The state as a determinant of democracy: durable poor-quality democracies in contemporary Latin America

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article claims that the state and, more precisely, whether the state has a rational-legal or a patrimonial public administration, affects (1) the extent to which democratic standards are met and (2) the costs of abandoning office and the support leaders unwilling to accept electoral defeat can expect to have within the state and their party. Further, this argument is elaborated so as to account for the typical political regime in contemporary Latin America, durable poor-quality democracies. Latin America’s semi-patrimonial states are held to determine this outcome through two mechanisms: selective collusion and political opportunism. The plausibility of the theory about mechanisms is gauged. Additionally, implications for the field of comparative democracy studies are spelled out.KEYWORDS: DemocracyDemocratic erosionStatePatrimonialismLatin America AcknowledgementsFor useful comments on this paper, I thank Lasse Aaskoven, David Andersen, Ana Arjona, Kent Eaton, Lucas González, Ken Greene, Aram Hur, Marko Klašnja, Juan Pablo Luna, Raúl Madrid, Sebastián Mazzuca, Silvia Otero-Bahamonde, Grigore Pop-Eleches, Maria Paula Saffon, Indrajit Roy, Andreas Schedler, Merete Bech Seeberg, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Dan Slater, Richard Snyder, Jakob Tolstrup, Dan Treisman, Maya Tudor and Andrew Yeo.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 O’Donnell, Democracy, Agency, and the State, 155.2 Munck and Luna, Latin American Politics, ch. 3.3 Tocqueville, Democracy in America; Tocqueville, The Ancien Régime.4 O’Donnell, “On the State”; O’Donnell, Democracy, Agency, and the State; Linz, “State Building”; Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition; Tilly, Democracy.5 Slater, Ordering Power; Norris, Making Democratic Governance; Møller and Skaaning, The State-Democracy Nexus; Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship; Acemoglu and Robinson, The Narrow Corridor; Stasavage, The Decline and Rise of Democracy; Andersen, “The Limits of Meritocracy”.6 Bauer et al., Democratic Backsliding; Haggard and Kaufman, Backsliding, 8.7 Handlin, State Crisis; Mazzuca and Munck, A Middle-quality Institutional Trap; Foweraker, Oligarchy in The Americas.8 O’Donnell, Democracy, Agency, and the State, 4, 13.9 Mazzuca, “Access to Power”; Mazzuca, Latecomer State Formation, 401–3. See also Mazzuca and Munck, A Middle-quality Institutional Trap.10 Tilly, Democracy, ch. 6; Acemoglu and Robinson, The Narrow Corridor, 63–7.11 Weber, Economy and Society, chs. 11–3.12 Haggard and Kaufman, Backsliding, 2; García Holgado and Mainwaring, “Why Democracy Survives,” 531.13 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 155.14 O’Donnell, “Illusions about Consolidation,” 39; Schwartz, Undermining the State, 17–8, 21.15 Bobbio, The Future of Democracy, 59–60.16 Bobbio, The Future of Democracy, 20–1, 24–6, 59–60, ch. 7; Dahl, Polyarchy, ch. 1; Dahl, Democracy and its Critics, 112–4, 221–2.17 Cadena-Roa and López Leyva, El malestar; Romero Ballivián, Elecciones en América Latina, ch. 3; Cameron and Jaramillo, Challenges to Democracy; Munck and Luna, Latin American Politics, ch. 5; Welp The Will of the People.18 Alconada Mon, La raíz; Durand, Odebrecht; Gargarella, La derrota del derecho; Cameron and Jaramillo, Challenges to Democracy; Llanos and Marsteintredet, Latin America; González-Ocantos et al., Prosecutors, Voters; Schwartz, Undermining the State.19 Global Witness, Decade of Defiance; CPJ, “Database”.20 Valenzuela, “Latin American Presidencies”; Llanos and Marsteintredet, Latin America, ch. 1.21 Mazzuca, “The Rise of Rentier Populism”.22 Cameron and Jaramillo, Challenges to Democracy; Llanos and Marsteintredet, Latin America.23 Freidenberg and Saavedra-Herrera, “La democracia en América Latina”. See, however, Fernández-Ramil, “Declive de la democracia”.24 O’Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, 11.25 Weber, Economy and Society, 217–6, 999, 1006, 1050, chs. 11–3. See also Eisenstadt, “Political Struggle,” 17.26 Later, in the twenty-first century, some states became more purely patrimonial (Venezuela and Nicaragua) and one moved toward the Weberian ideal (Uruguay).27 Grindle, Jobs for the Boys; Pinho and Sacramento, “Brazil”; Delgado, Injusticia, ch. 2; González-Ocantos and Oliveros, “Clientelism”; Ramos and Milanesi, “A Brief Story,” 9–10; Sánchez Talanquer, “La recesión democrática”; Cameron and Jaramillo, Challenges to Democracy; Munck and Luna, Latin American Politics, chs. 5 and 12; Panizza, Peters, and Ramos Larraburu, The Politics of Patronage.28 On this conception of causal mechanisms, see Coleman, “Social