Promotional Information

Latin America specialists love studying the left, but neglect the right-although the right often plays an important political role. By offering the most well-researched, comprehensive, and interesting analysis of rightwing forces, movements, and parties in many years, Luna and Rovira Kaltwasser's collection takes a major step toward filling this striking gap in the literature. Highly recommended! -- Kurt Weyland, University of Texas at Austin Juan Pablo Luna and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser make an important and timely contribution to comparative politics and to contemporary scholarship on Latin America. This is a theoretically rich and empirically ambitious volume, with contributions from top U.S. and Latin American scholars. At a time when studies of the left are proliferating in the discipline, this volume provides a needed new perspective on how the right has played a key role in shaping contemporary Latin American politics. -- Edward L. Gibson, Northwestern University The Resilience of the Latin American Right makes a timely contribution to our understanding of a chronically under-studied subject. Luna and Rovira Kaltwasser provide a useful new conceptualization of what it means to be 'right' in contemporary Latin America. More than any other existing study, the volume explores a range of issues that are critical to understanding the trajectory of right wing parties in Latin America's democratic era, including the causes of traditional conservative party decline, the striking failure of most right wing parties to turn the favorable conditions created by the Washington Consensus into longer-term partisan gains, and the diverse strategies pursued by right wing forces during the post-2000 'left turn.' The volume also highlights some surprising (but important) sources of new right party-building, including personalistic leadership and authoritarian inheritance. This book will quickly find its way onto many reading lists. I learned much from it. -- Steven Levitsky, Harvard University How has the political right reacted to the current 'turn to the left' in Latin America? This fascinating collection offers us carefully crafted answers from throughout the continent, enlightening us about a range of activities that will shape the quality of democracy for Latin Americans for years to come. This is a highly original and conceptually sophisticated analysis of actors who merit much more attention than they've received thus far and is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the full implications of the conservative modernization initiatives of the recent past. -- Nancy Bermeo, Oxford University

Table of Contents

Preface
List of Abbreviations
Introduction:The Right in Contemporary Latin America: A Framework for Analysis
Part I: The Contemporary Context
Chapter 1. Democracy, Free Markets, and the Rightist Dilemma in Latin America
Chapter 2. Profiling the Electorate: Ideology and Attitudes of Rightwing Voters
Part II: the nonelectoral right
Chapter 3. New Strategies of the Latin American Right: Beyond Parties and Elections
Chapter 4. The Right and Nonparty Forms of Repre sen ta tion and Participation: Bolivia and Ec ua dor Compared
Chapter 5. The Authoritarian Roots of New Right Party Success in Latin America
Part III: The Electoral, Nonpartisan Right
Chapter 6. From Right Pop u lism in the 1990s to Left Populism in the 2000s—and Back Again?
Chapter 7. Is There a Right Track in Post–Party System Collapse Scenarios? Comparing the Andean Countries
Chapter 8. Colombia: Analyzing the Strategies for Po liti cal Action of Álvaro Uribe's Government, 2002–10
Chapter 9. Mexico: The Partido Acción Nacional as a Right Party
Chapter 10. Chile: The Right's Evolution from Democracy to Authoritarianism and Back Again
Chapter 11. El Salvador: Societal Cleavages, Strategic Elites, and the Success of the Right
Chapter 12. Brazil: Explaining the Rise and Decline of the Conservatives
Chapter 13. Argentina: The Difficulties of the Partisan Right and the Case of Propuesta Republicana
Conclusion: Right (and Left) Politics in Contemporary Latin America
List of Contributors
Index

About the Author

Juan Pablo Luna is an associate professor and director of graduate studies at the Instituto de Ciencia Politica, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser is an associate professor at the School of Political Science, Diego Portales University (Chile).

Reviews

Clearly, any understanding of contemporary Latin American politics requires a re-examination of the traditional left-right divide-and this book fills a gaping hole. -- Timothy J. Powers Americas Quarterly A valuable, wide-ranging survey of the region's understudied right-wing parties, personalities, and programs. -- Richard Feinberg Foreign Affairs The Resilience of the Latin American Right fills a void in the literature on Latin American politics by presenting a systematic analysis of conservative rule and influence outside of government. Choice