The Challenges for the Contemporary Democracy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5752/P.2317-773X.2022v10n2p7-20Keywords:
Democracy, Latin America, ChallengesAbstract
For several years now, a growing body of literature has argued that we are witnessing a period of recession in democratic values, which is understood as a slowdown in the pace of progress and achievements during the third wave of global democratization. However, these processes seem to respond more to the internal dynamics of states than to a generalized process of disdain for democratic regimes; the transformations of global politics have also made it more difficult - and increasingly so - to maintain and generate new democratic pacts. This article contributes to the analysis of how democratization has interacted with state-building processes and shows how this helps to explain a possible democratic recession. To do this, it first presents a reconstruction of the various theoretical arguments that have succeeded in presenting liberal democracy as a superior model to authoritarian regimes of the right and left. This is followed by a critical analysis of the main contributions of studies on transitions and consolidation of democracy. The third section analyzes the state-of-the-art literature on the nature of the contemporary democratic crisis. Finally, it analyzes the prospects for overcoming the current democratic crisis in Latin America.
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References
Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. (2006). Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., & Robinson, J. (2002). Reversal of fortune: geography and institutions in the making of the modern world income distribution. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117(4), 1231-294.
Boix, C. (2003). Democracy and Redistribution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boix, C., & Stokes, S. (2003). Endogenous democratization. World Politics, 55(4), 517-49. Brennan, J. (2016). Against Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cardoso, F., & Falleto, E. (1975). Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina: ensayo de interpretación sociológica. México: Siglo XXI.
Carey, J. (2000). Parchment, Equilibria, and Institutions. Comparative Political Studies, 33(6-7), 735-61.
Chagas-Bastos, F. (2019). Political realignment in Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro and the right turn. Revista de Estudios Sociales, (69), 92-100.
Collier, D. (1979). The Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Model: Synthesis and priorities for future research. In D. Collier (Ed.), The New Authoritarianism in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Collier, D., & Levitsky, S. (1997). Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research. World Politics, 49(3), 430-51.
Collier, D., & Levitsky, S. (2009). Democracy: Conceptual hierarchies in comparative research. In D. Collier, & J. Gerring (Eds.), Concepts and Method in Social Science (pp. 269- 288). New York: Routledge.
Collier, D., & Mahon, J. (1993). Conceptual ‘Stretching’ Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis. American Political Science Review, 87(4), 845-55.
Collier, D., & Mahoney, J. (1996). Insights and Pitfalls: selection bias in qualitative research. World Politics, 49(1), 56-91.
Dahl, R. (1971). La poliarquía: Participación y oposición. New Haven: Yale University Press.
De Sousa Santos B. (2001). Los nuevos movimientos sociales. OSAL (Septiembre), 177-84. Diamond, L. (2015). Facing Up to the Democratic Recession. Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 144- 55.
Diamond, L. (2016). Democracy in Decline How Washington Can Reverse the Tide. Foreign Affairs, 95(4), 151-59.
Diamond, L., Plattner, M. F., & Walker, C. (2016). Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Drake, P. (1982). Populism in South America. Latin American Research Review, 17(1), 190.199. Elias, N. (1998). Los procesos de formación de estado y de construcción de la nación. Historia y Sociedad, (5), 102-17.
Emgerman, S., & Sokoloff, K. (2002). Factor Endowments, inequality, and paths of development among New World economies. Economia, 3(1), 41-88.
Evans, P. (1979). Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fukuyama, F. (2014). Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Fukuyama, F. (2015). Why is Democracy Performing So Poorly? Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 11-20.
Geddes, B. (2006). Paradigms and Sandcastles. Theory building and Research Design in Comparative Politics. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.
Ginsburg, T. (2015). Constitutions as Political Institutions. In J. Gandhi, & R. Ruiz-Rufino (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Comparative Political Institutions (pp. 101-112). New York: Routledge. Hagopian, F., & Mainwaring, S. (2005). The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Huntington, S. (1968). Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press. Huntington, S. (1991). The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Keefer, P. (2007). The poor performance of poor democracies. In C. Coix, & S. Stokes, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics (pp. 886-909). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keefer, P., & Knack, S. (1997). Why don’t poor countries catch up? A cross national test of an institutional explanation. Economic Inquiry, 35(3), 590-602.
