Laurence Whitehead is senior research fellow in politics at Nuffield College, Oxford University. His books include Latin America: A New Interpretation (2006).
Democracies rarely begin with a blank slate. Relics of authoritarian rule typically persist after democratic transitions, and these vestiges are not always harmful to people’s newfound freedom.
Since their transitions, the democracies of the “third wave” have followed a range of trajectories beyond simple survival or breakdown. Many have stagnated at low levels of democracy and some…
