The recurrence of the issue of the promotion of democracy may lead us to make something trivial of its discussion, either because we may feel we know it already, or because we may think that it has become less relevant in the midst of the democratization wave that covered our hemisphere. This temptation is all the greater if we focus on the analysis of the promotion of democracy inside the OAS because —in association with the issues of development and the defense of human rights— the issue has been laid in its own charter, in resolutions, is speeches and reorientation and restructuring proposals as important as those of Buenos Aires (1967), Cartagena (1985), Washington (1992) and Managua (1993).

The truth is that, today, the issue of promotion of democracy has a different meaning and a greater significance than it had in the past. Now, when there is more consensus than ever in our hemisphere and in the world around the promises of democratic stability, there are more complex challenges when promoting and consolidating it. These pages argue, first, that the challenge is to tame democracy, by promoting and consolidating it from inside; second, there is an exploration of the new role that the OAS —specially through the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy— may play in reviewing the traditional strategies and hurdles in this task.

1. dèja vu?

It is surprising that in the OAS, precisely during the decade of the eighties —one lost for development but won for democratization— the issue of democracy's promotion acquired capital importance, as evidenced by the Protocol of Cartagena (1995) which included as the organization´s fundamental proposition that of "Promoting and consolidating representative democracy under due respect of the non intervention principle".

The creation of a "Unit for the promotion of Democracy". in 1990, meant a concrete step in supporting the defense and consolidation of democracy, starting from a conception that, as from then, seeks to consider the promotion of democracy and the defense of its values, its institutions and procedures "…under a more action minded perspective, with preventive rather than ex post facto actions, thus helping to improve the general governableness and political conditions." ¹

It is worth pointing out how, by mid 1991, the "Santiago de Chile Commitment" (Resolution 1080) established procedures for the defense of democracy. although its thirty four members had democratically elected governments. Soon afterwards, the events in Haiti (1991), Venezuela (1992) ², Peru (1992), and Guatemala (1993), and more recently Paraguay (1996) would give reason to those —Venezuela among them— who, with unprecedented regional support, impelled an old thesis, from a new perspective.

In 1994, the Summit of the Americas in Miami assembles 34 Heads of State and Government, who took for themselves the preservation and strengthening of democracy as an indispensable requirement for regional peace, development and stability, under the proposition that "The strengthening, the effective use and consolidation of democracy constitute the fundamental priorities for the Americas. ³ The OAS was defined as "…the hemisphere´s main body for the defense of democratic values and institutions;" ⁴. In effect the OAS got a central mandate for the starting of the Action Plan adopted at this summit and, in fact, in 1996 "The Montrouis Declaration: a new vision of the OAS", joined expressly what had been approved in Miami as to the priority of preserving and reinforcing democratic procedures and institutions in the hemispheric agenda. ⁵

Perhaps it is this constant presence of the issue in the inter American agenda —even during the darkest periods of authoritarian governments, and often referred to traumatic interference and omission by the United States— that may lead us to think about the promotion of democracy as some kind of repetition, of dejà vu, and even "more of the same". This perception could also end by setting aside the issue in correspondence with a generalized disenchantment with the concrete performance of democracies, and even of the institutions that have tried to promote and consolidate them.

These lines aim at arguing that we must analyze from a new perspective the problem of the promotion of democracy and of the institutions and media impelling it, of which the relevance and complexity have increased since the middle of the last decade. Four main consideration will be used as grounds to support the review of three ideas for the promotion of democracy from inside.

2. Reasons to reinterpret the la promotion of democracy.

As a starting point, the fact of talking nowadays of promotion of democracy has a different meaning than it had just a few years ago. Both at the OAS as at the IDB, democracy development are tied together in a new relationship, where they are linked around the reinforcement of democratic institutions, the elimination of poverty, fair economic growth, being tied both to the achievement of a free trade system as to the preservation of the environment.

The reasons for this transformation may be found both inside the countries as in a global environment where two hurdles must be overcome, a more recent one —that opposing democracy to economic efficiency and, specifically, to the reform programs´ success— and another traditional one in the inter American system: —that of subordinating its promotion to the principle of non intervention.

In order to overcome this hurdles and to understand the appearance of non conventional strategies for the promotion of democracy, it may be interesting to start with four considerations on the new debate´s context.

From democracy as a method to democracy as a way of living.

The "third wave" of world democratization —following the all too known proposition by Samuel Huntington— reached the whole of Latin America, in its most specific sense, during the decade of 1980. In this specific sense, close to Schumpeter´s "minimalist" definition of democracy, we used to privilege until the mid eighties the procedural dimension or that of democracy as a method, to wit: the selection of the rulers by means of open elections. Thus became democratic all those of which the most important government leaders began to be elected through fair, honest and periodical elections where the candidates competed freely for the votes, and in which virtually all the adult population had the right to participate.