Kotzian, P. (2011). Public support for liberal democracy. International Political Science Review, 32(1), 23-41.
Krieckhaus, J., Son, B., & Bellinger, N. (2014). Economic inequality and democracy support. Journal of Politics, 76(1), 139-51.
Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2010). Competitive Authoritarianism. Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). Cómo mueren las democracias. Barcelona: Ariel. Lijphart, A. (2012). Modelos de democracia. Formas de gobierno y resultados en 36 países. Madrid: Ariel.
Linz, J., & Stepan, A. (1996). Toward Consolidated Democracies. Journal of Democracy, 7(2), 14-33.
Linz, J., & Valenzuela, A. (1994). The Failure of Presidential Democracy: Comparative Perspectives. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lipset, S. (1959). Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy. American Political Science Review, 53(1), 69-105.
Lipset, S. (1981). Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Macdougall, A., Feddes, A., & Doosj, B. (2020). ‘They’ve Put Nothing in the Pot!’: Brexit and the Key Psychological Motivations Behind Voting ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’. Political Psychology, 41(5), 979-95.
Mahoney, J. (2007). Qualitative Methodology and comparative politics. Comparative Political Studies, 40(2), 122-44.
Mainwaring, S., & Pérez-Liñán, A. (2013). Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America. Emergence, Survival, and Fall. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mainwaring, S., & Pérez-Liñán. (2015). Cross-Currents in Latin America. Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 114-27.
Manin, B., Przeworski, A., & Stokes, S. (1999). Democracy, accountability, and representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mann, M. (2005). The dark side of democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Micklethwait, J., & Wooldridge, A. (2014). The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State. New York: Penguin Press.
Møller, J., & Skaaning, S. (2013). The Third Way: Inside the Numbers. Journal of Democracy, 24(4), 97-109.
Moore, B. (2015). Los orígenes sociales de la dictadura y la democracia. El señor y el campesino en la formación del mundo moderno. Barcelona: Ariel.
Mudde, C. (2010). The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy. West European Politics, 33(6), 1167-86.
Muliro, A. (2017). Editorial: The Crisis of Democracy. Development, 60, 145-48.
Mutz, D. (2018). Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(19), E4330-39.
Nathan, A. (2016). China’s Challenge. In L. Diamond, M. Plattner, & C. Walker, Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy (pp. 23-37). Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Norris, P. (2011). Democratic Deficit. Critical Citizens Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Donnell, G. (1973). Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California.
O’Donnell, G. (1973). Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics. Berkeley: Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California.
O’Donnell, G. (1996). Illusions about consolidation. Journal of Democracy, 7(2), 34-51.
O’Donnell, G., Schmitter, P., & Whitehead, L. (1986). Transiciones desde un gobierno autoritario. Conclusiones tentativas sobre democracias inciertas. Barcelona: Paidós.
Olson, M. (1965). The logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Orjuela, L. J., Chagas-Bastos, F., & Chenou, J-M. (2017). El incierto ‘efecto Trump’ en el orden global. Revista de Estudios Sociales, (61), 107-11.
Pérez-Liñan, A. (2009). Juicio politico al president y nueva inestabilidad política en América Latina. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Przeworski, A. (1991). Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Studies in Rationality and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Przeworski, A. (2010). ¿Qué esperar de la democracia? Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores.
Przeworski, A. (2019). Crisis of Democracy. New York: New York University.
Przeworski, A., & Limongi, F. (1997). Modernization: Theories and facts. World Politics, 49(2), 155-83.
Przeworski, A., Alvarez, M., & Limongi, F. (2000). Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rudra, N. (2005). Globalization and the Strengthening of Democracy in the Developing World. American Journal of Political Science, 49(4), 704-30.
Rueschemeyer, D., Huber, E., & Stephens, J. (1992). Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Runciman, D. (2018). How Democracy Ends. London: Profile Books.
Sartori, G. (1970). Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics. American Political Science, 64(4), 1033-53.
