Forrest D. Colburn and Alberto Trejos are the authors of the article "Democracy Undermined: Constitutional Subterfuge in Latin America", published in the latest issue of the quarterly US magazine "Dissent" (57 [3], summer 2010: pp. 11-5):
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dissent/summary/v057/57.3.colburn.html
Abstract: "Although democracy is being questioned and even battered throughout Latin America, what is happening in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia is qualitatively different. It is more than a 'ratcheting up' of the assault on democracy; it is a deliberate, well-designed project to deconstruct democracy and substitute something else in its place, poorly defined as that may be. What is new here – and completely unanticipated by the legions of academics who wrote in the 1980s and 1990s about the 'transition' to democracy – is the use of democracy to dismantle democracy. These projects pose a political and moral dilemma: how do you oppose political change that has been approved by a majority, sanctified by elections? Especially in poor countries with marked income and wealth disparities, which frequently overlap with race, how do you in good faith oppose the political projects of those who not only speak in the name of the oppressed, but who have the electoral support of the oppressed?"
Excerpt: "Early in the morning of June 28, 2009, the president of Honduras, Manuel 'Mel' Zelaya, was rousted out of his bed by soldiers and sent out of the country in his pajamas. It was an old-fashioned coup d'état, evoking, seemingly, a bygone era. The coup d'état seemed out of place because democracy has taken hold everywhere in Latin America except Cuba. In principle, now, elections are the only sanctioned route to the presidency; and, in principle again, presidents leave office after completing their term – only then, but definitely then. What was novel, in fact, about the ouster of Zelaya was the fear that prompted it – what can be called 'constitutional subterfuge.' The military in Honduras acted in a clumsy way to avert a very real threat to democracy – Zelaya's move to call an unprecedented special election to remove a term limit on the presidency – in that country and elsewhere in the region."
Unfortunately, I can't access the full text of this article.
Forrest D. Colburn is a Professor in the Department of Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies at Lehman College, City University of New York.
Alberto Trejos is Professor of Economics at INCAE Business School, Costa Rica, where he previously served as Minister of Foreign Trade.
Showing posts with label Latin America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Latin America. Show all posts
31 May 2010
Book: Organized Crime and the Challenge to Democracy
The contributed volume "Organized Crime and the Challenge to Democracy" was edited by Felia Allum and Renate Siebert (Routledge, 2003):
www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415467278/
Publisher's description: "This innovative book investigates the paradoxical situation whereby organized crime groups, authoritarian in nature and anti-democratic in practice, perform at their best in democratic countries. It uses examples from the United States, Japan, Russia, South America, France, Italy and the European Union."
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=BUQLjF9ks_cC&printsec=frontcover
Felia Allum is a Lecturer in Italian Politics and History at the University of Bath.
German-born Renate Siebert is Professor of Sociology at the University of Calabria, Italy.
www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415467278/
Publisher's description: "This innovative book investigates the paradoxical situation whereby organized crime groups, authoritarian in nature and anti-democratic in practice, perform at their best in democratic countries. It uses examples from the United States, Japan, Russia, South America, France, Italy and the European Union."
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=BUQLjF9ks_cC&printsec=frontcover
Felia Allum is a Lecturer in Italian Politics and History at the University of Bath.
German-born Renate Siebert is Professor of Sociology at the University of Calabria, Italy.
25 May 2010
Book: Maoism: A Critique from the Left
Just published: Prasenjit Bose is the editor of the contributed volume "Maoism: A Critique from the Left" (LeftWord Books, May 2010):
www.leftword.com/bookdetails.php?BkId=279&type=PB
Publisher's description: "What is 'Maoism'? What are its roots, and who are the forces waging a war in its name? The Indian Prime Minister characterizes them as our gravest internal security threat. The Maoists, on the other hand, claim they are the only revolutionary force in India today. The debate in India seems polarized between the hardline advocates of a military response to leftwing extremism on the one hand, and those who sympathize with the Maoists on the other. There is need, however, to look at the roots and origins of left sectarianism and critique it from a Marxist standpoint. In articulating a Left critique of 'Maoism', this book adds a crucial dimension to the ongoing debate in India. [...] P.M.S. Grewal makes a detailed, careful critique of the Indian Maoists' history, their programme and praxis. Nilotpal Basu unravels 'Maoism' as an anti-thesis of Mao Zedong thought. Vijay Prashad takes a critical look at the international experience of left extremism, especially in Latin America."
