Application of the Integrated Theory of Party Change to Latin ...

Application of the Integrated Theory of Party Change to Latin
America’s Volatile Party Systems
by
Robert Harmel and Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson
Department of Political Science
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4348 USA
E339mt@polisci.tamu.edu
Paper prepared for presentation at the 5 th CEISAL European Congress of
Latinamericanists, Brussels, Belgium, April 11-14, 2007.
Abstract: Desarrollamos una teoría de cambios adentro de partidos, usando como una
base la teoría integrada de cambios adentro de partidos (Harmel y Janda 1994), para
investigar cuando y como partidos en América Latina responden a choques electorales.
Harmel y Janda desarrollaron su teoría para democracias establecidas. En esta ponencia
investigamos como los partidos, que actúan en un contexto de democracia menos certero,
responden a los choques electorales. Específicamente investigamos con qué rapidez y
con cuáles tipos de cambios partidos establecidos en países de América Latina responden
a resultados electorales muy malos. Dividimos choques electorales en dos tipos: (a) una
pérdida dramática a un rival establecido y (b) una pérdida a un candidato o partido nuevo,
especialmente un partido nuevo que tiene una ideología o plataforma de campaña que es
una amenaza al partido establecido. El partido afectado tiene que interpretar la magnitud
de su pérdida electoral; y para eso usamos como indicativo de si un choque ocurre o no,
las valoraciones expresadas por los líderes del partido en los medios de comunicación.

Application of the Integrated Theory of Party Change to Latin America’s
Volatile Party Systems
During the Third Wave of democracy in Latin America, several long-established
parties have met with electoral defeat on a disastrous scale, and even some party systems
that were thought to be established have collapsed. Examples include the devastating
loss by Costa Rica’s PUSC in 2006, which prompted an assessment that the party has
been replaced by the PAC as one of Costa Rica’s two major parties (Alfaro Redondo
2006; Wilson forthcoming); and Mexico’s PRI’s loss of the presidency in 2000 and its
distant third place showing in 2006. Personalist or populist presidential candidates have
won elections with decisive defeats of long-established parties (e.g., Evo Morales’s
victory in Bolivia in 2005, soundly defeating the candidates of the three long-established
parties [Singer 2007]). Leftist parties, while not necessarily new participants in politics,
have won presidential elections with decisive and embarrassing defeats to established
parties with traditional ideologies (e.g., Frente Amplio’s victory in Uruguay in 2004
[Altman and Castiglioni 2006], Lula of the Workers’ Party in Brazil in 2002 and again in
2006). The major parties anchoring the party system collapsed in Peru during the 1980s, 1
and in Venezuela in the late 1990s.
What explains the apparent inability of traditional parties to respond to new
electoral competition? How have traditional parties that have managed to remain viable
political players responded to electoral defeats? Our purpose in this paper is to apply and
refine the Integrated Theory of Party Change (Harmel and Janda 1994) to cases from
Latin American politics. Our intent is to expand the generalizability of this theory to new
democracies and to parties that may in their past lives have been restrictive or subversive
1 Peru’s APRA reemerged in 2006 to win the presidential election, running former-president Alán Garcia.
1

parties (Janda 1980), and which are currently acting as competitive parties due to the
installation of a democratic regime but may still in some ways resemble restrictive or
subversive parties. In particular we explore whether and how unconsolidated democracy
and an electoral challenge from a party whose ideology is threatening affect the ability of
traditional parties to respond to predicted electoral losses or to electoral shocks.
Our primary focus in this paper is to theorize about when traditional parties will
make decisions to change themselves or their image (“party change” for short [Harmel
and Janda 1994]), and to specify obstacles present in Third Wave democracies that may
make it too difficult for traditional parties to either observe the need for party change, or
to identify a change in strategy or tactics that seems an appropriate response (i.e., a
change whose benefits appear to outweigh the costs of change). We refine the integrated
theory of party change to address the political environment faced by traditional parties in
unconsolidated democracies. These democratic regimes may have been installed in a
country with little history of democratic governance, or where a democratic regime
existed in the past but the traditional party(s) was out of power for an extended period
while an authoritarian regime ruled.
By traditional parties we mean parties that have been important players in a
country’s politics for many decades. Borrowing from Janda’s (1980) classification of
competitive, restrictive, and subversive parties, we refine the integrated theory to apply to
competitive traditional parties; even those that may still in some respects resemble
restrictive or subversive traditional parties. 2 A “competitive traditional party” is one
where “open competition in the electoral process plays the major role in the party’s
2 As we explain further later in the paper, competitive, subversive and restrictive are also strategies or
tactics a party can use to achieve the goal of obtaining government office. Here, however, these are types
of parties defined by their dominant strategy for obtaining power in the country’s past.
2

overall strategy” or possibly it was the party’s only strategy (Janda 1980: 79). A
“restrictive party” would be one that pursues “the goal of placing its avowed
representatives in government positions through a strategy of restricting competition by
opposing parties” (Janda 1980: 81). A “subversive party” would be willing to place its
representatives in power through the use of force or by fomenting a chaotic political
situation (Janda 1980: 82). As is often the case, real world politics is not as crisply clear
as the typologies of political science. Thus, a traditional party may have pursued a
strategy that was sometimes competitive and sometimes restrictive or sometimes
competitive and subversive at other times. If the party could win a fair election, it may
have chosen to fight a fair fight. However, if it was concerned it might lose under fair
rules, it may have been willing to “restrict the activities of other parties or to disrupt
society for its own campaign ends” (Janda 1980: 79). 3 Thus, one of the possible party
changes a traditional party can exhibit in the present democratic regime is to give up its
old methods of restricting or subverting competition. This aspect of our project makes a
significant departure from Harmel and Janda’s original work, as they were interested in
developing theory to explain party change in competitive parties operating in established
democracies, where most, if not all of those parties would have been competitive
throughout their entire existence (Harmel and Janda 1994: 272). Here we adapt the
integrated theory of party change to political systems which may have parties that were
formerly primarily restrictive or subversive. Their changes in “goal orientation”
generally, and even the component changes in strategies and tactics, are thus of
3 This quote comes from Janda’s operational definitions of competitive electoral strategy, which he coded
on a 0-4 scale. The quote is from code 3 on the scale, where 4 was a party whose electoral strategy relied
solely on competitive methods.
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interest to us here as dimensions of party change (i.e., on the dependent variable side of
the adapted theory model).
New parties that came into existence with or since the installation of the Third
Wave democratic regime can also experience party change, but those parties are not the
focus of our theorizing here. They may be important players in the political environment
to which a traditional party reacts, as the electoral success of a new party may be the
impetus for change in a traditional party. Thus, a new party would enter into our theory
as an independent variable.
We end the introduction to the paper by underscoring why expanded knowledge –
both theoretical and empirical – about when, how, and why party change happens is
important for the study of Latin American politics. In a region where democratic failures
have been common in the past and are presumably still possible, the lack of party change
can possibly result in the complete failure of traditional party players. That could have
even more traumatic consequences than in established democracies for not just a single
party or even the party system, but for the entire political system generally, because
obsolescence of major party players could contribute to democratic regime failure. If
party change is truly necessary to keep the party(ies) viable, then party change could be a
factor in keeping the democracy viable.
A Brief Review of Expectations about Party Change in Established Democracies
Parties are expected to resist changing themselves as – according to
organizational theory – are all large established organizations. The more institutionalized
a party is, the more strongly the adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” should apply. Party
4

