Mainwaring Briefs State Department on Latin American Democracy
Kellogg Institute Director Scott Mainwaring shared his expertise on the ebb and flow of democracy in Latin America with the State Department during a Washington DC roundtable, “Prospects for Democracy in Latin America to 2015.”
With nine other experts on the region, he made presentations during a daylong event designed to give State Department staffers a nuanced picture of trends in the region.
“There has been stunning stability, regardless of regime type, over nearly a decade,” he said. The likely tendency is continuing stability—for both good and bad.” The few countries that have been had high quality democracies for the past decade appear likely to stay highly democratic while few of the lower quality regimes exhibit the capacity to significantly deepen democracy, he explained.
The conference provided a state-of-the-art picture of the advances and challenges in democratization in Latin America.
Organized by Larry Diamond, who directs the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, the May 14 event was sponsored by the State Department and the National Intelligence Council.
Commensurate with the Kellogg Institute’s decades-long focus on the study of democratization in Latin America, more than half of the presenters have been visiting fellows at the Kellogg Institute. They included Gretchen Helmke, Miriam Kornblith, Steven Levitsky, Gerardo Munck, and Mitchell Seligson.
Mainwaring, the Eugene P. and Helen Conley Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, is an expert on democratization, especially in Latin America. His research interests include democratic institutions and democratization and political parties.
