Introduction: Regimes and Democracy in Latin America

Abstract

T he dramatic alternation of democratic and authoritarian regimes in Latin America has provided both the empirical base and the normative motivation for research that is conceptually innovative, methodologically self-conscious, and richly grounded in the analysis of cases. ~ This tradition of research has generated an impressive range of substantive findings about some of the most important questions of politics. Moreover, it has been associated with significant methodological innovations--helping contribute to new perspectives on small-N comparative analysis, and to the refinement and enrichment of concepts in comparative research. For these reasons, the study of national political regimes in Latin America has been a prominent locus of influential work in comparative politics and comparative social science over nearly four decades. This special issue of Studies in Comparative International Development presents a new set of articles that further advances this tradition of research. The three central concerns are: (1) the ongoing effort to open new agendas and identify new research questions; (2) methodological issues, specifically the measurement of key concepts and the systematic use of subnational comparison; and (3) the empirical assessment of causal claims about regime change, in the present case building on an approach that frames these claims within a long time horizon. Guillermo O'Donnell 's article extends his earlier efforts to formulate concepts appropriate for the analysis of democracy in Latin America since the 1980s. The point of departure is O'Donnell 's observation that existing democratic theory does not provide an adequate framework for studying these democracies. He points out tha t -notwi ths tanding the recent emphasis on procedural minimum definitions--efforts to conceptualize democracy that draw upon Joseph Schumpeter inherently cannot limit themselves to institutional