Schmitter, P. (1994). Peligros y Dilemas de la Democracia. Ciencia Política, (37), 103-20.
Schmitter, P., & Lynn, T. (1991). What Democracy is... and is not. Journal of Democracy, 2(3), 75-88.
Schumpeter, J. (1947). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers. Stokes, S. (1997). Are parties what’s wrong with democracy in Latin America? XX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association. Guadalajara.
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., & Robinson, J. (2002). Reversal of fortune: geography and institutions in the making of the modern world income distribution. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117(4), 1231-294.
Boix, C. (2003). Democracy and Redistribution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boix, C., & Stokes, S. (2003). Endogenous democratization. World Politics, 55(4), 517-49. Brennan, J. (2016). Against Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cardoso, F., & Falleto, E. (1975). Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina: ensayo de interpretación sociológica. México: Siglo XXI.
Carey, J. (2000). Parchment, Equilibria, and Institutions. Comparative Political Studies, 33(6-7), 735-61.
Chagas-Bastos, F. (2019). Political realignment in Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro and the right turn. Revista de Estudios Sociales, (69), 92-100.
Collier, D. (1979). The Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Model: Synthesis and priorities for future research. In D. Collier (Ed.), The New Authoritarianism in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Collier, D., & Levitsky, S. (1997). Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research. World Politics, 49(3), 430-51.
Collier, D., & Levitsky, S. (2009). Democracy: Conceptual hierarchies in comparative research. In D. Collier, & J. Gerring (Eds.), Concepts and Method in Social Science (pp. 269- 288). New York: Routledge.
Collier, D., & Mahon, J. (1993). Conceptual ‘Stretching’ Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis. American Political Science Review, 87(4), 845-55.
Collier, D., & Mahoney, J. (1996). Insights and Pitfalls: selection bias in qualitative research. World Politics, 49(1), 56-91.
Dahl, R. (1971). La poliarquía: Participación y oposición. New Haven: Yale University Press.
De Sousa Santos B. (2001). Los nuevos movimientos sociales. OSAL (Septiembre), 177-84. Diamond, L. (2015). Facing Up to the Democratic Recession. Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 144- 55.
Diamond, L. (2016). Democracy in Decline How Washington Can Reverse the Tide. Foreign Affairs, 95(4), 151-59.
Diamond, L., Plattner, M. F., & Walker, C. (2016). Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Drake, P. (1982). Populism in South America. Latin American Research Review, 17(1), 190.199. Elias, N. (1998). Los procesos de formación de estado y de construcción de la nación. Historia y Sociedad, (5), 102-17.
Emgerman, S., & Sokoloff, K. (2002). Factor Endowments, inequality, and paths of development among New World economies. Economia, 3(1), 41-88.
Evans, P. (1979). Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fukuyama, F. (2014). Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Fukuyama, F. (2015). Why is Democracy Performing So Poorly? Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 11-20.
Geddes, B. (2006). Paradigms and Sandcastles. Theory building and Research Design in Comparative Politics. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.
Ginsburg, T. (2015). Constitutions as Political Institutions. In J. Gandhi, & R. Ruiz-Rufino (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Comparative Political Institutions (pp. 101-112). New York: Routledge. Hagopian, F., & Mainwaring, S. (2005). The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Huntington, S. (1968). Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press. Huntington, S. (1991). The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Keefer, P. (2007). The poor performance of poor democracies. In C. Coix, & S. Stokes, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics (pp. 886-909). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keefer, P., & Knack, S. (1997). Why don’t poor countries catch up? A cross national test of an institutional explanation. Economic Inquiry, 35(3), 590-602.
Kotzian, P. (2011). Public support for liberal democracy. International Political Science Review, 32(1), 23-41.
Krieckhaus, J., Son, B., & Bellinger, N. (2014). Economic inequality and democracy support. Journal of Politics, 76(1), 139-51.
Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2010). Competitive Authoritarianism. Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). Cómo mueren las democracias. Barcelona: Ariel. Lijphart, A. (2012). Modelos de democracia. Formas de gobierno y resultados en 36 países. Madrid: Ariel.
