How democracies die in Latin America? Challenges and strategies for redemocratization and compliance with the Rule of Law

Abstract

Levistsky recently asked: ¿How democracies die? In his dissertation, he points out that democracies used to die at the hands of military and dictatorial regimes, but today the tactics for their decline have transmuted: they collapse in a more "subtle" way. Hence the following questions arises: ¿How democracies die in Latin America? What are the factors that determine that democracy is collapsing in the region? How can the law help democracies "survive"? Based on these questions, this research reflects —considering some analytical categories of critical studies—, on what are the main “existential challenges” of democracy and how it is articulated a legal strategy that attempts to restrict antidemocratic advances in the región. An alternative is proposed to achieve the redemocratization of Latin American countries and, therefore, the paradigm of the Democratic Rule of Law is fulfilled. Currently, arbitrariness persists in the region under sophisticated and encrypted anti-democratic forms, therefore it is important to reveal and counteract those currents that threaten democratic advances and the postulates of protection of people's dignity: human rights.