International response to democratic crisisin the Americas, 1990-2005

Democratization

Volumn 13, Issue 5, 2006, Pages 756-775

  McCoy, Jennifer L ^a  

^a GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Constitutional disputes; Democracy; Democracy promotion; Democratic crisis; Illiberal democracy; Inter American Democratic Charter; International actors; OAS; Societal protest

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRATIZATION; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; PEACEKEEPING; POLITICAL CONFLICT; POLITICAL DISCOURSE;

ATLANTIC ISLANDS; ATLANTIC OCEAN; CARIBBEAN ISLANDS; LATIN AMERICA;

EID: 33845546608     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: 1743890X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510340601010644     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Note that I am not analysing structural (national or international) threats to democracy, but rather focusing on conscious behaviours of domestic actors. We could add a fifth source of behaviours originating in foreign interventions that would include such behaviours as foreign financing or veto of a particular candidate for office, supplying arms to an armed group, deliberate destabilization of a sitting government, or armed intervention.
2. See Craig Arceneaux and David Pion-Berlin, Transforming Latin America: The International and Domestic Origins of Change (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005);
3. Barry Levitt, 'A Desultory Defense of Democracy: The Organization of American States, Resolution 1080 and the Inter-American Democratic Charter', Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Fall 2006), pp. 93-124;
4. Andrew Cooper and Thomas Legler, 'The OAS Democratic Solidarity Paradigm: Questions of Collective and National Leadership', Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 103-26;
5. Carolyn M. Shaw, 'Limits to Hegemonic Influence in the Organization of American States', Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 45, No. 3 (2003), pp. 59-92.
6. Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin for example, argue that democratic threats have become more subtle over time (since 1990) and therefore the OAS is less willing to react, in contrast to the overt military coups or election failures of the past; Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin (note 2).
7. Peter Smith, Democracy in Latin America: Political Change in Comparative Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005);
8. Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003).
9. Larry Diamond, 'Thinking about Hybrid Regimes', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2002), pp. 21-35.
10. Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, 'The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2002), pp. 51-65. Smith and Zeigler argue that illiberal democracies are now the dominant regime type in Latin America;
11. see Peter Smith and Melissa Zeigler, 'Liberal and Illiberal Democracy in Latin America', Paper prepared for presentation at the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 15-18 March 2006.
12. For attempts to conceptualize and measure variants of semi-democracies and semi-authoritarianism, see Thomas Carothers, 'The End of Transition Paradigm', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 1 (January 2002), pp. 5-21;
13. Andreas Schedler, Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006).
14. See useful attempts to conceptualize and measure the quality of democracy in the special of issue of Democratization, 'Consolidated and Defective Democracy? Problems of Regime Change' (Vol. 11, No. 5, December 2004)
15. and Guillermo O'Donnell, Jorge Vargas Cullell, and Osvaldo Iazzetta, The Quality of Democracy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004).
16. This was especially the case with La Confederación de Nacionalidades indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE) in Ecuador in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and various groups in Bolivia in the early 2000s.
17. See Thomas, Legler, 'Bridging Divides; Breaking Impasses: Civil Society in the Promotion and Protection of Democracy', Paper presented to the conference on Civil Society and Democracy Promotion in the Americas, FOCAL, Ottawa, 1-2 March 2006;
18. Kenneth Roberts, 'Populism and Democracy in Latin America', paper presented at the conference Challenges to Democracy in the Americas, the Carter Center, Atlanta, October 2000;
19. Torcuato Di Tella, 'Populism into the Twenty-First Century', Government and Opposition, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1997);
20. Guillermo O'Donnell, 'Human Development, Human Rights, and Democracy', in O'Donnell, Cullell, and Iazzetta, The Quality of Democracy (note 7).
