This chapter shows how the roots of this insufficiencies are related to the nature and particular trajectories of political parties since the third wave of democratization. Accordingly, the chapter is divided into three main sections. In the first one, I examine the nature, types and traditional functions of political parties in Latin America since 1978. In the second section, I show the challenges of building a party in Latin America by focusing on the differences between party-formation and party consolidation. Finally, by using insurgent successor parties (ISPs) as a particularly important subset of parties in the region, I show how parties vary in their internal organizational ability to take political decisions and integrate social interests. This agentic variation explains the pitfalls of party endurance and shows why it is so difficult to have consolidated political parties in the region.

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