Inclusion/exclusion. the dynanics of Latin American democracies in the XXI century

Inclusion-Exclusion. The dynamics of Latin American Democracies.

Abstract The goal of this paper is to offer a  model of inclutionary-exclutionary paths of democratic development, where electoral participation ( the percentage of registered voters) has a significant effect in a) the design and goals of distributive policies, b) the efficacy of theses policies). A set of important secondary issues are pertinent to the main argument. The first is explain the ascension of contentious effective les+¿fist coalitions, the second, the instruments of the apparent success of these coalitions, and the effects of all theses process in the formation of political cleavages. Other important questions are the effects on clientelistic politics, representation and party politics, state capabilities to build sustainable policies, and the construction of citizen autonomy. Since Its “transition” to democracy, and after one decade of neoliberal reforms, income distribution deteriorated yet more; but at the beginning of the actual century this trend began to change due to the ascension of “leftist” coalition to political power. These coalitions are successful to bring distributive social policies. This essay offers a preliminary explanation to the different paths governmental strategies in Latin-American democracies. I call inclusionary democracies to these that are successful in to enhance distributional policies, and exclusionary democracies when its performance has been deteriorating the previous stage of socio economic inequality. The causal narrative locates the decisive political variables (inclusionary political institutions) to explain the different political patterns of response to the distributive challenge. The paper assumes some premises: a) socio economic impoverishment an preclude social anomie and efficacy of the political system (perverse circle or democratic traps and state institutions inefficacy), b) the different patterns of responses are a multi factorial process and, as a preliminary conclusion, c) most Latin America Democracies have a good chance to overcome systemic traps to political progress.