See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/273352913

Cross-Currents in Latin America

Article  in  Journal of Democracy · January 2015

DOI: 10.1353/jod.2015.0003

CITATIONS READS
19 971

2 authors:

Scott Mainwaring Anibal Perez-Linan

University of Notre Dame University of Pittsburgh
84 PUBLICATIONS   5,233 CITATIONS    126 PUBLICATIONS   1,781 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Ideas, Instituciones y Democracia. Concentración de poder e inestabilidad política en América Latina View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Anibal Perez-Linan on 14 April 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

&URVV&XUUHQWVLQ/DWLQ$PHULFD
6FRWW0DLQZDULQJ$Q¯EDO3«UH]/L³£Q

Journal of Democracy, Volume 26, Number 1, January 2015, pp. 114-127

(Article)

3XEOLVKHGE\7KH-RKQV+RSNLQV8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2015.0003

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jod/summary/v026/26.1.mainwaring.html

Access provided by University of Pittsburgh (16 Mar 2015 20:23 GMT)

 Cross-Currents in
Latin America
Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán

Scott Mainwaring is Eugene P. and Helen Conley Professor of Politi-

cal Science at Notre Dame University. Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán is associate
professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh.

S ince 2000, democratization trends across the twenty sovereign coun-

tries that make up Latin America have been mixed. Democracy has
eroded in three Andean countries (Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia)
plus Nicaragua. Honduras experienced a coup and democratic break-
down in 2009. Democracy remains feeble in other countries including
Guatemala, Haiti, and Paraguay—but it has long been weak in those
countries, so the current weakness cannot be called erosion. Argentina’s
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (in office since 2007) has oc-
casionally exhibited the illiberalism seen in the hegemonic populisms
that rule Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, but she has met
with relatively stiff resistance not only from the courts and civil society,
but also from critics within her own party.
On the brighter side, democracy has become more solid over time
in Brazil, which has the region’s biggest economy and largest popula-
tion (about two-hundred million). Democracy remains robust in Chile,
Costa Rica, and Uruguay, which have long been beacons for the re-
gion. In Mexico, the region’s second-largest country, the shift to de-
mocracy achieved in 2000 remains intact despite many shortcomings
and rising criminal violence. Peruvian democracy is in its best shape
ever; a breakdown is highly unlikely. Despite many limitations, de-
mocracy in Colombia survived a large spike in violence that began in
the 1980s and lasted through the early 2000s. Cuba remains the only
openly authoritarian regime in Latin America, in stunning contrast to
the situation before the “third wave” of democratization began in the
1970s.
So one cannot say that democracy is broadly eroding in Latin Amer-
ica. But there is reason for concern that democratic advances have not

Journal of Democracy Volume 26, Number 1 January 2015

© 2015 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press
Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán 115

been more widespread and that the quality of democracy is low in a

large number of countries.
A democracy, in our view, is any political regime in which 1) free
and fair elections choose the lawmakers and the head of government; 2)
there is nearly universal adult suffrage except among immigrant non-
citizens; 3) the state protects civil liberties and political rights; 4) armed
actors including the military, criminal organizations, and paramilitary
groups do not significantly influence government policies. For reasons
of space and analytical clarity, we focus on these four aspects of the po-
litical regime and largely leave aside other important political and social
processes and outcomes.1
The third wave began in Portugal in 1974 and reached Latin America
via the Dominican Republic in 1978. That year, U.S. pressure pushed in-
cumbent president Joaquín Balaguer to admit electoral defeat and peace-
fully cede power to the opposition, a first in Dominican history. Before
that transition, the region had seventeen authoritarian regimes, a single
semidemocracy (Colombia), and just two democracies (Costa Rica and
Venezuela). Then, from 1978 until 1991, an unprecedented wave of de-
mocratization occurred.
The period since 1991 has been by far the most democratic in Latin
American history.2 To examine trends over the second half of this pe-
riod—the years since 2002—we use both Freedom House scores and our
own scheme, which classifies the region’s regimes as democratic, semi-
democratic, or authoritarian. Since 2002, Freedom House has published
disaggregated scores that range from 0 (signifying an extremely closed
authoritarian or even totalitarian regime) to 100 (highly democratic).
These scores provide a more differentiated picture than the traditional
Freedom House scale that runs from 2 (most democratic) to 14 (most
autocratic).3 Over the eleven years following 2002, Latin America’s av-
erage score stayed nearly flat, registering only a slight dip from 66.5 to
66.1. Mean Freedom House scores on the traditional 2-to-14 scale have
been equal to or better than those from any year prior to 2003. Our own
measure shows a minor deterioration since 2001.
Still, the state of democracy in Latin America gives reason for worry.
The source of concern is not a pattern of democratic erosion throughout
the region so much as the persistently low quality of democracy across
a large number of countries. And yet there are governments—those in
Nicaragua and Venezuela, and to a lesser extent in Bolivia and Ecua-
dor—that do rouse more acute anxiety. The perils that they present are
1) the prospect of competitive authoritarian rule consolidating itself on
a popular base; and 2) the resulting radicalization of opposition. Malign
demonstration effects may also appear. Fears of a Venezuelan-style bid
for executive dominance spurred the Honduran opposition to preemp-
tively back the military ouster of President Manuel Zelaya in 2009 and
the Paraguayan opposition to impeach and remove from office President
116 Journal of Democracy

