Consolidation and the Institutional Infrastructure of Democracy
Wistano L. Orozco
I. Introduction
The transition to democracy that many Latin American countries made during the last two
decades of the twentieth century has left much to be desired, particularly for those who believed
that the arrival of democracy would translate into a better standard of living for the general
population. Severe economic crises, political scandals, and the unfulfilled social promises that
have befallen Latin American democracies have led to disenchantment with democratic
government. As the discrediting of democratic institutions grows within Latin America, the
shadow of the caudillo once again covers large areas of the region and makes the return of
authoritarianism more likely. This state of affairs has led politicians and academics to turn their
attention away from the concept of democratic transition and towards the idea of “democratic
consolidation” (DC), which is seen as both the explanation and the remedy for the ills that plague
these democracies.
DC is fashionable, but it suffers from the disease that so many other fashionable words and
phrases suffer from: it is “abused, distorted, and trivialized.”1 This tendency explains, at least in
part, the avalanche of concepts available on the market of political ideas as well as the current
1
. Giovanni Sartori, “Understanding Pluralism”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1997, pp. 58-69. Salvo
indicación en contrario en el texto todas las traducciones son mías.
1
chaotic public debate in which everyone uses the concept that he or she most likes or finds most
convenient.2
In the wide sea of existing theories, an “institutionalist”3 vision stands out: it posits that the grave
problems that face Latin American democracies are due to a lack of “institutionalization” of
various political, social, and economic arenas.
This theory conceives of “institutionalization” as the process of strengthening the democratic
institutions created during regime transition through their redesign and, above all else, through
their internalization by various political and social actors. According to this line of thought, this
process can be successful only if certain conditions—what the organizers of this conference have
dubbed “the institutional infrastructure of democracy”—are present.
Specifically, these
conditions are (among others) a strong and active civil society, solid political parties, a relatively
independent political culture, a strong state based on rights, and an efficient economy.
The significance of this radical theory lies not only in the influence it has wielded in academic
discourse, but also in the fact that it forms the basis of a paradigm that is used to elaborate the
2
. En palabras de Andreas Schedler: “[...] en este momento, con la gente usando el concepto del modo en que cada
uno quiere, nadie puede estar seguro de lo que significa para otros, pero todos mantiene la ilusión de que hablan
entre sí de una forma comprensible. Si bien la ‘consolidación democrática’ puede haber sido un concepto nebuloso
desde su propio nacimiento, la niebla conceptual que lo cubre ha venido a espesarse cuanto más se ha difundido en
el mundo académico y político”. Andreas Schedler, “What is Democratic Consolidation?”, Journal of Democracy,
Vol. 9, No. 2, Abril de 1998, p. 92.
3
. Esta corriente de pensamiento está inspirada en los pioneros trabajos de Dankwart Rustow y Robert A. Dahl sobre
los procesos de democratización y se entre sus representantes más destacados se encuentran Juan Linz, Alfred
Stepan, Larry Diammond, Adam Przeworski, Nikiforos Diamandouros, Richard Gunther y Hans Jürgen Puhle.
2
policies of various democratic development agencies and international organizations.4 In this
sense, its insights help us address some of the questions posed to this panel.
II. The Institutionalist Vision
This theory starts from the premise that DC is a phenomenon that is conceptually subsequent to
the establishment of a democratic regime and anterior to its expected functioning and stability.
Thus, when we speak of DC we are not dealing with “non-liberated democratic regimes, pseudodemocracies, or with hybrid democracies where democratic institutions coexist with nondemocratic institutions not subject to state control.”5 Only democracies can become consolidated
democracies.
According to this theory, once the transition to democracy is complete there are various matters
left to attend to, conditions to establish, and attitudes and habits to cultivate before a democratic
political system can be consolidated. A successful DC occurs when the improvised institutions
created during a democratic transition are transformed into a solid institutional framework that is
deeply internalized by political and social actors, who can then compete and cooperate on stable
and predictable terms. In Adam Przeworski’s words, “democracy has been consolidated when it
becomes the only game in town.”6
4
. Véase, por ejemplo, Thomas Carothers, “The end of the transition paradigm”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No.
1, 2002, pp. 5-21 (existe una versión en castellano aparecida en la revista Este País, s/t, No. 135, México, 2002, pp.
22-34).
5
. Véase, Juan Linz y Alfred Stepan, “Toward Consolidated Democracies”, en Larry Diamond, Marc Plattner, Yunhan Chu y Hung-mao Tien, (eds.) Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies: Themes and Perspectives, John
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1997, p. 15.
6
. Adam Przeworski definió la consolidación democrática como aquel estado de cosas en el que “nadie puede
imaginarse actuando fuera de las instituciones democráticas para acceder al poder político”. Adam Przeworski,
Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America, Cambridge
University Press, New York, 1991, p. 26.
