Why has democracy in Colombia and Venezuela evolved in very different directions? In Precarious Democracies, Ana Maria Bejarano provides a comparative historical analysis of how the democratic regimes in these two countries have diverged, following similar transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy in the late 1950s. Rather than focusing on resource-driven explanations, such as the role of oil in Venezuela and coffee in Colombia, or on short-term elite choices and calculations, Bejarano argues that democratic development in Colombia and Venezuela is best understood from a vantage point that privileges political history, especially the history of institutional evolution. The book makes the case that a comparative historical institutional framework—focused both on institutional legacies from the distant past (such as the state and political parties) and on those from more recent critical junctures (the foundational pacts)—provides the best lens to account for the divergent trajectories followed by democratic regimes in Colombia and Venezuela in the second half of the twentieth century.
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Precarious Democracies argues that democratic development in Colombia and Venezuela is best understood from the perspective of political history, especially the history of institutional evolution.
"This book provides the first sustained, theoretically guided comparison and explanation of the evolution of these two increasingly troubled democracies in South America. The strength of the book lies in its careful deployment of analysis in a historical-institutionalist tradition." —Jonathan Hartlyn, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780268022266
Publisert
2011-06-15
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Notre Dame Press
Vekt
574 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
21 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet

Forfatter

Biographical note

Ana María Bejarano is associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto.