ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses whether it is possible to have a high-quality democracy in a very unequal society. The empirical focus will be on South America. All the polities in this region are democratic, but these democracies vary substantially in terms of their quality. A polity will be called democratic if and when it satisfies, to a substantial extent, three basic criteria: inclusiveness, competitiveness, and institutionalization of basic civil and political rights. Basic civil rights and political ones are institutionalized when they can be effectively exercised by the broadest possible proportion of citizens. A republican democracy is based on the separation of powers, in the case of presidentialism, or on the subordination of the executive to the Parliament, in the case of parliamentarism. A plebiscitarian democracy, on the contrary, is a regime in which the executive controls the Parliament and the judiciary.