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The Southern European Examples of Democratization: Six Lessons for Latin America*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Arend Lijphart
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Extract

The Return to Democracy of Spain, Portugal, and Greece in the 1970s is an encouraging and inspiring example to democrats everywhere — but especially to Latin American demccrats because of their region's close historical and cultural ties with two of the Southern European countries. However, apart from the general feeling of optimism that the Southern European experience legitimately engenders, are there any specific lessons and lessons specifically relevant to Latin America that can be learned from it? In this article, I shall suggest six such lessons. Some of these are positive lessons — examples to be followed, such as choosing a form of democracy that is suitable to a country's size and to its political and social divisions; others are negative ' examples to be avoided, such as Portugal's and Greece's experimentation with a presidential form of government. Some lessons are based on common characteristics of the new Southern European democracies; others concern traits on which they differ.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1990 , pp. 68 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1990

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References

1 Arend Lijphart, Thomas C. Bruneau, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, and Richard Gunther, ‘A Mediterranean Model of Democracy? The Southern European Democracies in Comparative Perspective’, West European Politics, 11, 1, January 1988, pp. 7–25.

2 Lijphart, Arend, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1984.Google Scholar

3 One of the reasons for Austria’s high majoritarian score is that the country was governed from 1949 to 1966 by a ‘grand coalition’ of the large Socialist and People’s Parties, neither of which had a majority in parliament. Technically, therefore, this coalition had to be classified as a highly majoritarian ‘minimum winning coalition’ (or bare-majority coalition) in spite of the fact that together these parties enjoyed overwhelming parliamentary support. If the minimum-winning criterion could be relaxed so as to allow the Austrian grand coalition to be classified as an inclusive ‘oversized’ coalition government, Austria would move down one cell in Figure 1.

4 Rae, Douglas W., The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1967, p. 74.Google Scholar

5 Matthew S. Shugart, ‘Duverger’s Rule and Presidentialism: The Effects of the Timing of Elections’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 1988.

6 For an excellent and much more extensive analysis, see Juan J. Linz, ‘Democracy, Presidential or Parliamentary: Does It Make a Difference?’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1987.

7 Guillermo O’Donnell, ‘Introduction to the Latin American Cases’, in O’Donnell, Guillermo, Schmitter, Philippe C., and Whitehead, Laurence (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, vol. 2, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

8 See Riggs, Fred W., ‘The Survival of Presidentialism in America: Para-Constitutional Practices’, International Political Science Review, 9, 4, October 1988, pp. 247–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Kantor, Harry, ‘Efforts Made by Various Latin American Countries to Limit the Power of the President’, in DiBacco, Thomas V. (ed.), Presidential Power in Latin American Politics, New York, Praeger, 1977, pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

10 See Mainwaring, Scott, ‘Presidentialism in Latin America: A Review Essay’, Latin American Research Review, forthcoming, 1990.Google Scholar

11 Elazar, Daniel J., ‘Arrangements for Self-Rule and Autonomy in Various Countries of the World: A Preliminary Inventory’, in Elazar, Daniel J. (ed.), Federalism and Political Integration, Lanham, Maryland, University Press of America, 1984, pp. 230–31.Google Scholar

12 Arthur Lewis, W., Politics in West Africa, London, Allen & Unwin, 1965, p. 55.Google Scholar

13 von Beyme, Klaus, America as a Model: The Impact of American Democracy in the World, New York, St Martin’s Press, 1987, p. 76 (italics omitted).Google Scholar

14 Cited in von Beyme, America as a Model, op. cit., p. 85.

15 See Wheare, K. C., Federal Government, 4th ed., New York, Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 53–74.Google Scholar

16 Von Beyme, America m a Model, op. cit., p. 85.

17 Guillermo O’Donnell, ‘Introduction to the Latin American Cases’, op. cit., p. 14.

18 ibid., p. 11.

19 Philippe C. Schmitter, ‘An Introduction to Southern European Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey’, in O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 4–5.

20 ibid., p. 9.

21 O’Donnell, ‘Introduction to the Latin American Cases’, op. cit., p. 11