Linz, J., & Stepan, A. (1996). Toward Consolidated Democracies. Journal of Democracy, 7(2), 14-33.
Linz, J., & Valenzuela, A. (1994). The Failure of Presidential Democracy: Comparative Perspectives. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lipset, S. (1959). Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy. American Political Science Review, 53(1), 69-105.
Lipset, S. (1981). Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Macdougall, A., Feddes, A., & Doosj, B. (2020). ‘They’ve Put Nothing in the Pot!’: Brexit and the Key Psychological Motivations Behind Voting ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’. Political Psychology, 41(5), 979-95.
Mahoney, J. (2007). Qualitative Methodology and comparative politics. Comparative Political Studies, 40(2), 122-44.
Mainwaring, S., & Pérez-Liñán, A. (2013). Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America. Emergence, Survival, and Fall. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mainwaring, S., & Pérez-Liñán. (2015). Cross-Currents in Latin America. Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 114-27.
Manin, B., Przeworski, A., & Stokes, S. (1999). Democracy, accountability, and representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mann, M. (2005). The dark side of democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Micklethwait, J., & Wooldridge, A. (2014). The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State. New York: Penguin Press.
Møller, J., & Skaaning, S. (2013). The Third Way: Inside the Numbers. Journal of Democracy, 24(4), 97-109.
Moore, B. (2015). Los orígenes sociales de la dictadura y la democracia. El señor y el campesino en la formación del mundo moderno. Barcelona: Ariel.
Mudde, C. (2010). The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy. West European Politics, 33(6), 1167-86.
Muliro, A. (2017). Editorial: The Crisis of Democracy. Development, 60, 145-48.
Mutz, D. (2018). Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(19), E4330-39.
Nathan, A. (2016). China’s Challenge. In L. Diamond, M. Plattner, & C. Walker, Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy (pp. 23-37). Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Norris, P. (2011). Democratic Deficit. Critical Citizens Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Donnell, G. (1973). Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California.
O’Donnell, G. (1973). Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics. Berkeley: Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California.
O’Donnell, G. (1996). Illusions about consolidation. Journal of Democracy, 7(2), 34-51.
O’Donnell, G., Schmitter, P., & Whitehead, L. (1986). Transiciones desde un gobierno autoritario. Conclusiones tentativas sobre democracias inciertas. Barcelona: Paidós.
Olson, M. (1965). The logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Orjuela, L. J., Chagas-Bastos, F., & Chenou, J-M. (2017). El incierto ‘efecto Trump’ en el orden global. Revista de Estudios Sociales, (61), 107-11.
Pérez-Liñan, A. (2009). Juicio politico al president y nueva inestabilidad política en América Latina. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Przeworski, A. (1991). Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Studies in Rationality and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Przeworski, A. (2010). ¿Qué esperar de la democracia? Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores.
Przeworski, A. (2019). Crisis of Democracy. New York: New York University.
Przeworski, A., & Limongi, F. (1997). Modernization: Theories and facts. World Politics, 49(2), 155-83.
Przeworski, A., Alvarez, M., & Limongi, F. (2000). Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rudra, N. (2005). Globalization and the Strengthening of Democracy in the Developing World. American Journal of Political Science, 49(4), 704-30.
Rueschemeyer, D., Huber, E., & Stephens, J. (1992). Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Runciman, D. (2018). How Democracy Ends. London: Profile Books.
Sartori, G. (1970). Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics. American Political Science, 64(4), 1033-53.
Schmitter, P. (1994). Peligros y Dilemas de la Democracia. Ciencia Política, (37), 103-20.
Schmitter, P., & Lynn, T. (1991). What Democracy is... and is not. Journal of Democracy, 2(3), 75-88.
Schumpeter, J. (1947). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers. Stokes, S. (1997). Are parties what’s wrong with democracy in Latin America? XX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association. Guadalajara.
Published
2023-01-09
How to Cite
Chaparro-Martinez, L. (2023). The Challenges for the Contemporary Democracy. Estudos Internacionais: International Relations Journal of PUC Minas, 10(2), 7–20. https://doi.org/10.5752/P.2317-773X.2022v10n2p7-20
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