leaders (an individual or a dominant faction) gained power via the organization and rules,
or they used those rules to consolidate their power, thus they should not see changing the
party as desirable unless the party encounters a challenge that makes it unable to continue
to achieve its goals (Harmel and Janda 1994).
Despite this natural tendency to resist change, two primary factors are expected to
induce party change: (1) a change in the party leader or dominant faction; or (2) an
external shock. If both the leader and dominant faction change, the impetus for change in
the party should be particularly strong (Harmel and Janda 1994). Whether an external
stimulus (e.g., a poor election) constitutes a “shock” for a party depends on the party and
its goals. For example, only parties that are primarily concerned with vote maximizing
will be “shocked” by a substantial drop in their vote share, and only parties whose
primary goal is executive office will be “shocked” by lack of success in that arena.
Likewise, electoral failure may constitute a “shock” for a party, even if it does not
actually lose the election, or loses, but does not lose badly. If the party expected to win
in a landslide, and ultimately barely ekes out a victory, that could constitute a “shock” for
that party. A policy maximizing party could experience an external shock if an event
makes obsolete a key plank of a party’s ideology (e.g., the collapse of Soviet
Communism; neoliberal economic restructuring), but this same event may not affect a
party whose primary concern is maximizing votes or executive office. Even in the face
of a shock, party leaders are not expected to effect party change if the costs of the change
are anticipated to outweigh the benefits (Harmel and Janda 1994). Thus an established
party – barring a leadership change – may opt to ride-out a bad election or a change in the
5

ideology of the political landscape in the hopes that it is a short-term blip for the party,
and not a portent of worse elections to come.
More institutionalized parties are expected to resist change more than less
institutionalized parties. The literature often uses party age as a proxy measure of party
institutionalization, and the impact of institutionalization is expected to be non-linear,
increasing at a decreasing rate as the party becomes older (Harmel and Janda 1994).
The party change literature has focused on explaining when party change should
occur within a party, and what form that change is likely to take. Change in competitive
parties often takes the form of a modification of the party’s platform or ideology; new
methods of selecting candidates or party leaders (change in the party organization); or
adjustment of the party’s campaign strategy or tactics. In Harmel and Janda’s integrated
theory of party change, the dependent variable is “aspects of party change that are within
a party’s direct control – that it decides to change … party change that comes directly
from a group decision or from action taken by a person authorized to act for the party in
that sphere. Examples are changes in party rules, structures, policies, strategies and
tactics” (Harmel and Janda 1994: 275).
Obstacles to Party Change in Latin American Traditional Parties
As summarized in this simple form, there are no obvious reasons why party
change should be more or less likely, or take a different form in Latin American politics
than in the long-established democracies in Western Europe or the U.S. Older parties
should be less likely to change than newer parties, unless they experience a major
leadership change, and that alone may explain the difficulty Latin America’s traditional
parties have had responding to threats from new parties. Some of Latin America’s leftist
6

parties that began as revolutionary groups in the 1960s and 70s have proven quite willing
to make major changes in party platform, organization, or tactics in response to the
diminished attractiveness of socialist or communist ideology after the fall of the Berlin
Wall and the defeat of revolutionary groups in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
Possibly the relative youth of these parties, combined with the intensity of this external
shock, made the benefits of change appear to outweigh the costs, as the benefit was the
chance to remain politically viable in a changed world. Yet, other obstacles merit
consideration in applying party change theory to Latin America’s more traditional parties.
One obstacle is the uncertainty of democracy for parties in the region. Prior to the
Third Wave, most democratic regimes in Latin America have been short-lived
(Huntington 1991), and many only met the loosest procedural concept of democracy (i.e.,
competitive elections). Uncertainty was also a factor in the early years of the Third
Wave, as coup threats were common (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). More recently,
presidents have been ousted by popular protest or impeachment (Pérez-Líñan
forthcoming). Uncertainty about whether a democratic regime will continue could affect
the cost/benefit assessment of party leaders about the potential efficacy of attempting to
change the party, particularly if the party change may take time to bear fruit. Instead of
party change, leaders of traditional parties may have considered extra-democratic means
to protect party interests – planting coup rumors to induce an opposing party to not make
policy innovations once it was in power.
The high electoral volatility and declining voter turnout in Latin American
elections may also be obstacles to party change, if they make it difficult for a traditional
party to determine that it is facing a threat. An electoral shock is in the eyes of the
7

eholder, so party leaders may interpret a loss to be just a single bad election showing,
rather than the beginning of a potentially dangerous pattern for the party. Such an
interpretation should be particularly likely if it is common for the party’s vote share to
fluctuate from election-to-election. A tendency for transient parties to enter and exit the
party system, winning representation in one election and then fading away in the next,
may make it difficult for a traditional party to “read the tea leaves” of election results.
The propensity for such “noisy” election results may be greater in transitional
democracies than in long-established democratic regimes, as parties often enter the
electoral arena in founding elections with little idea of their popular support (Przeworski
1991; Moraski and Lowenthal 1999), and thus uncertainty may continue in the next
elections, as coalitions break apart and new parties form. In addition, voter turnout has
fallen precipitously in many Latin American countries since the beginning of the Third
Wave, and many countries have changed electoral rules, in some cases several times. In
such a difficult to interpret environment, party leaders may be more likely to “stay the
course” than to respond to negative electoral results by effecting party change.
Another potential obstacle to party change in Latin American cases comes from
the immense power of Latin American presidents (Linz 1990; O’Donnell 1994). When a
party loses an election, particularly in a unitary political system with extreme
centralization of power in the hands of the national government, the losing party may
have little ability to regroup and win back voter support, or even to retain the support of
its activists. Where the president can make policy without checks and balances from the
congress, as is the case in Latin America’s “delegative democracies,” there is little the
opposition can do from its minority position in the legislature. If the president controls
8

