This article seeks to characterize the predominant political regimes in Latin America in the 21st century, their relative stability and endurance. It points out that even if the differences between them are less clear than in the 20th century, the main regimes are authoritarian (autocratic), more or less liberal democracies, and populism. It goes on arguing that in contrast to the 20th century, the role and presence of the military current authoritarian regimes is less direct, which may have created confusion. Of the three regimes, authoritarian are the more stable ones. Regarding liberal democracy, despite ups and downs, democracy has remained as the dominant regime in the region. As established in mainstream political science findings about the region, the sources of this continuity do not depend overall on the economy or social trends such as inequality or poverty levels but on political factors (the normative preferences of political actors over democracy, and on their political moderation or radicalism). Also, Latin American democracies have weathered several storms of widespread protests deriving from inner discontent. In order to make sense of the sources of instability one has to look into strictly political factors such as fragmentation, volatility, acute polarization, coalition breakdowns, rejection of critical government policies, and impeachment of presidents. The third regime type is populism, which has had a strong revival during this century, with important differences with its earlier 20th century versions. Several scholarly works point out that present populist regimes’ most prominent features are strictly political, which they characterize as a “moment” or a movement to attain power, which may end up giving birth to more stable regimes like competitive authoritarism. I prefer to delve into populism as a regime in its own right, which has emerged frequently in the region, in some cases deriving into fully authoritarian ones (Venezuela) or moving back to liberal democracy (Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru). The paper ends calling for the need to deepen research regarding both differences between the three regimes and the specific factors affecting stability of democracies in the region.
Published in | Science, Technology & Public Policy (Volume 7, Issue 1) |
DOI | 10.11648/j.stpp.20230701.15 |
Page(s) | 32-40 |
Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Latin American Politics, Comparative Politics, Democracy, Authoritarian Regimes, Populism
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[3] | Lührmann, A., & Lindberg, S. I., (2018) A third wave of autocratization is here: what is new about it? Democratization, 26: 7, 1095-1113, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2019.1582029 https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2019.1582029 |
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[8] | Dragon in the Tropics…. Chapter 5. |
[9] | Leonardo Vivas (2017), Final Report “Venezuela Facing a Social Shock: The Country’s Health and Food Crises, with Potential Responses” Freedom House, March. |
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[11] | Mijares, Victor M. (2017) “La resiliencia del autoritarismo venezolano” GIGA Focus – Lateinamerika, No. 2 | March https://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/publikation/die-resilienz-des-venezolanischen-autoritarismus See also Mckinley, Michael (2023), “Reflections on the end of Venezuela’s Interim Government”, Latin America Program/Wilson Center, January. |
[12] | “Ortega wins Nicaraguan presidency” (2006) The Guardian, November 8 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/nov/08/1 |
[13] | Mainwaring, Scott & Pérez-Liñán, Aníbal, (2005) “Latin American Democratization since 1978” in Mainwaring, Scott & Hagopian, Frances, The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America: Advances and Setbacks since 1978, CUP, New York. |
[14] | Sikkink, Kathryn (2011), The Justice Cascade, How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics, Norton, New York. Also, the film Argentina 1985, nominated to the Academy Awards 2023 for the Best International Feature Film. |
[15] | The Contadora Process for Peace in Central America (1985), International Legal Materials, CUP, January, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 182-245 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20692793 |
[16] | Sahd, Jorge, Zovatto, Daniel & Rojas Diego (2023), “Riesgo político en América Latina”, Centro UC/Estudios Internacionales, Santiago de Chile, p. 15 based on the Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit http://centroestudiosinternacionales.uc.cl/images/publicaciones/publicaciones-ceiuc/2023/Riesgo_Politico_America_Latina_2023.pdf |
[17] | Vivas, Leonardo (2019), “What is Driving the Protests in Latin America?”, Fair Observer https://www.fairobserver.com/region/latin_america/protests-bolivia-chile-ecuador-haiti-latin-america-news-88716/ |
[18] | Huntington, Samuel (1968), Political Order in Changing Societies, Yale Univ. Press, New Haven. |