From the introduction: "Following independence, alongside the emergence of the Communist party as a major opposition force to the ruling Congress party within the parliamentary democratic set up, ideological debates also intensified within the Left on the road to revolution in India. [...] The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [...] arrived at a programmatic understanding that the [...] revolution, directed against the big bourgeoisie, landlordism and imperialism, is to be achieved by combining parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles. This overall understanding, however, was questioned by a small section, which considered participation in the parliamentary democratic process – just as the left sectarians did during Lenin's time – to be revisionist and non-revolutionary in principle. [...] Nilotpal Basu's essay [...] makes a robust critique of the anti-democratic practices of the Maoists and their hypocritical sympathizers. He also argues that Maoists can be effectively dealt with, not by means of imposing bans or security measures alone, but by ensuring their political isolation and addressing the developmental needs of the tribal areas where the Maoists operate."
Prasenjit Bose is Convenor of the Research Unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
www.leftword.com/bookdetails.php?BkId=279&type=PB
Publisher's description: "What is 'Maoism'? What are its roots, and who are the forces waging a war in its name? The Indian Prime Minister characterizes them as our gravest internal security threat. The Maoists, on the other hand, claim they are the only revolutionary force in India today. The debate in India seems polarized between the hardline advocates of a military response to leftwing extremism on the one hand, and those who sympathize with the Maoists on the other. There is need, however, to look at the roots and origins of left sectarianism and critique it from a Marxist standpoint. In articulating a Left critique of 'Maoism', this book adds a crucial dimension to the ongoing debate in India. [...] P.M.S. Grewal makes a detailed, careful critique of the Indian Maoists' history, their programme and praxis. Nilotpal Basu unravels 'Maoism' as an anti-thesis of Mao Zedong thought. Vijay Prashad takes a critical look at the international experience of left extremism, especially in Latin America."
From the introduction: "Following independence, alongside the emergence of the Communist party as a major opposition force to the ruling Congress party within the parliamentary democratic set up, ideological debates also intensified within the Left on the road to revolution in India. [...] The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [...] arrived at a programmatic understanding that the [...] revolution, directed against the big bourgeoisie, landlordism and imperialism, is to be achieved by combining parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles. This overall understanding, however, was questioned by a small section, which considered participation in the parliamentary democratic process – just as the left sectarians did during Lenin's time – to be revisionist and non-revolutionary in principle. [...] Nilotpal Basu's essay [...] makes a robust critique of the anti-democratic practices of the Maoists and their hypocritical sympathizers. He also argues that Maoists can be effectively dealt with, not by means of imposing bans or security measures alone, but by ensuring their political isolation and addressing the developmental needs of the tribal areas where the Maoists operate."
Prasenjit Bose is Convenor of the Research Unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
24 May 2010
Trend: Latin America tied to anti-democratic leaders
The Argentinean news website Momento24 on 22 May 2010 published a short article titled "Oscar Arias: 'Latin America is tied to messianic populism and anti-democratic leaders'":
www.momento24.com/en/2010/05/22/oscar-arias-latin-america-is-tied-to-messianic-populism-and-anti-democratic-leaders/
Excerpts: "The former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize [recipient], Oscar Arias[,] said that 'Latin America remains hostage of [sic] messianism and populism with presidents who use the election results to justify anti-democratic behaviors. [...] We applaud revolutionary speeches which are empty in all but their threat to the institutions.' He added that 'in Latin America there is only one dictatorship and it's the Cuban dictatorship but other regimes, like it or not, are democratic regimes that have authoritarian propensities. [...] [T]here are leaders in the region that rely on [...] support at the polls as a blank check from the population. Something as democratic as elections, [sic] is used as a shield to subvert the very foundations of democracy.'" (bold removed)
www.momento24.com/en/2010/05/22/oscar-arias-latin-america-is-tied-to-messianic-populism-and-anti-democratic-leaders/
Excerpts: "The former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize [recipient], Oscar Arias[,] said that 'Latin America remains hostage of [sic] messianism and populism with presidents who use the election results to justify anti-democratic behaviors. [...] We applaud revolutionary speeches which are empty in all but their threat to the institutions.' He added that 'in Latin America there is only one dictatorship and it's the Cuban dictatorship but other regimes, like it or not, are democratic regimes that have authoritarian propensities. [...] [T]here are leaders in the region that rely on [...] support at the polls as a blank check from the population. Something as democratic as elections, [sic] is used as a shield to subvert the very foundations of democracy.'" (bold removed)
11 May 2010
Article: The Mechanics of Regime Instability in Latin America
Adam Przeworski, "The Mechanics of Regime Instability in Latin America" ("Journal of Politics in Latin America", 1 [1], 2009: pp. 5-36).