access to state resources for pork and patronage, and pork/patronage, not policy, is crucial
to winning votes, a losing party will have trouble recuperating from its loss even if it tries
changing its internal structure or rules. In such a case party leaders may view party
change as needed, but they may not be able to determine a type of party change that will
be beneficial for the party’s future electoral chances, given the party’s weak opposition
position and the formal powers of the executive to circumvent the legislature.
We expect these obstacles to act as filters through which party decision-makers
process external shocks. If one of the basic principles of the theory of party change is
that an external shock will produce party change, then one of our refinements of the
theory is that an external shock passes through a filter (including the inherent
conservativeness of organizations, such as parties, and their natural resistance to change)
and only if the filtered assessment of, say the election results, appears to be “shocking”
will party change occur. The more filters which are likely to dampen the ability of party
decision-makers to view an external stimulus as a shock for the party, the less likely party
change is to occur. Recall, however, that the integrated theory of party change (Harmel
and Janda 1994) predicts that either personnel change or an external shock may produce
party change. We return below to consideration of the relative importance of leadership
change versus external shocks in prompting party change in Latin American traditional
parties.
A fourth obstacle may not make party change less likely in Latin American
parties than in the parties found in established democracies, but it may affect the form the
change takes. In established democracies, party change is expected to take the form of
“changes in party rules, structures, policies, strategies and tactics” (Harmel and Janda
9