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[20] | Pildes, Richard H. “The Age of Political Fragmentation (2021) Journal of Democracy, Volume 32, Number 4, October 2021, pp. 146-159. |
[21] | Jaquette, J. & Lowenthal, A. (2021), “Peru’s election of Pedro Castillo: From fragmentation to polarization —or perhaps centrist reform? Global Americans, July 1. |
[22] | Delpar, Helen (1981), Red Against Blue, the Liberal Party in Colombian Politics, 1862-1899, University of Alabama Press, Alabama. |
[23] | Mainwaring, Scott & Su, Yen-Pin (2021), “Electoral Volatility in Latin America, 1932–2018”, Studies in Comparative International Development, 56: 271–296. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-021-09340-x |
[24] | Sahd, Jorge, Zovatto, Daniel & Rojas Diego (2023), “Riesgo político…”, p. 27. |
[25] | Sanborn, Cynthia & Garcia Nice, Beatriz (2023), “Peru’s Overlapping Messes”, Q&A, Weekly Asado, Wilson Center. |
[26] | The most classic version is that of Gino Germani, see De La Torre. See de la Torre, Carlos (2010), Populist Seduction in Latin America, chapter 1, Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio. |
[27] | Levitsky, S., & Way, Lucan (2010), Competitive Authoritarianism, Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War, Cambridge University Press, New York. |
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[32] | De la Torre, Carlos & Aronson, Cynthia (Eds) (2013), Latin American Populism in the Twenty-First Century, John Hopkins Univ Press, Baltimore. |
[33] | Rosanvallon, Pierre (2021), The Populist Century, History, Theory, Critique, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. |
APA Style
Leonardo Vivas Peñalver. (2023). Separating the Chaff from the Wheat: An Exploration of Latin American Political Regimes. Science, Technology & Public Policy, 7(1), 32-40. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.stpp.20230701.15
ACS Style
Leonardo Vivas Peñalver. Separating the Chaff from the Wheat: An Exploration of Latin American Political Regimes. Sci. Technol. Public Policy 2023, 7(1), 32-40. doi: 10.11648/j.stpp.20230701.15
AMA Style
Leonardo Vivas Peñalver. Separating the Chaff from the Wheat: An Exploration of Latin American Political Regimes. Sci Technol Public Policy. 2023;7(1):32-40. doi: 10.11648/j.stpp.20230701.15
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TY - JOUR T1 - Separating the Chaff from the Wheat: An Exploration of Latin American Political Regimes AU - Leonardo Vivas Peñalver Y1 - 2023/05/31 PY - 2023 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.stpp.20230701.15 DO - 10.11648/j.stpp.20230701.15 T2 - Science, Technology & Public Policy JF - Science, Technology & Public Policy JO - Science, Technology & Public Policy SP - 32 EP - 40 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2640-4621 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.stpp.20230701.15 AB - This article seeks to characterize the predominant political regimes in Latin America in the 21st century, their relative stability and endurance. It points out that even if the differences between them are less clear than in the 20th century, the main regimes are authoritarian (autocratic), more or less liberal democracies, and populism. It goes on arguing that in contrast to the 20th century, the role and presence of the military current authoritarian regimes is less direct, which may have created confusion. Of the three regimes, authoritarian are the more stable ones. Regarding liberal democracy, despite ups and downs, democracy has remained as the dominant regime in the region. As established in mainstream political science findings about the region, the sources of this continuity do not depend overall on the economy or social trends such as inequality or poverty levels but on political factors (the normative preferences of political actors over democracy, and on their political moderation or radicalism). Also, Latin American democracies have weathered several storms of widespread protests deriving from inner discontent. In order to make sense of the sources of instability one has to look into strictly political factors such as fragmentation, volatility, acute polarization, coalition breakdowns, rejection of critical government policies, and impeachment of presidents. The third regime type is populism, which has had a strong revival during this century, with important differences with its earlier 20th century versions. Several scholarly works point out that present populist regimes’ most prominent features are strictly political, which they characterize as a “moment” or a movement to attain power, which may end up giving birth to more stable regimes like competitive authoritarism. I prefer to delve into populism as a regime in its own right, which has emerged frequently in the region, in some cases deriving into fully authoritarian ones (Venezuela) or moving back to liberal democracy (Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru). The paper ends calling for the need to deepen research regarding both differences between the three regimes and the specific factors affecting stability of democracies in the region. VL - 7 IS - 1 ER -