Decentralization and Democracy in the Andes

Abstract

This paper, taking an institutional approach, centers on the experiences of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, where a common base for comparison exists because almost all democratic processes introduced in these countries (for that matter in Latin America in the last 30 years) were based on the idea of liberal democracy. First, all countries share a common contextual framework, i.e. culturally, politically and historically. They speak Spanish, therefore sharing a common language and culture as well as a geographic area in South America. Second, they joined the democratization process during the third wave of democracy, which places them at a specific period in time. Third, each country has been experimenting with decentralization within the larger context of development help and democratic consolidation. Fourth, however, while each of them implemented decentralization with a similar aim, each decentralization program was implemented under different conditions, with particularly different objectives, with different motivations and varied reforms. Venezuela, for instance, was a federal country with strong centralist tendencies. Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador, in contrast are unitary countries with centralist tendencies as well but different social, economic and political conditions. Bolivia and Ecuador share a strong ethnic component with groups having a common identity. Colombia has dealt with an armed conflict spanning over 40 years while preserving democratic features. Chile and Peru will not be taken into account because, the first one did not formally engaged into a decentralization program and the second country has been lagging the rest of the countries behind, to the extent that it has only achieve a timid type of financial decentralization.Moreover, in this paper I concentrate on the period before the introduction of the so called socialism of the XXI century. Primarily, because during this period liberal democracy was the model to be adopted and the reforms sought to get as close as possible to the ideal model. The regimes that followed the period in question and subscribed to the above mentioned ideology, starting with Venezuela, introduced a more authoritarian type of democratic model, which begin with the introduction of a new constitution. Furthermore, I seek to make explicit the ways in which the implementation of decentralization shapes the democratic system of government. In order to achieve this I conduct a cross-comparison study of four Andean countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela) looking at their democratic government systems’ reforms introduced through legislation. I focus on the reforms and the institutions that were introduced. Next, I assess the variation in the changes within the system based on three dimensions of democratic deepening, i.e. participation, deliberation and representation. Last, empirically observing the cases, I draw some conclusions.