ABSTRACT
This chapter explores different approaches to the quality of democracy, a research agenda that facilitates discrimination among polyarchies on the basis of multiple normative criteria. Following this argument, our analysis focuses on four empirical dimensions of democratic quality commonly discussed in the literature: accountability, competition, participation, and Rule of Law. It tests the effect of these variables using a simultaneous-equations survival model with a sample of 18 Latin American countries between 1945 and 2010. The chapter hypothesizes that better democratic conditions help stabilize the regime in two related ways. It considers how four procedural dimensions identified by the literature influence the likelihood of democratic breakdown. The chapter expects an inverse relationship between the strength of horizontal accountability and the likelihood of democratic breakdown. It estimates the risk of democratic death using a logistic estimator with standard errors clustered by country. Horizontal accountability supports democratic stability by moderating the behaviors of both the government and the opposition.
