Democracy in Developing Countries

By Juan J. Linz, Seymour Martin Lipset, Larry Diamond

Book Overview

This text reflects improvements in democratic trends and the erosion of democratic advances in different countries. It regards political actors and institutions, and is concerned about the impact on... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555877982
• ISBN13: 9781555877989
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
• Length: 594 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An excellent study in Democracy

I highly recommend this book for anyone who studies political science, democracy, or is simply interested in Latin America. It is an excelent scholarly work, which defines democracy (using Robert Dahl's definition) and defines the criteria, and then each individual essay gives a complete case study and rates it next to the criteria and definition. This book excludes countries with little or no expirience with democracy or limited democracy, such as Cuba, and Central America (with the exception of Costa Rica). The countries that are analyzed are: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, and Mexico. I would be hesitant to recommend this book as an introduction to the subject. Though this work establishes a clear context and frame of reference in which every country is being analyzed, it can sometimes be dry reading, but the extent of expert analysis that went into this work is overwhelming. This book would be a great starting point for any detailed research into Latin American politics, or would be a great read for any student of comaparative studies in Democracy. As an introduction to political sciene or Latin America, however, this book might be ill-suited, I would recommend reading some of Robert Dahl's works first, or Richard S. Hillman's "Understanding Contemporary Latin America". These are not required, but recommended in my opinion. But, it is still a great work and I consider it to be an essential work on the topic.