1994: 275). Often, but not always, such changes would involve shifts in formal rules or
policy positions. These formal types of change could also be implemented by Latin
American parties (e.g., moving from selecting candidates por dedo to holding a party
primary). However, in many Latin American parties, informal institutions govern party
behaviors, regardless of what official party rules say the procedures should be, so rules
changes may not really change the party or they may not be needed if the “change” is to
start enforcing rules that have long been in the party statutes. For example, party statutes
(or the national electoral and parties law) may outline a bottom-up procedure for
determining party leaders and candidates, but in reality national party leaders may select
the delegates to the lower-level meetings, insuring that their loyalists are the delegates to
the national conference and that their candidates are nominated (see the country studies in
Alcántara and Freidenberg [2001] for numerous examples of informal rules trumping
formal party statutes). Where party activists, or even voters, know that formal party rules
are not how the party really operates, party leaders can expect to gain little popular
support from changing the statutes. A party could adopt a new policy platform, such as a
new “reform” orientation, like campaigning against the old patronage system and
corruption in government. However, if election after election the party says that it will
work to help the poor majority, but once elected people perceive government policy as
defending elite interests, a change in the party’s platform is not likely to win popular
support. In both of these cases, party leaders may perceive little cost to changing the
party’s formal rules or policy stances, but they may also expect that doing so will produce
little benefit.
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Due to the small perceived benefit (in the sense of winning more support for the
party) of a change internal to the party (and keeping in mind that these internal changes
may still be costly to party leaders if the change threatens to destabilize the leader’s hold
on the party), traditional parties in Latin America may opt for change that begins
internally with change in strategy or tactics, but that is then implemented (or promoted)
externally to the party. Such changes could include changing the country’s electoral law
or party registration rules, amending the constitution, or working through the country’s
elections tribunal. For example, a traditional party could propose and push through
legislation to adopt mixed-member elections for a chamber of the legislature, or to switch
from closed- to open-list elections as a way to signal the importance of giving local
people a more direct connection to their elected representatives. It could promote a
gender quota law as a way to signal its support for equal rights for women. A formerly
restrictive party could vote on the national elections tribunal to allow a new party to
register to participate in elections as a way to signal that the traditional party is adopting a
more democratic (open, competitive) view of elections, or the party could promote
election law changes that make it more likely that small parties will win seats in the
legislature. 4 While the ultimate change is not internal, it is initiated in an action taken by
the party (a decision made by party leaders) to work through national bodies to signal a
change in the party. In other words, this too should then be seen as a form of party change.
4 In regime transition negotiations, formal or informal pacts often limited competition to a small number of
parties, particularly when traditional parties believed that their interests would be served by a less
competitive electoral arena. In later elections, a traditional party might make a high profile effort to allow a
new party to take part in elections, at least partly as a way to burnish its “democratic” credentials, and
possibly to make another traditional party appear to be “undemocratic.” Alternatively, a traditional party
could demonstrate its restrictive nature by voting to block the registration of a new party, or by blocking
changes in voter registration rules that make it easier for people to register.
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Refining the Integrated Theory of Party Change for Latin American Parties
Above we laid out various reasons why party change may occur at different times
or take different forms in the more volatile democratic regimes of Latin America than in
long-established democracies where all major parties have long been competitive parties.
Now we present our refinements to the Integrated Theory of Party Change.
Like Harmel and Janda (1994: 261), our focus is on the decision making process
of parties that determines whether the party will effect change, but we refine the theory to
apply to traditional parties in unconsolidated democracies. We are particularly interested
in theorizing about when party leaders are likely to view the benefits of party change as
outweighing the costs (enumerated above are the difficulties of doing so). We explore
whether and how parties change. Do traditional parties effect organizational, strategic, or
issue profile change when a new competitor is on the horizon, or when an old competitor
appears to be gaining electoral strength? Or, do traditional parties wait until the external
shock – the electoral failure – has occurred and then react? Do traditional parties react by
changing the party’s organization, internal rules (or norms of behavior), policy stances,
internal practices? Do they circle their wagons and do nothing? Or, do they pursue
strategic or tactical change that is then implemented outside the party itself, through the
state’s electoral laws, actions in the elections tribunal, or by amending the constitution?
Assumptions and Propositions
We have concluded that all of the assumptions and propositions of Harmel and
Janda’s integrated theory of party change should apply in Latin America. In the cases of
Assumptions 1, 2, and 5 and Propositions 1 through 6, 13, 14, and 17, we see no need to
elaborate or clarify for application to the Latin American parties which concern us here.
Indeed, since we feel (as argued below) that additional factors exist in Latin America to
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educe (filter) the impacts of external stimuli to party change, the internal factors covered
in Propositions 1 through 5 should actually be more potent in explaining party change in
Latin America, by default. Because we are limiting the scope of this exercise to parties
whose primary goals are office-seeking (i.e., winning the presidency) or vote-seeking,
Propositions 9, 10, and 16 have no relevance to this discussion.
Where an assumption or proposition can be carried forward directly from Harmel
and Janda (1994), we provide the abbreviated version of the assumption/proposition. 5
These assumptions/propositions are printed in bold and italicized text. For the remaining
Assumptions and Propositions, we feel it is helpful to add clarification for application of
the integrated theory to the Latin American context. The original assumption or
proposition, as found in Harmel and Janda (1994), is printed in bold text.
Assumption 1: Parties are conservative organizations and resist change.
Assumption 2: When party change occurs, it is imposed by the dominant coalition at
the time of the change.
Assumption 3: The dominant coalition will introduce change only when it estimates
that the benefits will overcome the costs.
As noted in Harmel and Janda (1994), the sources of the pressure to change may
be either internal as the dominant coalition tries to consolidate its power, or external as
the party apparently becomes unable to achieve its goals. Particularly regarding external
stimuli, it may be helpful to elaborate on obstacles in Latin American which may hinder
the party’s ability to gauge the benefits which could come from party change, thereby
reducing party change. 6
5
Bold, or bold and italicized text is quoted from Harmel and Janda (1994: 278-82).
6
When we say “reduced party change” we mean less frequency of change, or if change occurs, that it will
be of smaller magnitude.
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In established democracies of Western Europe, which were the main focus of
Harmel and Janda’s original treatment, continuation of the competitive democratic
regime is normally not in doubt. Hence, party decision-makers may assume that any
party changes they make will have time to reap their benefits. However, in situations of
uncertainty of the continuation of democracy, as has often been the case in Latin
America, party decision-makers may well discount benefits of party change that would
not be immediate, and – in such an uncertain environment – may seem unlikely. The
consequence should be reduced party change generally, regardless of the potential
external “stimulus.” Thus we add assumption A3.1:
A3.1 The ability of the dominant coalition to gauge likely benefits of party change for
accomplishing party goals is inversely related to the degree of uncertainty
regarding continuation of inter-party competition for selection of governmental
leaders and continuation of the democratic regime.
Electoral volatility, dropping turnout rates and transient parties, while not unique
to Latin America, are endemic there. Separately and together, these obstacles could make
it difficult for party decision-makers to interpret what may seem to outside observers as
“electoral failures.” For example, loss of votes or seats to a new entrant into the party
system may be dismissed as a “one-time loss,” and thus not meriting a response in the
form of party change, particularly if the party is used to its vote share changing markedly
from election to election. Declining voter turnout may appear to affect all major parties,
or to be least harmful to traditional, clientelistic parties, and thus may make an electoral
loss not appear to be a threat to the party’s over-time ability to achieve its office-
maximizing goal. Alternatively, low voter turnout may mask a loss of voter support that
would prompt party change if the electoral shock were clear. The consequence of such a
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“noisy” electoral environment should be reduced party change as a consequence of
electoral failure. Thus we add assumption A3.2:
A3.2 The ability of the dominant coalition to estimate costs and benefits of reacting to
electoral or office failure with party change is inversely related to the degree to
which electoral results are not easily interpretable.
In established democratic systems, where governmental arrangements tend to be
either parliamentary or presidential with limited formal powers (Shugart and Mainwaring
1997), a party that loses the executive but has a substantial number of seats in the
legislature may still feel efficacious. Where the executive has strong formal powers (e.g.,
decree power, exclusive rights to initiate legislation on certain topics), as in many Latin
American countries, a party may perceive that it is unable to accomplish its primary goal
from its weak opposition position. The consequence is that, even when a party perceives
a need for change, it may be pessimistic regarding its likelihood of making a difference.
This also may have the effect of reducing party change generally, regardless of external
stimulus. Thus we add assumption A3.3:
A3.3 The likelihood of the dominant coalition to perceive benefits of party change for
accomplishing party goals is inversely related to the degree that it is
difficult/impossible to accomplish goals from opposition status.
Each of these factors – all of which have existed in some Latin America countries
– acts as “filters” through which parties would interpret potential external stimuli for
change. Absent the filters – as would be the case in most established western
democracies – those stimuli are likely to result in even larger numbers and magnitudes of
party change.
We also note that in spite of the obstacles to gauging electoral shocks, there are
circumstances that can clarify the picture and hence affect the party’s calculus for
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gauging the severity of a loss. One is that losses in multiple concurrent national elections
or at several levels of government can magnify the perception of a loss in the presidential
election. In presidential systems, voters typically get to vote in more than one national
government election (president, one or two chambers of the legislature) at the same time.
Voters also may get to cast ballots for the same parties running in local or state elections.
If a party only loses one race (i.e., failing to achieve its office maximizing goal by
winning the presidency), but it wins a large block of seats in the legislature, possibly even
a larger block of seats than the president’s party, or it wins several governorships or the
mayors office in the country’s major cities; party leaders may conclude that there is no
need to change. However, if the party loses in all elections at all levels, the results of the
“lesser” elections may add clarity to the meaning of the loss in the presidential election,
reinforcing a need for party change.
Two is that electoral failure – even when the magnitude of the loss is numerically
small – may reach the magnitude of a “shock” when the party loses to a party that is very
different from itself. 7 A traditional party may perceive differently an electoral threat or
loss to a party whose platform presents a policy threat to their key constituents than an
electoral loss to a party that is another traditional party. Put differently, it may be
frustrating in terms of loss of patronage access to be out of power while another
traditional party uses the spoils of government to reward its supporters and clients; but it
may be viewed as a treat to the very existence of the traditional party and its traditional
policy clientele to be in opposition while a populist party or a party with a widely
7 We do not view the “shock” effect of losing, even by a small margin, to a party that is ideologically
polarized to your own as a phenomenon unique to Latin America. For example, had the Christian
Democrats in Italy lost a national election to the Communist Party, we would expect such a loss to be
viewed as a “shock” even if the party barely lost the election. Similarly, we would expect the conservative
coalition’s first loss in France to the Socialist Party to have been this sort of “shock.”
16

