Explaining programmatic party appeals in Contemporary Latin America: The differing roles of ideology, particularism, and populism

Political parties and presidents in contemporary Latin America vary considerably in the extent to which they emphasize policy when appealing to voters (programmatism). We use Confirmatory Factor Analysis and data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey—Latin America (CHES-LA) to examine how three key party characteristics relate to programmatism: ideological positions, particularistic strategies, and populism. Our results show that political actors on the ideological extremes rely more heavily on programmatism, that particularism and programmatism have a strong negative relationship, and that populism and programmatism are positively associated. These findings document important variation in how Latin American parties compete for votes, revealing concerning patterns in contemporary party competition. Highly populist parties also tend to be programmatic, creating potential trade-offs between clear policy positions and democratic accountability.