Intervention Without Intervening? The OAS Defense and Promotion of Democracy in the Americas

This book looks at the evolution of OAS multilateralism for democracy and the lessons its experience holds for other multilateral contexts. It also tackles the theoretical challenge of bridging the traditional divide between international relations and comparative politics. The book stresses the need for conceptual tools that allow scholars to take into consideration the transnationalization of democratization processes in their analysis, where previous emphasis was placed on domestic variables in regime change. The growing role of the OAS, the Rio Group, foreign governments, and international NGOs in democracy assistance underscores the transnational nature of current democratization trends. The authors present an "inter-active" approach to tackle the dilemma of the inter-relation between internal and external factors

Andrew F. Cooper is Associate Director and Distinguished Fellow of The Centre for International Governance Innovation and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. Thomas Legler is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Mount Allison University.

The Multilateral-Democracy Nexus: An Overview * The OAS Democratic Solidarity Paradigm: Agency innovation and Structural Constraints * Defending Democracy? The OAS and Peru in the 1990s * Networked Multilateralism in Action: The OAS and the 2000 Crisis in Peru * The Making of the Inter-American Democratic Charter: The Apex of Networked Multilateralism * Passing the (First) Test? The Venezuelan Coup of April 11, 2002 * In Between Club and Networked Multilateralism: The Quest for a Solution to the Venezuelan Political Crisis * Intervention Without Intervening?

Introduction: A New Model for Intervention? * The Rise of the OAS Democratic Solidarity Paradigm* The Birth of a New Model?: The OAS in Peru * Learning from Peru?: The Birth of the Inter-American Democratic Charter * Passing the (First) Test: the OAS, the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and the Venezuelan Coup * With a Little Help from My Friends: The Ongoing Crisis in Venezuela * Conclusion