Fernando Lugo in 2012. Avoiding escalations of radicalism will be a

proximate key to preserving third-wave democratic gains without fur-
ther backsliding.

Democratic Erosions
Democracy has clearly eroded in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Hon-
duras, and Nicaragua. Venezuela went first from democratic to semi-
democratic rule, and by 2009 had become an instance of what Steven
Levitsky and Lucan Way call “competitive authoritarianism.”4 Nicara-
gua, which had been semidemocratic, by 2011 had also given way to
competitive authoritarianism. Bolivia and Ecuador shifted from weak
democracy to semidemocracy. Honduras experienced a full democratic
breakdown in 2009, followed by a recovery to semidemocracy.
Freedom House’s assessment largely converges with ours. If we de-
fine a “democratic erosion” as a decrease in Freedom House scores of
at least ten points on the newer 100-point scale between 2002 and 2013,
we find four such cases: Honduras (which went from 68 in 2002 to 51
in 2013), Mexico (78 to 66 over the same period), Nicaragua (66 to 53),
and Venezuela (59 to 38). Freedom House registers small declines in the
other two instances that we consider cases of erosion: Bolivia and Ecua-
dor. We are not convinced that democracy has declined sharply enough
in Mexico since 2002 to make it a case of national-level erosion—al-
though there is no question that democracy has been hollowed out in
many parts of the country that are riddled with violence and corruption.
The common thread in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela
has been a president with hegemonic aspirations. All four are what Se-
bastián Mazzuca calls “plebiscitarian hegemonies”—political regimes
legitimized by popular vote but with a highly skewed electoral playing
field, crippled mechanisms of horizontal accountability, and intolerance
toward the opposition.5 The presidents of these countries have enjoyed
considerable popular support, but all have often treated much of the op-
position and even critics within their own ranks as if they are enemies
of the people.
Venezuela and Nicaragua have become cases of competitive authori-
tarianism. These hybrid regimes sponsor regular elections that are com-
petitive, but which take place on seriously tilted playing fields and with-
out full respect for democratic rights and liberties. Venezuela is the most
important case because it is the largest and wealthiest and because the
regime’s founder, the late President Hugo Chávez, became an icon of
the radical Latin American left. Elected freely and fairly in 1998, former
coup leader Chávez quickly captured key institutions such as the courts
and the National Electoral Council (CNE) and went about harassing crit-
ics, shutting down opposition media, and using the nation’s oil wealth
to create an uneven playing field. Chávez won reelection in 2000, 2006,
Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán 117

and 2012. With world oil prices high, Venezuela’s economy grew ro-
bustly from 2003 to 2008. This helped Chávez to consolidate power and
accelerate his authoritarian turn.
By the time he died of cancer in March 2013, Chávez had become
the most famous Latin American president since Fidel Castro. Since his
death and the narrow electoral victory of his appointed successor, Nico-
lás Maduro, in April 2013, Venezuela’s already high polarization has
intensified, as has government repression. Profligate public spending
pushed inflation to 41 percent in 2013, and the homicide rate rose—in
2014, it was the world’s second-highest, behind only that of Honduras.6
Maduro has more than four years left on his presidential mandate. It is
difficult to see how Venezuela can recover democracy during this time.
The Bolivian, Ecuadoran, and Nicaraguan erosions have more or less
followed the Venezuelan pattern. Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and
Rafael Correa of Ecuador, first elected in 2006 and 2007, respectively,
have followed Chávez’s lead and used constitutional assemblies to write
new basic laws featuring wider presidential powers, weakened account-
ability mechanisms, and more generous allowances for presidential re-
election.7
Like Chávez, Morales and Correa were elected as older established
parties were rapidly losing ground (Chávez overturned a two-party sys-
tem that ruled Venezuela from 1959 to 1993). All three presidents used
their initial popularity and early constitutional assemblies to undermine
what remained of the traditional parties. All undercut mechanisms of
accountability and evinced intolerance toward the opposition. All used
electoral majorities to claim the mantle of participatory democracy,
even as they undermined democracy’s liberal component. All exploited
the commodities boom to firm up political support through higher social
spending. All expanded state control of the economy, especially the vi-
tal oil and gas sectors.
The Morales government sponsored recall referenda to remove op-
position governors from Cochabamba and La Paz, and it approved the
2008 Constitution in a legally controversial manner that one scholar
termed a coup.8 The new document expanded presidential powers and
allowed for presidential reelection. Morales won reelection in a 2009
landslide with 64 percent of the vote, and swept to another five-year
term by winning 61 percent in October 2014 (under the current constitu-
tion, he is ineligible to run again).
The Bolivian government has leveled criminal charges against five
former presidents and numerous opposition figures; many of these cases
are politically motivated. Activists from Morales’s Movement Toward
Socialism (MAS) have intimidated oppositionists. Between 2006 and
2009, the administration dismantled the Supreme Court and the Consti-
tutional Tribunal, gaining control of the courts after 2010. Still, Morales
has not gone as far as Chávez did in undermining opposition rights.
118 Journal of Democracy