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jpla/article/viewFile/20/20
Abstract: "The paper is narrowly addressed to a single puzzle: How did it happen that countries that attempted to install democracy earlier enjoyed it less frequently? Regime dynamics are driven by two mechanisms: (1) Democracies become more durable as per capita income increases, and (2) Past experiences with democracy destabilize both democracies and autocracies. As a result, countries that experiment with democracy at lower income levels experience more regime instability. Moreover, until they reach some income threshold, at any time such countries are less likely to be democratic than countries that first enter democracy when they have higher incomes. Hence, paradoxically, the resistance of European monarchies against democracy resulted in democracies that were more stable than those following post-independence attempts in Latin America."
Excerpts: "Now, the claim that Latin American countries tried democracy earlier and, most importantly, at lower levels of economic development than Europe and North America is not original, even if it often evokes surprise among ethnocentric North American and Europeans. [...] To some extent, this timing is due to the fact that several parts of Latin America participated in the 1809 election to the Cortes of Cádiz, thus launching the idea of representative institutions at the time when many European countries were involved in the Napoleonic wars and elections were still rare. But a more general reason was that Latin American wars of independence were at the same time directed against monarchical rule, while most European countries experienced a gradual devolution of power from monarchs to parliaments. [...]
"Latin Americans had to constitute their institutions anew. And they were traversing a terra incognita. Monarchies, republics with predominantly hereditary collective governing bodies, and one republic with an elected legislature and an indirectly elected president were the choices known when first Haiti in 1804 and then Venezuela in 1811 proclaimed independence. In several new countries the first form of the government was a collective body that exercised both the legislative and the executive function. Triumvirates governed Argentina from 1811 to 1814 and Venezuela in 1811-12. [...] In the end institutions based on the United States pattern prevailed – in time all Latin American political systems would have elected legislatures while placing executive function in the hands of presidents – but this alternative became complicated from the onset by Bolívar's itch to keep the position for life. [...]
"The most creative was Dr. José Gaspár Rodriguez de Francia who, having become one of two consuls who were to alternate every four months in 1813, then a dictator appointed for three years, in 1816 proclaimed himself El Dictador Perpetuo of Paraguay and ruled it until 1840 as El Supremo. While this story may sound anecdotal, Francia's innovation was both radical and durable, deserving to be placed on par with Lenin's invention of the one-party state. It was radical since the only model of dictatorship known at the time was the Roman one, and in this model dictatorship was a power that was delegated, exceptional, and limited in duration. 'Perpetual Dictator' was an oxymoron. Moreover, the last attempt to make dictatorship permanent, almost twenty centuries earlier, did not bode well for Dr. Francia's fate. Yet this invention turned out to be durable: Francia set the precedent for such illustrious gentlemen as Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Kim Il-sung, al-Gaddafi, or Castro. [...]
"Now, how is it possible that Latin American countries attempted to institute democracies at lower income levels but ended up with fewer of them at all levels? [...] [A]t a low income [...] level, the probability of democracy falling is quite high. Suppose this democracy falls. The probability that the subsequent autocracy survives is then lower, so that the probability that this country will try democracy again is higher, but the probability that the second democracy survives is also lower. This sequence can be repeated several times, so that if per capita income were constant, both regimes would become increasingly unstable. But income matters: if the economy grows in the meantime, the probability that a democracy dies declines in spite of the past regime instability. And at one time, income passes a threshold above which democracy is impregnable [...].
"Note that the reasons autocratic spells become shorter and democratic spells longer at higher incomes are different. Autocratic spells are shorter almost exclusively because countries that have higher incomes have accumulated more visits to democracy, and such visits destabilize the subsequent autocracies. Democratic spells are longer, however, only because democracy lasts longer at higher income levels. Although past visits to democracy do destabilize subsequent democratic regimes, this effect is small, while the effect of income is powerful."
