Party Systems and Elections in Latin America Open Access

Ronald McDonald has produced a useful overview of political parties in Latin America. The countries covered in the study are classified according to types of electoral and political party systems ranging from multi-party loose to single-party dominant systems. Spelled out in the introductory and concluding chapters are the concepts used today by political scientists in their study of comparative politics and political development. The middle chapters sketch the histories of the political parties and analyze election data in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay, and Venezuela. As the author makes clear there is great diversity, not only in the types of parties in, but also in the relevance of parties to the overall political systems of the thirteen countries covered.