Examines the the degree to which political party systems were programmatically structured at the end of the 20th century.

Herbert Kitschelt is the George V. Allen Professor of International Relations in Duke University's Political Science Department. He has published widely on comparative political parties and party systems in Western Europe and postcommunist Eastern Europe and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Introduction: party competition in Latin America; 1. Patterns of programmatic party competition in Latin America; Part I. Describing Programmatic Structuration: 2. Issues, ideologies, and partisan divides: imprints of programmatic structure in Latin American legislatures; 3. Left-right semantics as a facilitator of programmatic structuring; 4. Political representation in Latin America; 5. Ideological cohesion of political parties in Latin America; Part II. Causes and Correlates of Programmatic Party System Structuration: Explaining Cross-National Diversity: 6. Long-term influences on the structuring of Latin American Party systems; 7. Democratic politics and political economy since the 1980s: transforming the programmatic structure of Latin American party systems?; 8. Programmatic structuration around religion and political regime; 9. Programmatic structuration and democratic performance; Conclusion.