different ideology governs. Party change would be more likely to occur under these
circumstances than when the loss is to another traditional party. 8
Assumption 4: All parties have multiple goals, but one is more important than any
other.
The literature on political parties recognizes that most parties have multiple goals,
and that not all parties have the same primary goal. Strom (1990) argues that parties can
be primarily vote, office, or policy maximizers. Harmel and Janda (1994) add the goal of
“internal democracy” to these options. In Latin American, the major party players are of
the vote-maximizing or – even more so – office-maximizing varieties. For our purposes,
we have made a practical decision – to reduce the complexity of theorizing we are doing
here – to limit our scope to older parties with vote-seeking or office-seeking as the
primary goal, i.e. those which have a viable chance of winning legislative seats (votes) or
the presidency (office). We recognize that there are parties in Latin American which
have primary goals of internal democracy or policy, but we leave theorizing for those
smaller groups of parties to others. This decision, to focus this paper on vote- and office-
seeking parties, means that certain propositions from the original Integrated Theory of
Party Change are rendered irrelevant for the context we are theorizing about.
Traditional parties that have long been major players in Latin American politics
tend to have office maximizing as their primary goal. In Latin America’s presidential
systems, where the presidency is the real plum that a major party wants to win to have
8 We note, however, that the threat of a loss to an extremely different party may be less likely to induce the
traditional party to change then an actual loss to the ideologically distant party. The party change literature
anticipates that parties that do not fit the norm (i.e., parties that do not look and act like, or possibly even
think like traditional parties and that are too different to be viewed as acceptable coalition partners by
established parties) are the parties that will be forced to change so that they will have access to government
(Harmel and Janda 1994: 264). By extension, traditional parties in Latin America may not change in
response to a threat from a new leftist or populist party because they do not perceive that party as a true
threat until it is too late to respond – i.e., after the election has lost a substantial share of its voter support.
17

access to state resources, coming in first, even by very few votes is often enough to
maximize office. 9 Where many parties and permissive electoral rules mean that the
president’s party is unlikely to enjoy a majority in the congress, or if due to a lack of
partisan powers a president cannot count on the loyalty of his co-partisans in the
legislature (Jones 1995; Mainwaring and Shugart 1997), then the president will be forced
to reach out to other parties to form a governing coalition. In those cases (e.g., Bolivia,
Brazil, Ecuador) small parties may be able to succeed at their office maximizing goal –
particularly if the party is a “party for hire” that wants pork and patronage resources more
than policy (Kellam 2007).
Traditional parties in Latin American politics are often more concerned about
gaining access to state resources for clientelism than about policy maximizing. They
often pursue policies that benefit the traditional oligarchy at the expense of the poor
majority, regardless of the promises politicians make at election time, and these
traditional parties do not try to differentiate themselves based on their policy platform.
They have a clientele that they want to protect (i.e., the policy preferences of the
traditional oligarchy or business and the clientelistic expectations of their clients), but
competition is between traditional parties and their clientelistic networks, more than it is
a policy debate. Even when a party has strong policy goals, winning the executive is a
logical strategy for obtaining those goals, due to the strong policy initiative powers of
many Latin American presidents.
Finally, our focus on traditional parties means that increasing party democracy is
unlikely to be the party’s primary goal. There are some parties in Latin America that
9 Coming in second is what is needed to take part in a presidential run-off, even a distant second, though in
the second round of elections for the presidency, a party must work to obtain the most votes.
18

place high value on internal party democracy (e.g., the Workers Party in Brazil), but
traditional parties tend to maintain the old-fashioned norm of control by a party caudillo,
even if the party’s statutes on paper give control to party congresses from the local to the
national level. Even parties with a more modern face and a middle- or working-class
appeal also are controlled by national-level party leaders, particularly when it comes to
selecting legislative candidates (e.g., the Concertación coalition and its member parties in
Chile [Navia forthcoming]).
Assumption 5: The criteria for judging the party’s performance in achieving its goals
vary with the nature of its primary goal.
A5.1 If the primary goal is winning elections, the performance criteria is winning
votes or seats.
A5.2 If the primary goal is gaining executive office, the performance criterion is
participation in government.
Proposition 1: The more stable the conformation of the dominant coalition, the less
likely the party will change.
Proposition 2: The greater the change in the conformation of the dominant coalition,
the more likely the party will change.
Proposition 3: A change in the composition of the dominant coalition is likely to
produce party change.
Proposition 4: Changes in the dominant coalition’s conformation have more effect on
party change than changes in its composition.
Proposition 5: A change in the person who leads the party is likely to produce party
change.
Proposition 6: The poorer the party’s performance in achieving its goals, the greater
the pressures for party change.
Here we note that for traditional parties in Latin America, the challenge may
come in determining why the party did not win an election, or why its electoral
performance deteriorated. Thus, the need for change may be clear, but change may not
occur if it is not obvious what type of party change is likely to produce a benefit (i.e., an
improvement in electoral performance) that exceeds the cost of making the change. The
19

obstacles to making these decisions are discussed above under Assumption 3, and below
under Propositions 7 and 8.
Proposition 7: For vote-seeking parties – those that pursue winning elections as their
primary goal – the more pronounced their electoral failures; the more likely they
are to change.
Proposition 8: For office-seeking parties – those that pursue executive office as their
primary goals – the more pronounced their failure to achieve executive office;
the more likely they are to change.
For Harmel and Janda (1994), changes are more likely to follow electoral shocks
of “shattering defeats” or “trends in declining shares of votes or seats,” or office shocks of
“significant failures to enter cabinet governments or trends of failures.” Both electoral
and office shocks would involve sources external to the party, but it is important to note
that what is a shock is in eye of beholder. In Latin America, where the above-discussed
filters can make the meaning of election results quite opaque, party decision-makers
might be more prone to interpreting electoral failure as a “one-time loss” that does not
achieve the stature of a shock, and thus not meriting change.
In that same context of difficult-to-interpret election results, even when a loss is
so dramatic as to catch the attention of the decision-makers, the reason for the loss may
be too illusive to motivate any particular change. Such loss is more likely, in those
circumstances, to produce personnel change (replacing a party leader with a new face that
pursues the same old methods, tactics, and ideas) than genuine party change as we have
defined it above.
In combination with Assumption 3 (and A3.1 – A3.3), propositions 7 and 8 yield
several new sub-propositions. Combination with A3.1 yields:
P7.1 For vote-seeking parties – the more pronounced their electoral failures, the more
likely they are to change, though less so to the extent that the party is uncertain
that the democratic regime will continue.
20

