21st Century Democracy Promotion in the Americas: Standing up for the Polity

209 Pages·2014·1.552 MB·English

by  Jorge Heine, Brigitte Weiffen

21st Century Democracy Promotion in
the Americas
This volume examines the promotion and defense of democracy in the
Americas.TakingtheInter-AmericanDemocraticCharter(IADC)of2001
as abaseline, it charts the evolution of the issue over the past decade.
Althoughitconsidershistoricalantecedents,themainfocusofthebookis
on key instances of promotion and defense of democracy in the Western
hemispheresincetheadoptionoftheIADC.Itanalyzesdemocraticnorms,
norm enforcement mechanisms and how they work in practice. Special
attentionispaidtothe2009Hondurascoup,theissuesraisedbyitandthe
debatesthatsurroundedit,asthiswasthefirstinstanceinwhichamember
state was suspended in accordance with the IADC. Three central themes
guidetheanalysis:thenatureofchallengestodemocracyinLatinAmerica;
the role of regional organizations as democracy promoters; and the
transformationofinter-Americanrelations.
The book unveils the key achievements and limitations of the Orga-
nization of American States (OAS) in the field and will be of great
interest to studentsandscholarsofdemocratization,US–LatinAmerican
relations, international relations of Latin America and international
organizations.
Jorge Heine is CIGI Professor of Global Governance at the Balsillie
School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University, and a
Wilson Center Global Fellow.
Brigitte Weiffen is a Lecturer in the Department of Politics and Public
Administration at the University of Konstanz and a Visiting Professor
at the Institute of International Relations, University of São Paulo.
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21st Century Democracy
Promotion in the Americas
Standing up for the polity
ff
Jorge Heine and Brigitte Wei en
Firstpublished2015
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BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritish
Library
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Heine,Jorge.
21stcenturydemocracypromotionintheAmericas:standingup
forthepolity/JorgeHeineandBrigitteWeiffen.
pagescm.–(Routledgeglobalinstitutionsseries;91)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Democratization–LatinAmerica.2.Democracy–Latin
America.3.Inter-AmericanDemocraticCharter(2001)4.
OrganizationofAmericanStates.I.Weiffen,Brigitte.II.Title.III.
Title:Twenty-firstcenturydemocracypromotionintheAmericas.
JL966.H4552014
341.24'5–dc23
2014010133
ISBN:978-0-415-62636-1(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-415-62637-8(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-75513-7(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgments ix
List of abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1 The challenges of regional democracy promotion 10
2 The emergence of the OAS democratic paradigm 30
3 The Inter-American Democratic Charter 50
4 The OAS democratic paradigm in action: democratic crises
of the twenty-first century 74
5 The OAS democratic paradigm in action: the case of
Honduras 105
6 The future of the OAS democratic paradigm 132
7 Conclusion 161
Select bibliography 170
Index 174
Routledge Global Institutions Series 185
Illustrations
Tables
I.1 Status of democracy in Latin America 2
1.1 Comparing regional democracy promotion 20
2.1 Key OAS documents on democracy 41
3.1 Key principles of democracy promotion in the IADC 56
3.2 Collective mechanisms for the defense of democracy in
Chapter IV, IADC 59
3.3 Main threats to democracy in Latin America
and OAS responses 67
4.1 Taxonomy of democratic crises 78
4.2 Democratic crises in Latin America, 1990–2012 79
4.3 Democratic decline in Latin America, 1990–2012 81
4.4 OAS responses to democratic crises, 2001–12 83
6.1 Documents on democracy by Latin American
regional organizations 141
Acknowledgments
This book is the result of the longstanding interest of the authors in
democracy in the Americas. It is also the product of their dual com-
mitments to the study of both international relations and comparative
politics within political science. As in few other issue areas in the dis-
cipline, it is in the international promotion and defense of democracy
that these two subfields merge and interact in challenging and unex-
pected ways, which we have found especially illuminating to under-
stand the changing nature of politics in the new century. Over the past
five years we have collaborated across the Atlantic on a variety of
projects. In the summer of 2012 avisiting professorship in the Depart-
ment of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Kon-
stanz allowed Jorge Heine to spend three months in that beautiful city
on the Rhine (where Britta Weiffen has been based since 2008) and
made it possible for us to lay the foundations for the book. Anotherof
Jorge’s visiting appointments, this time at the Institut des Hautes
Etudes del’AmériqueLatine (IHEAL) atthe UniversityofParisin the
fall of 2012–13, allowed us additional time in Europe towork together
and further develop our ideas on the subject.
ExtendedinterviewswithKevinCasas-Zamora,LuigiEinaudi,Peter
Hakim, José Miguel Insulza, Rubén Perina, Ted Piccone, Carlos Por-
tales and María Fernanda Trigo in Washington, DC, provided us with
valuable insights into the many challenges posited by the protection of
democracy in the Western hemisphere. Karen Bozicovic facilitated
additional material. We are also indebted to Dirk Leuffen, Wolfgang
Merkel, MichaelShifter and LaurenceWhitehead, who commented on
individual chapters, as well as to participants at several conferences
where parts of the project were presented throughout 2013. Kevin
Heyer, Nadine Petermann, Nora Schütze and Joseph Turcotte pro-
vided invaluable research assistance. Chilean artist Ximena Mandiola
has kindly allowed us to use her painting ‘Estudio de campo I’ (2011)