Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Venezuelan Constituent Assembly has considered or accepted constitutional changes of dubious democratic character and President Hugo Chávez has deeply involved the military in governance tasks. Is Chávez’s “political revolution” a series of haphazard changes or does it mark a coordinated move towards authoritarianism?
By supporting expensive institutions and processes of democratization, democracy assistance creates political systems that are financially unsustainable for less developed countries. There are less expensive donor strategies that could help to produce more economically viable democratizations.
Several factors explain why a growing number of regimes are adopting outwardly more democratic political systems: the loss of appeal of socialist systems during the 1990s, the creation of newly independent states, and the corresponding need felt by an increasing number of governments to legitimize themselves in the eyes of their citizens and of the international community.