P8.1 For office-seeking parties – the more pronounced their failure to achieve
executive office, the more likely they are to change, though less so to the extent
that the party is uncertain that the democratic regime will continue.
Likewise, combining Propositions 7 and 8 with A3.2 yields:
P7.2 For vote-seeking parties – the more pronounced their electoral failures, the more
likely they are to change, though less so to the extent that electoral results are not
easily interpretable.
P8.2 For office-seeking parties – the more pronounced their failure to achieve
executive office, the more likely they are to change, though less so to the extent
that electoral results are not easily interpretable.
Finally, combining Proposition 8 with A3.3 yields: 10
P8.3 For office-seeking parties – the more pronounced their failure to achieve
executive office, the more likely they are to change, though less so to the extent
that accomplishing party goals is difficult/impossible from opposition status.
Proposition 11: Goal-oriented changes attract more controversy and are more
difficult to achieve than power-oriented changes. 11
Harmel and Janda (1994: 281) explain that, “Power-oriented changes are inside
jobs, while goal-oriented changes invite involvement by all classes of party actors and the
public.” The latter attracts public commentary and can produce controversy inside the
party and out. This proposition may have different implications for parties operating in
established vs. in unconsolidated democracies. For parties in established democracies,
power-oriented changes are likely to be more common than goal-oriented changes. For
Latin America’s traditional parties, however, we can envision scenarios where the
controversy generated by a goal-oriented change may make that type of change more
10 We do not see that A3.3 would make it less likely for vote-seeking parties to change because the primary
goal of vote-seeking parties is to win votes that translate into seats in the legislature. With those seats, a
vote-seeking party may be part of the opposition, or it might take part in the president’s coalition, but
presumably a vote-seeking party would not view opposition status as an impossible obstacle to achieving
its primary goal.
11 Propositions 9 and 10 from Harmel and Janda (1994: 281) are dropped when we refine the integrated
theory of party change for application to traditional parties in Latin America, because they apply to policyseeking
or democracy-seeking parties, which we have opted to not include here.
21

eneficial to the party, and thus more likely than power-oriented change, precisely
because it generated controversy and (hopefully) positive attention for the party.
In Latin American countries, where the permanence of democracy has often been
uncertain, and where parties have often broken their word to voters (Stokes 2001), the
“controversy” that a goal-oriented change generates may in fact be seen as a benefit.
Goal-oriented changes related to change in party strategy or tactics are intended to
generate publicity in order to increase voter support for the party beyond party militants.
For example, a historically undemocratic party – whether formerly restrictive or
subversive – may renounce old tactics or adopt new ones to emphasize its commitment to
democracy.
Proposition 12: If a dominant faction is replaced by a faction that favors a different
goal, the new dominant coalition will engage in both power-motivated and goalmotivated
changes.
While Proposition 12 as stated by Harmel and Janda (1994) still holds, we add
that this incentive for change may occur for a Latin American traditional party when a
formerly dominant party loses power and a new dominant faction within the party sets
aside the office goal in favor of using vote-maximizing strategies/tactics to rebuild the
party’s base of support. In this type of situation, the change in goal-orientation may be
driven by the new leader’s fight to keep the party alive, more than by the new leader’s
lack of support for the old party goal.
Proposition 13: When making goal-oriented changes, vote-seeking parties are more
likely to modify their rules and structure than are office-seeking or policy-seeking
parties.
Proposition 14: Power-motivations are more likely to produce changes in party rules
and structure than in party issues.
Proposition 15: Outside of democracy-seeking parties, goal-motivations are more
likely to produce changes in party issues, strategies and tactics.
22

Harmel and Janda (1994: 282) add “Because parties achieve their goals by
reacting with the environment, if they fail to achieve their goals, they must modify the
way they interact with their environment.” Here we would simply draw special attention
to parties that were formerly restrictive or subversive and now face an environment in
which – whether for domestic or international reasons – anti-democratic tactics are no
longer viable. In that circumstance, a formerly restrictive traditional party could be
expected to embrace changes which may make it more effective in the changed
environment, e.g. adopting tactics traditionally associated with vote-maximization and
even supporting electoral reforms. Parties which formerly contained guerilla movements
(i.e., subversive parties) could indicate this change by signing peace treaties and
becoming active participants in the electoral arena which they formerly shunned. These
behaviors would be individual indicators of a party fundamentally changing its strategies
or tactics for accomplishing its primary goal of maximizing votes or office.
Proposition 17: Propensity of a party to change is inversely related to party age. 12
Some Hypotheses Derived from the Refined Integrated Theory of Party Change
and an Illustrative Case
From the assumptions and propositions outlined above in the Refined Integrated
Theory of Party Change, we now offer some specific hypotheses about party change for
traditional parties in Latin America. Assumption 3.1 in combination with P7.1 and P8.1
yields:
12 Proposition 16 from Harmel and Janda (1994: 282) is dropped when we refine the integrated theory of
party change for application to traditional parties in Latin America, because it applies to democracyseeking
parties, which we have opted to not include here.
23

H7.1.1: For vote-seeking parties: occurrence [or magnitude] of party change attributable
to perceived electoral failure is inversely related to frequency or cumulative duration
of authoritarian regimes in previous decades.
H7.1.2: For vote-seeking parties: occurrence [or magnitude] of party change attributable
to perceived electoral failure is inversely related to the frequency of coup attempts or
the intensity of coup rumors in the previous year.
H8.1.1: For office-seeking parties: occurrence [or magnitude] of party change attributable
to failure to achieve office is inversely related to frequency or cumulative duration of
authoritarian regimes in previous decades.
H8.1.2: For office-seeking parties: occurrence [or magnitude] of party change attributable
to failure to achieve office is inversely related to the frequency of coup attempts or
the intensity of coup rumors in the previous year.
Assumption 3.2 in combination with P7.2 and P8.2 yields:
H7.2: For vote-seeking parties: occurrence [or magnitude] of party change attributable to
perceived electoral failure is inversely related to electoral volatility or dropping
turnout rates or transient parties.
H8.2: For office-seeking parties: occurrence [or magnitude] of party change attributable
to failure to achieve office is inversely related to electoral volatility or dropping
turnout rates or transient parties.
Assumption 3.3 in combination with P8.3 yields:
H8.3: For office-seeking parties: occurrence [or magnitude] of party change attributable
to failure to achieve office is inversely related to the degree the regime’s executive
has strong formal powers.
Many specific hypotheses can flow from a single proposition. In future empirical
tests of such hypotheses, we may find some to be supported and others to fail. If a
hypothesis fails in empirical test that casts doubt on the proposition from which it is
derived. Some successful hypotheses and some failures should result in rethinking of the
breadth of the concepts employed in the proposition, and thus, revision of the theory.
For this paper our purpose is to refine the Integrated Theory of Party Change so
that it can be applied to traditional parties in unconsolidated democracies. Rather than
conduct a test of hypotheses here, using systematic data from many traditional parties in
many Latin American countries, we use the experiences of Venezuela’s traditional parties
24

