Abstract
This paper reviews electoral studies of Latin America of the last decade, showing how elections in the context of democratic transitions have prompted reflexion on electoral behavior as well as on the nature and function of political institutions. After briefly reviewing the debate over the impact of types of democratic regimes and political party systems on political relations, the paper calls attention to the permanence in Latin America of authoritarian enclaves through which the military retain considerable maneuvering power, the influence of the international drug traffic, and the interference by strategic actors in Latin American political life. The authors conclude that democratically elected governments are far from synonymous with democratic regimes. Nevertheless, the neo-institutionalist approach which has redefined the impact of institutional design on political actions and reactions, and particularly the culturalist view among them, offers potentially fruitful explanations of why institutions and democratic practices function better in some sociocultural contexts than in others.
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