The Paradoxical Endurance of Non-Consolidated Non-Performing Democracies.

This paper examines the paradoxical endurance of non-consolidated non-performing democracies focusing on the identification of factors contributive to social consent (or political absenteeism) that fill the gap between the stage of institutionalization of a non-consolidated democracy and that of fully consolidated democracies. It utilizes the understanding that consolidation requires the routinization of and a normative commitment to democracy (Diamond 1999), and proposes that to secure democratic continuity the incomplete fulfillment of those requirements demands consummate performance legitimacy, the absence of which must be mitigated by counterbalancing factors. The plausibility of this framing of the endurance of non-consolidated non-performing democracies is tested by examining Brazil's democratic regime. The findings support the instrumentality of the framework of analysis and suggest that counterbalancing factors allowing democratic endurance may in fact preclude consolidation and substantive socioeconomic advances. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]