in the 1990s as an illustration. Keeping in mind that in studies of party change it is a
judgment call whether “the glass is half full or half empty” regarding whether significant
change has occurred, the actions by Venezuela’s two traditional parties, illustrate how
this class of parties respond to electoral failures. In particular they allow us to illustrate
how falling voter turnout, new parties, and uncertainty about democracy make it difficult
for party leaders to determine whether and what type of party change may have benefits
that outweigh costs (A3.1, A3.2, P8.1, P8.2, H8.1.2, and H8.2). In light of the existence
of these filters, interacted with the natural conservatism of political parties as
organizations (A1), any party change is worthy of special note.
The Venezuelan national elections of December 1993 and 1998 look like cases
written from the Refined Integrated Theory of Party Change. The Venezuelan experience
highlights how filters make it difficult for party leaders to interpret the meaning and
causes of an electoral failure.
With hindsight, the 1993 election was the beginning of the collapse of Acción
Democrática’s (AD) and Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente’s
(COPEI) dominance of Venezuelan politics. Both traditional parties had office-seeking
as a primary goal, and they alone had won the presidency since the installation of
Venezuela’s democratic regime in 1958 (AD five times, COPEI twice). AD and COPEI
had grown accustomed to winning a combined total of 80% or more of the seats in
Congress (Crisp 2000: 45). They expected to alternate in power and to control policy and
clientelistic resources – but the 1993 election was the beginning of the end of that
hegemony.
25

The revised party change theory predicts that the traditional parties might not take
definitive action (party change) in the face of their failures to win executive office,
because of the filters that made it difficult for them to interpret the meaning and severity
of their electoral failure. One filter was the 40% abstention in the 1993 election – twice
the abstention rate in the 1988 election (Landman 1995: 100; Molina and Pérez 1998: 15-
6). Abstention was again high in 1998, and the low participation was thought to benefit
AD and COPEI (Chávez Spells Out his Policies 1998). Another filter was the types of
parties (coalitions and candidates) that did well in the 1993 election. They were small
parties that increased their seat share in the Congress but were still small blocks (MAS,
Causa R), and a coalition of new parties (Convergencia -- whose primary members were
defectors from the traditional parties) that won the presidency. 13 AD and COPEI were
still the largest parties in the Congress, winning 30 of 46 seats in the Senate and 109 of
199 seats in the Chamber (though this was a dramatic drop from the number of seats each
held in the 1988-93 Congress). The traditional parties also lost the presidency to Rafael
Caldera and his Convergencia coalition, but Caldera was a former COPEI president as
well as COPEI’s founder, which may have caused them to think their electoral loss was
not a threat to their constituencies. 14 In addition, Caldera won the presidency with only
30.45% of the popular vote, while AD’s candidate won 24.22% and COPEI’s won
23.45%. Again, the combined vote share of AD and COPEI represented a massive drop
from the 93% of the vote they shared in 1988, but what their candidates’ vote shares
meant in the 1993 election was probably difficult to interpret. In sum, this noisy electoral
13 Causa R’s victory in the mayoral race for Caracas in 1993 should, however, have been another sign of
popular discontent with the traditional parties (Goldfrank 2002: Chapter 3; Coppedge 1996). News reports
do indicate that AD was concerned by its poor showing in the December 1992 gubernatorial elections, but
that party leaders disagreed about what to do (Rattled AD Splits over Strategy 1993).
14 Caldera broke with COPEI and ran as the candidate of the Convergencia coalition of 17 disparate parties.
26

environment would have made it difficult for either traditional party to interpret the cause
of their electoral failure. H8.2 predicts that party change by AD and COPEI would be
relatively unlikely even in the face of the failure of both parties to achieve their office-
seeking goal: the presidency.
In addition, throughout the 1990s there was uncertainty about the stability of the
democratic regime in Venezuela. 15 In 1992, Hugo Chaves led an unsuccessful coup
attempt, with another coup attempt later in the year; and mass protests against
government policies were frequent, often being violently repressed. 16 Throughout Rafael
Caldera’s administration (1994-98) rumors of a possible military coup persisted, as did
popular protests against government policies. H8.1.2 predicts that party change by AD
and COPEI is less likely, even in the face of their failure to achieve their office-seeking
goal in 1993, because of the questions about the future of democracy.
The revised party change theory predicts that, given these filters which may
reduce the likelihood of party change in response to an external shock, leader or
dominant faction change within a party is a particularly likely source of party change (P1-
5). Certainly there was leader change in AD when President Carlos Andrés Pérez
resigned in June 1993 in the midst of corruption scandals and impeachment proceedings.
But Pérez was not gone (from government or AD) until very late in the multi-year period
during which popular discontent grew in Venezuela, and his leadership power within the
party had been questionable for some time. Anti-Pérez factions within AD, acting from
15 This makes Venezuela’s traditional parties particularly interesting cases for study, because before the
crisis that developed during the administration of Pres. Pérez, Venezuela was “considered a thoroughly
consolidated democracy” (Coppedge 1994: 1).
16 In the first three years of Pérez’s term, there were 5000 street protests, at least 2000 of which ended in
violence. There was also a constant litany of negative public opinion polls about the government and the
state of the economy (Canache and Kulisheck 1998: 5; Myers 2000: 272 and 280; Molina 2001: 533;
Canache 2004: 33).
27

