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Discusses constituent processes and distribution of power, focusing on the reform of presidentialism in Argentina; examines constraints that the 1994 constitutional reform placed on the existing structure of presidential powers. Summary in English p. 7.

Este ensayo presenta una revisión crítica de la llamada teoría "decisionista" de Carl Schmitt tal como fuera expuesta en sus principales trabajos políticos durante el periodo de Weimar. El autor argumenta que el decisionismo de Schmitt no es, como frecuentemente se ha afirmado, una simple variante del voluntarismo ético asociado a filosofías morales existencialistas y positivistas. Decisionismo es en cambio una particular doctrina política que sostiene que el Estado es la fuente absoluta de toda decisión legal y moral en la vida política. Desde esta perspectiva, el autor demuestra que el decisionismo de Schmitt es una doctrina puramente negativa, fundada en la negación simétrica de todos y cada uno de los valores políticos del liberalismo.

From Carl Schmitt's earliest works during the years of the Weimar Republic in Germany, he utilized the concept of decisionism io refer to a political viewpoint contrasted with romanticism or normative thought. In decisionism, legal rights depended on a political decision by the party in power, not norms. This was not to imply that norms & values were absent from political life, but rather, that they were not used as referents in decisions about option visions of the world. Schmitt's decisionism has been treated as a positivist dogma & an ethical philosophy, along the lines of existentialism. It is argued that it should not be treated as a variant of ethical relativism or ethical voluntarism. Schmitt gave the power of all moral & legal decisions in political life to the sovereign authority. In this sense, decisionism can be better characterized as a system negating all the political values supported by liberalism. 30 References. Adapted from the source document.

Este ensayo presenta una revisión crítica de la llamada teoría "decisionista" de Carl Schmitt tal como fuera expuesta en sus principales trabajos políticos durante el periodo de Weimar. El autor argumenta que el decisionismo de Schmitt no es, como frecuentemente se ha afirmado, una simple variante del voluntarismo ético asociado a filosofías morales existencialistas y positivistas. Decisionismo es en cambio una particular doctrina política que sostiene que el Estado es la fuente absoluta de toda decisión legal y moral en la vida política. Desde esta perspectiva, el autor demuestra que el decisionismo de Schmitt es una doctrina puramente negativa, fundada en la negación simétrica de todos y cada uno de los valores políticos del liberalismo.

Vor dem Hintergrund der These Immanuel Kants, daß internationaler Frieden erreichbar ist durch den Bund der diesem Ziel verpflichteten Staaten, wird der Charakter zeitgenössischer Systeme kollektiver Sicherheit diskutiert. Dabei wird argumentiert, daß das gegenwärtige Konzept kollektiver Sicherheit nicht nur die Schaffung eines funktionierenden internationalen Sicherheitssystems behindert, sondern auch zu dem Ideal internationalen Friedens in Widerspruch gerät. Insofern müssen auch die Vereinten Nationen ihr Konzept kollektiver Sicherheit überprüfen. (AuD-Hng)

Normatively, democratic constitutions should express how citizens want to govern themselves collectively. Little is known, however, about how citizens' constitutional preferences can be elicited and aggregated in practice. An intuitively appealing approach is to allow various forms of popular participation during a constitution-making process, including a popular vote to accept or reject the draft constitution (Fishkin 2011). Based on the Chilean experience with democratic constitution making, this article identifies unanticipated and previously unexplored distortions that can lead to incongruence between the preferences of voters and representatives regarding the extent and direction of constitutional change.

Prior studies have shown that electoral rules fail to determine the number of parties in new democracies due to the uncertainty of voters and politicians about which parties are viable. Latin American democracies, where electoral volatility has generally remained high and party institutionalization low, have been a primary example of this phenomenon. We argue that even in shifting political environments the fragmentation of the party system is likely to become consistent with the permissiveness of electoral rules and the level of social diversity as voters and party leaders accumulate experience with elections and the rate of electoral regime change declines. We find support for these propositions analyzing an original dataset on Latin American democratic elections. This article contributes to research on electoral systems and political parties by identifying the conditions under which equilibrium electoral outcomes can be expected after a transition to democracy in unstable institutional settings.

AbstractThe adoption of proportional representation in Western Europe has been portrayed as either a defensive or an offensive competition strategy used by established parties to deal with the rise of new parties under majoritarian electoral rules. Neither explanation accounts for PR reform in other regions of the world, where the change took place in the absence of increased party competition. Analyzing the history of electoral reform in Latin America, this article argues that in a context of limited party competition, the initial adoption of PR was part of a strategy of controlled political liberalization promoted by authoritarian rulers. Subdividing this general reasoning, the article shows that PR reform followed different paths depending on the nature of the authoritarian regime and the events that called into question the existing majoritarian electoral system. This argument is supported with a comparative historical analysis of cases within and across each route to reform.