Political Parties and Democracy in Latin America.

This paper engages in an empirical exploration of the link between political parties and democratic consolidation in Latin America using public opinion data collected in seven Latin American countries. Specifically, in each country I use structural equations analysis to explore factors that affect individual confidence in political parties and then examine the relationship between this level of confidence and support for democratic politics. Subsequently, I compare the findings cross-nationally, which allows for broader insights into the hypothesized connection between representative institutions and the strength of democracy. This analytical approach permits examination of these relationships within each of the countries studied and enables comparison throughout the region. We can draw two major conclusions from this analysis. First, in all seven countries a strong and significant link between confidence in political parties and confidence in Congress is found. Second, the analysis finds some support for the hypothesis that public confidence in political parties produces greater support for democracy, and by extension, that effective political parties can be important in democratic consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]