A first consideration on the current significance of democratic promotion results form the fact that the wave of more or less free, open and competitive elections that covered Latin America brought to a higher level of complexity the problem of promoting democracy, where one finds today the combination of two challenges pointed out by Alain Touraine in a recent paper: "Democracy must fight absolute power, military despotism and that of the totalitarian party, but it must also set limits to an extreme individualism that could fully divorce civil society form political society…" ⁶ Then, on the second front it becomes mandatory to build the relations between civil and political society, between society and State, between the private and the public, between the individual and the collective. Then, even acknowledging that the exercise of vote under open, free and clean electoral competition conditions is a necessary initial condition, with the tendency to create a new "political market" ⁷, the "negative freedom" —often precarious— based on the premise that a democratic system is that which "…prevents any one from getting hold of power and to keep it against the will of the majority" ⁸, is no longer sufficient. On the contrary today´s challenge is too succeed in having good democratic governments giving way to democratically governable systems. This is non other than to work for the promotion of democracy as a way of life from the individual level to the global one ⁹, starting by making of this promotion a domestic task and commitment.

Good government and the taming of democracy.

A second consideration is that the building of democratic governableness conditions has today a particular complexity because, if one widens Charles Dupin´s initial conception, good democratic government requires:

• Legality of its mandate, resulting from free elections.
• Rule of law, implying: laws in force and known in advance; mechanisms warranting their compliance; the existence of an independent judiciary to solve conflicts; regular procedures to amend the laws.
• Institutional ability to articulate, and efficiently attend to, the administration´s agenda, with critical attention to all concerning the handling of socio-economic and political reform programs.
• Legitimacy built through social negotiation, based on attending to community affairs from government and society.

The review of what now means promoting democracy puts the accent on what we could call the taming of democracy, starting with the education of the people for democracy, going through the strengthening of the fundamental democratic institutions, reaching up to the transnational reinserting of coordination relationships for economic development and democratic stability.

Democracy and economic reform complementing each other.

Third, in a most specific sense on which one should stress, today, the relationship between economic development and democratic stability is quite clear inasmuch as, according to elaborate details in a recent compiling work by Diamond and Plattner, ¹⁰ the success of economic reform programs depends increasingly on democratic procedures and institutions. A growing point of agreement between analysts of the economic reform programs´ politics and economics is the recognition of two phases in their execution. A first launching phase, has been featured as a stage where macroeconomic adjustment measures are decreed "from the top" and to a good extent within a context where there does not seem to be any other alternative; a "negative consensus" tends to appear in it —some sort of a "honeymoon"— according to which it is possible to blame other (those of the former administration, corruption, the rule of political parties…) and/or to recognize that activist and populist policies no longer work. It is a relative "easy" phase, of which the complexity varies as a function of the conditions at the start. ¹²

The transit to the reforms´ consolidation stage is moving quickly. This is quite a more difficult phase, because it implies institutional reforms that, summarizing, do not consist only in State "downsizing" by means of a diversity or measures operating by decree (privatizations, freezing and reduction of public jobs, elimination of subsidies, among other); they operate rather by forcing the strengthening of the State in areas where its efficient action is of essence (education, justice, social and personal security, defense and foreign affairs) as is the change in its relationship with society by means of measures promoting reinforcement of association life and of socio-political communication channels.

This task is infinitely more wide and complicate than that of the first stage; mere negative consensus and the most necessary leadership by government team committed t the reforms are not enough to accomplish it. Essentially, there is a requirement of wide negotiation process, plagued by conflicts among the too many interests being affected by the new institutional arrangements.

It is not just a matter of building a new great consensus nor a social covenant, as would please our rhetorical tendency. The work is less ambitious, but it is quite realist and utterly exact: the challenge is to create, domestically, step by step, new negotiation channels with interest groups and non governmental institutions, around an agenda transcending pure economic reforms and sketching the kind of democratic society to be finally built from inside.

The transit from one stage to the other is not a long and perfectly bounded process; in reality, it becomes necessary to foresee, as from the first stage, the advance in institutional reforms and get to them without delay. Consequently, the transformation of the initial negative consensus into a more lasting positive consensus is also an immediate challenge if it is to last, it may only be faced in a democratic way.

Democratization and its global projection/feedback

A fourth consideration refers to the impact that democratization from inside has on international relations, and the expectation on democratic peace. We are not going to discuss here something that has been widely debated and documented on the thesis asserting that democracies do not make war among them. ¹³

This thesis keeps being, undoubtedly, one of the bottom reasons for global promotion of democracy. Its central argument is that well institutionalized democratic systems, promoting free exchange of ideas, and based on complex social negotiation processes have more respect for the rights of their citizens and for international agreements. In sum. they are internationally more prudent.

Now then, a recent research made on the same data supporting the traditional thesis has reached most interesting and relevant conclusions. In effect, Mansfield and Snyder ¹⁴ establish the difference between stabilized democratic regimes and those in the process of democratization. The latter are particularly aggressive, and are more —not less— prone to make use of war; they are indeed, even when compared with regimes on the road towards to an authoritarian system —following them in the order of tendency— and certainly more than stable regimes, first those being authoritarian and finally the democratic ones.

