Assessing Democracy In Latin America

A Tribute To Russell H. Fitzgibbon

Philip Kelly

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367160517
• eBook ISBN: 9780429721274
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Based on fifty years worth of data, Assessing Democracy in Latin America examines and compares the progress of Latin American countries toward democracy. The essays in this volume, all written by contributors to the Fitzgibbon Democracy Survey, focus their analyses on those factors most germane to the growth, maintenance, or failure of democratic systems. For example, in his initial chapter, Philip Kelly identifies two variables, mechanized agriculture and per-capita newspaper circulation, as the best statistical indicators of democracy in Latin America. Other contributors explore a variety of new topics such as the connection between democracy and environmental movements (Kathryn Hochstetler and Steven Mumme), political parties (John D. Martz), and social dynamics (Robert L. Peterson).Initiated in 1945 as a method of measuring and ranking Latin American democratic systems, the Fitzgibbon Democracy Surveys longevity and scope provide an unparalleled wealth of scholarly research. This volume offers what few others like it can: a longitudinally deep data set (eleven surveys over the past fifty years) and closely coordinated coverage of the complete range of Latin American countries by specialists assembled expressly for that purpose.

Part One

Special Topics in Addressing Democracy in Latin America

DOI: 10.4324/9780429040504-1

Philip Kelly, in the initial pages of Chapter 1, “Measuring Democracy in Latin America: The Fitzgibbon Index,” sketches the evolution of the democracy survey, the instrument itself, and the several changes attempted by Fitzgibbon, Ken Johnson, and himself. He debates next the panel method itself for assessing democracy, asking how accurate scholars’ images are—and whether other data sources are an improvement. Table 1.1 shows democracy standings for the eleven individual Fitzgibbon polls (1945 through 1995). Table 1.2 sums the eleven polls and provides a cumulative ranking of democracy among the twenty Latin American republics, showing Costa Rica and Uruguay holding the highest positions, Paraguay and Haiti the lowest. In a later portion of the chapter, Kelly locates two variables, daily newspaper circulation per capita and tractors per hectare, that appear to correlate strongly to democracy rankings in Latin America.

How relevant are political parties to the process of democratization in Latin America? John D. Martz addresses this question in Chapter 2, “Studying the Ebb and Flow of Political Parties in the Quest for Democracy.” Noting comparisons amongst the Fitzgibbon country rankings and criteria since 1945 that reflect the dynamics of national politics, Martz sees a gradual strengthening of parties through the 1980s until the present decade, when a “deconstruction” tendency has set in, caused by weakened ideologies and doctrines, by closed and rigid party organizations, and by inattentive leadership and apathetic publics. He calls for a “rediscovery of those elements and characteristics by means of which the parties may play the important role [in supporting democracy] that they themselves have identified.”

In Chapter 3, “Social Democracy in Latin America,” Robert L. Peterson first outlines the slow evolution of Latin American social democracy after World War II, its ties to the Socialist International and to European social democratic (SD) parties, and the resistance to social democracy from the United States. Other forces also retarded SD expansion, primarily the weakness of capitalism in Latin America and, to a lesser extent, the noncooperation of Communists (although Peterson contests this latter assertion). Nonetheless, the author predicts the eventual rise of social democracy, reflective of its vital and necessary role of “restructuring] and stabilizing] democracy in Latin America,” as lower-class and worker political actors and broadly based popular alliances begin to integrate themselves more assertively in a new era of Latin American politics.

In Chapter 4, “Democracy and the Environment in Latin America,” Kathryn Hochstetler and Stephen Mumme argue that democracy has not guaranteed successful results for any contemporary group that aims to construct new policy. Rather, the rules of political access and participation are merely equalized. Hence, implementation of environmental protections into law has been mixed and has proven to be as successful within authoritarian regimes in Latin America as within democratic regimes. In fact, these authors conclude that “barring the deepening and strengthening of democratic institutions, today’s environmentalists are apt to place their bets on society instead of the state as they strive to advance environmental protection nationally and regionally.”

