Civil Society and Democracy in Latin America [Paperback]

A dense web of private associations drawn from multiple social classes, interest groups and value communities makes for a firm foundation for strong democracy. In Latin America today, will civil society improve the quality of democracy or will it foster political polarization and reverse recent progress? Distinguished theorists from the United States, Canada and Latin America explore the diverse impact of civil society on economic performance, political parties, and state institutions. In-depth and up-to-date country studies explore the consequences of civil society for the durability of democracy in three highly dynamic, controversial settings: Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.Introduction * Civil Society and Democracy: the Latin American Case - Carlos H. Waisman, Richard Feinberg& Leon Zamosc * Part I: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives * Autonomy, Self-regulation and Democracy: Tocquevillean-Gellnerian Perspectives on Civil Society and the Bifurcated State in Latin America - Carlos H. Waisman * Civil Society in Latin America in the Twenty-first Century: Democratic Deepening, Social Fragmentation and State Crisis - Leonardo Avritzer * Conceptualizing Civil Society from the Bottom Up: A Political Economy Perspective - Philip Oxhorn * Part II: Country Case Studies * Citizenship and Civil Society in Renascent Argentina - Isidoro Cheresky * Argentina after the Nineties: Changes in Social Structure and Political Behavior - Manuel Mora y Araujo *  Sem Reforma Agr?ria, N?o Ha Democracia : The Struggle over Access to Land and Deepening Democracy in Brazil - Wendy Wolford * Civil Society and Political Decay in Venezuela - Daniel H. Levine

Feinberg, Waisman and Zamosc are to be commended. Civil Society and Democracy in Latin America provides state-of-the art analyses by leading US and Latin American scholars who combine theoretical sophistication with well-executed case studies of civic activism and the new politics of citizenship in Argentina, Brazil, al³/