Citizen Views Of Democracy In Latin America

Author : Roderic Ai Camp
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : History
ISBN : 9780822990604

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Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America by Roderic Ai Camp Pdf

When Americans and Latin Americans talk about democracy, are they imagining the same thing? For years, researchers have suspected that fundamental differences exist between how North Americans view and appraise the concept of democracy and how Latin Americans view the same term. These differences directly affect the evolution of democratization and political liberalization in the countries of the region, and understanding them has tremendous consequences for U.S.–Latin American relations. But until now there has been no hard data to make “the definition of democracy” visible, and thus able to be interpreted. This book, the culmination of a monumental survey project, is the first attempt to do so. Camp headed a research team that in 1998 surveyed 1,200 citizens in three countries—three distinct cases of democratic transition. Costa Rica is alleged to be the most democratic in Latin America; Mexico is a country in transition toward democracy; Chile is returning to democracy after decades of severe repression. The survey was carefully designed to show how the average citizen in each of these nations understands democracy. In Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America, ten leading scholars of the region analyze and interpret the results. Written with scholar and undergraduate in mind, the essays explore the countries individually, showing how the meaning of democracy varies among them. A key theme emerges: there is no uniform “Latin American” understanding of democracy, though the nations share important patterns. Other essays trace issues across boundaries, such as the role of ethnicity on perceptions of democracy. Several of the contributors also compare democratic norms in Latin America with those outside the region, including the United States. Concluding essays analyze the institutional and policy consequences of the data, including how attitudes toward private versus public ownership are linked to democratization.

Author : Roderic Ai Camp
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:811260372

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Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America by Roderic Ai Camp Pdf

Author : Pascal Lupien
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2018-04-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781438469171

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Citizens' Power in Latin America by Pascal Lupien Pdf

Examines why some democratic innovations succeed while others fail, using Venezuela, Ecuador, and Chile as case studies. Citizens’ Power in Latin America takes the reader into the heart of communities where average citizens are attempting to build a new democratic model to improve their socioeconomic conditions and to have a voice in decisions that affect their lives. Based on groundbreaking fieldwork conducted in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Chile, Pascal Lupien contrasts two models of participatory design that have emerged in Latin America and identifies the factors that enhance or diminish the capacity of these mechanisms to produce positive outcomes. He draws on lived experiences of citizen participants to reveal the potential and the dangers of participatory democracy. Why do some democratic innovations appear to succeed while others fail? To what extent do these institutions really empower citizens, and in what ways can they be used by governments to control participation? What lessons can be learned from these experiments? Given the growing dissatisfaction with existing democratic systems across the world, this book will be of interest to people seeking innovative ways of deepening democracy.

Author : Leonardo Avritzer
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2009-01-10
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1400825016

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Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America by Leonardo Avritzer Pdf

This is a bold new study of the recent emergence of democracy in Latin America. Leonardo Avritzer shows that traditional theories of democratization fall short in explaining this phenomenon. Scholars have long held that the postwar stability of Western Europe reveals that restricted democracy, or "democratic elitism," is the only realistic way to guard against forces such as the mass mobilizations that toppled European democracies after World War I. Avritzer challenges this view. Drawing on the ideas of Jürgen Habermas, he argues that democracy can be far more inclusive and can rely on a sphere of autonomous association and argument by citizens. He makes this argument by showing that democratic collective action has opened up a new "public space" for popular participation in Latin American politics. Unlike many theorists, Avritzer builds his case empirically. He looks at human rights movements in Argentina and Brazil, neighborhood associations in Brazil and Mexico, and election-monitoring initiatives in Mexico. Contending that such participation has not gone far enough, he proposes a way to involve citizens even more directly in policy decisions. For example, he points to experiments in "participatory budgeting" in two Brazilian cities. Ultimately, the concept of such a space beyond the reach of state administration fosters a broader view of democratic possibility, of the cultural transformation that spurred it, and of the tensions that persist, in a region where democracy is both new and different from the Old World models.

Author : Geraldine Lievesley
Publisher : Manchester University Press
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0719043115

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Democracy in Latin America by Geraldine Lievesley Pdf

This textbook provides an understanding of the process of democratization in Latin America. The author explores the various paths to democracy followed in different countries of the region.

Author : Mitchell A. Seligson
Publisher : LAPOP
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0979217873

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Challenges to Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean by Mitchell A. Seligson Pdf

Author : Enrique Desmond Arias,Daniel M. Goldstein
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2010-03-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9780822392033

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Violent Democracies in Latin America by Enrique Desmond Arias,Daniel M. Goldstein Pdf

Despite recent political movements to establish democratic rule in Latin American countries, much of the region still suffers from pervasive violence. From vigilantism, to human rights violations, to police corruption, violence persists. It is perpetrated by state-sanctioned armies, guerillas, gangs, drug traffickers, and local community groups seeking self-protection. The everyday presence of violence contrasts starkly with governmental efforts to extend civil, political, and legal rights to all citizens, and it is invoked as evidence of the failure of Latin American countries to achieve true democracy. The contributors to this collection take the more nuanced view that violence is not a social aberration or the result of institutional failure; instead, it is intimately linked to the institutions and policies of economic liberalization and democratization. The contributors—anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, and historians—explore how individuals and institutions in Latin American democracies, from the rural regions of Colombia and the Dominican Republic to the urban centers of Brazil and Mexico, use violence to impose and contest notions of order, rights, citizenship, and justice. They describe the lived realities of citizens and reveal the historical foundations of the violence that Latin America suffers today. One contributor examines the tightly woven relationship between violent individuals and state officials in Colombia, while another contextualizes violence in Rio de Janeiro within the transnational political economy of drug trafficking. By advancing the discussion of democratic Latin American regimes beyond the usual binary of success and failure, this collection suggests more sophisticated ways of understanding the challenges posed by violence, and of developing new frameworks for guaranteeing human rights in Latin America. Contributors: Enrique Desmond Arias, Javier Auyero, Lilian Bobea, Diane E. Davis, Robert Gay, Daniel M. Goldstein, Mary Roldán, Todd Landman, Ruth Stanley, María Clemencia Ramírez