3
Thus, this theory suggests that a lack of institutionalization is what defines an “unconsolidated”
democracy and that institutionalization is what defines a “consolidated” one. It is therefore
possible to construct a spectrum that allows us to analyze reality.7 According to institutionalists
Diamandourous, Gunther, and Puhle (hereinafter DGP), DC is an ideal that cannot be reached in
the real world; therefore, the label “completely consolidated” should be reserved for those
unattainable democracies found in idealized worlds. These authors believe that the correct label
for those real-world situations in which the political system comes as close as possible to a
completely consolidated democracy is “sufficiently consolidated.” Thinking along these lines
allows us to declare a democracy “sufficiently consolidated” when it has acquired “substantial
attitudinal support and citizen complacency with respect to new democratic institutions and the
rules that they establish,” thereby allowing all to anticipate “democracy’s stability and
persistence even in the face of significant challenges.”8
But what model of democracy does this theory adopt to construct a discourse about
institutionalization? Its point of departure is a semantic variation of Robert A. Dahl’s concept of
polyarchy, which it uses to distinguish democratic political systems from other political systems
found in the real world.9 For two important proponents of this view, Juan Linz and Alfred
Stepan, democracy is
…that form of government in which the right to make collective decisions is the product
of fair, free, and competitive elections; in which the authority of democratically-elected
leaders to make these decisions is not subject to the power of groups or institutions that
7
. Véase, Andreas Schedler, Under and overinstitutionalization: some ideal typical propositions concerning new and
old party systems, Working Paper 213, The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre
Dame, Notre Dame, 1995.
8
. Véase, Richard Gunther, Nikiforos Diamandouros y Hans-Jürgen Puhle, The Politics of Democratic
Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995, p.
3.
9
. Véase, Richard Gunther, Nikiforos Diamandouros y Hans-Jürgen Puhle, “O’Donnell’s “Illusions”: A Rejoinder”,
en Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Diciembre 1996), p. 151.
4
are not democratically accountable; and in which elected authorities govern themselves
.10
democratically.
According to these authors, the first element of this definition requires the following basic
institutions:
…the legal liberty to formulate and propose alternative policies with concomitant rights of
freedom of association, freedom of expression and other fundamental individual rights; free, nonviolent competition among leaders with a periodic revalidation of their right to govern; the
inclusion of all political duties in the democratic process, and means of participation for all
11
members of the political community, regardless of their political preferences.
They believe that this first element is a necessary but not sufficient condition to conclude that a
country has a democratic system of governance. Two additional conditions are necessary to arrive
at this conclusion: (1) “the absence of power in the hands of groups or institutions not
democratically accountable” and (2) “the requirement that elected authorities govern themselves
democratically.” 12
According to these authors, this definition is value-neutral and serves as a means of
distinguishing between democracies and other political systems found in the real world.13
With this conception of democracy in mind, the institutionalist vision suggests that a democratic
regime is sufficiently consolidated when “all politically relevant groups consider the essential
political institutions to be the only legitimate structure for political competition and adhere to the
10
. Juan Linz, Alfred Stepan y Richard Gunther, “Democratic Transition and Consolidation in Southern Europe, with
Reflections on Latin America and Eastern Europe”, en Richard Gunther, Nikiforos Diamandouros y Hans-Jürgen
Puhle, The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective, Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, 1995, p.78.
11
. Juan Linz, La Quiebra de las Democracias, Alianza Editorial, 1987, p. 18.
12
. Juan Linz y Alfred Stepan, “Toward Consolidated Democracies”, en Larry Diamond, Marc Plattner, Yun-han
Chu y Hung-mao Tien, (eds.) Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies: Themes and Perspectives, Op., Cit., p.
14.
13
. Véase, Richard Gunther, Nikiforos Diamandouros y Hans-Jürgen Puhle, “O’Donnell’s “Illusions”: A Rejoinder”,
en Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Diciembre 1996), p. 151.
5
democratic rules of the game.”14 Thus, democracy becomes “a deeply internalized routine in
social, institutional, and psychological life, as well as in individual and collective actors’
calculations for political success.”15
This perspective therefore suggests that the consolidation of democracy has taken place when the
following has occurred16: (1) from a constitutional point of view, all political actors within the
state’s territory are subject to and habitually subject themselves to the method of conflict
resolution specifically set forth in the laws, procedures, and institutions created by the
democratic system; (2) in the sphere of social conduct, no relevant social actor seeks to achieve
his objectives by devoting substantial resources to the creation of a non-democratic regime or to
violence or foreign intervention meant to alter the state’s limits; and (3) from the perspective of
psychological attitudes, a strong majority of the public believes that democratic institutions and
procedures are the most appropriate way to regulate society, and support for alternative systems
is either very weak or isolated from pro-democratic forces.
