Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy

Abstract

In this paper, Ernesto Aranibar, demonstrates that in Latin America traditional  heterogeneity within countries has been followed by staggering growth of economic  differences between countries. This process ran parallel to the third democratic wave through which an almost universal homogeneity in procedural democratic political systems in Latin American countries was reached. Notwithstanding the democratic reforms, the shortfalls in governance delivery with the backdrop of massive poverty and very high inequality and violence has contributed to the creation in Latin American countries of a new within-countries political heterogeneity in which pre-modern, modern and sophisticated political realities come face to face with political systems in which political parties, showing high polarization, volatility and weak institutionalization, are severely criticized by public opinion. The article suggests new possibilities for political parties faced with this situation including a political countercyclical focus that implies a new role, tools and challenges for them.

About the author

Ernesto Aranibar is currently Coordinator of Agora Democrática, the joint NIMD-IDEA program in Ecuador. He is a Bolivian economist with studies in Santiago, Chile and Louvain, Belgium. He has been Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Bolivia to the United Nations in New York, Minister of Planning and Coordination and Minister of Finance for the constitutional government of Bolivia. He was Representative in Peru and Secretary of the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) in Caracas, Senior Advisor for Planning and Evaluation for the UNICEF Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Bogotá. He was professor at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz, at the center of Superior Studies of the Universidad Mayor de San Simón in Cochabamba, and at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Sucre, Bolivia. He was Executive Director of the Federation of Private Entrepreneurs in Cochabamba. He has been a consultant for several international organizations. He is author of a book – Crecimiento Económico y Procesos Políticos- as well as papers and articles.