21st Century Democracy Promotion in the Americas: Standing up for the Polity*

Since the creation and successful development of the European regional integration, a debate has existed on how regional institutions can contribute to the promotion and defense of democracy. Thus, a link between regionalism and democracy has been established. The extent to which regionalism and democracy are related and how regional institutions promote and defend democracy have been issues also discussed in the Americas. In particular, Latin America is a part of the world where regionalism has a long history (even if successes are limited), but also where democracy has had problems in consolidating as a stable form of political organization. Certainly, significant progress has been witnessed in the last three decades; however challenges still persists in the form of instability. Recent crises in countries such as Honduras, Panamá, Venezuela and Bolivia indicate the persistent challenges to democracy in Latin America. Jorge Heine and Britta Weiffen (2014)discuss in this book the role played by a regional organization (the Organization of Americas States, OAS) in the promotion and defense of democracy. The OAS was chosen as a case study because it is within this institution where more progress has been achieved in the creation of regional framework to promote democracy, particularly, since the signing in 2001 of the Interamerican