Party Systems in Latin America Essay

The Institutional Revoluntionary Party of Mexico, is by far the most popular political party and has held the office on and off for five

The political system of America is very different from other developed and developing democracies. Most notable is the increased power bestowed on the upper house of the parliament, the extensive power held by the Supreme Court and the dominance demonstrated by only two major parties. In the United States, third parties have the least influence on the world’s most developed democracy’s political structure. In this democracy, people are under the US Constitution of the governmental system as well as state government and other units of local government. Local government entails counties, districts and municipalities. The evolution of the American political party system has come a long way; with Hamilton and Jefferson being regarded as the founder fathers of the modern party system. These were heads of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist groups in the 18th century of American politics. Ever since, the country has maintained a party system that has two main parties that are relatively stable. These are Democrats and Republicans and have remained in contest for election every time since the 1860 presidential elections. Initially, the Republican Party was the dominant party but the Democrats later gained dominance. However, the two parties became closely competitive and neither of them has been notably dominant since the 1970s (O'Connor & Sabato, n.d).

Q6. During the time, many Latin American countries were slowly trying to find their way to a democracy. A democracy is a government by the people. A democratic way of life includes practice such as free elections, citizen participation, majority rule, minority rights, and a constitutional government. Many nations would begin to follow the democratic practices as well as beginning to accept their own democratic forms of government; however, to achieve a democratic government it would take years. The struggle for democracy in other nations would occur well beyond the 21st century. DUring this time, countless nations were breaking free from authoritarian rule and turning to democracies instead. More specifically, it would spread widely throughout

Interactions between the president and Congress seem to take two dominant forms. The first being the negative power of the presidential veto. Less overt, and inherently more complex, are the positive powers of presidential persuasion. These types of power represent distinct patterns in presidential interaction with Congress, and their occurrences likely represent different bargaining situations between branches.

Every country differs in their preference of political system to govern their countries. For democratic countries, two possible choices of governing are the presidential system and the parliamentary system. Since both the presidential and the parliamentary systems have their own strengths and weaknesses, many scholars have examined these two forms of government, and debate on which political system is more successful in governance. In this paper, I will first provide a detailed analysis of both the parliamentary and the presidential system. I will also evaluate each system’s strengths and weaknesses, addressing any differences as well as any commonalities. Finally, I will conclude by using historical examples to analyze and support the

Models for post-revolutionary Latin American government are born of the complex economic and social realities of 17th and 18th century Europe. From the momentum of the Enlightenment came major political rebellions of the elite class against entrenched national monarchies and systems of power. Within this time period of elitist revolt and intensive political restructuring, the fundamental basis for both liberal and conservative ideology was driven deep into Latin American soil. However, as neither ideology sought to fulfill or even recognize the needs or rights of mestizo people under government rule, the initial liberal doctrine pervading Latin American nations perpetuated

Theodore Roosevelt defined the start of the modern presidency, and ever since the American public’s attitude toward their government has shifted. Polarization and divided government have become the new norms of government, especially since the Eisenhower administration, as well as the emergence of a presidential paradox. The paradox is as follows: Americans always complain about the invasion of the government in their lives, while demanding a powerful and ambitious leader that can solve the nations problems. Americans inherently put their political trust in the president over all other divisions of the government, therefore forcing an executive branch that has more power than the others. As for polarization, bipartisanship has essentially disappeared from Congress, making it virtually impossible to get legislation passed. In this new era of politics, executive orders are needed for presidents to get anything done.

(Telesur – Who’s Who in Chile’s General Election) Sebastian Piñera is currently leading the election with the majority right side backing him up. He served as President from 2010 to 2014 and has been accused of a few “corrupt” allegations in the past, but they clearly haven’t affected his current success up until now. He’s passionate about crime and drug trafficking in the country. He wants to overhaul Bachelet’s tax reform. He has stated that he will cut unnecessary government spending as a way to pay for his proposals. He wants to give new life to Chile’s economy. Even due to his current success and the support from many different parties including the Independent Regionalist Party and the Independent Democratic Union, there are predictions that he won’t even be able to gain 50% of the vote needed in the general election. This might be caused by his allegations haunting him after all. (Telesur – Who’s Who in Chile’s General Election) Alejandro Guillier, who is very left-wing, is the second most popular candidate in this year’s election. He was elected into the Senate in 2013 and he was a former news anchor in Chile. He is already a familiar face in Chile which is comforting to

The nation of Liberteria’s tradition tends to stress a peaceful transfer of power, a consistent method of selection, and a check on executive power. The process does however minimize democratic influences, reduces political participation in selection of the executive, lacks the trials and vetting that is often undergone during elections and the process is certainly exclusionary.

The strongest of us are the ones who have fallen and risen, the ones that have been damaged and repaired. Our democracy has not only been broken but stolen, and that’s why I strongly believe in the potential of it. I’m reassured that our political system is certainly not at it’s best, but this realization simply means there’s so much potential for it. In the Dominican Republic the framework is a representative democracy where in the elections there is an FPTP method, which simply means that the candidate with the higher amount of votes in the first round wins, also the candidate needs at least a 51% of the votes to win. (Electoral Law 275-97, Dominican Republic). I don’t believe our political system’s fair, neither does it represent the

These authors argue that because Pinochet still had considerable power and used it to influence policy making decisions political elites were less likely to meet the demands of the public. Pinochet established a binomial electoral system that as a result influenced political parties to form pacts or party coalitions. Posner (1999) and Hunneus (2007) argue that because political parties formed party coalitions there was a lack of representation. Political parties spend an abundant amount of time on negotiations within the party coalitions. Because the political elites only negotiated among themselves, they took away the public’s ability to have a say on important issues.

Approximately 40 parties are officially registered. However, only 4 of them hold the majority of seats in the public positions: “El Partido Revolucionario Social Cristiano (PRSC), El Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) and El Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD).” The latter is in power and controls the majority

Although the Spanish Constitution defines the nation 's electoral system as proportional, it allows for different degrees of proportionality in the electoral law, and in practice the d 'Hont formula is the method used to convert voters into seats. Therefore, according to Duverger’s law, one would expect more than two parties playing a role in national politics. However, the Spanish political landscape has been traditionally characterized by the alternation in power of the two dominant parties: the left-leaning PSOE and right-wing PP. This raises the question of how a theoretically proportional system ended up resulting in an two-party political scene. However this situation is bound to change during 2015, as the country is likely to evolve from this two-party system to a multi-party one. Local, regional and national elections are going to be held, and pre-election polls suggest that the two traditional parties are going to share power with the new contenders: the left-wing Podemos and the self-described as centre-left Ciudadanos (maybe better defined as centre-right progressives).

Allegations of corruption undermine the legitimacy of the Dominican Republic’s liberal democracy. It seems that throughout each election, the two leading parties, the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) and the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), sometimes find it challenging to differentiate themselves on the issues they focus on. This homogeneous party system can often lead to finding other means of getting the necessary votes to lead the state. Freedom House reports that in the most

Elections and electoral systems aim at converting the popular will expressed as votes into choices between candidates of political parties for political offices in the executive and legislature. The electoral system therefore reflects itself in the party system and the structure of governmental representation. This association between elections, parties and government takes different forms. Ideal electoral systems should comprise of competition, effective government, and fair representation along with free and fair voting.