Direct Democracy in Uruguay and Venezuela: New Voices, Old Practices

Abstract

Most Latin American countries incorporated or expanded mechanisms for direct or participatory democracy as part of significant constitutional reforms during the 1990s. Many of these reforms were institutional responses to the democratic processes of countries that had experienced authoritarian regimes (such as the Brazilian constitution of 1988 and the Paraguayan of 1992); others sought to establish pacts around presidential succession (such as Argentina’s 1994 constitution) or strengthen the power of the executive (Peru in 1993); still others promoted participation and sought to overcome problems with representation, such as the Colombian constitution of 1991 and the Bolivian constitution of 2009. Recently, Hugo Chávez (2007) unsuccessfully tried to pass another reform of the Venezuelan constitution to advance his project for “21st century socialism,” while in Bolivia (2009) a constitutional reform through referendum introduced important changes in indigenous people’s representation, autonomy and territorial organization, and land tenure and the balance among branches of the government, and also established “communitarian democracy” alongside representative and direct democracy.