In Ecuador, Correa’s government has also demonized critics and

undermined horizontal accountability. Within hours of his inaugura-
tion in January 2007, Correa announced a constitutional assembly. In
March, the congressional opposition to Correa removed the head of the
country’s highest electoral court. In response, this court canceled the
mandates of 57 opposition lawmakers. The government had the result-
ing, more pliant Congress dismiss all nine judges of the Constitutional
Tribunal, who had ruled against Correa’s plan. The new constitution
enhanced presidential powers and allowed presidential reelection. In
June 2014, Correa announced a push to make presidential reelection
unlimited.
Like Chávez, Correa has attacked opposition media and made ample
use of free television time. In 2009, authorities expropriated the Gama-
visión television station. In 2011 and 2013, new laws expanded state
control of the media and made it easier to prosecute independent jour-
nalists. Critical media figures are regularly harassed, sued, intimidated,
and jailed.
The case of Honduras differs somewhat from those of Venezuela,
Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. Honduras in 2009 became the only
recent democratic breakdown caused by a conventional (albeit blood-
less) coup. President Manuel Zelaya, elected on the Liberal Party ticket
and a conservative platform, took office in January 2006 and then began
turning leftward. In June 2009, he brushed aside adverse court rulings
and moved to hold a referendum on drafting a new constitution. Most
of Congress objected, and the courts declared that he was violating the
constitution. With Zelaya seemingly bent on holding the vote anyway,
the establishment feared that he was about to trample the existing basic
law in a bid for Chávez-style hegemony. On June 28, the military de-
tained Zelaya and sent him to Costa Rica. The biggest difference from
the other cases of plebiscitarian presidents with hegemonic aspirations
was that Zelaya lost to an opposition that preemptively took a radical
stand, with democracy breaking down in the process.

Cases of Democratic Stagnation

A second cluster of countries displays fairly stable levels of democ-
racy, but with severe deficits in quality. This group includes Colombia,
Guatemala, Haiti, and Paraguay. Their Freedom House scores are mid-
dling. Elections are competitive and vote counts largely fair, yet citizens
suffer from limits on the exercise of their rights. Colombia and Guate-
mala are plagued by violence. There are no aspiring-hegemon presi-
dents, but marginalized populations (and anyone who lives in regions
where illegal armed actors are strong) face trouble if they want to exer-
cise the full scope of their rights as citizens.
With its much higher level of socioeconomic development and its
Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán 119