However, in order for the internalization of democratic institutions to be successful, the following
five conditions relating to the institutional infrastructure of democracy must be present17: (1) the
creation of a free and vigorous civil society; (2) the presence of a relatively autonomous political
society; (3) the existence of a Government of Laws; (4) the maintenance of a state bureaucracy
that serves democratic authorities and that makes citizen rights and grievances effective; and (5)
the existence of an institutionalized economy.
14
. Ibid., p. 7.
. Véase, Juan Linz y Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, 1996, p. 6.
16
. Ibid., pp. 5-6.
17
. Ibid., pp. 7, 13, 15.
15
6
Even though this perspective suggests that a free and vigorous civil society foments a democratic
culture guided by tolerance and solidarity among various social groups, this kind of society cannot
guarantee the development and permanence of this culture without the reinforcement provided by
a relatively autonomous political society.
One should note that this line of thinking conceives of civil society as “the space of organized
social life that is voluntary, self-generated, self-sufficient, free from state control, and regulated
and protected by a legal order or a set of shared rules.”
18
Civil society is therefore a kind of
intermediary space located between citizens’ private sphere and the state in which various
individuals act publicly, usually in collective form, to express and advance their interests,
exchange information, make demands of the state, and oversee the work of government officials.
Given that civil society is situated within the public sphere, its realm excludes family life, strictly
intragroup activities (like recreational or spiritual activities), and private firms’ internal activities.
But the notion of civil society also excludes political groups that compete for public power, and
the state bureaucracy and the rest of the governing class that constitute political society.
Understood in this way, civil society is composed of civic, cultural, economic, educational, and
union groups that articulate values, create associations, and form alliances to advance their
interests.
18
. Larry Diamond, “Toward democratic consolidation”, en Larry Diamond y Marc Plattner (editors), The global
resurgence of democracy, 2a ed., Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996, p. 228.
7
This theory necessitates not only that we distinguish civil society from political society, but also
that we recognize how they complement each other during the process of transition and
consolidation. But distinguishing them while acknowledging how they mutually reinforce each
other is no simple task: the protagonist’s role that civil society has played in the democratization
of Latin America and Eastern Europe has led to a paradoxical discussion concerning its
relationship with political society.
Whereas transitions to democracy usually require a strong civil society opposed to the political
society that sustains the authoritarian state, democratic consolidations are said to require a
sufficiently powerful political society that can confront civil society’s demands. Institutionalist
authors emphasize that this apparent contradiction leads to bad theory and bad political practice
because it stresses the conflict between these two types of societies. But although civil society’s
preferences concerning institutional arrangements and policy-making style may be at variance
with those of political society’s, each needs the other to ensure the success of democratization. All
stages of democratization require both an independent and vigorous civil society as well as a
relatively autonomous political society that puts the former’s preferences and desires into action.
In order to reinforce political society’s autonomy, this theory emphasizes, we should strengthen
one of democracy’s most important institutions: political parties. These groups’ principal function
during the democratic consolidation process is to aggregate and represent the differences among
the various democrats of civil and political society. This theory suggests that party systems allow
for the intermediation between civil society and the state necessary for the consolidation of
8
democracy. But the necessary degree of autonomy and complementarity between civil society and
political society should be set forth and guaranteed by a government of laws.
It is important to note that for Linz and Stepan, the notion of a government of laws involves more
than just the rule of law principle. They require that such a government be imbued with what they
call the “spirit of constitutional liberalism”, which in addition to majority rule requires a strong
commitment to constitutional reform procedures stipulated by majorities and the recognition of a
clear normative hierarchy interpreted by an autonomous judiciary supported by a strong legalistic
culture in which significant political actors accept and respect the system’s legal norms.19
On the other hand, these authors note, a democracy cannot guarantee protection of citizens’ basic
rights and the satisfaction of their many demands without a bureaucratic apparatus through which
the government can efficiently and effectively exercise its monopoly over force. This bureaucracy
should be capable of making a country’s fiscal policy effective so as to maintain basic services,
administer justice, and guarantee collective and personal security. A government incapable of
maintaining an efficient bureaucracy can do little to consolidate democracy.
Again, in order to maintain an efficient and effective bureaucracy one needs an institutionalized
economy. Institutionalists use the term “economy” to refer to two hypotheses that, according to
them, rest on a solid theoretical and empirical foundation: (1) “during peacetime there has never
been and never will be a consolidated democracy with a centrally-planned economy”20; and (2)
19
. Véase, Juan Linz y Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Op., Cit., p. 10.