The argument is certainly simpler than the tables and calculations attached to the research paper, The democratization process is usually slow and prudence in foreign policy is lessened during the transition, specially when there is an important irruption of popular participation demands, when the traditional elite feel threatened and when, accordingly, it is almost impossible to shape stable political coalitions having the required political support to hold to power. Thus, the excess of irreconcilable political forces, their "entrenching" and polarization on short term visions, the institutional weakening, the temptation to make use of mass mobilization in search of support and the making of it by means of ideological and specifically nationalist banners, lead to the promotion of concession policies among the elites —the military one being included in a special place— for the incorporation of opposing interests that generate a far too committed foreign policy, and of prestige strategies forcing government to look for striking foreign success and making it extremely sensible to any "harm" on its reputation.

The support of democratization process, then, is at the same important and delicate, complicated and compromising.

The evolution of Latin American countries from the cycle of authoritarian regimes initiated during the mid sixties up to the democratization process that took place in the eighties, merely offers an example of the loss of prudence by an authoritarian system going through a decaying process: the Falklands or Malvines war. The democratization process, in spite of the difficulties in setting specific transition on stable ground, was rather accompanied by a lessening of intra-Latin American tensions. Several factors could explain this evolution: Inside, the local elites did not see their specific interests too threatened and, as in the case of the military, they got guarantees through the express or tacit covenants that founded the transition. From outside, some economic and political control incentives and mechanisms were quite important.

Latin America, however, is living another transition. The demand for participation, the stopping of the extraction and distribution capacities being evidenced by the increasing levels of poverty, inequality and disenchantment, and the increasing overflowing and inadequacy status of the institutions are crucial components of a transition of which the destiny will depend on the way how the domestic actors behave and the external incentives are presented. Summing up, there is much to be done, from the inside also, for democratic peace in the hemisphere.

3. Revision of the strategies to promote democracy.

To promote and consolidate effective use of democracy nowadays implies the creation of conditions promoting good democratic government —democratic governableness— through new strategies, different from those conceived and prepared from the top and from outside, as it has consistently being argued in a recent paper by María Teresa Romero. ¹⁵ This is a way of giving a preventive and constructive meaning to democratic promotion: non imposed, non negotiated from outside, but reinforced from inside, with the necessary multilateral advise and support.

So conceived, the effort of promoting, strengthening and consolidating democratic procedures and institutions comprises a wide agenda of tasks, starting with the "taming" of democracy. This implies.

• Understanding that democracy and its promotion is our problem, that of each citizen, each group and organization, community, society, State, something that starts with the promotion of changes in the individual level and in the ways how civil society is articulated with the State. At this point it is crucial to promote democratic values and to combine the pleasure of freedom with the right and duty of responsible participation, of tolerance and search of democratic and institutional ways to promote the solution of conflicts.
• To make of democracy and its promotion a challenge and an item of government agenda, by intensifying efforts to downsize and strengthen the State through the reform of public administration in spaces dealing with crucial issues for democratic promoting: legislatures, the judiciary, educational systems, and social security networks.
• By projecting democracy, its values and the strategies for its promotion towards the outside, impelling transformations in the means of international articulation, by giving preference to the multilateral, to international cooperation mechanisms, the rule of law and institutionalized procedures to prevent conflicts, and a real regional political participation of each member and of the OAS as a set with the new agenda to reinforce democracy.

In each of this levels the OAS may play a crucial role, breaking with political and organizational barriers with more active action in promoting democracy from the domestic standpoint and dropping the barrier of the non intervention principle. ¹⁶

As a matter of fact, from the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy a new strategy has been proposed, since it began operating in 1991, differing form the original one, not only as to its preventive orientation but also as to its attention of democracy´s domestic dimension.

The UPD´s main function is "…to provide support and collaboration to the Member States for the strengthening of the institutions on a long term basis…" ¹⁷ For such purpose, advisory and capacitation for institutional development activities have been advanced; studies, seminars and publications aimed at creating knowledge and compiling information on democracy have been supported also.

This turn in the strategies for promotion of democracy is clearly expressed in the starting of projects in the legislative, electoral and democratic values´ promotion areas.

These new points of attention, and the new ways of attending to them —advisory services for institutional reinforcement, seminars, formation, capacitation— are all evidence of the deep changes in hemispheric attention to the problems of democracy. They also lead to consider the enormous potential, on the one hand, of the incorporation of traditional and new actors at the local, national, transnational level, in the diverse fronts promoting democracy as a way of life; on another had, the use of new and traditional communication channels and networks: the use of the potential of the new information technologies, the reorientation of the formal educational system and the proper use of the informal one´s potential; the strengthening of "issue networks" with groups interested in themes linked to the promotion of democracy, and the incorporation of the academic sector and of the intellectuals to the task of debating and designing concrete proposals.

Finally, in spite of the balance of actions and omissions, failure and success evoked in Latin Americans by promotion of democracy, today we are facing a different situation, where a greater multilateral commitment may play a crucial role in the regional political-economic transition.