Conflictividad y Gestión Multilateral de Crisis en América Latina: casos Venezuela (2002) y Honduras (2009)

Abstract

There is evidence of significant change in the patterns of conflict that prevailed in Latin America before and after the wave of democratization during the 80s and 90s of the XX century. In the context of this new frame, during the last two decades the dominance of the institutional / liberal paradigm has given place to the emergence of several govern - ments mostly based on a social / plebiscitary legitimacy. The struggle between these two ways of understanding and practice democracy have shaped much of the political crises of the past 15 years, thus triggering several multilateral initiatives of crisis management. The comparative study of such initiatives allows a better understanding of the evolution of those patterns of conflict developing from the 90s until today, both nationally and regionally, as well as the strong and weak points in the multilateral processes of crisis management. After comparing the cases of Venezuela (2002) and Honduras (2009) it is clear the advance of the social / plebiscitary paradigm, the bigger role of Brazil in the region and the weaknesses of the electoral processes to manage the conflicts typical during the last two decades.