & Piñeiro, 2014;Lanzaro & Piñeiro, 2017).…”