Party Rootedness versus Personalism
The ability of nonpartisan and antiparty candidates to win office serves as another indicator of party rootedness in society. Where citizens are attached to a party, such candidates rarely win high office. While nonpartisan or antiparty candidates rarely do well in consolidated democracies, such independent office-seekers can succeed in new democracies with inchoate party systems. Space for populists is especially available in presidential systems, where candidates can appeal directly to voters without needing to become head of a party in order to become a governor or president. For example, Brazil's Fernando Collor de Mello ran for president in 1989 at the head of a party that he had created for the purpose, and he ran as an antiparty figure. In the October 1990 congressional elections, held just seven months after his inauguration, his party won only 40 of 503 lower-chamber seats, and it evaporated within months of his December 1992 resignation (submitted to avoid impending impeachment proceedings). In 1990, Peru's Alberto Fujimori created an ad hoc party as part of his successful presidential run. He too campaigned against parties and has subsequently eschewed efforts to build a party. In Peru, political independents dominated the 1995 municipal elections. Hoping to imitate Fujimori's success at winning popular support, a new cohort of antiparty politicians has emerged.
Personalism and antiparty politicians are also common in some post-Soviet [End Page 74] cases. Russian president Boris Yeltsin is not a member of a party and has undermined parties. Aleksandr Lebed, the former Soviet air force general who finished third in the 1996 Russian presidential election, ran as a quasi-independent. So did Stanis~aw Tymiñski, who finished second in the 1990 Polish presidential election. Nonpartisan candidates have fared well in the plurality races for both chambers of the Russian parliament. In the 1993 elections, well over half of the single-member-district candidates for the lower chamber had no partisan affiliation, and only 83 of the 218 deputies elected in these races belonged to a party. In 1995, more than 1,000 of the 2,700 candidates for the single-member-district seats were independents. Independents won 78 of the 225 single-member seats; the largest single party could muster only 58 seats. 8
In more institutionalized party systems, such personalism is the exception. Prime ministers in Western Europe and presidents in the Latin American countries with more institutionalized systems are almost always longtime members of major parties.
These indicators show that there are profound differences in the rootedness of parties in society. In most of the advanced industrial democracies, despite some erosion in party voting over recent decades, more than half the voters identify with and vote for the same party over time. 9 In Brazil, Peru, and Russia, only a small minority of voters stick with the same party through election after election. The weakness of parties' social roots means that democratic political competition, rather than being channeled through parties and other democratic institutions, assumes a personalized character.
These differences in party rootedness have significant implications for democratic politics. In more institutionalized systems, voters are more likely to identify with a party, and parties are more likely to dominate patterns of political recruitment. In inchoate systems, a larger share of the electorate votes more according to personal image or personal connections than party, and antiparty politicians find it easier to win office. Thus populism and "antipolitics" are more common in countries with weakly institutionalized systems. Personalities rather than party organizations dominate the political scene. Given the propensity toward personalism and the comparative weakness of parties, mechanisms of democratic accountability are usually weaker. Weak party roots in society and a high degree of personalism enhance the role of television in campaigns, especially for executive positions. Democracies with weak party systems tend to take on what Guillermo O'Donnell calls "delegative" characteristics, as mechanisms of accountability grow weaker, personalism increases, and the executive branch claims sweeping powers. 10
Because they rely on direct links to the masses, populist leaders are more likely than others to act with an eye toward publicity rather than [End Page 75] long-range policy impact. Tied to parties loosely if at all, they are more likely to be erratic and to violate unspoken "rules of the game." A vicious cycle can set in as the inchoate nature of the party system creates opportunities for populists, who then govern without attempting to create more solid institutions. In an inchoate system, predictability is low while the potential for erratic leadership is high. Politics tends to be more personalized and patrimonial.
In more institutionalized systems, party labels are powerful symbols, and party commitments are important. Parties give citizens a way of understanding who is who in politics without needing to read all the fine print. By doing so, they help to facilitate accountability, a central element of democratic politics. Even if voters cannot evaluate individual legislative candidates, they can evaluate party labels and can differentiate among the parties.
With inchoate party systems, there is less institutional control over leadership recruitment. Even in this era of instant mass communications (which makes it easier for candidates to reach the public directly) and of skepticism about parties (which makes it easier for antiparty politicians to gain currency), countries with more institutionalized party systems are less likely to have antiparty leaders.
Because of the greater probability that a populist with a weak party base might be elected, institutional impasses are more likely in democracies with inchoate party systems. In institutionalized systems, candidates from minor parties have little prospect of being elected president. Most voters are loyal to a party, and they generally cast their ballots for candidates from that party. This reduces the likelihood that a candidate from a minor party could win the election, and also lengthens the odds facing populist, antiparty candidates.
An election is personalistic if citizens cast their ballots more on the basis of a candidate's personal appeal than on the basis of party profile. Of course, some citizens in all democracies vote this way, but where personalistic disputes are decisive and party labels are less entrenched, those who win elections are likely to feel less restrained in how they govern. They are more prone to demagoguery and populism, both of which can have deleterious effects on democracy.