21st Century Democracy Promotion in the Americas: Standing up for the Polity

Abstract

21st Century Democracy Promotion in the Americas: Standing up for the Polity * (Heine, Jorge and Weiffen, Brigitte. 21st Century Democracy Promotion in the Americas: standing up for the Polity. Routledge, 2014)Since the creation and successful development of the European regional integration, a debate has existed on how regional institutions can contribute to the promotion and defense of democracy. Thus, a link between regionalism and democracy has been established. The extent to which regionalism and democracy are related and how regional institutions promote and defend democracy have been issues also discussed in the Americas. In particular, Latin America is a part of the world where regionalism has a long history (even if successes are limited), but also where democracy has had problems in consolidating as a stable form of political organization. Certainly, significant progress has been witnessed in the last three decades; however challenges still persists in the form of instability. Recent crises in countries such as Honduras, Panama, Venezuela and Bolivia indicate the persistent challenges to democracy in Latin America. Jorge Heine and Britta Weiffen (2014)discuss in this book the role played by a regional organization (the Organization of Americas States, OAS) in the promotion and defense of democracy.The OAS was chosen as a case study because it is within this institution where more progress has been achieved in the creation of regional framework to promote democracy, particularly, since the signing in 2001 of the Interamerican Democratic Charter (IADC). However, the OAS has been an institution under attack by the left-wing governments that took power in Latin America since the late 1990's and early 2000's. By the same token, mechanisms to defend democracy existed in the Andean Community and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) before the IADC and the emergence of the new regional processes such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) has created new fora to discuss democracy. Notwithstanding this, the OAS and IADC have developed mechanisms, procedures, and have material and human resources allowing them to play the role of strong advocate in the defense of democracy.The presence of the United States in the OAS , the hegemonic power in the continent and the world, and a respectable Western democracy, has pros and cons and, consequently, it is a contested issue. Certainly, the U.S. tradition on democracy and political stability has always been perceived as a model for the Latin American elites. However, the commitment of the U.S. governments to democracy has been questioned because of its tolerance vis-a-vis the atrocities of military regimes, and in some cases, the support of dictatorships in the region. Similarly, the traditional control of the OAS by the U.S. has been so overwhelming that nationalist and left-wing sectors have described this institution as the U.S. Ministry of Colonies.However, after the end of the Cold War, the OAS was perceived as an institution in transformation that could serve not only the strategic and military interests of the United States but also has the potential to become a tool to promote a real hemispheric community of interests. One of the pillars of such a community was the adoption of free market economy, as promoted by the Washington Consensus and the Free Trade of the Americas project. The other pillar was the commitment to establishing democracy as the unique acceptable form of political regime in the continent. The approval of the IADC in 2001 was the manifestation of that commitment.Since then, much has changed and both regionalism and democracy have experienced substantive changes in Latin America in the recent years. These transformations have posed challenges to the still young IADC and OAS actions in the defense and promotion of democracy in Latin America. Heine and Weiffen (2014) made an important effort in understanding and explaining this complex process by describing the diverse periods of the OAS involvement in the democratic issues and by analyzing the role of the IADC in the recent regional crisis. …