Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America [With CDROM]

When Americans and Latin Americans talk about democracy, are they imagining the same thing? For years, researchers have suspected that fundamental differences exist between how North Americans view and appraise the concept of democracy and how Latin Americans view the same term. These differences directly affect the evolution of democratization and political liberalization in the countries of the region, and understanding them has tremendous consequences for U.S.-Latin American relations. But until now there has been no hard data to make the definition of democracy visible, and thus able to be interpreted. This book, the culmination of a monumental survey project, is the first attempt to do so. Camp headed a research team that in 1998 surveyed 1,200 citizens in three countries - three distinct cases of democratic transition. Costa Rica is alleged to be the most democratic in Latin America; Mexico is a country in transition toward democracy; Chile is returning to democracy after decades of severe repression. The survey was carefully designed to show how the average citizen in each of these nations understands democracy. In Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America, ten leading s