Výzkumné sympózium: Proč demokracie selhávají různě: Autokratizace a odpor ve Střední Americe

Presentation: Variations of Democratic Decline in Central America

Central America has long been a hard place for liberal democracy. Unsurprisingly, in recent years, it has become an even more troublesome region for this type of bargained system, based on pragmatic political competition and mutual acceptance of democratic rules. What is surprising, however, is that the regional pattern diverges in important ways from the dominant global trend, in which illiberalism and autocratization are typically driven by elected leaders and power-hungry incumbents.

The presentation traces the trajectories of four Central American countries and reveals four distinct paths toward illiberalism, democratic erosion, and full autocratization. In Honduras and Guatemala, democratic erosion was triggered by electoral losers’ refusal to accept the legitimacy of winners, with supposedly independent state actors – such as the judiciary and the military – playing a decisive role. In El Salvador, democratic erosion stemmed primarily from the collapse of opposition parties rather than from government aggrandizement alone. Only in Nicaragua’s sultanistic endgame was the incumbent fully in control of dismantling the democratic bargain, launching brutal attacks first on democratic institutions and later on political opponents.

About Karel Kouba: Karel Kouba is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Center for Ibero-American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. He holds an M.A. from Miami University (2006) and a Ph.D. from Palacký University in Olomouc (2011). Karel’s research centers on comparative politics of Latin America and Central Europe, with a particular focus on the origins and effects of political institutions – especially electoral rules. He also studies unconventional forms of political behavior, such as election boycotts or invalid voting. His broader concern is the health of democracy. He has examined the collapse of democracy in Nicaragua, democratic stability in Latin America, the challenges to democracy in Central Europe and the trade-offs involved in sustaining robust local democracy. He was a visiting scholar at several universities around the world, including the position of Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His work has appeared in leading political science journals including Government and Opposition, European Political Science Review, Democratization, and Electoral Studies, as well as in area studies journals such as Latin American Politics and Society, Journal of Politics in Latin America and East European Politics and Societies.

About Radek Buben: PhDr. Radek Buben, Ph.D. is Head of the Center for Ibero-American Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, where he also teaches and supervises master’s and doctoral theses. His research focuses on contemporary Latin American history, the transformation of political regimes in the region, and the history of political science. He has completed several research stays in Latin America and spent a year as a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. He is currently involved in two major projects: ERA-AREAS, aimed at strengthening area studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and the CoRe project.