The last decades of the twentieth
century have seen a spectacular
advance of Direct Democracy in many
countries of Latin America, not only in
respect of the numbers of referendums
held (which have doubled in each of the
last three decades), but also because
of the inclusion of several tools of direct
democracy in the national constitutions.
However, a detailed analysis shows the
weaknesses in this apparent advance
of democracy. As we will see in greater
detail, most of the referendums held in
Latin America resulted from the
initiative of representative institutions
(parliament or the executive). Only
eight resulted from a popular initiative
launched through the collection of
voters’ signatures, and all of them in a
single country: Uruguay. In many cases
the referendums were simply aimed at
legitimising the power of the
representative institution that called
them, and in at least six cases they
were used by authoritarian regimes with
that objective.
Direct Democracy in Latin America
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