Chiles Political Culture and Parties

by Melnick, Ana

• ISBN13: 9780268022624
• ISBN10: 0268022623
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Notre Dame Pr

Summary

The concept of political culture is young -- born from the need to explain the dramatic sociological and political changes that occurred in Europe both during and after the Second World War. The practice of examining the culture of political parties in depth through an ethnographic field study of a country's social structure is, so far, a neglected one.

Larissa Adler Lomnitz and Ana Melnick rectify the lack of attention to this area, with respect to Chile, in Chile's Political Culture and Parties: An Anthropological Explanation. This volume examines Chile's political culture by considering its origin and the persistence of its "grammar", which the authors define as the ability of each member of society to function within social categories and rules. This "grammar", they believe, is what gives character to national culture.

Lomnitz and Melnick argue that political parties in Chile are a conglomeration of horizontal networks of friends. Class is perfectly established within Chile's social tissue, and is defined by a mixture of variables, including an individu

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(16)
Historical Background	17	(10)
Origins and Evolution of the Radical Party	27	(20)
Origins and Evolution of the Christian Democrat Party	47	(34)
Party Subcultures	81	(60)
Conclusions	141	(8)
Bibliography	149	(4)
Index	153