The quality of democracy and violence in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

Latin American representative democracies have suffered attacks that have been undermining their structures and provoking democratic deficits. Corruption scandals involving political and business elites, the inability to renew political parties, popular demands for a direct relationship with their leadership, frustration derived from political crises and the lack of basic public services have provoked numerous mobilizations and protests in different countries such as Chile, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, among others. Methodological approaches that seek to measure the quality of democracies lack criteria that take into account militarization, securitization and militarism.  Researching the quality of democracy in Latin America requires an understanding of the forms of violence manifested through militarism and the process of securitization and militarization, which are reflected, for example, in the use of the Armed Forces as a saving force or praetorian guard of elected autocrats.