Democracy
Fall 2002 | Volume I, Number 2
Table of Contents
Editor’s Letter →
by June Carolyn Erlick
Building Institutions
Legislatures and Political Accountability
In March 2000, while researching legislatures in several Latin American countries, I found myself in Caracas. This promised to be a quiet stop given that Venezuela was, at the time, without a real…
HACIA Democracy Social Justice and Democracy in Latin America
As I walked around the Harvard campus on a characteristically cold slushy day in February 1996, I spotted several bright posters with slanted palm trees, inviting students interested in Latin…
Corruption and Democracy
Despite more than ten years of democratic systems in Latin America, why is it that corruption hasn’t decreased in the region? In Peru, videotapes filmed at the National Intelligence…
Children and Democracy
Children and youth are citizens. It’s important to keep that fact in mind, and to understand that political participation in a democratic society involves much more than voting. In our work we…
Education for Democracy
The breakdown of some democratic regimes in Latin America in the 1970s challenged the widespread belief of many in the region that with education came democracy. This perceived…
Constitutional Reform
You say you’ll change the constitution,” Beatle John Lennon once wrote. Latin American countries have long been singing this same tune, often blaming their presidential constitutions…
Comings and Goings
Battro Named to Pontifical Academy
Antonio M. Battro M.D., Ph.D. has been named to The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the oldest science academy in the world, established by Galileo 400 years ago. Battro, Robert F. Kennedy…
Harvard Study Abroad
The face of study abroad at Harvard is changing. Last May, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) adopted a new study out of residence policy. The administration now views study abroad itself…
Country Spotlights
Civic Pride
A passion for planting trees awoke in me,” Don Juan Morales explained to me next to his numerous wood-burning kilns. I had asked him why he had become a member of the…
Central America’s Citizens
English + Español
When auto mechanic Pedro Pirir got fired from the repair shop where he’d worked for years, his reaction of outrage and shame made him want to complain to the authorities. He’d heard his…
Deciphering Venezuela
Venezuela, often described as the region’s most stable and successful democracy, is now in a political quagmire testing the endurance and stability of its system. What have been the forces…
Gender and Democracy
Entre los panales y el poder
Cuando Jacqueline van Rysselberghe fue informada en Noviembre último que ella debería dejar su puesto como alcaldesa de Concepción, una de las ciudades mas grandes e…
Between Pacifiers and Power
When Jacqueline van Rysselberghe was informed last November that she would have to leave her post as mayor of Concepción, one of Chile’s largest and most important cities, she fought…
Gender, Sexuality and Democracy
The post-dictatorial cultural transformations of Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay bring to the fore gender and sexuality as critical to discussion and reflection on the development of democracy…
Thinking on Democracy
A Look at the International Environment
The creation, consolidation, and improvement of democratic institutions do not happen automatically. Democracy (however it is defined) requires both favorable conditions and a certain…
Fitzgibbon Survey: Measuring Democracy
As election observers in Asunción, we spent our spare time debating about how we would construct a better government in Paraguay, if given the opportunity. As we rode from interview…
Democracy in Latin America
Democratic institutions are facing stress throughout Latin America and experiencing serious challenges in some countries. The public has had little confidence in political parties and…
Democracy and the Military
One of the most dramatic developments in Latin America today is the unprecedented shift in the nature of politics since the late 1970s. At no time in the history of the Latin American republics…
Democracy and the City
We humans have the capacity to conceptualize ideas and elaborate thoughts, as well as to construct and fabricate both material and immaterial outcomes, based on those ideas and…