Democracy in Latin America in no easy task.

Dominic Ciano
Alexandra Castillo
Latin American Politics
November 27th 2016
Democracy is not easy task
The themes for this week were the struggles democracy has gone through and continues to go through in Latin America. To this day Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay have strong “democracies” compared to the other states in Latin America. Democracy has also be eroding in Latin America, for an example in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. All of these states has had their democracies chipped away slowly.
Although Colombia is still considered a democracy with free and fair elections the people still don’t have as many rights compared to America. One topic that I never thought of was a states GDP. For an example Guatemala is one of the poorest states in latin America. The author suggested that a poor country would have a harder time establishing a strong democratic government. This makes sense in a poorer state I feel that corruption could flourish, education is probably low so the educated elites could easily run the state. I could also see clientelism flourishing in a state that has a very low GDP.
The reading this week also proves that term limits are essential to democracy. In Venezuela the new President has had several terms and has changed the constitution. With so many terms an authoritarian leader can continue to take democracy away. In class we have learned that many people in Latin America don’t really have faith in a democratic system. In several states the people don’t really favor democracy. This is surprising seeing that in so many authoritarian states they have economic crisis, humanitarian atrocities, and sometimes their elections are not free and fair.
I think we will continue to see democracy fluctuate in Latin America. With corruption, drugs, poor states, and a no limit of terms in some states latin America will continue to not have a strong democracy. I think the more wealthier states will have strong democracies.