Although democracy is generally considered to be thriving in the Americas, it is in reality shallow and less stable than is assumed. Most of the democratic regimes in Central and South America have yet to achieve the deep and widespread legitimation at the elite and mass levels, and the behavioral consensus on the rules and constraints of democracy, that denote democratic consolidation. This article elaborates the concept of democratic consolidation and explains why it is important for understanding—and improving—the prospects for democracy in the Americas. It identifies three dimensions of democratic consolidation: deepening democratic structures to make them more liberal, accessible, accountable, and representative; strengthening the formal institutions of democracy, including parties, legislatures, and the judicial system; and improving regime performance, both economically and politically (by maintaining order, safeguarding liberty, and combating corruption). Ten specific challenges for democratic consolidation are then analyzed, and the importance of the regional and international environment is emphasized in conclusion.
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References
1.
1. Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 2d ed. (New York: Harper, 1947), p. 269. Other minimalist, electoral conceptions of democracy generally (and often quite explicitly) descend from Schumpeter's.
2.
idem , “The Hybrid Regimes of Central America,”Journal of Democracy, 6:72-86 (July 1995).
3.
3. Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 3.
4.
The evidence with respect to democratic trends in Latin America is surveyed more extensively in idem, “Democracy in Latin America: Degrees, Illusions, and Directions for Consolidation,” in Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas, ed. Tom Farer (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 52-104.
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5. Sam Dillon, “Major-Party Deal in Mexico to Bring Political Reforms,”New York Times, 27 July 1996.
6.
Dahl , Polyarchy, pp. 129-131.
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7. Linz, Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, pp. 16, 29-31, 36-37.
8.
Diamond , “Democracy in Latin America,” p. 54.
9.
The framework in this paragraph is Weingast's. Weingast, too, emphasizes that while elites construct the institutional frameworks to limit the exercise of state power, credible commitment to the rules, sufficient to make them self-enforcing, must exist at the mass level as well. Thus stable democracy requires a very broad societal consensus defining “the boundaries of government action.” Ibid., p. 14.
10.
10. Gunther, Puhle, and Diamandouros, “Introduction,” p. 13.
11.
11. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, “Political Crafting of Democratic Consolidation or Destruction: European and South American Comparisons,” in Democracy in the Americas: Stopping the Pendulum, ed. Robert A. Pastor (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1989), pp. 41-61.
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12. Guillermo O'Donnell, “Delegative Democracy,”Journal of Democracy, 5(1):55-69 (Jan. 1994).
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13. Guillermo O'Donnell, “Illusions About Consolidation,”Journal of Democracy, 7(2):39 (Apr. 1996).
14.
14. Ibid.
15.
Diamond , “Democracy in Latin America.”
16.
16. I borrow the term “partial regimes” from Philippe Schmitter, but he applies it more narrowly to “distinctive sites for the representation of social groups and the resolution of their ensuing conflicts.”Schmitter, “Interest Systems and the Consolidation of Democracies,” p. 160.
17.
17. Adam Przeworskiet al., “What Makes Democracies Endure?”Journal of Democracy, 7(1):41-42 (Jan. 1996). They define as “affluent” those countries with annual per capita incomes of $6000 or more (in purchasing power parity U.S. dollars, in 1985 international prices). Moderate-income countries have annual per capita incomes of $1000-$6000, and poor countries are under $1000 per annum per capita income. Poor countries, they find, are exceptionally vulnerable to poor performance, having a 0.22 chance of dying in a year after their income falls. Moderate inflation is considered to be 6-30 percent and produces an expected life of 71 years for democracy, while democracies with inflation rates above that can expect on average to survive only 16 years.
18.
Harry S. Rowen , “World Wealth Expanding: Why a Rich, Democratic and (Perhaps) Peaceful Era Is Ahead,” in The Mosaic of Economic Growth, ed. Ralph Landau, Timothy Taylor, and Gavin Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 93-95.
19.
idem , “Democratization in Latin America,” in Global Transformation and the Third World, ed. Robert O. Slater, Barry M. Schultz, and Steven R. Dorr (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993), pp. 91-111.
