Stability and Competition vs. Instability and Incompetence. Electoral Politics in Argentina and Peru from a Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Throughout the article the author makes a comparative study between the regimes of Argentina and Peru in search of reasons that explain the breakdown of democracy in the former and its continuity in the latest. He inquires about similarities and differences in the processes of consolidation of democratic regime in both countries and whether they are matters of form, function and/or performance of institutions. Understanding that the institutionalization of political competition is a fundamental limit to behavior out of rule, the author focuses his study on analyzing its main actors: political parties. He concludes that while in Peru the low institutionalization of competition allows more discretion and arbitrariness to the president, in the case of Argentina it imposes a limit on executive action delimiting the range of options available for action. In other words, the institutionalization of political competition —or the lack of it— is one of the causes that allow the consolidation or interruption of the democratic regime.