much longer tradition of a competitive politics, Colombia is an outlier

in this group. In many respects—economic growth, foreign investment,
state-building, reduction of violence—Colombia has enjoyed a promis-
ing trajectory since 2002. The homicide rate has fallen steeply, from a
high of 79.3 per hundred-thousand inhabitants in 1991 to 34 per hun-
dred-thousand in 2010.9 The number of kidnappings has plummeted,
along with the number of displaced persons, as the state regained control
of areas that had been under guerrilla or paramilitary control.
However, the authoritarian proclivities of President Alvaro Uribe
(2002–10) meant that greater state capacity and less violence were not
enough to produce a more democratic regime. In 2007, Uribe clashed
with the Supreme Court when an investigation exposed links between
paramilitary groups and figures close to his administration. In 2008, a
new investigation revealed that the army had killed innocent people to
inflate the number of casualties attributed to the guerrillas. Uribe se-
cured support for a constitutional reform that enabled him to run for
(and win) reelection in 2006, but the Constitutional Court ruled against
the legality of a referendum to change the constitution again to allow
him to run for a third term in 2010. Uribe accepted that verdict. Had the
Court ruled in Uribe’s favor, Colombia would have been vulnerable to
democratic erosion.
The Colombian polity remains beset by democratic deficits stemming
from widespread violence and the control that guerrillas, narcotraffick-
ers, and paramilitaries still exert over parts of the national territory. Il-
legal actors that undermine democracy still loom large in Colombian
politics. Drug money has a corrupting influence on electoral campaigns
and within Congress—as of October 2012, 119 members of the 268-
seat national legislature were under investigation for their close links
to paramilitary forces, and another 40 had already been sentenced for
crimes related to links to the paramilitary.10 In some regions, leftist po-
litical candidates have been intimidated to keep them from running, or
even assassinated. Armed actors profoundly limit opposition rights in
parts of the country. President Uribe’s willingness to run roughshod
over opposition and to treat his critics within the democratic system as
if they were disloyal antidemocrats also sapped the quality of Colom-
bian democracy.
Guatemala, Haiti, and Paraguay have among the weakest states in
Latin America. They are also poor (see the Table), which limits their
capacity to build more robust democracies.
After a transition to democracy that lasted from 1989 to 1992, Para-
guay’s executive branch remained in the grip of the Colorado Party, the
large clientelistic machine that had governed the country since 1947. Col-
orado dominance was challenged only in 2008, when Fernando Lugo—
a former Roman Catholic bishop with limited party support—won the
presidential election. In 2012, Congress impeached him and removed him
120 Journal of Democracy

from office.11 Even though Lugo did not pursue a hegemonic strategy, his
left-of-center orientation triggered, in a context of regional polarization
and the aftermath of the Honduran crisis, a preemptive radicalization of
the opposition and the collapse of his shaky congressional coalition.

Stable Democracies with Shortcomings

Seven countries, including those that rank first, second, fourth, and
fifth in population (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Peru) have regimes
that are stable and democratic, but with shortcomings. Among the small-
er countries, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Panama are in
this category. National elections in these countries are free and fair, the
playing fields are mostly level, and these central governments generally
respect opposition rights. Breakdowns or severe erosions of democracy
seem unlikely. Brazil, Mexico, and El Salvador have institutionalized
party systems that enable citizens to choose among sharp programmatic
differences—a potent shield against the rise of antisystem outsiders.
Yet when it comes democratic citizenship, these countries have seri-
ous failings. Marginalized people such as the poor and the indigenous
often find that their rights are respected unevenly at best. Organized
crime—along with paramilitary and militarized state responses to it—
severely limits democracy in many Brazilian slums, some Mexican
states, and parts of El Salvador. Some Argentine provinces and Mexican
states have local hybrid regimes that protect entrenched authoritarian
practices. These provinces and states do not consistently enforce the rule
of law or protect citizen rights. In the Dominican Republic, native popu-
lations of Haitian descent are denied citizenship rights. Satisfaction with
democracy has been persistently low in Mexico and Peru. Vote-buying
is pervasive in the poorest parts of Mexico and elsewhere.
Among the countries where democracy is stable but spotty, Brazil
stands out as having done the best and most sustained job of deepening
and extending democratic governance. Democracy came back in 1985 af-
ter 21 years of military rule. Until 1990, the military retained significant
autonomy and political influence. Many peasant leaders were assassi-
nated, poor Brazilians faced de facto limits on their rights, and consider-
able power lay in the hands of “holdover” authoritarian elites. Brazil’s
economic performance was poor and hyperinflation was a burden.
The Brazilian experience illustrates the importance of elite commit-
ment to democracy. During the presidencies of Fernando Henrique Car-
doso (1995–2003) and Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva (2003–11), Brazil-
ian democracy made big forward strides. Civilians brought the military
under control. The traditional clientelistic parties have waned, and the
left-of-center Workers’ Party (PT) introduced participatory innova-
tions that enhanced local democracy in countless municipalities. Not-
withstanding ongoing problems of narcotrafficking, criminal violence,
Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán 121

