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Social Change and Party System Stability in Colombia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Robert H. Dix
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Extract

In August 1989 a Declaration of War On The State by Colombian drug traffickers and the attendant murder of a leading presidential candidate, Liberal Luis Carlos Galgn, seemed to threaten the foundations of democracy itself. Yet as the campaign leading up to the 1990 elections went forward under conditions of extraordinarily tight security, it also appeared that Colombia's two traditional parties would enter the next decade paradoxically still secure in the virtually monopolistic position within the domain of electoral politics that they had held for more than a century.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1990 , pp. 98 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1990

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References

1 The Conservative Party officially changed its name to the Social Conservative Party in 1987 in order to broaden its electoral appeal.

2 Data here and in the rest of this section, except as otherwise indicated, are from the World Development Indicators tables in The World Bank, World Development Report 1987, New York, Oxford University Press, 1987.

3 Data on growth were taken from Hoskin, Gary, ‘Colombia’s Political Crisis’, Current History, vol. 87, no. 525, 01 1988, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

4 Latin American Weekly Report, London, 7 January, 1988, p. 9.

5 1963 data cited by Wiesner, Eduardo in Boletín Mensual de Estadística, Bogotá, vol. 13, 06, 1964, p. 5.Google Scholar

6 Colombia Today (Newsletter of the Colombia Information Center, New York), vol. 22, no. 7, 1987.

7 1984 data from Inter-American Development Bank, Economic and Social Progress in Latin America. 1984 Report (Washington, D.C., Inter-American Development Bank 1984); earlier data (1962) from Repáblica de Colombia, Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística, Anuario General de Estadística, 1962, Bogotá, 1964.

8 See Gary Hoskin (with the collaboration of Patricia Pinzán de Lewin), ‘Colombian Political Parties and the Current Crisis’ (paper prepared for delivery at the XIV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, New Orleans, La., March 1988), p. 20.

9 ibid., p. 39. The elections of the 1960s and early 1970s, when ANAPO at times also won significant proportions of the vote, were like exceptions that prove the rule. For more detail on ANAPO see in particular Dix, Robert H., ‘Political Oppositions Under the National Front’, in Albert Berry, R., Hellman, Ronald G. and Solaán, Mauricio, Politics of Compromise: Coalition Government in Colombia, New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Books, 1980, pp. 140–70.Google Scholar

10 Ulloa, Fernando Cepeda, in collaboration with de Lewin, Patricia Pinzán, ‘The Colombian Elections of 1986’, Electoral Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, 04 1987, p. 77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Data were taken from the electoral bank at the Universidad de 10s Andes, Bogotá.

11 ibid., pp. 74–79.

12 The two immediate post-1978 governments, those of Liberal Julio César Turbay (1978–82) and Conservative Belisario Betancur (1982–86), did include members of the rival party in their cabinets on a basis roughly proportional to the outcome of the most recent election. Only in 1986 did the ‘out’ party (in this case the Conservatives) refuse to participate in government with its rival. See in this connection Ulloa, Fernando Cepeda, El Esquema Gobierno-Oposicián, Bogotá, Ministerio de Gobierno, 1987.Google Scholar

13 For a discussion of both the sociological and programmatic differences between the parties see Dix, Robert H., The Politics of Colombia, New York, Praeger, 1987, pp. 94–97.Google Scholar

14 See, e.g., Buitrago, Francisco Led, Análisis Histárico del Desarrollo Político Nacional, 1930–1970, Bogotá, Ediciones Tercer Mundo, 1973, Part I.Google Scholar

15 For details on the historically partisan role of the Church see Dix, Robert H., Colombia: The Political Dimensions of Change, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1967, pp. 307–11.Google Scholar

16 See Gary Hoskin, ‘The Impact of the National Front on Congressional Behavior: The Attempted Restoration of El País Político’, in Berry et al., Politics of Compromise, p. 118, and Enrique Ogliastri Uribe, ‘Liberales Conservadores Versus Conservadores Liberales: Faccionalismos Trenzados en la Estructura de Poder en Colombia’ (paper delivered at the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Mexico City, October 1983), pp. 12–13.

17 Not only has the Church supported accommodation between the parties, but, as one of the most conservative churches in the region and as such on the whole opposed to the more activist version of ‘liberation theology’, it has given little succour to non-traditional political movements or parties.

18 For data see Gary Hoskin, ‘The Colombian Party System: The 1982 Reaffirmation and Reorientation’ (paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Mexico City, 1983).