. La aceptación de esta primera premisa se encuentra ampliamente extendida en el pensamiento teórico dominante.
Así por ejemplo Laurence Whitehead, establece, que “sabemos que el intervensionismo provoca errores en la
distribución de los recursos y reduce la eficiencia económica..., los “ciclos populistas” generalmente terminaron en
20
9
“there has never been and possibly never will be a consolidated democracy under a pure free
market system.”21
These authors claim that regardless of the empirical evidence, various substantive theoretical
reasons validate both hypotheses. With regard to the first, Linz and Stepan argue that a certain
degree of free market economics (like private property) is necessary to guarantee civil society’s
independence and the satisfaction of certain material requirements of basic rights.22 With regard
to the second, these authors claim that, first of all, one must recognize that pure market systems
are not self-sustaining and require a certain degree of regulation (antitrust laws, property rights,
and operational norms, to say the least) in order to function; and second, that even the best
markets are flawed and do not provide certain goods that should be distributed among citizens in
the most egalitarian manner possible in order to sustain democracy. Education, health, and
transportation—goods that make the democratic game possible—can only be distributed equally
among citizens through state intervention in the economy.23
According to proponents of this view, if the preceding conditions are achieved it is very likely
that a democratic system will be consolidated and prove stable over the long run.
restricciones de libertades políticas y económicas peores que las ya existentes”. Laurence Whitehead,
“Liberalización económica y consolidación democrática”, en Georges Couffignal (Compilador), Democracias
Posibles. El desafío latinoamericano, versión castellana de Beatriz Cafnolati, FCE, México, 1994, pp. 131-132.
21
. Juan Linz y Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Op., Cit., pp. 11-12.
22
. En palabras de Robert Dahl, “[…] en el caso de una economía controlada por el Estado, la flecha de causación
económica se dirige encontra de la satisfacción de cieras necesidades materiales de la consolidación democrática,
como la libertad de prensa, porque el papel y los materiales de impresión pueden ser negados”. Robert A. Dahl,
“Why All Democratic Countries Have Mixed Economies”, Op., Cit., pp. 259-288.
23
. Juan Linz y Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Op., Cit., pp. 11-13 (tal es la
tesis compartida por Adam Przeworski (ed.), en Sustainable Democracy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
(EU), 1995, p. 34).
10
III. Institutional Balance In Latin America
From the institutionalist perspective, the absence of a solid democratic institutional infrastructure
is the principal obstacle to both eliminating authoritarian remnants from Latin American
institutional designs24 and to the internalization of democratic institutions by the various political
and social actors of the region.
From this point of view, only the Costa Rican and Uruguayan democracies are consolidated: the
health of the institutional infrastructure of these democracies has allowed for the correct
institutionalization of their political systems. The rest of the Latin American democracies can
only be considered fragile, unconsolidated, and mired in electoral models of low
institutionalization.
If we analyze the general condition of civil society in the region we find that it lacks the
autonomy, strength, and civility necessary to contribute to DC. Indicators of citizen participation
in social organizations are much lower than those of more advanced countries.25 Moreover, civil
society’s level of respect for legal rules and institutions is quite poor. Resorting to violence,
ignorance about institutional methods, and disrespect for authority are the usual means to
advance one’s demands—methods that create a paradoxical discussion about the legitimacy of
24
. Las restricciones autoritarias en el diseño constitucional chileno, tales como el Consejo de Seguridad Nacional, la
exigencia de mayorías calificadas para la reforma del sistema electoral, la formula de composición del Senado, etc.,
son tales que para Linz y Stepan no es posible siquiera asegurar que su transición hacia la democracia ha finalizado.
Según estos autores aun cuando Chile a avanzado mucho en diversas esferas del quehacer democrático, situándose a
la par que muchas democracias desarrolladas, no será sino hasta que logre eliminar dichas restricciones autoritarias
que podrá ver finalizada su transición y por lo tanto entrar en al proceso de consolidación. Véase, de Juan Linz y
Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Op., Cit., p. 205-218.
25
. En el caso mexicano, dicha participación ronda el 21% de la ciudadanía, concentrándose fundamentalmente en
asociaciones de beneficencia pública de corte religioso y en organizaciones de deudores, colonos y vecinos. Véase,
Secretaría de Gobernación, Encuesta nacional sobre cultura política y prácticas ciudadanas 2003, SEGOB, México,
2004, p. 26.
