But we should not forget the the U. I have been also speaking of a social- democratic European and pragmatic Japanese approach to Latin America economic development. Yet, I believe that it is a more realistic view. The adoption by Latin American countries of a development strategy that resembles more the Japanese and the European models than the American will not be the outcome of a policy choice, but, as it is the case of United States, a condition for growth resumption, once the fiscal crisis of the state is overcome.
Presently, this crisis is being overcome and growth prospects are today brighter in Latin America than they were a few years ago. The neoliberal critique, the adoption of market-oriented reforms, 1 See, for instance, my essay in Bresser-Pereira, Maravall and Przeworski I am just suggesting that, as Latin Americans will have to rebuild its state, United States faces the same challenge.
Additionally, I would argue that, differently from the Pacific and the Caribbean Latin America, a substantial part of the Atlantic Latin America — represented by the Mercosul countries — have as many 2 possibilities of engaging in an American regional bloc as in a European one.
The adoption of market oriented reforms and of a neoliberal rhetoric in Latin America was not primarily the outcome of American trade, financial and ideological leverage, although this influence is obviously important, but the unavoidable response to the crisis of the state. When the state becomes fully unfunctional, as it happened in these countries, the local elites have no other alternative but to wildly liberalize, privatize, and deregulate, i.
In other countries, like Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil, it was possible to introduce reforms in a more ordered way. Yet, the Latin American model of capitalism will not be a repetition of Japanese or European model. The crisis of the state and the neoliberal critique will not be consequenceless.
In Latin America the changes will have to be correspondingly large. Besides assuring the macroeconomic fundamentals, the stale will have to provide large investments in education, health and infrastructure.
Industrial policy will not be oriented to the protection of inefficient industries, but to the promotion of the competitive ones at international level. In synthesis, there are severe limitations to the debate on models of capitalism. First, because the differences are more rhetoric than real; second, because anyway they will have to converge to the more efficient one, that may be near the more institutionalized Japanese-European model, but that will not be this one, giving the dynamic character of capitalism.
If there are clear limitations to the debate on the models of capitalism, the limits to the debate on models of democracy are still stricter. The suggestion of a populist democracy, a plebiscitarian democracy, and a delegated democracy, opposed to a representative or liberal democracy, and to a participative or social-democratic democracy may be attractive but creates more conceptual difficulties than offers solutions for them.
First, because the actual difference between a liberal and a participative model of democracy is minor if any. It is worthwhile to study them if the objective is to better understand Latin America. But if the objective is policy choice, they cannot be cannot be chosen, unless we view political regime choice as a means to economic growth, unless we subordinate democracy to the economic sphere, instead of regarding it as an end in itself.
In this case we could discuss if authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes are more suited to Latin American economic development than democracy. Most of Latin America already overcomes the mercantile stage of primitive accumulation, where capitalism requires authoritarian forms of surplus appropriation.
Besides, if capitalism is a institutional tool to welfare, if it is a form of economic organization whose legitimization depends on how effective it is in promoting growth and income distribution, democracy is not a means to economic objectives, but to political objectives: freedom and peace.
If in the case of capitalism nations are supposed to choose the more efficient model, the one that better assures growth and income distribution, in the case of democracy, the problem is to choose the model that better assures freedom and peace. If, in the first case, nations have little real choice, since competition will constrain them to adopt the superior model, in the second case they have still less choice possibilities, since the inner demand for freedom and peace impose a continuous improvement of democracy.
There are clear relations between capitalism and democracy, but no trade-off between them is legitimate. As market coordination is a form of solving economic conflicts, democracy is a form of solving political conflicts. In contemporary society they are mutually dependent. The choice of alternative capitalist models may be a interesting debate, although the effective choices are limited. The choice of democratic models makes no sense, since it would require that we accept trade-offs between two institutions — capitalism and democracy — that are oriented to different and final goals: growth and distribution on one side, freedom and peace on the other.
Bresser-Pereira, J. Download Free PDF. Dipty Subba. Jooyoung Min. Georg Lohmann. A short summary of this paper. In turn, democracy provides the natural environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights. These values are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and further developed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which enshrines a host of political rights and civil liberties underpinning meaningful democracies.
For several years, the UN General Assembly and the former Commission on Human Rights endeavored to draw on international human rights instruments to promote a common understanding of the principles, norms, standards and values that are the basis of democracy, with a view to guiding Member States in developing domestic democratic traditions and institutions; and in meeting their commitments to human rights, democracy and development.
This led to the articulation of several landmark resolutions of the former Commission on Human Rights. Supporting national democratization processes Democracy deficits and weak institutions are among the main challenges to the effective realization of human rights.
OHCHR seeks to address these challenges through its advisory services and technical cooperation programme, which focus on strengthening the legal framework for human rights protection institutional and legal reform ; capacity building; empowering vulnerable and disadvantaged segments of the society; advocacy, awareness raising and human rights education.
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