Democracy In Latin America Essay

The two essays, Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America, by Terry Karl, and Constitutional Choices for New Democracies, by Arend Lijphart, illustrate the ways in which a democratic government can be implemented in developing countries. Karl and Lijphart are in agreement over the definition of democracy, depicted by their focus on the electoral system as a vital component of a democratic government. However, Karl’s argument ultimately weakens Lijphart’s by rebuking the idea of implementing a procedural electoral system, promoting the significance of context and a “path dependent” approach when a country transitions into a democratic government. In both essays, the authors refer to the importance of an electoral system in a democratic

Through his study, Lijphart arrives at a conclusion that a parliamentary, PR electoral system is the best form of government for ethnically diverse and economically underdeveloped countries, such as the countries in Latin America. His rationale for this argument is that parliamentary, PR systems allow for multiple parties to be involved in government, not just the majority. However, Karl contradicts Lijphart, arguing that it is not possible to create a procedure for implementing democracy in developing countries, because the type of democracy created is dependent upon structural and institutional constraints. The transition to democracy in Venezuela, the strongest democratic Latin American country, does well to convey this idea. The success of petroleum exchange causing the decline of landowning elites was a structural change, which allowed the country to create a democratic government without the opposition of the anti democratic elites. This “path dependent” approach is relatively contradictory to the argument of Lijphart, who suggests a direct implementation of a democratic government based on an existing electoral system. Lijphart’s argument neglects the contextual aspect of a developing country’s transition to a democratic government which Karl strongly supports, creating a disjunction between the two