Democratic Stagnation Post Cold War

The period of democratization in Latin America between 1992 and 2003 post Cold War was a very unique time of transition. Unlike the Cold War era, this period was not marked by multitudes of military coups that lead to authoritarian regimes. Instead, democratization was relatively stagnated, and there were several cases of democratic erosion and advancement (48). A major contrast between the two periods is that in the post Cold War era military coups were often supported by the public, and the military would often turn over power to another actor instead of keeping themselves in power (48). An example of the contrast between periods is the military coup that took place in 1973 that took the populist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, out of power and led to military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and the failed coup attempt by populist leader Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1992. Chavez was eventually elected president of Venezuela in 1998 and is seen to have eroded democracy during his time as president, and when taken into account that both Chavez and Allende were populist leaders, the sharp contrast between the two situations becomes very evident. In the post Cold War era the public became a driving or supportive force behind coups of democratically elected presidents (49).

Another contrast noted by Mainwaring and Pérez Liñán is that during this period, impeachments of presidents became “pseudoconstitutional” forms of ousting presidents from power because of the high costs of authoritarian regimes as a means of deposing a president (49). This brings to mind the current political situation in Brazil with the recent impeachment of president Rousseff. It has been debated whether or not the impeachment was truly democratic as the current president, Temer, has said that she was actually impeached because of her refusal to follow his economic plan and not because of criminal activity she was accused of doing. There was a large amount of public dissatisfaction and protests against Rousseff during her time as president and many allegations of corruption which follows the pattern of the post Cold War era as written by Mainwaring and Pérez Liñán that popular protest is a driving force behind the demise of a president (49).

A major explanation for these contrasts between periods claimed by the authors is that the public has been largely disaffected by democracy and public opinion polls have shown this occurring in most countries in Latin America (50). This can be explained by poor economic and social performances, weak states, high crime rates, and citizen disgruntlements with democratic or semi democratic regimes that failed to deliver what the people wanted (50, 54). Despite all of this apparent discontent with democracy within the region, it is important to note that almost every single country in Latin America has a democracy or semi democracy today, so it does not seem like democracy is at any real risk of dissipation, at least not in the near future.