11
democratic law.26 Finally, in many countries civil society is burdened by legal or de facto
restrictions on its activities. Few Latin American countries do not suffer from setbacks to the
political rights and civic liberties necessary for civil society to subsist and develop.27
For its part, political society has proven unable to cast aside old vices and authoritarian patterns of
conduct. Paradoxically, the new political class continues to use the same corporatism and
clientelism that it fought against during the period of transition; it now uses these methods to
serve new unions, associations, and peasant organizations loyal to it. On another front, corruption
scandals and high levels of impunity (especially by those who used political offices to enrich
themselves) have dealt a great blow to the legitimation of Latin American political society as a
whole. The prestige of political parties is at one of its worst moments in history with a 2003
confidence index of 11% throughout the region. This disenchantment has spawned “the time of
the urban tribe, of socially-marginalized identities, of ephemeral populism, and of anti-political
leadership.”28
Even if challenges to and disregard of electoral results have been decreasing in the region, the
state’s transgressions seem to be a common theme among Latin American political regimes.29
26
. Tal es el caso de México donde los diversos grupos de la sociedad civil suelen recurrir a la violencia como forma
de avanzar sus intereses ante el Estado. Véase, Francisca M. Pou, “Las trampas de la legitimidad: movimientos
sociales, violencia y estado de derecho en México”, Documento de Trabajo, No. 33, Departamento de Derecho del
ITAM, 2003 (SELA 2003).
27
. Los casos de Guatemala y Paraguay son quizás los más representativos de esta situación mostrando una
disminución en el respeto de sus derechos civiles y políticos en la última década. Véase, Freedom in the World
2003: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc y Freedom
House, Lanham, 2003.
28
. Ludolfo Paramio, “Problemas de la consolidación democrática en América Latina en la década de los 90”, en C.
Moya, A Pérez-Agote, J. Salcedo y J. Tezanos (comps.), Escritos de teoría sociológica en homenaje a Luis
Rodríguez Zúñiga, CES, Madrid, 1992, p. 862.
29
. Bajo cualquier concepción teórica del Estado de Derecho que adoptemos la mayoría de los países
latinoamericanos obtienen calificaciones muy por debajo de la media de los países desarrollados en todos los rubros
de análisis como son el grado de accountability, de independencia judicial, de corrupción, etc. Véase, Daniel
12
The complacency and ineptitude democratic regimes and their bureaucracies have shown in
prosecuting crime is a constant that extends from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the
manufacturing zones of Ciudad Juarez.30 Likewise, Latin American democracies’ failure to apply
the law consistently leads to an unequal distribution of the duties and benefits granted by the
legal system, and generates an alternative regime based on corruption and the principle that
“power is impunity.”31 In the 2002 global survey of corruption conducted by Transparency
International, Chile (14th) and Uruguay (32nd) ranked highest among Latin American countries
while Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina ranked 45th, 57th, and 70th, respectively.
The institutionalized economy is not faring much better. In the last ten years, inflation rates have
been the highest in the world, worsening (if that were possible) the level of poverty and
marginalization of a great portion of the populace—liberalization and stabilization policies have
had no effect at all.32 This situation has generated more social exclusion and created a kind of
low-intensity citizenry that openly distrusts the government. As mistakes in the implementation
of economic policies have mounted, so has distrust in institutions33 and in democracy itself,
thereby giving rise to spiraling delegitimation of the democratic regime.34
Kaufmann, Aart Kraay y Pablo Zoido-Lobatón, “Governance Matters”, Policy Research Working Papers, No. 2196,
The World Bank, 1999.
30
. Véase, Miguel Schor, “The Rule of Law and democratic consolidation in Latin America”, Working Paper del
Departamento de Ciencia Política de la Universidad de Tulane, 2000, p. 4. Versión electrónica en
http:/darkwing.uoregon.edu/-caguirre/schorpr.html
31
. Véase, Ernesto Garzón Valdés, “What is wrong with the Rule of Law?”, Op., Cit., pp. 78-79.
32
. Como sostiene Isaac Katz, la inflación es una constante histórica que explica en una buena medida los bajos
niveles de ingreso por habitante, los altos índices de pobreza y la notable desigualdad en la distribución del ingreso
que han imperado en América Latina. Véase, Isaac Katz, “Inflación, crecimiento, pobreza y desigualdad en
México”, Gaceta de Economía, No. 3, 1996, pp. 153-171.
33
. Al grito ¡que se vayan todos! los argentinos repudiaron a sus partidos en los momentos más álgidos de la crisis de
su sistema financiero, obteniendo dichas instituciones el peor índice de confianza en la región con un 4% en 2002.
Marta Lagos, Informe de Prensa Latinobarómetro 2002, Mori, Santiago de Chile, 2002, p.44.