The final chapter of this first part, that of Martin Needier, “Assessing Democracy Then and Now: A Personal Memoir,” poses the question: Can democracy be continuously measured over a fifty-year span when the Latin American political and economic setting has shifted so dramatically? Needier begins by equating democracy with “development,” but he then presents his conclusion that violence and other disruptions during transitions to higher levels of development could well indicate progress toward democracy and, in turn, bring outcomes that parallel U.S. interests in the region. This latter convergence in reality occurred in the foreign policies of the Bush and subsequent administrations. But democracy operates differently now than during the 1960s and 1970s (the period underlying Fitzgibbon’s original survey design), for instance, in the advent of massive campaign monies that “could induce democratic electorates to vote against their own interests” and in the growth of capitalistic “conglomerates without national identity, perpetually downsizing their workforces and being intermittently looted by financial speculators.” Consequently, Needier completes his argument by rejecting the Fitzgibbon survey itself for being outdated; for, he asks, how can democracy be measured amid “the porous boundaries between constitutional rulers, fabulously wealthy capitalists, and drug-dealing gangsters?”

Chapter One

Measuring Democracy in Latin America: The Fitzgibbon Index

PHILIP KELLY

DOI: 10.4324/9780429040504-2

In 1945 Professor Russell Fitzgibbon, a UCLA political scientist, asked a panel of ten distinguished U.S. scholars to rank the twenty Latin American republics according to a set of criteria that he felt would measure the extent of democracy in each of the countries. Fitzgibbon added brief “paragraphs of analysis and explanation [to supplement] each of the criteria in order that the semantic reactions of those being polled might be as nearly uniform as possible” (1951:518). He selected these fifteen standards for defining and assessing democracy:

1. An education level sufficient to give the political processes some substance and vitality
2. A fairly adequate standard of living
3. A sense of internal unity and national cohesion
4. A belief by a people in their individual political dignity and maturity
5. An absence of foreign domination
6. Freedom of press, speech, assembly, radio, and so on
7. Free elections; honestly counted votes
8. Freedom of party organization; genuine and effective party opposition in the legislature; legislative scrutiny of the executive branch
9. An independent judiciary; respect for its decisions
10. A public awareness of the collection and expenditure of governmental funds
11. An intelligent attitude toward social legislation; the vitality of such legislation as applied
12. Civilian supremacy over the military
13. A reasonable freedom of political life from the impact of ecclesiastical controls
14. An attitude toward and development of technical and scientific government administration
15. An intelligent and sympathetic administration of whatever local self-government prevails

Panelists rated the republics separately according to each of the criteria, and the poll results were tallied later with different weights assigned to the various measures. Kenneth Johnson and I, who directed the later polls, eliminated this weighting variance in the 1980 survey and in subsequent surveys, giving equal emphasis to all of the criteria.

Fitzgibbon replicated his canvass at regular five-year intervals through 1970, adding more panelists than his original ten but maintaining the original fifteen criteria (Fitzgibbon 1967, 1956a, 1956b). Kenneth Johnson became associated with the project in 1960 (Fitzgibbon and Johnson 1961), and he assumed sole authorship for the 1975 and 1980 polls after Fitzgibbon’s retirement (Johnson 1982, 1976). As the present director of the project, I assisted Johnson in 1985 (Johnson and Kelly 1986) and administered the instrument alone for the two most recent evaluations, those of 1991¹ and 1995. In total, eleven democracy surveys, taken every five years and all adhering to Fitzgibbons original format, have been conducted since 1945. (See Table 1.1 for ordinal rankings of the eleven surveys.) Ninety-six panelists responded to the 1995 survey.

TABLE 1.1 Fitzgibbon-Johnson Index: Specialists’ View of Democracy in Latin America, 1945—1995

Country	Rank
	1945	1950	1955	1960	1965	1970	1975	1980	1985	1991	1995	Totals
Argentina	5	8	8	4	6	7	5	11	3	5	4	7
Bolivia	18	17	15	16	17	18	17	18	16	14	14	18
Brazil	11	5	5	7	8	10	9	12	9	6	6	8
Chile	3	2	3	3	3	2	11	14	14	4	3	4
Colombia	4	6	6	6	7	6	4	4	5	8	7	5
Costa Rica	2	3	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Cuba	6	4	7	15	18	13	7	6	10	12	16	9
Dominican Republic	19	19	19	18	14	14	13	8	13	11	13	15
Ecuador	14	9	10	10	12	9	14	9	11	9	9	11
El Salvador	13	14	11	12	11	8	10	16	17	19	17	13
Guatemala	12	10	14	13	13	13	15	17	19	18	19	16
Haiti	16	18	17	19	20	20	20	20	20	20	20	20
Honduras	17	15	12	14	15	16	16	15	15	17	18	17
Mexico	7	7	4	5	4	5	3	3	6	7	8	3
Nicaragua	15	16	18	17	16	17	18	7	12	10	11	14
Panama	8	11	9	11	10	11	12	10	9	15	10	12
Paraguay	20	20	20	20	19	19	19	19	18	16	15	19
Peru	10	13	16	9	9	11	8	5	8	13	12	10
Uruguay	1	1	1	1	1	3	6	13	4	3	2	2
Venezuela	9	12	13	8	5	4	2	2	2	2	5	6

