DEMOCRATIC BREAKDOWN AND SURVIVAL.

An essay is presented that analyzes why democracies survive or break down. The authors categorize the political regimes in Latin America as democratic, semidemocratic or authoritarian. They provide insights from the work of Argentine political scientist Guillermo O'Donnell including the seminal book "Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism." They challenge one core idea in the book which viewed democratic breakdowns through a structural lens.