Suchergebnisse

Pese a la creciente literatura sobre la calidad de la democracia, el tema aún no es un robusto programa de investigación, anclado en la teoría comparada de la democracia. Un paso importante en tal sentido es reconocer que se trata de un concepto derivado de un objeto original, al que califica un concepto de democracia claramente especificado. Sin embargo, el estudio de la calidad de la democracia implica ampliar nuestra comprensión sobre la democracia, pues requiere incluir aspectos que van más allá de su definición procedimental como régimen político. Sobre estas premisas, el artículo esboza las relaciones entre democracia, calidad de la democracia y democratización y, aplica esta propuesta teórica a la suscinta evaluación de los sistemas políticos de Centroamérica. ; A growing body of literature on the quality of democracy has emerged in the past two decades. However, if this approach holds any promise, much work remains to be done. The conceptual links between democracy and quality of democracy, as well as between the latter and democratization, need to be carefully specified. The quality of democracy is a derivate concept that should be tightly woven to its root: a theoretically and empirically grounded concept of democracy. However, not any concept of democracy will do. I argue that the quality of democracy approach implies broadening up our understanding of democracy to include issues beyond its procedural definition as a political regime. The article applies this analytical framework to the study of Central American political systems.

In this article, we present measures of democratic governance to give a sense of how Latin American countries have fared since the early 1990s. The rest of the book discusses reasons for success and failure in democratic governance, but first it is necessary to provide a descriptive map of which countries have been more or less successful on which dimensions of democratic governance. óur evaluation is concerned with the extent to which democracies enhance citizen well-being and protect citizen rights. We provide an empirical mapping of how Latin American countries have fared since the early 1990s on a wide array of governance issues that are infrequently brought together to provide a medium time perspective. In addition to providing this descriptive map, we hope to stimulate thinking about how to conceptualize and measure democratic governance. the closest existing measures are of effective governance in general (e.g., Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) rather than specifically democratic governance, and of the quality of democracy based on its procedural ideals (diamond and Morlino 2005; Levine and Molina 2006). Our enterprise is different, and we believe it merits an effort to create a systematic approach to measurement. ; En este artículo introducimos las medidas de la gobernanza democrática, para así analizar cómo los países latinoamericanos se han desenvuelto desde los inicios de los años 90. El resto del libro Democratic Governance in Latin America, discute las razones para el éxito y fracaso en la gobernanza democrática, pero primero es necesario proveer un mapa descriptivo de los países que han tenido mayor o menor éxito en las diferentes dimensiones de la gobernanza democrática. Nuestra evaluación está enfocada en la medida en que las democracias mejoran el bienestar ciudadano y protegen los derechos de los mismos. Así, proveemos un mapeo empírico de la manera cómo los países latinoamericanos se han desempeñado en varios temas de gobernanza, los cuales en conjunto permiten establecer una perspectiva a mediano plazo. Adicionalmente, queremos promover la discusión sobre la forma cómo debería conceptualizarse y medir la gobernanza democrática. Las medidas existentes hacen referencia a la gobernanza en general (e.g., Kaufmann, Kraay, and mastruzzi 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) en lugar de basarse en la gobernanza democrática en particular y en la calidad de la democracia basada en los ideales de procedimiento (diamond y morlino 2005; Levine y molina 2006). Nuestra iniciativa es diferente y creemos que responde al esfuerzo de crear un acercamiento sistemático para la medición.

Human development, human rights, and democracy / Guillermo O'Donnell -- Democracy and the quality of democracy : empirical findings and methodological and theoretical issues drawn from the citizen audit of the quality of democracy in Costa Rica / Jorge Vargas Cullell -- In search of a new paradigm : quality of democracy and human development in Latin America / Gabriela Ippolito -- Notes on human development, human rights, and auditing the quality of democracy / Laurence Whitehead -- Latin America : virtuous or perverse cycle / Terry Lynn Karl -- Fundamental rights as a limitation to the democratic principle of majority will / Juan E. Méndez -- On the imaginary of citizenry / Norbert Lechner -- State, democracy, and social rights / María Hermínia Tavares de Almeida -- Deepening civil and social rights / Catherine M. Conaghan -- Unfinished business for Latin America's democracies / Osvaldo M. Iazzetta -- Quality of democracy or quality of politics? / Manuel Alcántara Sáez -- Quality of democracy and its measurement / Michael Coppedge -- Democratic quality : costs and benefits of the concepts / Sebastián L. Mazzuca -- Conceptual and methodological notes on the quality of democracy and its audit / Gerardo L. Munck