Mapping Democratic Innovations in Latin American Parties

In 2009, a change in the Argentine party law implemented a unique system in the world: simultaneous and mandatory state-regulated open primaries for all parties. The mechanism has the dual purpose of defining the lists of candidates for the national elections and selecting which parties may participate in the ‘official’ future election (with an electoral threshold). In Chile, party law allows parties to conduct primaries regulated by the state. Several Chilean parties have used the mechanism in recent years, mainly for the presidential nomination. In Brazil, the Workers’ Party (PT) has since 2001 adopted the direct voting in the selection of all party officials, in all levels (municipal, state and national). This is a ‘presidential’ system: the members of directorates are elected in a proportional system (voting in factions), while the president of the executive committee of each level is chosen in a separate and majority vote. The purpose of the paper is to carry out a broad and original mapping of democratic innovation mechanisms within Latin American parties – whether originated from changes in party law or from intraparty decisions. In addition, we discuss the impacts of these innovations in terms of intraparty democracy, party membership and activism, party strength, and quality of democracy.