Democracy in Latin America involves some fundamental issues . Firstly , it ’ s accompanied by the world greatest wealth and income inequalities , as well as by a sovereignty that is conspicuous by its absence . It is also a divided democracy , which complies with the rules dictated by the dynamics of highly oligopolistic markets and with the governments often behind them . Democracy only gains relevance in the electoral period with its series of theatricalizations . " Therefore , we are in the worst of all possible worlds : democracies without popular sovereignty " ( Borón , 1999 , 37 ). Amidst regional development and growing oligopolistic markets , the social and economic gaps do not diminish . They even increase in some countries to hurt the historically vulnerable sectors and populations , such as the Afrodescendants . However , the democracy building process — including the citizen participation by Afro-descendant communities — is guided by a desire for justice as ultimate goal . Otherwise , " it would be incongruous as specific political form of organization ( polis ), since it could be built around the pursuit of ends incompatible with itself " ( Borón , 1999 , 24 ). Among the variants of democracy ( Esping-Andersen , 1991 , 93 ), one identifies nation-building with a citizenship that tends to include social rights ; another has pluralistic and public-oriented nature and feeds the intense competition among political parties for the favor of the electorate , which in turn stimulates increasing public expenditures . Both variants offer some perspectives to understand the development of Afrodescendants ’ citizenship in the logic of social rights and the need of some training for taking part in the social processes , especially in the political arena , to fight against the traditional culture of electoral competition among political parties .
The questions raised by the transition to democracy could be divided between two spheres in the citizenship building process : " Learning processes on rights and responsibilities , and development of a democratic institutional structure " ( Jelin and Hershberg , 2006 , 156 ). It should also be recalled that democracy — as an organizational form of social power in the public space — is inseparable from the economic and social structures on which the social power rests . It is in the public space where the diverse social , economic and political forces are confronting ideas to make decisions . Thus , the dispute for power has a leading role , but the differences based on class , race , ethnicity and gender are getting wider and deeper . They deprive the Afro-descendant communities of an equal footing for taking part in the free democratic dispute . And a key democratic requirement is a quite advanced degree of social equality :
" No theorist on democracy was so wrong in arguing that it could only work after all class differences were eliminated . All of them , without exception . Democracy cannot be sustained on societies marked by inequality and social exclusion . For the democratic regime to work , it is necessary to have quite egalitarian societies , and equality , as Adam Smith himself recalled , should be based on conditions and not just on opportunities " ( Borón 1999 , 33 )
Within the democratic structures , some people vote every day , but other people , the overwhelming majority , do it once every two or three years . Democracy becomes extremely flawed under inequality for exercising political rights . It ends up being hardly a fantasy to disguise the legitimation of a regime that is very oligarchic both in structure and functioning . We think that the 21 st -century Latin
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