19 See Hoskin, ‘Colombian Political Parties’, pp. 12–17, and Dix, Politics of Colombia, pp. 111–14.

20 See Hoskin, ‘Colombian Political Parties’, pp. 31–33, and Francisco Led Buitrago, ‘La Crisis Política en Colombia: Alternativas y Frustraciones’ in Análisis Político, Bogotá, No. 1, May – August 1987.

21 The case for the popular election of mayors is well set out by the then Minister of Government, Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, in La Reglamentacián de la Eleccián Popular de Alcaldes, Bogotá, Ministerio de Gobierno, 1987. The law itself (Legislative Act No. 1 of 1986) can be found on pp. 23–25.

22 See de Lewin, Patricia Pinzán (ed.), Los partidos Políticos Colombianos (Estatutos, Reglamentos, Programas), Bogotá, FESCOL, 1987.Google Scholar

23 Castro, Jaime, in ‘Marco Institucional para Partidos Políticos Modernos’, Ciencia Política, Bogotá, 2nd six months, 1986.Google Scholar

24 Latin American Weekly Report, 24 March, 1988, p. 11.

25 That such actions have been instigated by any consequential leaders of the traditional parties is doubtful, however. Not only have the killings been denounced by such leaders, but several Liberal and Conservative officials have been victims as well.

26 Indeed, Rojas Pinilla, the man against whose continuance in power the National Front was originally constructed, was allowed to return from exile several years following his overthrow in 1957. His political rights were restored and by 1970 he was running for president. Nonetheless, there are those who contend that Rojas was fraudulently deprived of victory in that election.

27 As of 1955 there were some 200,000 farms of 10 hectares or less, plus more than 11,000 others of 50 hectares or less. Together these farms produced well over 90 per cent of Colombian coffee; Bergquist, Charles, Labor in Latin America, Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1986, p. 302.Google Scholar

28 There was a clear correlation between coffee-growing and the incidence of violence during the years of interpartisan combat called la violencia from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s; ibid., pp. 364–68.

29 ibid., p. 369.

30 See ibid., pp. 298 and 304, and Dix, Politics of Colombia, pp. 81–82.

31 See Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties, trans. Barbara North and Robert North, New York, Wiley, 1964 Google Scholar, esp. chap. 2. A cadre party is essentially a loosely-knit party of notables with little, or only nominal, mass membership; mass parties, on the other hand, tend to be centralized, tightly organized parties with elaborate means of mass recruitment, dues-paying, and the like.

32 See, e.g. Lewis, Paul H., Paraguay Under Stroessner, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1980, pp. 145–50Google Scholar For Uruguay see Rial, Juan, ‘The Uruguayan Elections of 1984: A Triumph of the Center’, in Drake, Paul W. and Silva, Eduardo (eds), Elections and Democratization in Latin America, 1980–1985, San Diego, Calif., Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1986, pp. 262–64.Google Scholar

33 In the Colombian case population and resources have been relatively evenly balanced among four major regions (and a number of lesser ones), each with a major city as its focus. It has therefore always been difficult for the central government to dominate the regions, and easier for the opposition party to survive political adversity; for further discussion see Dix, The Politics of Colombia, pp. 59–60.

34 Even governments in power resorted to the mobilization of irregular party forces for internal combat, since Colombia lacked a genuine regular army from the 1850s until well after the turn of the century; Mark Ruhl, J., ‘Civil-Military Relations in Colombia: A Sacietal Explanation’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 2, 05 1981, p. 133.Google Scholar

35 For an elaboration of the above discussion concerning Colombian parties see Dix, The Politics of Colombia, pp. 89–94; see also Bergquist, pp. 291–92.

36 In fact, officials of local governments are among those in most frequent contact with their congressmen. See Kline, Harvey F., ‘Interest Groups in the Colombian Congress’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 3, 08 1974, pp. 274–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 For a good treatment of the trajectory of coalition behaviour in Colombia see Harvey F. Kline, ‘The National Front: Historical Perspective and Overview’, in Berry et al., Politics of Compromise, pp. 59–83.

38 Leal Buitrago, ‘La Crisis Política’.

39 For the concept of political decay see Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968, chap. 1.Google Scholar

40 It should be noted that during much of 1989 negotiations were under way between the government and most major guerrilla groups to bring at least that dimension of violence to an end. Whether the result will be more successful than past false starts remains to be seen, however.