Searching for a Democratic Regime.

Over the past two decades significant parts of the world have embarked on a democratic path. At the start of the 1980’s, authoritarian regimes dominated throughout Central America, the Caribbean and South America. A decade later with the exception of Mexico, Cuba and Haiti, the entire region had begun to embrace democratic norms. The change that began at the level of the nation-state was increasingly reflected by support from regional and international institutions. Although long a supporter of democracy, the Organization of American States began to strengthen mechanisms designed to sanction undemocratic actions. The OAS also devoted increased resources to election monitoring. Strengthened support for democracy at the regional level has occurred at an uneven pace to say the least. With several important caveats, there appears to be growing evidence to support the claim that an international regime supportive of democracy or IRSD, is emerging in the Western Hemisphere. In this work, I attempt to bridge the gap between regime theory at the systemic level and the spread of democratic norms throughout the hemisphere. I examine the empirical support for such a claim by focusing on the cases of Peru 1992 and 2000, Guatemala 1993, Dominican Republic 1994 and Paraguay 1996. All of these countries experienced varying threats to nascent democracy throughout the 1990’s. I utilize realist, liberal and social constructivist theoretical approaches to explain the strengths and weaknesses of the regime in each of the cases. In some of the cases, the presence of an international democratic regime appears to have influenced the outcome, while in the remaining cases competing concerns minimized its influence [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]