Classifying Regimes in Latin America

We typically think that countries either are democratic or they are not. Is there an intermediate category that makes any sense at all? How would we decide if a given country is democratic or not (or something in between)? What are the general trends in democracy in Latin America? What is the state of democracy in the region today?

We start to answer some of these questions with today's reading. The article continues our discussion about what democracy really means, and applies a classification scheme to all the countries of the region from 1945 to the present. As you read through this article, think about the countries you know, in Latin America or elsewhere. Think about recent elections you might have read about in the paper. Do you think the countries in which these elections are taking place are really democracies? What would you need to know, to be able to answer this question?

«Democracy and the Rule of Law

• Reading 2: Mainwaring et al. - "Classifying Regimes in Latin America, 1945-1999" (.pdf)
  • Study Questions
  • GRAPH: Average levels of democracy in Latin America, 1945-2000
  • Mainwaring assignment
  • Peru exercise
  • Peru exercise scoring spreadsheet (.xls)
  • Comparing the Mainwaring & O'Donnell definitions
  • Watch a Quick Time movie or interact with a Flash map depicting the ebb and flow of democracy in Latin America from 1945 to 2003.
    • Interactive Map(.swf)
    • Large File (.mov)
    • Small File (.mov)
• Country Profile: Brazil
• Country Profile: Peru