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The Policy Capabilities of Democratic Regimes in Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

John W. Sloan
John W. Sloan*
Affiliation:
University of Houston
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The present trend toward democratic regimes in Latin American countries raises the issue of their regime-determined capabilities. Democracy is generally defined in procedural terms and supported on moral rather than policy grounds (Schumpeter 1950, 242). Consequently, very little is known about the policy consequences, if any, of the adoption of democratic forms and procedures by Latin American political systems. One way to examine this question is to analyze the policy performance of the three democratic regimes in Latin America that are the most institutionalized: Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. These three nations, unlike Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay, were able to withstand the authoritarian trends of the 1960s and early 1970s. They have been democratic long enough (well over two decades) during a period when development issues were salient to indicate the policy-performance capabilities of democratic regimes operating within the cultural, economic, and political context of Latin America.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , 1989 , pp. 113 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

This research note is a revised version of a paper originally read at the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association in Boston in October 1986.

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