34
. La encuesta del Latinobarómetro de 2002 nos indica que en promedio ha habido una disminución sustancial del
apoyo público a la democracia desde 1996. Mientras que en ese año el promedio de aceptación de la democracia en
la región se situaba en un 61% de la población, en 2002 se contrajo a un 57%, situándo a América Latina por debajo
13
Thus, the vision this theory provides of democratic consolidation in Latin America is not an
encouraging one. It suggests that the majority of Latin American democracies are at risk of an
authoritarian regression—perhaps not in the form of a quick and violent death, but through a
gradual process of deterioration.
Criticisms
To date, the major critic of the institutionalist vision of DC has been Guillermo O’Donnell, who
thinks it necessary to reconsider the theoretical utility and practical reach of this conception.
According to O’Donnell, the institutionalist vision suffers two fundamental problems: first, its
theoretical basis is obsolete and deficient; and second, its conclusions are rendered inoperable
upon classifying and evaluating existing political regimes.
In the first place, O’Donnell argues that the theoretical premises that underlie this vision are
false35: on the one hand, it operates under the pretense of being consistent with democratic
theory; on the other, it assumes that democratic theory makes it possible to make comparative
political analyses of various political regimes in different regions of the world.
O’Donnell thinks that, despite agreement over democratic theory, there is still much confusion
and disagreement over how to define democracy: the growing avalanche of qualifier adjectives
inclusive del promedio africano y sólo por encima del promedio del Medio Oriente y del Este de Asia. Asimismo, en
2002 la satisfacción por la democracia alcanzó tan solo una media del 33%, mientras que la gente que se siente
desencantada un 24%. Véase, Marta Lagos, “Latinobarometro. Trends in democratic indicators in Latin America
2002”, artículo presentado en la Conference in Consolidation in New Democracies, Uppsala University, 2002.
35
. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, Democratic Theory and Comparative Politics, Working Papers, Kellogg Institute
of International Studies, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, 1999, p. 3.
14
of democracy that have emerged in recent times is evidence of this.36 According to this author,
the institutionalist vision of DC presupposes that the starting point for classifying democratic
regimes is the model of democracy created by, and that evolved in, Western countries. However,
the recent development of new democracies illustrates that
the majority of recently democratized countries are not on the path to a representative and
institutionalized democratic regime, nor does it seem that they will be in the foreseeable future.
37
They are polyarchies, but of a class so different that it does not yet exist in theory.
O’Donnell believes that the institutionalist conception of DC presupposes a kind of generic
ethnocentric vision that idealizes the old Western polyarchies. He believes that these
polyarchical institutions are assumed to be part of this generic vision and assigned a normative
value that makes them a reference point for determining whether political systems are
democratic and whether they are consolidated. However, it is not clear to him whether this ideal
vision of democracy represents a set of institutions typical of old western democracies or
whether it is an ideal constituted by some of these institutions, a generalization of characteristics
that only some democracies possess, or a normative preference for a particular model.38
According to O’Donnell, this ambiguity not only prevents us from having clear indicators with
which to verify that democracy has or has not been consolidated, but also makes discussing
consolidation pointless because whatever the significance of the ideal required by the
36
. Así por ejemplo, David Collier y Steven Levitsky han identificado casi 500 adjetivos calificativos sobre la
democracia empleados en la literatura política contemporánea. Véase de David Collier y Steven Levitsky,
“Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research”, World Politics, Vol. 49, No. 3,
1997, pp. 430-541. Para O’Donnell, la principal razón de esta proliferación de subtipos de esta forma de gobierno se
debe, en su opinión, a que “muchas de las nuevas democracias y algunas de las más viejas, en el Sur y en el Este,
exhiben características no esperadas o discordantes con aquellas que, de acuerdo con la teoría o las expectativas de
cada observador, una democracia debe tener”. Guillermo O’Donnell, Democratic Theory and Comparative Politics,
Op., Cit., pp. 3-4.
37
. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, “Acerca del estado, la democratización y algunos problemas conceptuales. Una
perspectiva latinoamericana con referencias a países postcomunistas”, en Guillermo O’Donnell, Contrapuntos:
ensayos escogidos sobre autoritarismo y democratización, Paidós, Buenos Aires, 1997, p. 260.
38
. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, “Illusions about consolidation”, Op., Cit., p. 44.
15
institutionalist vision may be, it seems to require the same conditions to proclaim a political
system democratic as it does to proclaim one a consolidated democracy. Thus, in O’Donnell’s
opinion, “calling some polyarchies consolidated or highly institutionalized seems to be little
more than saying that they are institutionalized in terms that one approves of.”39
O’Donnell’s allegation is especially relevant because it implies not only a criticism of the
arbitrariness of the ideal democracy contemplated by the institutionalist vision of DC, but also a
criticism of the classification system of existing political regimes that uses this ideal; this system
generates residual categories in which cases are grouped together because they all lack certain
attributes that supposedly define the most developed species of the genus. Thus, O’Donnell notes
that
democracies are not defined in a positive sense as types X and Y, but as consolidated, not
consolidated, partially consolidated, substantially consolidated, or as any other type defined in
40
terms of the ideal that authors may adopt when dicussing democratic consolidation.