21. Legler (note 9), p. 7.
22. O'Donnell (note 9) discusses citizenship as having political, civil, and social dimensions. Latin America has achieved political rights for the vast majority of its citizens, while civil rights (freedoms and access to justice) are incomplete and inconsistent, and social rights (providing basic capabilities to citizens to make free choices) are dramatically underprovided.
23. Omar Encarnacion, 'Venezuela's 'Civil Society Coup', World Policy Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2002), pp. 38-48.
24. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 80.
25. O'Donnell (note 9), p. 25.
26. For definitions of electoral or competitive authoritarianism, and analysis of their dynamics, see the discussions in Schedler (note 6) and Levitsky and Way (note 6).
27. I appreciate the insights gained from conversations with Thomas Legler and Jorge Dominguez which helped to formulate this section.
28. F. Zakaria, 'The Rise of Illiberal Democracy', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 6 (1997), pp. 22-43.
29. The media, both public and private, sometimes converts into a political actor when it controls information and uses it for political purposes. This may be another actor contributing to democratic crises that warrants further analysis.
30. Cooper and Legler (note 2).
31. Ibid.
32. Levitt (note 2).
33. Jon Pevehouse, 'Democracy from the Outside-In?', International Organizations and Democratization, Vol. 56, No. 3 (2002), pp. 515-49.
34. Levitt (note 2).
35. Dexter Boniface, 'Is There a Democratic Norm in the Americas?', Global Governance, Vol. 8, No. 3 (2002), pp. 365-81;
36. Cooper and Legler (note 2).
37. Cooper and Legler (note 2);
38. Shaw (note 2).
39. Boniface (note 23); Shaw (note 2).
40. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston, MA: Little Brown, 1977).
41. Civil society groups and a commission of lawyers concerned about developments in the country could not even get an audience with the interim Secretary-General or President of the Permanent Council in January 2005 (personal conversations of the author with the various actors involved). Neither did the US pay much attention as the country became more unstable in the spring of 2005, shortly before Gutierrez's impeachment (personal conversations of the author with US diplomats).
42. The Assembly actually took over the meeting space of the Congress and adopted legislative powers, in addition to constitution-writing responsibilities.
43. The OAS Permanent Council invoked Article 18 after Gutierrez was removed in Ecuador in order to send a fact-finding mission, but it never declared whether the removal was unconstitutional. In the Nicaraguan case, it was the first time a government itself had invoked the Democratic Charter to seek help in the face of a democratic threat.
44. The role of the international financial institutions and US government in contributing to the crisis in the first place, with their policy advice and unwillingness to provide emergency loans, is important, but not covered in this analysis.
45. Formed in 1986, the Rio Group aimed to balance the US-dominated OAS.
46. Ecuador is categorized as armed non-state intervention rather than a traditional military coup because the coup was initiated by mid-ranking officers, but overturned by the high command.
47. The OAS and the Carter Center, among others, offered to help in the days before his final resignation, but Mesa refused the offers, perhaps viewing his presidency as unviable and tired of the extremely strenuous circumstances.
48. The Washington Protocol is an amendment made in 1992 to the OAS Charter that allows a member country to be suspended if its democratic government is overthrown by force.
49. For further discussion of the Charter and reference to these points, see Jennifer McCoy, FocalPoint (May 2004);
50. speech by Jimmy Carter to the OAS Distinguished Lecture Series, January 2004;
51. papers by Shelley McConnell and Jennifer McCoy, Pedro Nikken, and Carlos Ayala in Comisión Andina de Juristas and Carter Center, The Collective Defense of Democracy: Concepts and Procedures, Series: Diffusion of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, no. 5, Lima, Peru, January 2006.
52. In the case of the Tripartite Dialogue Facilitation in Venezuela in 2002-2003, the international actors offered assistance to the Truth Commission to investigate the violence of 11-14 April 2002, and the final agreement of the Mesa de Dialogo y Acuerdos included this point. Nevertheless, the Venezuelan actors could not come to an agreement on setting up the Truth Commission. And the international actors did not push either their offer of technical assistance or for compliance with the agreement on this point, and nothing happened.