Demokratikleşme ve demokrasinin pekişmesinde yerel siyasetin rolü: Latin Amerika'dan örneklerin incelemesi

Latin American countries have had relatively more stable electoral democracies in the post-cold war period. Yet, these political systems face important challenges in governments’ responsiveness to social demands, accountability to voters and public institutions, and the political representation of different groups in the society. Particularly in the recent years some countries have experienced backsliding in their electoral democracies or faced social uprisings against their political systems. Strengthening the local governments and local politics is sometimes posed as a solution to these problems. In this study we focus on the cases of Mexico, Chile, and Venezuela to explore how local government institutions and local politics affect electoral competition, representation of different groups, and governments’ accountability and responsiveness to social demands. We observe that democratic improvements are limited in contexts where local governments control limited resources themselves, hence depend on the central government and where there are inequalities among the local governments in terms of resources and opportunities. Yet, even in those limited settings, local governments open up new and alternative space for the opposition that is excluded from the central government.