Party Discipline in Latin America: The Role of Party Ideology

Abstract

Party discipline is an area that has received considerable attention in the party cohesion literature. While existing comparative research has predominantly focused on the institutional environment that impacts party discipline, we know less about its relationship with party-related variables. In this article, we explore the effect of party ideology on legislators’ perceptions of party discipline in Latin America. The difficulties for parliamentary groups to act cohesively in Latin America make party discipline and its study a major task. We argue that party ideology shapes the perceptions of legislators vis-à-vis their relative autonomy and the resulting ability of the party to be cohesive. To perform the analysis, we have constructed a database containing the responses of 1272 parliamentarians from 71 political parties in 17 countries across the 2011–2022 legislatures. In addition to party-related variables, we have included individual- and system-level variables. The results suggest that Latin American parliamentarians belonging to left-wing parties tend to conform to party discipline more frequently than those of the right wing.