20.
20. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995, Apr. 1996, p. 463.
21.
21. World Bank, World Development Report 1996 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), tab. 5, p. 197.
22.
Nora Lustig reports that the overall Latin American ratio of the top fifth to the bottom fifth income shares is 10.0, compared to 6.7 in other low- and middle-income countries. Nora Lustig, ed., Coping with Austerity: Poverty and Inequality in Latin America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1995), p. 2.
23.
The Inter-American Dialogue estimates that about half of the roughly 180 million poor Latin Americans live in such abject poverty that they do not have enough to eat, and that in many countries—including Brazil and Peru—“a substantial majority of the population is impoverished.”Inter-American Dialogue, Convergence and Community: The Americas in 1993 (Washington, DC: Inter-American Dialogue, 1992), p. 43.
24.
24. The importance of reducing inequality for the success of both economic reform and democracy was one of the central themes of the workshop “Constructing Democracy and Markets: Comparing Latin America and East Asia,” Los Angeles, 26-27 Jan. 1995. For the most pointed argument in this regard, see Terry Karl, “How Much Inequality Can Democracy Stand? Or How Much Democracy Can Inequality Stand?” (Paper delivered at the workshop “Constructing Democracy and Markets”).
25.
On the contribution that social safety nets can make to leveling inequality during economic reform, see Carol Graham, Safety Nets, Politics and the Poor: Transitions to Market Economies (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1994).
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26. “Mexico: The Challenge of Political Opening” (Conference report, International Forum for Democratic Studies and Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California-San Diego, Dec. 1995), p. 17.
27.
Within Latin America, Chile and Costa Rica stand out for their ability to rebound more rapidly through adjustment policies precisely because their sustained high levels of social investment in mass education “gave both countries a flexibility and an ability to develop new and promising export opportunities created by the reform process.”Samuel A. Morley, Poverty and Inequality in Latin America: Past Evidence and Future Prospects, Overseas Development Council, Policy Essay no. 13 (Washington, DC: Overseas Development Council, 1994), p. 73.
28.
In fact, Morley emphasizes, so critically important is the overall context of growth that “no social emergency program or special antipoverty social policy can completely offset the effect on the poor of a macroeconomic downturn.” Ibid., p. 69.
29.
29. Luis Carlos Bresser Pereira, José María Maravall, and Adam Przeworski, Economic Reforms in New Democracies: A Social-Democratic Approach (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 215-216.
30.
“Paradoxically,” Linz observes, “a democratic regime might need a larger number of internal security forces than a stabilized dictatorship, since it cannot count on the effect of fear. Its reactions to violence require massive but moderate responses; only numerical superiority can prevent the deadly reactions of overpowered agents of authority.” Ibid., p. 61.
31.
31. Juan J. Linz, “State Building and Nation Building,”European Review, 1(4):355-369 (1993).
32.
32. For evidence of a “dramatic post-conflict crime wave” that has gripped El Salvador (and emerged as one of the principal performance challenges for its new democracy) since the termination of the civil war in 1992, see Chuck Call, “Incorporating Former Enemies into the Police: National Reconciliation and Police Reform in Post-Conflict El Salvador” (Paper delivered at the MacArthur Consortium Workshop on Democratization and Internal Security, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 23-25 Feb. 1996). Permission to cite this paper for this and other specific purposes later in this article has been granted by the author. In addition to the other crime-inducing legacies of civil war mentioned in the text, Call notes the transformation of some death squads into organized criminal gangs.
33.
In El Salvador, the post-conflict crime wave has led to popular support for vigilante justice and to resumed expansion of the military role as the military has begun to fill the demand for provision of greater internal security. Call, “Incorporating Former Enemies.”
34.
submitted each spring to the U.S. Congress. For more detail, see Diamond, “Democracy in Latin America.”
35.
35. These criteria of institutionalization are elaborated in Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 12-26.
36.
36. Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, “Institutions and Economic Adjustment,” in The Politics of Economic Adjustment, ed. Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 25. The term is originally Miles Kahler's.
37.
37. Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation.
38.
idem , Latin America's Journey to the Market: From Macroeconomic Shocks to Institutional Therapy, International Center for Economic Growth, Occasional Papers no. 62 (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1995).
39.
39. For a discussion of human rights violations by the Mexican police, see Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995, pp. 463-467. In the state of Guerrero during June 1995, for instance, police were implicated in the messacre of 17 peasants.
40.
40. For a case demonstration, see Call, “Incorporating Former Enemies.”
41.
41. Andreas Schedler, “Under- and Overinstitutionalization: Some Ideal Typical Propositions Concerning New and Old Party Systems” (Working paper no. 213, Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, IN, Mar. 1995).
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42. Michael Coppedge, Strong Parties and Lame Ducks: Presidential Partyarchy and Factionalism in Venezuela (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994).
43.
43. Juan J. Linz, “Change and Continuity in the Nature of Contemporary Democracies,” in Reexamining Democracy, ed. Marks and Diamond, pp. 184-190.
44.
For a cogent and more extended recent treatment of this classic proposition linking the strength of parties and party systems to the stability of democracy, see Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully, “Introduction: Party Systems in Latin America,” in Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America, ed. Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 1-34.
45.
45. Larry Diamond, “Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation,”Journal of Democracy, 5(3):15 (July 1994).
46.
46. Larry Diamond, Juan Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, “What Makes for Democracy,” in Politics in Developing Countries, ed. Diamond, Linz, and Lipset, p. 34.
47.
47. Mainwaring and Scully, eds., Building Democratic Institutions, pp. 4-5. Among the conditions (indicators) of party-system institutionalization, they also list actor commitment to the legitimacy of the multiparty electoral process, but that is a dimension of democratic consolidation itself.
48.
See also ibid., pp. 17-174, 355-64, and passim.
49.
On the poor fit between presidentialism and multipartism in Latin America, see Scott Mainwaring, “Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combination,”Comparative Political Studies, 26:198-228 (1993).
50.
idem , “Latin America: The Second Stage of Reform.”
51.
51. For a comprehensive review and reform agenda, see Edgardo Buscaglia, Jr., Maria Dakolias, and William Ratliff, Judicial Reform in Latin America: A Framework for National Development (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1995).
52.
See also Diamond, Linz, and Lipset, “What Makes for Democracy,” pp. 45-46.
53.
53. Barry R. Weingast, “The Economic Role of Political Institutions: Market-Preserving Federalism and Economic Development,”Journal of Law, Economics & Organization, 11(1):1-31 (Apr. 1995).
54.
54. Dillon, “Major-Party Deal in Mexico.”
55.
55. Jonathan Fox, “The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons From Mexico,”World Politics, 46(2):151-184 (Jan. 1994).
56.
Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds., Civil-Military Relations and Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
57.
57. Donald Horowitz, “Making Moderation Pay: The Comparative Politics of Ethnic Conflict Management,” in Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies, ed. Joseph V. Montville (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990), pp. 451-476.
58.
58. Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, chap. 2.
59.
59. Schmitter, “Interest Systems and the Consolidation of Democracies.”
60.
60. Philippe C. Schmitter, “Still the Century of Corporatism?” in Private Interest Government: Beyond Market and State, ed. Wolfgang Streeck and Philippe C. Schmitter (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984), pp. 99-100.
61.
Philippe Schmitter , “Civil Society and the Consolidation of Democracy” (Paper delivered at the Conference on Consolidating Third Wave Democracies, Taipei, Taiwan, Aug. 1995).
62.
62. Denise Dresser, “Treading Lightly and Without a Stick: International Actors and the Promotion of Democracy in Mexico,” in Beyond Sovereignty, ed. Farer, p. 329.
63.
For detailed analysis of the role of regional and international actors in the Americas, see the essays in Farer, ed., Beyond Sovereignty.
64.
64. Inter-American Dialogue, The Americas in 1994: A Time for Leadership (Washington, DC: Inter-American Dialogue, 1994), p. x.
65.
65. Laurence Whitehead, “International Aspects of Democratization,” in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 21.
