Continuity and changes in an old party democracy

Uruguay 1910-2010

Abstract

This article reviews the old Uruguayan party democracy -the oldest and one of the few in Latin America- critically retaking outstanding contributions and own proposals, in order to point out changes and continuities in the course of one hundred years. In an attempt not to fall into exceptionalism, the text includes comparative references, which frame the originality of the Uruguayan case and allow to better highlight its potential for comparative politics. The first part reviews the genetic model and the typical features of the regime, which explain its comparative advantages: the original factors, the polyarchic matrix, the pluralistic presidentialism, a sui generis consociational democracy, made of political parties and not of social cleavages. The second part deals with the great transformation that follows the democratic transition, based on a party system that changes without disarticulating itself, recomposing its plural and competitive structure. The text evokes the liberal transition, the constitutional reform, the decline of the traditional parties, the predominant profile reached by the Frente Amplio and its debut with a social democratic government, in a premiere comparable to the late social democracies of southern Europe. In all of these sets Uruguayan party democracy once again makes the difference and, after a long and gradual historical process, ends up coining a new political norm.