and police violence against common criminals, politically motivated

human-rights violations diminished greatly. Large parts of Brazil, espe-
cially the northern and northeastern states where less-than-democratic
subnational regimes lingered, have developed robust electoral competi-
tion among parties with contrasting governing styles and programs. The
PT administrations of Lula and his successor, President Dilma Rousseff,
enhanced citizenship opportunities and rights for Afro-Brazilians and
women. The party system became more institutionalized, and parts of
the state are more effective.
As Brazil’s democracy grew stronger, it came to grips with pressing
economic and social issues. Cardoso stabilized the economy, bringing
the four-digit annual inflation rates of the early 1990s down to 7 percent
by 1997. Cardoso introduced and Lula expanded a program of condi-
tional cash transfers that has proven effective and far-reaching in the
fight against poverty.12 Under Lula, the share of Brazilians who were
poor dropped from 25 to 11 percent. Seemingly intractable income in-
equalities narrowed, although they remain large by global standards.
These economic and social improvements helped to pave the way for a
deepening of democratic citizenship.
In 2013 and 2014, Brazil witnessed rising citizen disaffection and out-
bursts of protest. Economic growth stalled, and many chafed at the vast
sums being spent on the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics in a
country still plagued by deficient public services and infrastructure. Cor-
ruption scandals have also fueled the sense of disaffection. These prob-
lems, however, should not obscure the huge gains in democratization since
1994 in Latin America’s largest country.13 In October 2014, President
Rousseff won reelection in a tightly contested balloting. Among her great
challenges will be reinvigorating the sluggish economy and addressing
the corruption scandals that have tarnished her party among many voters.
At thirteen years of age as of this writing, democracy has now en-
dured longer in Peru than ever before. Here, too, despite many prob-
lems—the party system remains weak and rates of social exclusion are
stubbornly high—democracy has notched important achievements, in-
cluding rapid economic growth and a sharp reduction in poverty. Every
previous period of democracy in Peru was haunted by the fear that all
hung by a thread. Today, by contrast, a democratic breakdown in Peru
would come as a true surprise. The commodities boom that facilitated
the hegemonic turns of Chávez, Correa, and Morales also helped democ-
racy in Brazil, Peru, and elsewhere to steady itself.

The High-Quality Democracies

At the upper end of the democratic-performance scale in Latin Amer-
ica stand Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay. They consistently receive
the region’s best Freedom House scores. In these countries—two in the
122 Journal of Democracy

Southern Cone and one in Central America—the electoral playing field

is even, most citizens enjoy effective political rights and civil liberties,
governments generally do not display intolerance or attempt to curb op-
position rights, and military and police forces are under civilian con-
trol.14 As is true throughout Latin America and beyond, the effective
exercise of citizen rights varies across social classes and sexes, and in
Chile also ethnic groups (indigenous peoples enjoy less effective exer-
cise of some rights). But generally this variance is less than what one
finds in other Latin American countries.
Costa Rica has the world’s longest-standing democracy outside the
advanced industrial world, dating back to 1949 or 1953 (reckonings
vary). Chile and Uruguay also have democratic traditions that reach
back to the early twentieth century. Each experienced a coup in 1973,
but the long democratic heritage of both countries helped political lead-
ers to rebuild democracy on a solid footing after the transitions.
In 1990, when Chile restored democracy, its high quality was far
from assured. Many analysts expected that the democratic opposition’s
extensive concessions to the military during the 1988–90 transition
would prove crippling. Over time, however, elected democratic gov-
ernments achieved civilian control of the military, overturned the rules
that granted former dictator Augusto Pinochet and his supporters undue
influence, and prosecuted human-rights abuses.
Critics of Chilean democracy decry citizen apathy, social inequali-
ties, a poor system of public education, and excessively elite-centered
decision making. These concerns are important; addressing them will
require institutional developments that build upon yet also go beyond
the five dimensions that our definition of democracy takes into account.

Understanding Democratic Trajectories: Four Keys

Four variables can help to make sense of Latin America’s mosaic of
democratic erosions, stagnations, and advances.15 First, countries with
higher levels of socioeconomic development have been more likely to
make the journey from transitional to robust democracy (see Table).
The correlation between per capita GDP in 2012 (the most recent year
for which we have data) and Freedom House scores in 2013 was 0.59.
(It would be much higher—0.83—without Venezuela, which combines
a high per capita GDP and a competitive-authoritarian political regime.)
In the poorer countries, fewer people enjoy de facto full citizen rights,
and traditional authoritarian patterns of domination tend to be more per-
vasive. It is difficult to be optimistic about the short-term prospects for
building robust democracies in poor countries such as Guatemala, Haiti,
Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay.
Second, solid states underpin robust democracies; by contrast, build-
ing democracy in a weak state remains a task of excruciating difficulty.
Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán 123

