2022 Volume 2022 Issue 207 Pages 207_1-207_16
This article serves as an introduction to the third special issue of International Relations on Latin American politics. Following the two previous prefaces, it reviews relevant literature to map out arguments about the development of democratization in the region and its domestic and international determinants. This helps to clarify the features and novelty of the papers included in this issue.
The twenty Latin American countries of the present century have been experiencing a slow deterioration of democracy. It is noteworthy that this is not occurring in all the countries: some have maintained a responsible democratic government while others have fallen into full autocracy. The most popular explanation of this divergence is that an unconsolidated party system gives room for the rise of a radical left president, who would destroy the checks and balances among governmental bodies and limit civil liberties. However, as recent literature points out, a party system is not the only deciding factor of the fate of democracy. Constitutional arrangement of political institutions, such as de jure power given to the executive body, and public support to the government also encourages or discourages the autocratic behavior of a president. It is not still clear which of these factors is the most crucial and how they relate to each other.
As mentioned above, emphasizing the difference between Latin American politics in this century and those in the previous one runs the risk of obscuring the continuity between them. The focus on individual research topics rather than the degree of democratization of the central government as a whole sheds light on unchanged political characteristics over the centuries (e.g. persistence of sub-national authoritarianism) and the cause-and-effect relationship between them (e.g. governance reform in the 20th century as the foundation of technocrat-driven policy making in the next century).
New trends in international affairs, such as the emergence of regional organizations without the United States of America (e.g. UNASUR), growing economic influence of China, and globalization of non-governmental activities also have some influence on domestic politics. It is important to note that each international factor plays a complex role in the democratization process. For example, globalization leads to growth of transnational crime organizations that are likely to undermine civil liberties by taking a devastating toll on civil security and provoking iron fist reactions from the government. However, globalization also empowers civil society by creating transnational solidarity with victims. Finally, amid the serious fragmentation of international relations in the Americas mainly caused by ideological conflicts among the governments, the Japanese government, which has made the promotion of democracy one of its foreign policies toward Latin America, has the potential to contribute to the democratization of the countries of the region.