Polish-born Adam Przeworski is Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Politics and (by courtesy) of Economics at New York University.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jpla/article/viewFile/20/20
Abstract: "The paper is narrowly addressed to a single puzzle: How did it happen that countries that attempted to install democracy earlier enjoyed it less frequently? Regime dynamics are driven by two mechanisms: (1) Democracies become more durable as per capita income increases, and (2) Past experiences with democracy destabilize both democracies and autocracies. As a result, countries that experiment with democracy at lower income levels experience more regime instability. Moreover, until they reach some income threshold, at any time such countries are less likely to be democratic than countries that first enter democracy when they have higher incomes. Hence, paradoxically, the resistance of European monarchies against democracy resulted in democracies that were more stable than those following post-independence attempts in Latin America."
Excerpts: "Now, the claim that Latin American countries tried democracy earlier and, most importantly, at lower levels of economic development than Europe and North America is not original, even if it often evokes surprise among ethnocentric North American and Europeans. [...] To some extent, this timing is due to the fact that several parts of Latin America participated in the 1809 election to the Cortes of Cádiz, thus launching the idea of representative institutions at the time when many European countries were involved in the Napoleonic wars and elections were still rare. But a more general reason was that Latin American wars of independence were at the same time directed against monarchical rule, while most European countries experienced a gradual devolution of power from monarchs to parliaments. [...]
"Latin Americans had to constitute their institutions anew. And they were traversing a terra incognita. Monarchies, republics with predominantly hereditary collective governing bodies, and one republic with an elected legislature and an indirectly elected president were the choices known when first Haiti in 1804 and then Venezuela in 1811 proclaimed independence. In several new countries the first form of the government was a collective body that exercised both the legislative and the executive function. Triumvirates governed Argentina from 1811 to 1814 and Venezuela in 1811-12. [...] In the end institutions based on the United States pattern prevailed – in time all Latin American political systems would have elected legislatures while placing executive function in the hands of presidents – but this alternative became complicated from the onset by Bolívar's itch to keep the position for life. [...]
"The most creative was Dr. José Gaspár Rodriguez de Francia who, having become one of two consuls who were to alternate every four months in 1813, then a dictator appointed for three years, in 1816 proclaimed himself El Dictador Perpetuo of Paraguay and ruled it until 1840 as El Supremo. While this story may sound anecdotal, Francia's innovation was both radical and durable, deserving to be placed on par with Lenin's invention of the one-party state. It was radical since the only model of dictatorship known at the time was the Roman one, and in this model dictatorship was a power that was delegated, exceptional, and limited in duration. 'Perpetual Dictator' was an oxymoron. Moreover, the last attempt to make dictatorship permanent, almost twenty centuries earlier, did not bode well for Dr. Francia's fate. Yet this invention turned out to be durable: Francia set the precedent for such illustrious gentlemen as Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Kim Il-sung, al-Gaddafi, or Castro. [...]
"Now, how is it possible that Latin American countries attempted to institute democracies at lower income levels but ended up with fewer of them at all levels? [...] [A]t a low income [...] level, the probability of democracy falling is quite high. Suppose this democracy falls. The probability that the subsequent autocracy survives is then lower, so that the probability that this country will try democracy again is higher, but the probability that the second democracy survives is also lower. This sequence can be repeated several times, so that if per capita income were constant, both regimes would become increasingly unstable. But income matters: if the economy grows in the meantime, the probability that a democracy dies declines in spite of the past regime instability. And at one time, income passes a threshold above which democracy is impregnable [...].
"Note that the reasons autocratic spells become shorter and democratic spells longer at higher incomes are different. Autocratic spells are shorter almost exclusively because countries that have higher incomes have accumulated more visits to democracy, and such visits destabilize the subsequent autocracies. Democratic spells are longer, however, only because democracy lasts longer at higher income levels. Although past visits to democracy do destabilize subsequent democratic regimes, this effect is small, while the effect of income is powerful."
Polish-born Adam Przeworski is Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Politics and (by courtesy) of Economics at New York University.
