Content area
Full text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
Katherine Isbester (ed.), The Paradox of Democracy in Latin America: Ten Country Studies of Division and Resilience (Toronto : University of Toronto Press , 2011), pp. xv+396, $39.95, pb.
Review
This book can be read both as a general introduction to Latin American politics and as a reflection on the condition of democracy in the region. Its focus is clearly set up in a rich and nuanced conceptual discussion of democracy in the first chapter. In this chapter, the author (the book's editor, Katherine Isbester) makes two important points that frame the subsequent historical analysis of the region's political systems: (1) democracy is not just a set of procedures but a system of government with an ethical content based on the principles of freedom, equality and justice; and (2) any analysis of democracy should focus on three core components: the state, civil society and the economy. While welcome, the incorporation of moral, institutional and socio-economic dimensions to the concept of democracy risks falling into a fuzzy conceptualisation of the term. However, Isbester's definition places her within the pluralist tradition, including pluralism's moral core: she defines democracy as 'a system that disperses power through its institutions and procedures so that the domination of one person, group, or interest can be kept to a minimum' (p. 2).
The conceptual discussion in the first...