Human Rights and Democratization in Latin America

Uruguay and Chile

Dados Bibliográficos

ID19918985
AutoresAlexandra Barahona De Brito (0000-0002-5593-3567, autor correspondente)
Ano1997
Páginas333
Data de publicação1997-02-06
Open AccessNão
TipoBOOK
PeriódicoHuman rights and democratization in Latin America (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/0198280386.001.0001
OpenAlexW2978723211
Open LibraryOL765699M
ISBN9780198280385
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas42

This book analyses the Uruguayan and Chilean experiences with the transitional politics of truth and justice regarding past human rights violations. These policies are shaped by the legacy of repressive rule, and the dynamics of the politics of transition and of the balance of power under the new democratic governments peculiar to each country. The issue is central to the politics of transition for ethical, symbolic, practical and political reasons: politically it is the most explosive transitional issue; on a practical level, only official acknowledgement can resolve pending legal questions for survivors and families of victims; ethically, it is hard to generate democratic consensus or social endorsement for social reform without involving principles and ideals that appeal to the underlying values and aspirations of the citizenry. Dealing with legacies of state repression permits the beginning of the process of ‘deconstruction of cultures of fear’ without which democratization cannot occur. This is not only desirable and necessary; some kind of truth telling policy has proved to be both required and feasible in a wide range of contemporary regime transitions. However, justice is not always possible: limitations on prosecutions are more self-imposed than 'structural', more political than institutional, and clearly there is a tension between the conditions necessary to ensure accountability and those that govern periods of transition. Unconsolidated democracies are not able to practise the politics of a consolidated democracy; the politics of consolidated democracies includes the capacity to call the powerful to account. This is perhaps the yardstick with which to measure consolidation. Instead of practising the politics of consolidated democracy, what these countries have to engage in is the politics of democratic consolidation. Although truth and justice policies may remain relevant after the transition and 'leak into' the politics of democratization, (where they can continue to be a source of conflict in the judicial system and of latent or overt painful and deep-seated social animosities), the resolution of the issue in the formal political arena can and does make it marginal in terms of day-to-day politics. Consolidation depends more crucially on the reform of key institutions that permitted abuse and impunity: the thorough reform of the judiciary and of the forces of repression. If a government does not undertake a proper reform of the institutions that made abuse and impunity possible, the democracy it presides over will be lame and incomplete

Appeal · Democracy · Democratization · Human rights · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rule of law · Sociology · Transitional justice · Yardstick · Comparative constitutional jurisprudence studies · Law · Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America · 1973-1985 · 1973-1988 · 1985 · 1988 · Chile · Latin America · politics and government · Social conditions · Uruguay