Building Democracy in Latin America by John Peeler (review)

186 The Latin Americanist Fall 2005 and essays, making them availableto the English-speakingreader who likely would not otherwise have access to most of these works. However,this volume is likely to leave the reader with the impression that Costa Rica is not (or is no longer) exceptional, and that its government is no longer able to address a dynamic society’s needs during the challenging times of a globalizing economy. Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson Department of Political Science TexasA&M University Building Democracy in Latin America. By John Peeler. Boulder , CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004,p.247, SecondEdition,$22.00. “One hundred years ago there were no democracies of any description in Latin America. Fifty years ago there were three. Today almost all countries in the region have liberal democracies . So why are we not celebrating?’ (p.188). This statement summarizes and signals the importance of this resourceful and vivid survey by John Peeler on how democracies have struggled and survived in LatinAmerica,besides high levels of inequalities, deficienciesin economic markets, underdevelopmentand capitalism . For the author, “a major cause of contemporary difficulties of democracy in Latin America is the tension between coming to terms with the global economy and responding to popular will as expressed in elections, polls and popular mobilization” (p.181). As such, in general terms, Peeler identifies Argentina and Peru as success stories followed by failure; Mexico and Brazil as the mixed blessingsof globalization;Bolivia and Ecuador as the failures of globalization and Chile and Costa Rica as the success of globalization. The book’s argumentsare structuredaround bountiful information rangingform the early stagesof democracy promotion and establishment,to the intricaciesof politicalparty systems,the role of the military and elite groups, social structures,civil societyand social movements, neoliberal reforms, populism and globalization . As a consequence, at some point the reader may feel that the connections among themes and chapters are somewhatloose. However,this is perhaps due to the fact that democracy,as Peeler argues,may be viewed notjust as a politicalregime,but the deepening of democracy includes the strengthening of the economic Book Reviews 187 sphere, as well as the social and cultural mechanism, of developing countries. Among some of the book’s claims, the author maintainsthat democracy is culturally alien to Latin America (p.25) and that the major barriers to democracy are the persistent and pervasive inequalities,predatoryrelationsbetweenrulers and ruled, and clientelism (p.26).Whilethe latteris unquestionablytrue, the former is prone to criticism, as democracy is traditionally alien not only to Latin America but also to all advanced industrial democracies. Democracy is a political regime that evolvesand adapts over time in contrast to authoritarianism,which is imposed. Indeed, all current democracies were at some point ruled by political regimes that by current standards would not qualify as democratic. Chapter 3 identifies in accordance with the traditional literature two “waves” of democratization in Latin America. The first running from 1920through the 1960s involved Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia,Uruguay and Venezuela.The second wave began in the 1970sand still continues and has seen the establishmentof formally democraticregimes in most countries of the region with different transitions and paths. In addition, three stragglers are identified: Cuba, Haiti and Paraguay. Chapter 4,on the other hand, builds up on Mainwaring and Scully’s (1995) work on party systems to identify two different party systems in the region that shape the quality of democracy and its performance.It distinguishesamong stronglyinstitutionalized party systemsthose of Chile, Uruguay,Colombia,Venezuela and Costa Rica (the very same first wave “surfers”),and a second category called “inchoate” party systems, which includes the rest of countries. Two hypothesesare presented on the survival of democracy. The first is that “Latin Americans (elites and masses) may have actually learned something about how to operate a democratic system, and may have learned that such a system is preferable to any alternatives even if it does not solve the problem” and second, there is an alternative hypothesis that “the maintenance of democratic regimes owes a great deal to the internationalconjuncture that favors such regimes” (p.165). On the former, the author suggests that El Salvador in the 1990sseems to be a clear example of such political learning, as “politicalviolencehas been progressivelyreplacedby electoralcompetitionand the...