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The following two chapters provide six illustrative case studies that examine the causal relationship between regional organizations and democratization. The statistical evidence presented in Chapter 4 provides substantial confirmation of the hypothesis that regional IOs are associated statistically with democratic transitions. Yet, the macro-oriented nature of those tests makes it difficult to identify the particular causal processes behind the correlations in the data. These case studies will help to tease out the exact nature of the link between regional IOs and democratic transitions. Turning to the cases in this chapter, Hungary and Peru are categorized as a success and partial success as a result of their respective status democracies. Both provide evidence that regional institutions can play a role in both the initial movement to democracy (liberalization in Peru) and the completion of democratic transitions (Hungary). The third case study in this chapter, Turkey, illustrates the effectiveness of several European organizations at encouraging redemocratization, but also points to the failure of those organizations in assisting in the consolidation of democracy. Chapter 7 presents studies of how regional organizations have enhanced the prospects for democracy's survival in Greece, Paraguay, and Guatemala. Again, Turkey is a key case providing evidence against these propositions concerning consolidation, although I place Turkey with the transition studies. Case selection Before moving into the case studies, I discuss the criteria used to select cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapter, three cases are treated collectively and systematically in order to emphasize similarities and contrasts among them. The most obvious similarity is the minuscule size of the indigenous population, which in each country lies somewhere between 1 and 3 percent of the total. These indigenous populations are internally heterogeneous and widely dispersed. Most Indians live in mono-ethnic indigenous communities located far from the capital city and many are pressed to the frontiers of national boundaries. Indigenous social movement organizations independent of state tutelage formed in all three countries in the early 1970s and linked themselves to the transnational indigenous rights network that emerged at the end of that decade. The political contexts also share similarities, most importantly a tendency toward decentralization in the 1990s. All three societies are primarily urban and industrialized, but are encircled by a more traditional, conservative landowning class. It is the key contrasts between Colombia and Venezuela, on the one hand, and Argentina, on the other, that explain the variation in the propensity of successful ethnic parties to form in each country. In Colombia and Venezuela indigenous movements were relatively united and institutionalized prior to the opportunity for major constitutional reform. In both cases, indigenous peoples' organizations participated directly and successfully in those reforms, producing two of the most progressive régimes of ethnic constitutional rights in the region. In both countries, these rights included reserved seats for indigenous candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many ways the Peruvian case resembles that of Ecuador or Bolivia. The three countries share the history and culture of the central Andes, a proportionally large indigenous population, a militant political left that declined in strength in the early 1990s, and a historically fragmented party system. However, no viable ethnic party emerged in Peru to represent the politically excluded indigenous population. The main reason for this absence is that Peru's indigenous movement lacked the resources to take advantage of a relatively open institutional and political environment. A national organization that could plausibly claim to represent Peru's indigenous population did not form until 1998, and this has yet to consolidate itself as a permanent institution. Prior to that time, Peru's indigenous people were unable to form a single, unified organizational structure to represent its demands before the state. Not only has the movement been severely divided by region, with separate movements emerging in the Amazon and highlands, even within regions rival organizations struggle for dominance. Although indigenous communities bear some of the responsibility for this failure, we can also blame the undemocratic context of the 1990s, when President Alberto Fujimori severely restricted the sphere of action for all social movements at a time when indigenous mobilizations had far greater political space in Ecuador and Bolivia. He was able to do so primarily because of the threat of terrorism from the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) guerrillas, which enabled Fujimori to label all oppositional activity as terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]