Although the panel approach is not an impeccable indicator of comparative democracy levels among states, it does have the advantage of utilizing a group of distinguished area specialists for measuring Latin American democracy, making biases or mistakes in individual evaluations less significant. Other data sources, such as voter turnout, for example, or number of elections, as well as social and economic variables, may be no more dependable in studying trends in democracy than the collective and continuous ratings of scholars. The tabulation’s longevity and repetition also add to its strength. Two primary disadvantages of the survey method lie in the probable inability of most panelists to accurately assess all of the criteria for all of the countries and in the possibility of the indicators themselves not reliably reflecting the processes of democracy. I will have more comment on these points later.

Over the years, Fitzgibbon, Johnson, and I made a variety of attempts to improve the survey; most were tried only once and not kept. Fitzgibbon added a “provision for indicating self-assessment as to the respondent’s familiarity with both [Latin American] states and [the fifteen] criteria” (1967:155). Dropping this technique from later investigations, he lamented: “Perhaps there are deductions to be made from such [familiarity] distribution[s] but the author shies away in timidity from making them” (159).

In one instance, Fitzgibbon tested for possible correlations between certain social, cultural, economic, demographic, and political variables and the democracy rankings of his 1960 and 1965 surveys (1967:159–164). But he could not raise significant statistical relationships. Fitzgibbon observed a “bunching” tendency, with many states not moving far from their original rank positions throughout the extended survey period (1967:165–166). Johnson and Kelly encountered these clusterings as well.

As an additional scale, Johnson culled five “select criteria” from the fifteen (1976:131–132) that he felt might more directly indicate a political side of democracy, that is, freedom of press, speech, radio, and so on (the sixth of the criteria listed earlier); free elections (seventh); freedom of political organization (eighth); an independent judiciary (ninth); and the degree of civilian supremacy over the armed forces (twelfth). Since this extension correlated highly with the complete scale, Kelly dropped this approach in 1991. Johnson and Miles Williams established a “Power Index” that drew upon panelists’ responses to questions relative to the impact of certain groups within the Latin American political milieu (1978:37–47). Likewise, Johnson and Kelly in the 1985 poll added an “Attitudinal Profile of [panel] Respondents” that never saw publication. Neither the Power Index nor the Attitudinal Profile were carried over to later surveys.

Evaluation of the Fitzgibbon Survey

The strength of the Fitzgibbon survey of Latin American democracy, with its life span of fifty years, derives first from its longevity. Few other quantitative projects in academia can boast of this half-century perspective. Consequently we indeed possess ample data to test possible democratic trends and causes; to study the impact of social, economic, demographic, and other variables on democracy since the 1940s; and to isolate the particular forces most influencing constitutional regularity within the various republics.

Another contribution of Fitzgibbons approach comes from its panel-of-experts technique. We solicit data from the collective mind of leading scholars, a technique that for the most part provides a reflection of political conditions in Latin America. “Specialists are likely to introduce desirable nuances and balances,” asserted Fitzgibbon, “which are impossible in the use of cold statistical information, even of the most accurate sort” (1967:135). Trusting other statistics, for example, on “civilian rule,” “voter turnout,” “political maturity,” “disorder,” and the like could prove at least as difficult in definition and in reliability of collection.

In addition, we have in Fitzgibbon the built-in advantage of both a conceptual definition of democracy, rendered in his fifteen criteria, and a feasible operationalization process, provided in his panel approach. The data that result have the value of being quantifiable, in both ordinal and interval levels of measurement, so that statistical testing can be utilized. Finally, the whole procedure possesses a dynamic quality, staying open to adjustment and likewise remaining available for re...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents Page
• Tribute to Russell H. Fitzgibbon Page
• Preface Page
• Part One Special Topics in Addressing Democracy in Latin America
• Part Two Assessing Democracy in Mexico and Middle America
• Part Three Assessing Democracy in South America
• About the Editor and Contributors
• Index