03 April 2010
Press release: Anti-democratic temptations still present in Latin America and the Caribbean
On 30 March, the Organization of American States (OAS) issued a press release titled "Insulza: 'Anti-democratic Temptations are Still Present in Different Sectors of Our Region'":
www.oas.org/OASpage/press_releases/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-098/10
Excerpt: "The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, said today that 'in our continent electoral processes have made remarkable progress, and so democracies have become legitimate in their origin. Nevertheless, institutionality is still fragile and the constitutional changes produced in some countries must prove they can generate stable governments.' The Secretary General's remarks came during a conference organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
"During the conference, entitled 'The Inter-American System: Governance and Democracy,' Insulza said that poverty continues to be the most important though not the sole factor limiting the possibility of reaching democratic stability in the region. He also explained that though democracy progresses in its origin, 'anti-democratic temptations continue to be present in different sectors of our region, especially in two forms: one based on the false premise that whoever has a majority has the right to change the system as he sees fit, and the other one is the tendency of the dominant sectors to distrust the whole process of reform and to make corrections in the most brutal way.'
"In his analysis, Insulza identified lack of freedom of expression, corruption and restrictions to the necessary separation of state powers as 'some of the most important limitations in the transition of regional countries towards democratic stability.' In this context, and in reference to the situation of Honduras, Insulza said that 'if the government of Honduras had requested action by the OAS in a timely way, we could have controlled that conflict before it became a coup d'état. [...']"
www.oas.org/OASpage/press_releases/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-098/10
Excerpt: "The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, said today that 'in our continent electoral processes have made remarkable progress, and so democracies have become legitimate in their origin. Nevertheless, institutionality is still fragile and the constitutional changes produced in some countries must prove they can generate stable governments.' The Secretary General's remarks came during a conference organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
"During the conference, entitled 'The Inter-American System: Governance and Democracy,' Insulza said that poverty continues to be the most important though not the sole factor limiting the possibility of reaching democratic stability in the region. He also explained that though democracy progresses in its origin, 'anti-democratic temptations continue to be present in different sectors of our region, especially in two forms: one based on the false premise that whoever has a majority has the right to change the system as he sees fit, and the other one is the tendency of the dominant sectors to distrust the whole process of reform and to make corrections in the most brutal way.'
"In his analysis, Insulza identified lack of freedom of expression, corruption and restrictions to the necessary separation of state powers as 'some of the most important limitations in the transition of regional countries towards democratic stability.' In this context, and in reference to the situation of Honduras, Insulza said that 'if the government of Honduras had requested action by the OAS in a timely way, we could have controlled that conflict before it became a coup d'état. [...']"
09 January 2010
Book: Dissonances: Democratic Critiques of Democracy
An attempt to criticize democracy from a democratic point of view: Guillermo O'Donnell's "Dissonances: Democratic Critiques of Democracy" (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007):
http://undpress.nd.edu/book/P01198
From the publisher's description: "Guillermo O'Donnell here brings together a collection of significant recent essays in which he considers both the method for and substance of critiques of democracies."
Reviews: "O'Donnell continues his comparative analysis of democracies that have emerged in Latin America in the shadow of authoritarianism." ("Research Book News")
"For many years, O'Donnell has explored the various ways in which the democracies of Latin America – many of them new – failed to meet expectations held out for them by citizens, analysts, and political actors. The articles collected here represent some of the very best thinking by an author who remains one of the most creative and insightful political theorists, whose work is deeply grounded in empirical observation, whose ideas are consistently robust, and whose reflections can be both provocative and of great practical use." (Charles D. Kenney, University of Oklahoma)
Guillermo O'Donnell is the Helen Kellogg Professor of Government Emeritus and a Senior Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He was the first to receive the Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the International Political Science Association (IPSA).
http://undpress.nd.edu/book/P01198
From the publisher's description: "Guillermo O'Donnell here brings together a collection of significant recent essays in which he considers both the method for and substance of critiques of democracies."
Reviews: "O'Donnell continues his comparative analysis of democracies that have emerged in Latin America in the shadow of authoritarianism." ("Research Book News")
"For many years, O'Donnell has explored the various ways in which the democracies of Latin America – many of them new – failed to meet expectations held out for them by citizens, analysts, and political actors. The articles collected here represent some of the very best thinking by an author who remains one of the most creative and insightful political theorists, whose work is deeply grounded in empirical observation, whose ideas are consistently robust, and whose reflections can be both provocative and of great practical use." (Charles D. Kenney, University of Oklahoma)
Guillermo O'Donnell is the Helen Kellogg Professor of Government Emeritus and a Senior Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He was the first to receive the Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the International Political Science Association (IPSA).
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