What would happen if instead of using the paradigm of liberal democracy we adopted, for
example, a kind of deliberative democracy as an ideal? How would our appreciation of the
conditions that make DC possible—the institutional infrastructure—be modified with the
adoption of a different ideal of democratic government? How can we characterize the emerging
democracies in Latin America and other regions of the world without resorting to negative
definitions?
39
40
. Ibid., p. 45.
. Ibid., p. 163.
16
Curiously, O’Donnell has no answer to the first two questions and, surprisingly, adopts a model
of democracy equivalent to the one used by the institutionalist vision of DC to classify the
political regimes that we find in the real world.41
For example, O’Donnell believes that the concept of polyarchy should be complemented by the
following four operative criteria, which make his definition of democracy seem very much like
the one he criticizes42: (1) elected officials (and those appointed by these officials) should not be
arbitrarily separated from their duties before the end of their constitutional terms; (2) elected
officials should not be subject to restrictions or vetoes, or excluded from certain political
decisions by non-elected political actors (especially the armed forces); (3) there should be a welldefined, incontestable national territory that clearly delimits the electorate; and (4) there should
be a general expectation that the free and fair election process and the liberties associated with it
will continue in the indefinite future.
With this definition of democracy in mind, O’Donnell thinks that Latin American democratic
regimes belong to “a type of democracy that has yet to be theorized and whose differences with
other species is significant enough to justify an attempt at political taxonomy.”43 A new type of
democracy that seems highly institutionalized—consolidated—that we should seriously reflect
41
. Véase, Jonathan Hartlyn, “Contemporary Latin American Democracy, and Consolidation: Unexpected patterns,
re-elaborated concepts, multiple components”, ensayo presentado en el seminario Los Desafíos de la Consolidación
Democrática en América Latina, FLACSO, Santiago de Chile, 2 de agosto de 2000, pp. 3-4.
42
. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, “Illusions about Consolidation”, en L. Diamond, M. Plattner, Y. Chu, H. Tien
(eds.), Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies (II): Themes and Perspectives, Johns Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore, 1997, pp. 40-41.
43
. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, “¿Democracia delegativa?”, en Guillermo O’Donnell, Contrapuntos: ensayos
escogidos sobre autoritarismo y democratización, Op., Cit., p.287.
17
upon. A new species that this author denominates using the suggestive, now classic label
“delegative democracies.”44
Democracies in these countries are based on a fundamental institution: “the person who wins the
presidential election is authorized to govern as he or she sees fit, restricted only by the crude
reality of existing power relationships and by a limited constitutional term.”45 And in a
democracy of this type, adds O’Donnell, the people and institutional powers seem to delegate to
the president the power to embody the nation and convert himself into the principal definer and
guardian of its interests.
These political systems are highly institutionalized but based on rules and institutions (explicit or
not) that limit or make difficult the functioning of democracy by guiding individual conduct
towards “particularism.”46 They are composed of legal, political, and social rules that form part
of the institutional framework, and that create and strengthen a non-democratic political culture
and ideology. According to O’Donnell, these relationships and the rules and institutions that
sustain them run against the republican and liberal aspects of democracy, but not against their
electoral dimension.47
Thus, this author continues, in order to consolidate a political democracy it would seem one
should recognize the necessity of eliminating and modifying the rules and institutions that run
44
. Ibid., p. 288.
. Ibid., p. 293.
46
. Para O’Donnell, el particularismo hace referencia una amplia gama de relaciones colectivas dirigidas a la
satisfacción del interés individual que no son universalizables y que típicamente abarcan “el patrimonialismo, la
prebenda, el patronazgo, el nepotismo, el empreguismo, la corrupción y el amiguismo”. Guillermo O’Donnell,
“Acerca del estado, la democratización y algunos problemas conceptuales...”, Op., Cit., p. 261.
47
. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, “Accountability horizontal. La institucionalización legal de la desconfianza
política”, Isonomía, No. 14, 2001, pp. 11-12.
45
18
against the republican and liberal aspects of democracy.48 However, this conclusion seems
paradoxical when we consider that many particularist rules and institutions are present in various
developed western countries that tend to be considered consolidated democracies by
institutionalists.49 O’Donnell believes that Greece, Italy, India, and Japan cannot help but violate
the DC criteria established by those who defend the idea of “the only game in town” because
they believe that this thesis presupposes that there should be no gap between the behavior
prescribed by democratic institutions and political actors’ actual behavior.50
From their point of view, institutionalists cannot explain these realities because they forget the
complex relationships between democracy and the state: “the characteristics of each state and
each society have a powerful influence over whether democracy will be consolidated or whether it
will simply survive and eventually crumble.”51 Thus, in order to determine the type of democracy
that can be established and eventually consolidated, we should analyze with special care the
relationship between these two concepts.
