The Challenges of Creating Democracies in the Americas

The United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Guatemala

Alex Roberto Hybel

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030212322
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030212339
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book's leading goal is to explain why some states in the Americas have been markedly more effective than others at forming stable democratic regimes. The six states analyzed are the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. The study identifies the critical challenges each state encountered at different stages of its state-creation and regime- formation processes, from the colonial period to the present. In its concluding chapter, the study presents a series of time-related hypotheses designed to capture the different evolutionary processes and explain variances in success. 

© The Author(s) 2020

Alex Roberto HybelThe Challenges of Creating Democracies in the Americashttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21233-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: The Nature of the Problem

Alex Roberto Hybel¹

(1)

Marina del Rey, CA, USA

Alex Roberto Hybel

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

This book’s principal objectives are threefold. The initial goal is to identify the key challenges encountered by six political entities in the Americas as each one tried to create its own state and form its own political regime. The second objective is to postulate a set of time-related hypotheses that capture the evolutionary processes of state creation and political-regime formation. The third objective, which is closely related to the first two, is to explain why some states in the Americas have been more effective than others at creating a democratic regime. Since the arguments presented here are built on the contention that past developments can affect the state-creation and political-regime-formation processes, the analysis begins with the identification of the main conditions each newly freed entity inherited from the colonial period. An examination of the challenges each group encountered as it sought to create a state and form a political regime is followed by an evaluation of its effectiveness in addressing those tasks. The six cases investigated in this book are the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

Rationale

Democracy is in peril. Just a few decades ago, most Western political scientists would not have voiced such a concern. They would have agreed with the contention that democracy was the “only game in town.”¹ They would have added that in places where democracy had been consolidated, the return to authoritarianism had become an unacceptable alternative.² Today, such a bold assertion would be questioned, and with very good reasons.

In the 1920s, only a very small number of sovereign states had political regimes that would have qualified as democratic. By 1990, that number had increased to 69, and by 2012 to 117. Between the years 2005 and 2013, however, more countries experienced a decline in political rights and civil liberties than an increase.³ Equally disturbing are the figures representing the percentage of millennials in developed democracies who actually support democracy. In the United States, the number of millennials who believe it is “essential to live in a democracy” is only 30 percent. In Australia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and New Zealand the percentage is at 40 percent or lower. Ironically, the last four states are among the 16 most developed democracies in the world. The numbers remain troubling as the analysis focuses on those who believe that it is preferable to have a “strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections.” As could be expected, the percentage in places such as Russia, Romania, Ukraine, and Turkey oscillates between the high 50s and the high 70s. But sadly, though the percentages are much lower, they have increased in the United States and Germany, as well as in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and Uruguay, four South American countries that seemed to have finally embraced democracy some two to three decades ago.⁴

Is the world beginning to witness the steady downfall of democracy? Will a modified form of authoritarianism arise, one in which autocratic leaders limit the access to multiple sources of information in order to mold the preferences of the public? The two questions beg another question: Should democracy be desired?

Any serious attempt to answer the questions forces analysts to recognize that despite democracy’s present allure among many people in various corners of the world, for much of history political leaders and philosophers did not view it favorably. Plato posited that oligarchies turned into democracies when elites overindulged, became idle and wasteful, and developed interests separate from those they ruled. Democracies did not fare much better. Democracies became tyrannies when mob passion overtook political reason and autocrats became the darling of the masses. Machiavelli was no less critical. He argued that democracies catered to the whims of the people, who too often accepted false ideas, misused their resources, and failed to take into consideration potential threats until it was too late. The founders of the United States also feared democracy. John Adams warned that democracies never lasted long. Every democracy throughout history self-destructed. James Madison was equally troubled. But then Winston Churchill told us to keep in mind that no one “pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”⁵

Churchill’s implicit warning should not be taken lightly. Democracies have not always enabled the wisest to lead, and too often, they have become victims of the whims of uninformed populists. But it should not be forgotten that though open and competitive political systems have not always shielded democracies from grave errors, they have enhanced the chances to correct those mistakes before they became unbearably costly. Other political systems lack such safety measures. Moreover, no other single type of political system has empowered the voices of those who, forced to remain quiet throughout history, can finally be heard and counted.