Author : R. Feinberg,C. Waisman,L. Zamosc
Publisher : Springer
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2006-04-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781403983244

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Civil Society and Democracy in Latin America by R. Feinberg,C. Waisman,L. Zamosc Pdf

A dense web of private associations drawn from multiple social classes, interest groups and value communities makes for a firm foundation for strong democracy. In Latin America today, will civil society improve the quality of democracy or will it foster political polarization and reverse recent progress? Distinguished theorists from the United States, Canada and Latin America explore the diverse impact of civil society on economic performance, political parties, and state institutions. In-depth and up-to-date country studies explore the consequences of civil society for the durability of democracy in three highly dynamic, controversial settings: Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.

Author : Carlos A. Forment
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 485 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2013-07-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780226112909

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Democracy in Latin America, 1760–1900 by Carlos A. Forment Pdf

Carlos Forment's aim in this highly ambitious work is to write the book that Tocqueville would have written had he traveled to Latin America instead of the United States. Drawing on an astonishing level of research, Forment pored over countless newspapers, partisan pamphlets, tabloids, journals, private letters, and travelogues to show in this study how citizens of Latin America established strong democratic traditions in their countries through the practice of democracy in their everyday lives. This first volume of Democracy in Latin America considers the development of democratic life in Mexico and Peru from independence to the late 1890s. Forment traces the emergence of hundreds of political, economic, and civic associations run by citizens in both nations and shows how these organizations became models of and for democracy in the face of dictatorship and immense economic hardship. His is the first book to show the presence in Latin America of civic democracy, something that gave men and women in that region an alternative to market- and state-centered forms of life. In looking beneath institutions of government to uncover local and civil organizations in public life, Forment ultimately uncovers a tradition of edification and inculcation that shaped democratic practices in Latin America profoundly. This tradition, he reveals, was stronger in Mexico than in Peru, but its basic outlines were similar in both nations and included a unique form of what Forment calls Civic Catholicism in order to distinguish itself from civic republicanism, the dominant political model throughout the rest of the Western world.

Author : Evelina Dagnino
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 44 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Citizenship
ISBN : UOM:39015069166687

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Meanings of Citizenship in Latin America by Evelina Dagnino Pdf

References p. 23-27.

Author : John A. Booth,Mitchell A. Seligson
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2009-02-02
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781139475594

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The Legitimacy Puzzle in Latin America by John A. Booth,Mitchell A. Seligson Pdf

Political scientists have worried about declining levels of citizens' support for their regimes (legitimacy), but have failed to empirically link this decline to the survival or breakdown of democracy. This apparent paradox is the 'legitimacy puzzle', which this book addresses by examining political legitimacy's structure, sources, and effects. With exhaustive empirical analysis of high-quality survey data from eight Latin American nations, it confirms that legitimacy exists as multiple, distinct dimensions. It finds that one's position in society, education, knowledge, information, and experiences shape legitimacy norms. Contrary to expectations, however, citizens who are unhappy with their government's performance do not drop out of politics or resort mainly to destabilizing protest. Rather, the disaffected citizens of these Latin American democracies participate at high rates in conventional politics and in such alternative arenas as communal improvement and civil society. And despite regime performance problems, citizen support for democracy remains high.

Author : Elizabeth Jelin,Eric Hershberg
Publisher : Westview Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : History
ISBN : UTEXAS:059173009810140

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Constructing Democracy by Elizabeth Jelin,Eric Hershberg Pdf

Comprises 12 essays which cover the the adjustment of the armed forces to democracy, human rights in democratization processes, the Latin American human rights network, the looting of democratic discourse by the Guatemalan military, citizenship in democracy, indigenous rights, racial and sex discrimination, and violence in the Latin American democratic transition.

Author : Daniel H. Levine,Jose E. Molina,Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 36 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Democracy
ISBN : OCLC:181099506

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The Quality of Democracy in Latin America by Daniel H. Levine,Jose E. Molina,Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies Pdf

Author : Mario Sznajder,Luis Roniger,Carlos Forment
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 565 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2012-11-27
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789004226562

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Shifting Frontiers of Citizenship: The Latin American Experience by Mario Sznajder,Luis Roniger,Carlos Forment Pdf

The implementation of neo-liberal policies in Latin America has led to countervailing transformations in democratic citizenship and to the rise of populist leaderships, while the crisis of representation has been accompanied by new forms of participation, generating profound transformations. The authors analyze these recent trends.

Author : Daniel H. Levine,José Enrique Molina
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2011
Category : Democracy
ISBN : 158826761X

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The Quality of Democracy in Latin America by Daniel H. Levine,José Enrique Molina Pdf

In considering the nature and future prospects of the current wave of democracies in Latin America, analysis has shifted from a concern with regime change, transitions, and consolidation to a focus on the quality of these democracies. To what extent, for example, do citizens participate and influence decision making? Are elections free and fair? Are there ways of ensuring government accountability? Do unelected power brokers exert undue influence?Furthering this new approach, the authors of The Quality of Democracy in Latin America provide a rich, nuanced analysis-centered on a multidimensional theoretical foundation-of democratic systems in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.