Latin American Democratic Transformations: Institutions, Actors and Processes ed. by William Smith, and: Corruption and Democracy in Latin America ed. by Charles H. Blake and Stephen D. Morris (review)

BOOK REVIEWS LATIN AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATIONS: INSTITUTIONS, ACTORS AND PROCESSES. Ed. William Smith. Sussex, UK: John Wiley, 2009, pp. 381, $52.95. CORRUPTION AND DEMOCRACY IN LATIN AMERICA. Eds. Charles H. Blake and Stephen D. Morris. Pittsburgh: U Pittsburgh P, 2009, pp. 253, $25.95. In spite of the large number and diversity of issues covered in these two different books, they converge on a single topic: the “quality of the post-authoritarian democracies of Latin America,” usually seen as regimes lacking universal civil rights, but having sustained democratic procedures. Whereas Smith’s book is compiled from many of the updated “most-read” articles on the topic published in Latin American Politics and Society, the journal he edits, Blake and Morris center their book on “corruption and democracy,” which also unfold into a number of studies quite relevant to the shared topic. By and large, they indicate that there is an ongoing multi-faceted process of change towards overcoming much of the so-called “democratic deficits” in Latin America, differently from previous diagnostics that emphasized these deficits and tended to address these nations through a single viewpoint, like “incomplete, partial, hollow, or shallow” democracies as P. Smith and M. Ziegler put it (Smith 13). Therefore, both books make a significant contribution to the current study of the quality of emerging democracies in the region, as they enrich the scholarship on this theme, both theoretically and substantively. The current compilations cover a plethora of issues, from horizontal and vertical accountability, to the questions of social, economic and political inclusion, going through the dilemmas of participation and representation through formal and informal channels, among others. Shortcomings for a more sustained democratization in the region undoubtedly persist, and P. Smith and Ziegler (Smith) probe the central question , assuming the countries from Latin America to be “illiberal democracies ,” based on Huntington’s third wave. Relying on sophisticated statistical analysis, the authors insightfully suggest that there is no decisive incentive to move from illiberal to liberal democracy, but they do not recognize that the Latin American countries are doomed to remain illiberal . Weyland (Smith) essentially agrees with this view, in his analysis of the impact of neoliberalism on authoritarianism, because of a number of causes, in which neo-populism stands out as an influential force. In any case, in the general view of what I consider the common topic of the books, Foweraker and Krznaric (Smith) add a contextual qualitative analysis to an equally sophisticated statistical approach that is quite skeptical about the possibilities of these countries becoming liberal C  2010 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 95 The Latin Americanist, September 2010 democracies, given that powerful political actors, such as the oligarchies and the military, are prone to obstruct the rule of law and manipulate electoral politics. In fact, based on a similar concern of Weyland (Smith), Thacker (Blake and Morris) would agree with Foweraker and Krznaric, since the market-oriented reforms had plenty of room for rent-seeking behavior , therefore sustaining “illiberal democracy,” a view also shared by Rehren (Blake and Morris), regardless of the fact that this is a highly contentious issue. But Thacker would also come close to Weyland’s positive view of neoliberalism in partially undermining illiberal components of the new democracies, considering Uruguay’s and Chile’s longer traditions of trade openness, as these countries scored highest in the region in control of corruption. Therefore they also assume that culture may play a role in the formation of the new democratic regimes, similar to Armony and Armony’s discourse analysis of the 2000s Argentine crisis (Smith). Leaving aside an extended debate on the proper concept of corruption, and moving towards more concrete aspects of the phenomenon, Rehren (Blake and Morris) opts to distinguish different formats of contemporary corruption. Given the persistence of clientelism in Latin American political parties, as the region underwent liberalization and democratization, he recognizes two new forms of corruption: one linked to the rebirth of party politics, and the other related to the new economic and social policies of the “dual transition,” each with distinct problematic impacts. Along the same lines, Bailey (Blake and Morris) disaggregates the policy-making process to stress...