Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America. Emergence, Survival, and Fall - by Mainwaring, Scott and Pérez-Liñán, Aníbal

Abstract

Mainwaring, Scott and Pérez-Liñán, Aníbal (2013) Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America. Emergence, Survival, and Fall, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), xiv + 353 pp. $55.00 hbk, $29.99 pbk. This ambitious, exhaustive book is a pioneering work in democratisation studies, based on the authors' research but also that of a team of nineteen researchers seeking nothing less than to explain the ‘emergence, survival, and fall of democracies for the region as a whole over an extended period of time’ (p. 1). Starting with a systematic assessment of the shortcomings of other explanations of democratisation: modernisation theories, class and inequality theories, theories of mass political culture, and economic performance theories, the authors argue political actors are at the centre of their explanation of democratisation and democratic stability, but also acknowledge structural factors like the influence of international actors and transnational regional actors on the survival of democracy. Their theory is located between structural or long-term cultural approaches and agency and contingent action approaches, and by ‘actors’ they don't mean individuals (excepting a president), but political parties, unions, business associations, the military and organised movements. The authors set out their theory, and establish five testable hypotheses to take into account policy radicalisation and normative preferences among national, regional and international actors, as factors in transitions to democracies and what they call ‘semi-democracies’ or breakdowns into authoritarianism or ‘competitive authoritarianism’. They systematically analyse how other theoretical approaches are inadequate by use of quantitative analysis of the twenty countries of Latin America and move on to specific qualitative case studies on first Argentina and then El Salvador. Argentina because it experienced the three waves of democratisation in Latin America, and has traditionally presented a crucial case for democratisation theories. It became stable after the ‘third wave’ from 1978, going through instances of regime survival and regime breakdowns that structural variables do not explain alone. No doubt this book provides a wealth of finely researched statistical information empirically testable using specialist software, provided one accepts and utilises the formal categories established by the authors as meaningful ways to measure social phenomenon. It is necessary for me to qualify my criticisms here by pointing out I am a British ‘Politics’ (not Political ‘Science’) student who dropped both Psychology and Sociology, mainly because of the Maths, but I have a major problems with accepting this kind of methodology in social sciences. The first four chapters carefully and methodically set out the empirically testable hypotheses and the defined statuses that are measured, but this all seems very much self-referential. In short, the social ‘scientist’ invariably finds empirical proof supporting the social phenomenon they have sought to measure when this is structured and measured by the very narrowly defined, often in this case binary, schemata they designed to start with. That said, the qualitative case studies on Argentina and El Salvador where the most interesting, and provide thorough examples of democratic transitions that seemingly verify the authors' hypotheses, so at least this is open to analysis from fellow political scientists. While they locate their theory of regime survival as between structural and agency approaches, they implicitly show themselves to be elite theorists. It is precisely because they analyse the actions of political parties, trade union leaders and so on that they miss what may be the true views of the rank and file of these movements and the motor for regime transition or survival on the micro level. The authors also cite Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela (the usual suspects?) as suffering ‘democratic erosions’, along with a presidential system of abuse of the executive power. While a lengthy digression is out of spatial constraints here it is a worthy point that while Venezuela's Chávez displays some signs of the classic Latin American strongman, no one can deny the strength of the popular vote that has elected him and his party and now Madero to power with a turnout that dwarfs that of the United States. Moreover, while there may be faults with Chávez or others' judicial appointments and constitutional amendments to allow them to run for president again, these problems can just as likely plague any republican democracy, like say Reagan's (or indeed FDR's) America. The election of Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1988 and his reversal on promises and submission to the IMF coloured twenty-first-century politics in Venezuela, as much as the policies of the governments of Bolivia and Ecuador are a response to the neoliberalism of the 1990s, showing there is more to politics and political ‘science’ in the region than a cold statistical analysis of binary preferences designated by political scientists in the First World as the be all and end all of what democracy means.