The Logic of Polarizing Populism: State Crises and Polarization in South America

Abstract

What explains high party polarization in younger developing democracies? This article examines and explains variation during South America’s recent left turn period, making two key claims. Extremely polarized politics in countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela emerged through a mechanism termed polarizing populism, in which political outsiders leveraged popular anti-systemic appeals to underwrite otherwise risky and highly controversial policy programs. The occurrence (or not) of polarizing populism in South America, in turn, can be explained by the conjunction of state crises before the left turn period (which provided fuel for outsider politics) and the strength of the extant infrastructure of left-wing political mobilization each country possessed as the post–Cold War era began, which shaped incentives for outsiders to build ideologically narrow or broad elite coalitions. These propositions are tested through a broad analysis of eight South American countries and a more detailed case study of Venezuela.