Nearly thirty years have passed since Latin America began the arduous task of transitioning from military-led rule to democracy. In this time, more countries have moved toward the institutional bases of democracy than at any time in the region’s history. Nearly all countries have held free, competitive elections and most have had peaceful alternations in power between opposing political forces. Despite these advances, however, Latin American countries continue to face serious domestic and international challenges to the consolidation of stable democratic governance. The challenges range from weak political institutions, corruption, legacies of militarism, transnational crime and globalization among others.
In Latin American Democracy contributors – both academics and practitioners, North Americans and Latin Americans – explore and assess the state of democratic consolidation in Latin America by focusing on the specific issues and challenges confronting democratic governance in the region.
The model of democracy instituted by the leftist governments of Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Rafael Correa (Ecuador) has received surprising little comment in our country. Surprising, that is, in light of the past ...
Drug cartels are a mortal threat to Latin American democracy, which is to say, American democracy.[17] And responsible media professionals everywhere are faced with a choice: honest coverage or the continuation of a 50-year legacy of ...
On the other hand, the transition toward Arab-style democracy will take time and have a specificity in the same way Asian or Latin American democracy developed, but endowed with Arab history, culture and religious values. Whether this ...
Later in the book, the government reforms the political system so that the president can remain in power for a hundred years; a clear mocking of Latin American democracy. Elsewhere, García Márquez ridicules organised religion and the ...
... hyper-presidentialism that has characterized contemporary Latin American democracy, it is impossible to discuss substantive representationor any kind of legislative representation for that matterwithout bringing in executivelegislative ...
