In Venezuela, Honduras, Egypt, and—most recently—Turkey, the armed forces have pointed to violations of the constitution by sitting, elected presidents as the justification for a coup. But are coups ever constitutional?
Civil society organizations thrive in healthy democracies, but their role as watchdogs of governments and “gap-fillers” providing where the government is absent, tends to make those in power uncomfortable. In the following piece, we explore how Latin America fares compared to other countries in terms of barriers to civil society.
President Nicolás Maduro shocked Venezuela this week when he announced he was giving exceptional powers to his Defense Minister, General Vladimir Padrino López. Was this a palace-coup by the military against a rudderless, discredited Maduro government?
Richard Millet, Jennifer Holmes and Orlando Perez, eds. Latin American Democracy: Emerging Reality or Endangered Species? 2nd edition. New York: Routledge, 2015. This volume provides an in depth
Jorge Dominguez and Rafael Fernandez de Castro, eds. Contemporary US-Latin American Relations: Cooperation or Conflict in the 21 Century?, 2nd edition. New York: Routledge, 2016. This work
Schenoni, Luis, and Carlos Escudé (2016) “Peripheral Realism Revisited” The authors empirically test one of the few native Latin American theories of international relations.
When Venezuelans elected Hugo Chavez president in 1998 they wanted a revolution. Instead, what they got was the 1970s and all its social, economic and political ills all over again, but this time on steroids.
When measuring corruption, the differences between two studies highlight that international perceptions of corruption do not always line up with on-the-ground experiences. While many may focus on the scandal-making headlines and business climate, surveys reveal the petty corruption afflicting the daily lives of citizens. They’re not the same.
Did I miss something? No collective call for dialogue, not even a meeting wrap up by the Ambassador from Argentina. Just a call for lunch. Does that make the whole endeavor of convening the Permanent Council to discuss Venezuela a bust? Hardly.
Este jueves, a pedido de Almagro, se considerará en la OEA la activación de la Carta Democrática Interamericana contra Venezuela. Si bien es probable que la region no apruebe que hubo una alteración del orden constitucional en este país, el mero acto de debatir la situación aumentará la presión para que Maduro acepte el referéndum revocatorio.