Theory”; Bunge, “Mechanism and Explanation”; Bunge, Chasing Reality, ch. 5; Craver and Darden, In Search of Mechanisms; Elster, Explaining Social Behavior; and Shan and Williamson, Evidential Pluralism.29 Alconada Mon, La raíz.30 Durand, Odebrecht; Schwartz, Undermining the State, chs. 4 and 8.31 Auyero and Sobering, The Ambivalent State; González, “Testing the Evidence”.32 González-Ocantos et al., Prosecutors, Voters.33 Delgado, Injusticia; Escobar, “How Organized Crime”.34 Romero Ballivián, Elecciones en América Latina, 185–7, 403–4, ch. 8.35 Netto, The Mechanism; González-Ocantos et al., Prosecutors, Voters.36 Olmos, Gigante de lodo; Lozoya Austin, “Statement”; Alconada Mon, La raíz, ch. 3; Durand, Odebrecht.37 Schwartz, Undermining the State, ch. 8.38 González-Ocantos and Oliveros, “Clientelism”.39 US District Court, “United States”; Durand, Odebrecht.40 Córdova and Murayama, Elecciones, dinero y corrupción; Alconada Mon, La raíz, ch. 1.41 Michener and Pereira, “A Great Leap Forward”.42 Lozoya Austin, “Statement”.43 Poder Judicial de la Nación Argentina, “Causa”; Delgado, Injusticia, 48–9.44 West, Candidate Matters, 29.45 O’Donnell, Propaganda K; Asociación por los Derechos Civiles and Open Society Justice Initiative, The Price of Silence; Casal, Estudio comparativo.46 Oliveros, Patronage at Work, ch. 7. On patronage in the central and subnational public administration in Latin America, see Dussauge-Laguna, “The Challenges”; Scherlis, “The Contours of Party Patronage”; Moya Diaz and Garrido Estrada, “Patronazgo en Chile”; Peters, Tercedor, and Ramos, The Emerald Handbook of Public Administration; and Panizza, Peters, and Ramos Larraburu, The Politics of Patronage Appointments.47 Gibson, Boundary Control: chs. 4 and 5; Giraudy, Democrats and Autocrats; Behrend and Whitehead, Illiberal Practices, chs. 4–8; Oliveros, Patronage at Work.48 Global Witness, Decade of Defiance; CPJ, “Database”.49 CELS, Latin American State.50 Schedler, “The Criminal Subversion”; Romero Ballivián, Elecciones en América Latina, ch. 3.51 Schedler, “The Criminal Subversion,” 14–5.52 Hernández-Huerta, “Candidates Murdered,” 21.53 Auyero and Sobering, The Ambivalent State; González, Authoritarian Police in Democracy; Moncada, Resisting Extortion.54 Polga-Hecimovich, “Civil – Military Relations”.55 Serra, “Vote Buying”; Casar and Ugalde, Dinero bajo la mesa, 9, 13–4, ch. 3; Romero Ballivián, Elecciones en América Latina, ch. 8.56 Delgado, Injusticia, 118.57 Alconada Mon, La raíz, ch. 12; Delgado, República de la impunidad; Gargarella, La derrota del derecho, ch. 2; Taylor, “Corruption and Anticorruption Reforms,” 109–13.58 Delgado, Injusticia, ch. 8; Gargarella, La derrota del derecho.59 Delgado, Injusticia; Nieto, Sin filias ni fobias.60 Lagunes and Svejnar, Corruption and the Lava Jato; González-Ocantos et al., Prosecutors, Voters.61 Munck and Luna, Latin American Politics, 360–3.62 González, “Testing the Evidence,” 16–8; Oliveros, Patronage at Work, 11–2; Sánchez Talanque, “La recesión democrática”.63 Holland and Schneider, “Easy and Hard Redistribution”; Yashar, Homicidal Ecologies.64 For a complementary analysis, that places the focus on the opposition, see Gamboa, Resisting Backsliding.65 Carlin et al., “Public Support”.66 Latinobarómetro, Latinobarómetro, 63–72.67 Mazzuca, “The Rise of Rentier Populism”.68 Andrews-Lee and Gamboa, “When Handpicked Successors”.69 Another common phenomenon that underscores the limits of presidential power is the tendency of vice presidents to undermine presidents. Marsteintredet, “La vicepresidencia”.70 Weyland, “How Populism Dies,” Barrenechea and Vergara, “Peru”.71 Luna et al., Diminished Parties.72 A similar interpretation was offered, in the context of the frequent changes in government in the 1990s, by O’Donnell, “Illusions about Consolidation”.73 Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, 17–9; O’Donnell, Democracy, Agency, and the State, 28, 212.74 Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” 80–2; Weber, General Economic History, 320–2.75 Weber, General Economic History, ch. 28.76 O’Donnell, “Illusions about Consolidation,” 38–9. See also Mazzuca, Latecomer State Formation, 22, 26, 41–3.Additional informationNotes on contributorsGerardo L. MunckGerardo L. Munck most recent publications are Latin American Politics and Society: A Comparative and Historical Analysis (with Juan Pablo Luna; Cambridge, 2022); Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies: Insights and Methods for Comparative Social Science (edited with David Collier; Rowman & Littlefield, 2022); and A Middle-Quality Institutional Trap: Democracy and State Capacity in Latin America (with Sebastián Mazzuca, Cambridge, 2020). He is working on a book on the development of knowledge in the field of democracy studies.