Table—Freedom House Scores, Per Capita GDP, Party-System

Institutionalization, and State Capacity in Latin America

Su
Ta

pr Te

El la rt
C

M al
x

em nu

V ou
G a

or

ec ti
C

FH

FH
R

C
C

BP
o
D pi

ru

to lit
ap

e re
ev

ha
ou

C
P ta

20

20
C

20
r y
pt

ac

en

ng
nt

pe

02

13
io

13
ity

ue
ry

e
n
Cases of Democratic Erosion
Venezuela 12729 -1.24 -1.54 13.7 7.76 42.1 a 59.2 37.5 -21.7
Ecuador 5425 -0.66 -1.04 20.2 3.92 49.4 sd 63.3 60.0 -3.3
Bolivia 2576 -0.70 -0.83 26.0 4.88 46.5 sd 74.6 67.9 -6.7
Nicaragua 1777 -0.78 -0.3 19.5 7.62 49.0 a 66.3 52.9 -13.3
Honduras 2339 -0.94 -0.2 17.5 3.38 22.2 sd 67.9 50.8 -17.1
Stagnant Democracies with Severe Democratic Deficits
Colombia 7763 -0.43 0.39 19.6 6.44 36.4 sd 55.4 63.3 7.9
Guatemala 3341 -0.61 -0.18 12.3 3.97 51.6 sd 55.0 56.7 1.7
Haiti 776 -1.24 -0.95 – – – sd 24.6 43.3 18.8
Paraguay 3680 -0.84 -0.32 17.6 7.92 27.3 d 57.5 61.7 4.2
Stable Democracies with Shortcomings
Brazil 11320 -0.07 0.09 36.3 11.73 11.8 d 74.2 81.3 7.1
Mexico 9818 -0.41 0.47 19.6 9.26 20.2 d 77.9 65.8 -12.1
Argentina 14680 -0.49 -0.96 37.3 9.00 29.5 d 64.2 79.6 15.4
Peru 6424 -0.39 0.49 18.1 6.33 42.9 d 75.8 71.7 -4.2
Dominican
5733 -0.83 -0.14 13.5 9.03 17.8 d 77.5 73.3 -4.2
Republic
El Salvador 3782 -0.38 0.32 15.7 5.70 9.7 d 75.8 78.8 2.9
Panama 9982 -0.39 0.39 18.5 5.77 30.4 d 83.3 82.9 -0.4
High-Quality Democracies
Chile 15245 1.56 1.54 20.8 11.67 12.5 d 86.7 95.4 8.8
Costa Rica 9443 0.58 0.57 21.0 13.03 24.5 d 90.8 90.4 -0.4
Uruguay 14728 1.32 0.4 26.3 5.49 15.0 d 90.0 98.3 8.3
Longstanding Authoritarian Regime
Cuba – 0.3 -1.6 – – – a 9.6 10.4 0.8
Average 7450 -0.332 -0.17 21 7.38 29.9 – 66.5 66.1 -0.4
GDP per Capita is data for 2012 measured in constant 2005 US dollars. Source: World Development
Indicators.
Corruption reflects the perception of corruption and Capacity reflects the perception of regulatory
quality. Source: Worldwide Governance Indicators, available at http://info.worldbank.org/governance/
wgi/index.aspx#home.
Total Revenue presents total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. Source: Organisation for Economic
Co-Operation and Development (OECD), Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, the OECD De-
velopment Centre, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and
the Inter-American Centre of Tax Administration (CIAT), Revenue Statistics in Latin America 2014,
available at www.latameconomy.org/en/revenue-statistics/11/.
Supreme Court Tenure presents the authors’ calculation of judge tenure from data on Supreme Court
exits between 1980 and 2009. Source: Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán Dataverse, available at http://hdl.handle.
net/1902.1/15801.
Electoral Volatility measures volatility of lower chambers across Latin America as the average of
the previous three elections. In the case of Argentina, because national-level data are not available for
elections since 2003, we used the two most recent pre-2003 elections.
MBP2013 is the Mainwaring, Brinks, and Pérez-Li~nán coding of political regimes (d = democracy, sd
= semidemocracy, a = authoritarian).
FH2002 and FH2013 present Freedom House scores from the respective years.
Change presents the difference between each country’s 2002 and 2013 Freedom House scores.
124 Journal of Democracy

What Guillermo O’Donnell termed horizontal accountability rests fun-

damentally on the capacity of legislatures and state agencies—courts,
the agencies that oversee elections, and other oversight bodies—to
monitor rulers, especially the executive.16 Presidents with hegemonic
aspirations can trample or subvert
weak institutions of horizontal ac-
Most of Latin America’s countability, leading to democratic
low-quality democracies erosion or stagnation. Conversely,
and competitive- as the decision of Colombia’s Con-
authoritarian regimes are stitutional Court against Alvaro
Uribe’s quest to run for a third term
found in poorer countries
showed, strong independent courts
with weak states and can block actions that could easily
weakly institutionalized lead to democratic erosion.
party systems. Independent judiciaries are also
crucial to high-quality democracy
because they ensure citizens’ rights.
One of the crucial differences between higher- and lower-quality de-
mocracies in Latin America is the degree to which governments respect
opposition rights. If the president manipulates courts or if courts al-
low government abuses, opposition rights go out the window. Effective
states are also crucial for controlling corruption and curbing crime—two
of the fundamental challenges facing democratic governance in contem-
porary Latin America.
Several indicators reveal the relationship between state capacity and
democratic quality.17 As the Table indicates, perceived state quality is
much higher in Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay than it is anywhere else
in the region. On average, the perception of state quality is much lower
in the countries with low-quality democracy. The correlation between
countries’ 2013 Freedom House scores and their Worldwide Gover-
nance Indicators perceived-corruption score is 0.53. When it comes to
perceptions of state regulatory capacity, the correlation is 0.76. Very
low tax revenue makes it difficult for states to function adequately. For
this reason, Freedom House scores correlate at 0.45 with tax revenue.
An unstable judiciary makes it easier for presidents to manipulate the in-
terpretation of the law. The correlation between Freedom House scores
and the average tenure in office of a supreme court judge is 0.44.
Even when top political leaders are committed to the task, building
effective states takes time. Inevitably, some corporations, wealthy indi-
viduals, criminal organizations, politicians, police and military officers,
judges, and others gain from clientelism, corruption, complicity with
organized lawbreaking, failure to enforce rights, and failure to protect
the public by tighter regulation. These forces are usually better orga-
nized than those who stand to gain from state-building, a process whose
benefits (while real) are normally more diffuse than those that flow from
Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán 125

predation. Because state-building requires time, countries with weak

states—Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and
Paraguay—are unlikely to build robust democracies. State weakness is a
crucial explanation for democratic drift in contemporary Latin America.
Conversely, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay, which have solid states,
are likely to preserve high-quality democracy.
Third, party systems that are institutionalized and democratic favor
higher-quality democracy. Such party systems place higher hurdles
in the way of political outsiders, who often undermine democracy. A
weak party system hinders effective democratic representation and ac-
countability. Average electoral volatility18 in the last three lower-house
elections, one measure of party-system institutionalization, tends to be
lower in the higher-quality democracies; it correlates at 0.62 with 2013
Freedom House scores.
On average, the high-quality democracies consistently score much
better when it comes to per capita income, perceptions of corruption
(low) and regulatory capacity (high), and party-system institutionaliza-
tion. Likewise, on average, the reasonably solid democracies do much
better in terms of all these variables than do regimes marked by lower
democratic quality.
These first three variables revolve around structural and institutional
capacity to build democracy. They do not determine political outcomes,
but they do suggest how hard (or easy) it will be to build a high-level
democracy in a given country. Although these variables are key for un-
derstanding democratic trajectories, political leadership is a fourth vari-
able that can change a country’s path. Here, what matter are top leaders’
commitment to and capacity for building democracy. In Brazil, for in-
stance, presidents Cardoso and Lula helped to create better governance
and a better-quality democracy by stabilizing the economy, revising the
federal pact with the states, and creating universalistic social programs
less prone to corruption and clientelism.
Conversely, Venezuela’s Chávez and Ecuador’s Correa, like Peru’s
Fujimori before them, undermined democracy. When presidents em-
brace radical or intransigent policies, they also turn democracy from a
goal into a mere tool. Their administrations defend elections as a source
of legitimacy, but they undermine democratic checks and balances.
International variables such as U.S. policies and the number of de-
mocracies in the region have been important predictors of democratic
breakdowns and transitions. But international actors face severe limits
on what they can do to foster more robust democracies or prevent the
slow erosion of democracy that can occur even as competitive elections
regularly take place.
The three structural and institutional variables help us to understand
why there have been few clear cases of democratic advance since the
turn of the millennium. Most of the low-quality democracies and com-
126 Journal of Democracy

