Democratization in Latin America: Citizenship, institutions and rule of law

The course departs from the notion that Latin America, during the 20th century, experienced two waves of democratization. A main theme of study are the reasons as to why different countries took alternative roads to democracy. The main focus here is dedicated to those processes of democratization which were initiated in the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as a number of deficiencies in these processes with regards to the institutional structure of the state and the defense of citizenship rights. Moreover, the course discusses innovative reforms enacted recently in various countries in order to create and strengthen local forms of participatory democracy.