A qualidade da democracia na America Latina: associação e relação com ordem e segurança, independência dos tribunais de primeira instância e direitos fundamentais com o uso da econometria

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the role that the rule of law, represented by the factors order and security, the independence of the courts of first instance and fundamental rights, plays as democracies in Latin America, between the years 2016 and 2020. The choice of Latin American countries is justified by the great challenge they face in democratic consolidation, amid obstacles such as corruption, authoritarian practices, fragile electoral process, interference and dependencies in the judicial institutions and low accountability of the institutions. The definition of democracy has been widely discussed and conceptualized, and it is a political regime that takes into account the existence of free, periodic and transparent elections, however, its understanding goes through several aspects, while it is understood under other criteria that go beyond the so-called procedural criteria. The minimalist approach is adopted in the present study, but not subminimal. Regarding the structure of the work, an analysis of the various aspects is initially carried out in the light of contemporary democratic theory, exploring ideas of Schumpeter, Dahl, Mainwaring, Brinks and Linan, Przeworski, O'Donnell and Morlino, as well as discussions around the idea of the rule of law, focusing on the sense that it returns to the degrees of compliance and subordination to the laws of a state, by the government and the population. At a second stage, it is sought to test the hypotheses empirically. A descriptive methodology with a quantitative approach was adopted, in addition to the use of a linear regression model with panel data, using data from the World Justice Project Rule Of Law Index (WJP) and Varieties of Democracy indexes. (V-DEM). 03 (three) independent variables were selected for the examination of the dependent variable (democratic quality): independence of the courts of first instance; fundamental rights; and order and security. As for the results, the variables independence of the courts of first instance and fundamental rights showed significant impacts on the quality of democracy, while the variable order and security showed the opposite outcome to the expected. From the tests carried out, it can be concluded that there is a positive correlation between the rule of law and democracy in Latin American countries. This means that, on average, countries with stronger rule of law also have stronger democracy.