petitive-authoritarian regimes are found in poorer countries with weak

states and weakly institutionalized party systems. Among semidemo-
cratic or authoritarian countries, only Colombia scores well in terms of
both wealth and state capacity. (Venezuela scores high when it comes
to wealth but low when it comes to state capacity.) These variables also
help to explain why democratic erosion has not been more pervasive.
Their fairly high per capita GDPs, solid states, and reasonably insti-
tutionalized party systems make Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica,
Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay poor candidates for severe erosions of
democracy.
Most of the region’s countries have now spent considerable time at
their respective levels of democracy. Poor countries with weak states face
substantial obstacles to improving their democratic performance, while
middle-income countries with solid states are unlikely to backslide much.
From 2002 to 2013, the mean change (as an absolute value) in indi-
vidual countries’ Freedom House scores was only eight points on the
hundred-point scale. Only one country—Venezuela—saw a change of
more than twenty points during this time (down from 59.2 to 37.5).
Over the next several years, then, democratic trajectories may vary from
country to country within the region, but the overall result is likely to
be democratic drift: Things are unlikely to get dramatically worse for
Latin American democracy as a whole, but they are also unlikely to get
dramatically better.
Contemporary Latin America is a patchwork of democratic erosion,
stagnation, and progress, with three cases of high-quality democracy and
many of deep democratic deficits. Taking the long view, we can laud the
third wave’s success: Latin America has never enjoyed anything like
this much democracy for this long a time. Narrowing our optic and cast-
ing our eyes back only to the turn of the millennium, however, aside
from Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay, there are few countries where
democracy has advanced with much vigor. That in turn gives cause more
for concern than for celebration.

NOTES

We are grateful to Steven Levitsky, Salvador Martí, Sebastián Mazzuca, and Guillermo
Trejo for comments and to María Victoria De Negri for research assistance.

1. For the measurement of alternative conceptions of democracy, the Varieties of De-

mocracy project is path breaking, but it is not complete enough for us to utilize the mea-
sures. See Michael Coppedge et al., “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New
Approach,” Perspectives on Politics 9 (June 2011): 247–67.

2. See Figure 1 at www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/supplemental-material.

3. We re-weighted the scores to give equal weight to the political-rights and civil-
liberties dimensions.
 Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Li~nán 127

4. Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes

After the Cold War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

5. Sebastián Mazzuca, “Natural Resources Boom and Institutional Curses in the New
Political Economy of South America,” in Jorge I. Domínguez and Michael Shifter, eds.,
Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America, 4th ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2013), 102–26.

6. Kejal Vyas, “Venezuela Annual Inflation Rose to 63.4% in August,” Wall Street
Journal, 9 September 2014; Anahi Rama, “Honduras, Venezuela Have World’s Highest
Murder Rates: U.N.,” reuters.com, 10 April 2014.

7. Bolivia’s new constitution was promulgated in 2009; Ecuador’s, in 2008.

8. Fabrice Lehoucq, “Bolivia’s Constitutional Breakdown,” Journal of Democracy 19

(October 2008): 110–24.

9. Eduardo Posada-Carbó, “Colombia: Democratic Governance amidst an Armed

Conflict,” in Domínguez and Shifter, eds., Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin
America, 236.

10. “Las sumas y restas de la justicia frente a la parapolítica,” verdadabierta.com, 23

October 2012, at www.verdadabierta.com/component/content/article/4276-las-sumas-y-
restas-de-la-justicia-frente-a-la-parapolitica.

11. See Leiv Marsteintredet, Mariana Llanos, and Detlef Nolte, “Paraguay and the
Politics of Impeachment,” Journal of Democracy 24 (October 2013): 110–23.

12. A conditional cash transfer (CCT) is a regular payment that the state offers to
citizens (typically heads of poor households) who meet verifiable conditions such as hav-
ing their children vaccinated, bringing them to regular medical checkups, and keeping
them in school. CCTs are designed not only to provide income support, but also to break
cross-generational cycles of poverty and ill health by changing behavior. See Alberto
Díaz-Cayeros and Beatriz Magaloni, “Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy: Aiding Latin
America’s Poor,” Journal of Democracy 20 (October 2009): 36–49.

13. With a population of two-hundred million, Brazil has around three times as many
people as the five democratic-erosion cases combined—Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia,
Honduras, and Nicaragua.

14. After a civil war in 1948, Costa Rica officially abolished its military and today
has only the Fuerza Pública to handle policing and border control, plus a small special-
operations unit for emergencies.

15. For statistical evidence and a discussion of the first three variables, see Aníbal
Pérez-Li~nán and Scott Mainwaring, “Regime Legacies and Levels of Democracy: Evi-
dence from Latin America,” Comparative Politics 45 (July 2013): 379–97.

16. Guillermo O’Donnell, “Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies,” in An-

dreas Schedler, Larry Diamond, and Marc F. Plattner, eds., The Self-Restraining State:
Power and Accountability in New Democracies (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1999),
29–51.

17. For a set of scatterplots showing correlations between the twenty Latin American
countries’ scores on the 100-point Freedom House scale and their performance on each
of six different governance indicators, see www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/supple-
mental-material.

18. Electoral volatility means the net shift in votes (or seats) between parties from one
election to another.

View publication stats