Systems and institutions.
Dominica’s party system took shape gradually after the introduction of universal adult suffrage in the 1950s. The Dominica Labour Party, founded in 1955, is the island’s oldest political organization and first contested general elections in 1961, establishing the two-party framework that would come to define Dominican politics for the following decades. The 1980s brought a […]
Cuba is governed as a one-party socialist state in which the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) is constitutionally recognized as the country’s sole legal political party and the leading force of society and government. Unlike most nations in the Americas, Cuba does not permit opposition parties to organize, campaign, or field candidates, and the PCC […]
Costa Rica has long been regarded as one of Latin America’s most stable democracies, a reputation built in part on a competitive multiparty system and a tradition of peaceful transfers of power. For much of the late twentieth century, two parties, the National Liberation Party (PLN) and the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC), alternated in […]
For much of the twentieth century, Colombian politics was dominated by two traditional forces, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, whose rivalry shaped the country’s institutions and, at times, its conflicts. The 1991 constitution loosened the barriers to political organizing, opening space for smaller movements and independent candidates. In the decades since, dozens of […]
Canadian federal politics has long been dominated by the center-left Liberal Party and the center-right Conservative Party, with the social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), the Quebec-sovereigntist Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party typically holding smaller blocs of seats in the House of Commons. Members of Parliament are elected from single-member ridings under a first-past-the-post system, […]
