21st Century Democracy Promotion in the Americas: Standing up for the Polity

This volume offers a concise and accessible overview of the promotion and defence of democracy in the Americas, examining the nature of challenges to democracy in Latin America, the role of regional organizations as democracy promoters, and the transformation of Inter-American relations. Taking the Inter-American Democratic Charter of 2001 as a baseline it charts the evolution of the issue over the past decade. Heine and Weiffen provide a comprehensive examination of the promotion and defence of democracy in the Western Hemisphere, beginning with background information and historical antecedents, and moving on to take into consideration the specific nature of the challenges to democracy in the Americas and power shifts in the region. The authors analyze democratic norms, norm enforcement mechanisms and how they work in practice, with a particular focus on the 2009 Honduras coup. Seeking to provide a discussion that pays more attention to the role of the OAS, rather than simply focusing on US foreign policy, the authors examine whether the United States still act as regional hegemon, and how the role of emerging regional powers such as Brazil and Venezuela are challenging that position of the hegemon. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of democratization, US-Latin American relations, international relations of Latin-America and international organizations.