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This paper examines the incidence of liberal and "illiberal" democracy in Latin America from 1978 through 2004. It demonstrates, first, that illiberal democracy - which combines free and fair elections with systematic constraints on civil liberties - has become the norm throughout the region. Second, it shows that regime transitions have most often ended not in liberal democracy, but in illiberal democracy. Third, rare events logit analysis reveals that three variables - hyperinflation, general strikes, and presidential elections - have had significant impact on transitions toward fuller democracy. As a form of short-term economic shock, hyperinflation generates widespread discontent which sometimes results in general strikes; given the opportunity to vote, citizens elect reformist opposition candidates who, once in office, remove controls on civil liberties. This scenario substantially increases the likelihood of transition from illiberal to liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the context, causes, and consequences of mistrust of politicians in Latin America's current democratic era. In terms of context, we demonstrate that the very low trust in politicians in Latin America is merely one aspect of a syndrome of low trust across the board. In terms of causes of mistrust, we review three prominent features of democratic development over the past 15 years: poor economic performance affecting most new democracies in the region, corruption scandals, and the instrumental use of political institutions by incumbents. In terms of consequences, we examine the weak and uneven support for democracy across the region that appears to be causally related to mistrust of politicians. However, we avoid alarmism by arguing that these findings must be contextualized in light of the multidimensional low-trust syndrome of Latin America discussed above. Moreover, the reservoir of authoritarian attitudes is fragmentary and is rarely expressed coherently in political action. And finally, research on both advanced and emerging democracries has recently demonstrated that citizens are increasingly willing to separate their evaluations of incumbents (often negative) from their evaluation of democracy as a regume type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the recent analysis of presidentialism has been based on the assumption that executive-legislative confrontation creates simultaneous conditions for policy stability and regime breakdown. In the first section of the paper, I show that there is an inherent logical tension between these two predictions and that they rely on contradictory assumptions. In the second section, I develop a model of executive-legislative deadlock and argue that regime instability is more likely when partisan players are unilaterally impatient, when institutional design is biased in favor of one party, and when the number of parties is greater. In the third section, I test the predictions of the model using time-series cross-section data for 19 presidential countries in the Western Hemisphere between 1950 and 2000. Finally, I discuss how this approach illuminates some empirical puzzles like the historical survival of American presidentialism and the lower levels of regime instability created by executive-legislative deadlock in Latin America in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]