THE SITUATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN LATIN AMERICA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XXI CENTURY: CRISIS OR STABILITY?

Despite different initial themes, in recent protests in Latin American countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Peru emerged claims related to improving the quality of public policies offered, the performance of representatives and democratic institutions, especially political parties. About the last issue, there is some consensus in American and European literature as to the distance of the parties and the electorate, except for countries democratized during the third wave (Portugal, Spain and Greece). In the Latin American context, strongly characterized by instability of political systems, military periods and young democracies, predominates dissent around the relationship between parties and voters, so are strong the arguments that point to the decline of partisan engagement and also those who defend the stability of those institutions in the region. Given these different analytical perspectives and the scarcity of jobs to discuss this divergence, this paper aims to establish a dialogue between these two currents, optimistic and pessimistic, of diagnostics on the relationship between parties and voters in Latin America. Our aim is to highlight the points of departure of the analysis of different authors, in other words, their interpretations of the Latin American political scene at the beginning of the XXI century, in order to exploit the congruence and, in particular, the analytical incongruities of political scientists with relation to partisanship in Latin America. We intend, in this way, contribute to the update of the debate on the future of political parties in the region.