Liberaldemocracy

Liberal democracy is a political model that conceives the individual as the central agent of the political arena. In this model, political institutions, and the laws / regulations derived from them, focus on securing and promoting individual rights and freedoms. In the United States, liberal democracy has served as the underlying theoretical political model; and in the rest of the world it has found significant support.

During the transition to democracy that Latin America experienced in the 1980s, liberal democracy became the normative model of democracy for the region. Fundamentally, this pattern was driven by the strong influence of the United States during the transition process and the support of Latin American conservative groups. Although this model of democracy is heralded as the promoter of equality, liberty and justice, its usefulness in Latin America can be called into question. Latin America's transition to liberal democracy has yielded little social, political and economic change. After 3 decades of democracy, many indigenous and minority groups are still excluded from political and economic institutions. Although the indigenous and black communities represent the majority of the population in many Latin American countries, they are not equally represented in government institutions and other positions of economic and political power. This exclusion has dramatically perpetuated inequality, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, and disease among native and minority groups.In order to address the prevailing problems experienced by indigenous, black and minority groups, several governments have began to institute policies promoting group rights over individual rights. These policies fade away from liberal democracy and closely resemble the principles of what author Geraldine Lievesley labels 'Radical Democracy' in her book Democracy in Latin America. This is a model grounded on the "?belief that democracy can not be regarded as authentic unless it is participatory and rooted in popular experience". In contrast to liberal democracy, which is inclusive only of diverse political believes , radical democracy understands that there exist certain political believes and demands that can't be detached from personal experience. In turn, these policies seek to help historically oppressed communities by providing them as a group with special rights and benefits.

Some of the policies instituted by Latin American governments include:

1. The Colombia congress contains two permanent congressional seats exclusively for the representation of indigenous minorities. In addition, the chamber of deputies has the authority to establish a special circumscription for minority and/or indigenous groups, of which five is the maximum number of seats that can be allocated.

2. The Mexican government recently approved the Indian Rights Law, which amends the Constitution in order give special rights to the indigenous communities.

3. Brazil recently reported that a new government policy will require that 20% of new government personnel be black.

Although the scope and value of these policies can be called into question, one has to recognize that these are clear attempts by Latin American governments to find their own model of democracy. The inherit problem of these policies is in identifying the beneficiary group. Who is Black? Who is Indian? Ethnic identity is not static; rather it is fluid and based on personal experience. Nevertheless, these are attempts to develop a successful model that can address the problems of inequality, poverty and discrimination that has plagued the region throughout its recent history.