within the Congress, blocked his economic austerity, tax, and constitutional reform
initiatives, and repeatedly proposed motions to shorten his term (Further Changes 1992;
Pérez Wants Taxes 1992). Yet even with Pérez gone, no new faction was able to
definitely take over AD.
COPEI was also internally fragmented before the 1993 election. COPEI’s
fragmentation, however, led to a significant change in the party. In an attempt to avoid a
party split, and to enhance the democratic image of the party, COPEI held an open
primary to select its presidential candidate (COPEI ‘Cogollo’ 1993). Nonetheless, this
change was not sufficient to prevent Rafael Caldera from leaving the party and running as
the presidential candidate of Convergencia. In addition, though COPEI had made a
dramatic change to party rules for how it selected its presidential candidate, the party still
nominated a candidate who supported neoliberal economic policies; which AD did as
well. These candidates were not chosen because of their economic policy beliefs, but
rather because they had known regional bases of support (Coppedge 2000: 133). It was
not until after COPEI failed to achieve its office-seeking goal in the 1993 presidential
election that the party underwent a change in dominant coalition. COPEI and AD both
purged their neoliberal reform-oriented faction in 1994 (Coppedge 1996: 14; Coppedge
2000: 134-5). COPEI reinforced the leadership change by bringing back former
president Luis Herrera Campins to run the party (Caldera Survives 1995). Yet even with
new party leaders, it was not clear outside the party that party strategy or policy had
changed. AD’s delegation in Congress worked with President Caldera to pass several
important pieces of legislation (New Majority 1996; Optimism 1995; Military Unveil
Plans 1995), while AD and COPEI members of the Caracas city council refused to
28

approve key reform programs proposed by the Causa R mayor (Coppedge 1996: 14;
Goldfrank 2002: 17). Differences of opinion within the Venezuelan business community
about whether Venezuela should pursue transparent and neo-liberal economic policies, or
protectionist and clientelistic policies, hampered policy change within the major parties,
both before and after the 1993 elections (Coppedge 2000: 126-7 and 133; Coppedge
1996).
AD did attempt some changes prior to the 1993 election. In 1992 President Pérez
proposed, and eventually got passed, a potentially significant change to the electoral law.
Elections for the lower chamber were changed from a pure closed-list PR system to a
mixed-member proportional system. This change was intended to create a stronger link
between local needs and interests and the Congress. Based on the refinement we offer to
Proposition 11, it is possible that AD pursued this high profile change to the electoral
rules, rather than engaging in change internal to the party, because a change that would
be embedded in law may have been seen as more beneficial to the party. Such a public
and high profile attempt at party change may have been necessary to cut through the
intense political controversy and speculation about the regime’s future that characterized
Venezuelan politics at the time, along with the corruption charges and attempts within
Congress to shorten Pres. Pérez’s term. However, the change ultimately had little impact
on the behavior of members of the Congress because nominations were still controlled by
national-level party leaders (Crisp 2000: 56).
It is interesting to note that for the 1998 contest, COPEI reverted back to its
closed-door methods for selecting its presidential candidate (Saez Strikes a Deal 1998).
In addition, both AD and COPEI worked to push through a change in the election rules,
29

to move up state and Congress elections to November 1998, instead of holding those
elections concurrently with the December presidential elections. This new format was
expected to allow the traditional parties to make use of their extensive network of local
party clubs to help get out the vote, focusing on clientelistic relationships (Saez Strikes a
Deal 1998). It thus constituted a change in electoral strategy by both traditional parties,
but also was a signal (in the eyes of the press and smaller parties) of the undemocratic
nature of the two parties. Finally, after observing the electoral success of Chávez’ MVR
party in the gubernatorial and Congress elections (MVR won a third of the governorships
and the same percentage of seats in the Chamber as AD) (Chávez Stands Up 1998), AD
and COPEI responded with a further change in strategy. Due to pressure from the
recently elected AD and COPEI state governors, both parties dropped their failing
presidential candidates and united behind the front-running independent candidate, Salas
Romer (Revolts Swing Old Parties to Salas 1998).
These changes ultimately were not enough to enable AD or COPEI to rebound
from their losses in 1993. In December 1998 Hugo Chávez won the presidency with
56.2% of the vote, and even when fielding a single candidate, AD and COPEI only
managed to win 39.97% of the presidential vote. Possibly even more devastating, the
share of seats won by the traditional parties dropped to 32.9% of seats in the Senate and
32.3% of seats in the Chamber.
What can we conclude from the experience of the two traditional parties in
Venezuela? It does appear that filters, such as dropping turnout, new parties, or
uncertainty about democracy, make traditional parties less likely, or possibly less able to
respond definitively to a failure to achieve their office-seeking goal. Their 1993 loss to
30

Rafael Caldera and his Convergencia coalition was the first time since 1958 that AD or
COPEI had not controlled the executive branch, which appears to be a pronounced failure
by both parties to achieve their office-seeking goal. But despite the noisiness of the
electoral environment, and of the political situation more generally, both parties did
engage in some anticipatory change: AD with the new electoral formula for the lower
house; COPEI with an open primary to select their presidential candidate. However, both
parties also sent the Venezuelan voters signals that they were not changing in a way that
would constitute a response to popular discontent, as their presidential candidates in 1993
supported the unpopular neoliberal economic reforms (i.e., the change was not policy
change). To further confuse the signal party change would send to voters, COPEI also
had an “on again off again” relationship of cooperation with AD President Pérez, and
then AD more often then not supported President Caldera from the Congress. Both
traditional parties pursued electoral law change to try to defend their office-seeking
interests in 1998, when they moved up the Congress and state elections. That change was
high profile and controversial because it was opposed by the elections tribunal (Saez
Strikes a Deal 1998), and was seen as a way that the traditional parties could capitalize on
their highly developed clientelistic networks. As explained in Proposition 11, goal-
oriented changes are controversial and they generate publicity, but in this case that
publicity may not have benefited the traditional parties.
Yet we conclude by clarifying that party change is a potential response of party
leaders to an electoral shock or a dominant faction change. The revised party change
theory is intended to provide testable predictions about when parties will change. It is not
31

intended to predict when a party’s change will succeed in reversing the party’s electoral
misfortunes or enable the party to achieve its office or vote-seeking goals.
Clearly, a systematic test of the Refined Integrated Theory of Party Change is
needed to empirically verify its predictive power for understanding how traditional
parties in unconsolidated democracies respond to external shocks and dominant faction
change. The Venezuelan case illustrated how filters dampen the ability of parties to
change because they make it more difficult for parties to interpret the cause(s) of an
electoral failure or the type of party change that will be beneficial.
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