Populism In Latin America

The democratic evolution in Latin America is captivating when learning its struggle to strengthen democracy. Thus, it is important to talk about threats democracy faces such as populism in Latin America to prevent it from destroying years of institutional framework democracy has already created. Latin America was beginning to implement democracy in all its regions and now it is struggling to ensure that democratic rule deepens, when it should be discovering ways to further reinforce the system. The most widespread wave of democratization that Latin America has experienced in its history first occurred at the end of the Cold War. About two decades later, concerns about corruption, low levels of participation in election, and institutional designs

Populism has proven to be far more resilient and adaptable than ever imagined. Just like democracy, populism is not limited to one definition. This allows scholars to interpret the core aspects and facilitate a comparative analysis between different ideologies. It has been established for populist leaders, that populism represents something personal. It is their control on institutions and tendencies to overlook the rule of law, but populism is much more than that. Populism relies heavily on nationalism and personality, often described as charismatic. Leaders make special appeals such as higher wages to urban workers and labor unions that will benefit from these appeals. These leaders use growing economic interventionism to boost their power, invoke nationalism as a shield against foreign democracy promotion, and act as a coordinated group in suffocating democracy. This paper will describe populism as a method of exerting state power through a set of liberal ideas, and focus on democracy’s institutional framework instead of its effect on social justice from the 1950s to modern day. It will answer, based on evidence and research, if populism is weakening the democracy in Latin America, by studying the quality of populism in Latin America and using empirical

Are the leaders’ personalities to blame or is it the weak institution at fault for the downfall in democracy? My theory is that populist leaders are the proximate cause that destroys the balance of institutions and diminish democratic law. They first establish predominance; and then control all branches of government, and diminishing the check and balances of their country. In addition, using case studies such as in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia will help unfold an even greater understanding of populism in these countries and show the similarities and differences among the regions. Some case studies will show how it can also lead to authoritarian leaders. Populism makes the people dependent on leaders instead of institutions. However, keep in mind that the stronger the institutions, the greater the limits to populism. By extending an existing argument among scholars I will use data to show a significance correlation and it will become evident that populist leaders hinder the democratic rule. Using the Chi square test, I will obtain data (polity data) to measure democracy and use nominal measurements to observe whether a populist leader was present when democracy either increased or decreased in some countries in Latin America. It will show a significant correlation with democracy and populist leaders. This will prove that as populism increases throughout different