The study of the conditions that either facilitate or obstruct the formation of democratic regimes is an old enterprise. Some investigators have focused on single cases; others have conducted comparative studies in different regions. Based on their works, analysts have derived multiple arguments, often in the form of theories. Because democracies have emerged in every region of the world, and at different times in history, it would be futile to attempt to develop a theoretical argument applicable to states worldwide without first acquiring a clear understanding of the struggles that states in particular regions endured at different point in time as they strove to consolidate and legitimize their power and establish democratic regimes. Hence the rationale for focusing solely on a few states in the Americas.⁶

Methodology

Process-tracing procedure is an analytical tool utilized to draw “descriptive and causal pieces from diagnostic pieces of evidence—often understood as part of a temporal sequence of events or phenomena.”⁷ As David Collier explains, process-tracing helps to: (a) identify and describe political and social phenomena, (b) evaluate prior explanatory hypotheses, discover new ones, and assess the new causal claims, (c) gain insights into causal mechanisms, and (d) provide alternative ways of addressing challenging problems such as reciprocal causation, spuriousness, and selection bias.⁸ Stated differently, the investigator tries to identify the intervening steps or cause-and-effect links that might exist between the dependent, intervening, and independent variables within a particular case, conduct the same analyses in other related cases, and then compare the cause-and-effect links across cases.⁹ In cases where a similar sequence does not emerge, the investigator attempts to find out what might have caused the discrepancy.

Case Selection

The decision to study the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela demands answers to two questions: Why compare the state-creation and political-regime-formation processes of the United States with those of Spanish American states when their histories and cultures are so different? Why include in the analyses the experiences of Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Venezuela, and Colombia and not of other Spanish American states?

The analysis presented here rejects the contention that the inclusion of the United States in the comparison would elicit arguments of limited theoretical value. The United States’ pathway to democracy was neither predetermined nor intentional. Much of its evolution was defined by a combination of domestic and external factors that compelled the US leaders to steadily transform the nature of the state and of their political system. As demonstrated in this study, though differences existed between the ways the United States and the Spanish American colonies evolved into states and formed their respective political regimes, many similarities were also present. The identification of the differences and similarities helps develop a better understanding of the types of obstacles and opportunities newly independent entities in the Americas encountered as they created their respective states and political regimes and, as a result, helps determine what enabled or prevented the development of democratic regimes. In short, despite the fact that the founders of the United States feared democracy, unintentionally they helped set up its foundation, which in turn served in a number of cases as a model for the Spanish American leaders who were determined to create their own sovereign states and distinct political regimes after they gained independence from Spain.

With regard to the second question, it is evident that the comparison of cases other than Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Venezuela, and Colombia would help elicit valuable explanatory hypotheses.¹⁰ In a separate book, the state-creation and political-regime-formation experiences of the United States are compared with those of Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Needless to say, there are many other Spanish American cases that could also be studied, and this analyst hopes that other investigators will assume such responsibility and compare their conclusions with those arrived at in this volume and its companion.

There are several distinct rationales for selecting Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Mexico is one of Spanish America’s most idiosyncratic states. Because of its richness and vastness, and its significance to Spain for much of its colonial period, Mexico stood singularly apart from the other Spanish American colonies. For much of the nineteenth century, the same type of d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: The Nature of the Problem
• 2. Theories of State Creation and Democratization
• 3. The Challenges of State Creation and Democratization in the United States
• 4. The Challenges of State Creation and Democratization in Mexico
• 5. The Challenges of State Creation and Democratization in Colombia and Venezuela
• 6. State Creation and Democratization in Costa Rica and Guatemala
• 7. An Exploratory Theory of State Creation and Democratization: The United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala
• Back Matter