Democracy in Latin America: Miles Traveled and Miles to Go - Brookings Institution

A detailed look at public opinion in Latin America regarding democracy, its basis, value and stability. We have excerpted only a couple of the analysis' observations. 

Democracy in Latin America: Miles Traveled and Miles to Go - Brookings Institution: "Just a few weeks ago, the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), based at Vanderbilt University, released the Americas Barometer 2010. Published every two years since 2002, LAPOP’s survey is the most comprehensive effort to probe political, economic and social attitudes throughout the Western Hemisphere....

First, for all the democratic progress, the survey detects that only 29% of the population in the Americas is in the comfort zone where stable democracies thrive, i.e. a situation defined by high levels of support for the political system and high levels of political tolerance. Conversely, a far from insignificant 22% of the population manifests the combination of low support for the system and low political tolerance that makes democracies live dangerously. The rest of the population is somewhere in the middle, displaying deficits in either of the two dimensions. What this means is that approximately 200 million people in the Americas are hostile to the democratic institutions they have or to the basic mores that make them function properly.

Even this very serious finding may not convey the whole extent of the problem. For it is indeed very likely that the opinions of the latter group are far more intensely held than those of the former group. At the very least these numbers suggest the existence of a goldmine for the demagogues and populists that are an unfortunate part of the political landscape in societies defined by high inequality and outrageous levels of violence, such as those in Latin America. ...

What this survey seems to be saying is that citizens in Latin America support the political system and feel represented by it to the extent that they perceive that the president and the government deliver tangible benefits to them.

This is risky. When parties and congresses are endowed with greater legitimacy, democratic systems have an extra layer of protection against the reversals of fortune of governments and presidents. The citizens’ demand for representation and accountability as well as their expectations about the functioning of the political system are shared by a broader range of political actors, in a way that makes the system more resilient to the faults and shortcomings of any one of them. This is obviously better for the sake of democratic stability."