48
. La incorporación de estos dos aspectos a la concepción clásica de la democracia supuso la creación de un fuerte
entramado institucional de controles mutuos entre los poderes del Estado, así como de defensa institucional de los
derechos individuales, exigiendo que tanto los ciudadanos comunes como aquellos que desempeñan roles públicos
guíen sus conductas no por motivos particularistas, sino por orientaciones universalistas. Véase, Guillermo
O’Donnell, “Illusions about Consolidation”, Op., Cit., pp. 46-47.
49
. Los aspectos liberal y republicano de la democracia suponen en este sentido la adopción de toda una serie de
mecanismos institucionales de control entre las diversas agencias y niveles del poder estatal, es decir la llamada
accountability horizontal: [...] la existencia de agencias estatales que tienen autoridad legal y están fácticamente
dispuestas y capacitadas (empowered) para emprender acciones que van desde el control rutinario hasta la
imposición de sanciones penales o incluso la activación del juicio político (impeachment), en relación con actos u
omisiones de otros agentes o agencias del estado que pueden, en principio o presuntamente, ser calificadas como
ilícitos. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, “Accountability Horizontal. La institucionalización de la desconfianza
política”, Op., Cit., p.7.
50
. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, “Illusions about Consolidation”, Op., Cit., pp. 45-47.
51
. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, “Acerca del estado, la democratización y algunos problemas conceptuales...”, Op.,
Cit., p. 262.
19
For O’Donnell, the adjective “democracy” can and should be attributed to the noun “state” when
the various dimensions of the latter52—legal, ideological, and bureaucratic—are consistent with
democratic requirements. Taking these dimensions into account, it is possible to observe how
some recently democratized Latin American countries exhibit serious authoritarian distortions of
them:
…we find ineffective bureaucratic apparatuses that coexist with spheres of autonomous power and
their territorial bases; states that are incapable of ensuring the effectiveness of their laws and their
public policy within their own territory and within the social relationships they intend to regulate;
states in which the effectiveness of a national order embodied in the law fades as we venture
farther away from national and urban centers; states whose peripheries have weaker bureaucracies
than those of the center and that create and reinforce systems of local power that reach extreme
53
degrees of personal dominance.
If O’Donnell’s assessment is correct, then the authoritarian distortions of the constitutive
dimensions of these states affect the performance of their democratic systems: ultimately, these
distortions produce a “low-intensity citizenry”54 that renders the strengthening of democracy’s
institutional infrastructure impossible.
A state that cannot make a government of laws effective within all of its territory and with respect
to all the social relationships it supposedly should regulate creates zones where its inhabitants face
restrictions that are generally extra-polyarchical but politically fundamental. For these inhabitants
the vices of poverty—a lack of education, a lack of access to the courts, the violation of labor
rights, a lack of public services, permanent civil and political violence—are serious obstacles to
the respect for polyarchical political rights that are necessary to build the institutional
52
. Ibid., pp. 262-264.
. Ibid., pp. 266-267.
54
. Ibid., p. 272.
53
20
infrastructure of democracy (such as the right to vote free of coercion, the freedom of association,
and the freedom of expression).55
Finally, it is worth noting that O’Donnell’s criticisms are also directed at the operationalization of
the institutionalist vision. He believes that the indicators typically used by institutionalists are
nonsensical because their generality makes them inoperative. For example, the majority of Latin
American nations that transitioned to democracy during the 1980s have held free elections since
then at the same rate as Southern European countries; in countries like Argentina and Mexico,
support for democracy has been relatively constant despite economic recessions never seen in
Southern Europe; and anti-system groups and parties like those in various Latin American
countries have disappeared at the same rate as in European polyarchies.56 The inconsistency in the
application of analytical indicators, O’Donnell suggests, causes the institutionalist conception to
lose all operability.
If this last criticism is sustainable only if we concern ourselves with the evaluation of general
data about Latin American democratization, the truth is that O’Donnell’s diagnosis concerning
the absence of preconditions for the institutional infrastructure of democracy (a diagnosis that
relates to the constitutive dimensions of the state in this region of the world) leads us to a
diagnosis of Latin American democracies that is more pessimistic than the institutionalist vision
of DC.
55
. Véase, Guillermo O’Donnell, “Acerca del estado, la democratización y algunos problemas conceptuales”, Op.,
Cit., pp. 272-273.
56
. Idem.
21