{"id":59223,"date":"2026-09-20T04:41:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T07:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/?p=59223"},"modified":"2026-09-21T16:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:22:17","slug":"25-years-defending-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/25-years-defending-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"25 years of defending democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Twenty-Five years ago, representatives from nearly every country in the Western Hemisphere\u2014with the notable exception of Cuba\u2014met in Lima, Peru to sign the Inter-American Democratic Charter<\/a>. It was hoped that the Charter would provide the Organization of American States (OAS) with the authority and teeth to address democratic crisis in the region.  Coming in the aftermath of Alberto Fujimori\u2019s autogolpe<\/em><\/a>, the Charter was designed to secure democracy both from incumbents who wished to become dictators and the militaries that had held power in many countries in the 20th<\/sup> century. The Charter signaled an important shift in regional affairs\u2014a collective endorsement not only that democracy was the chosen form of government for the Americas, but that governments across the region would collectively defend democracy should it be threatened anywhere in the Americas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the dreams of a more democratic hemisphere have fallen short. Countries across the region have seen recurrent and evolving assaults on democracy and the OAS has failed to address many of these threats until it is too late. Indeed, in some cases, the very organization meant to defend democracy has provided<\/a> cover for those that are seeking to undermine democratic norms. As we mark 25 years since the signing of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, we should take stock of what has worked and what hasn\u2019t in the Defense of Democracy regime in the Americas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From coups to erosion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the passage of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the threats and challenges to democracy in the Americas have evolved. However, not all of this has been negative. While the region was prone to military dictatorship in much of the 20th<\/sup> century, there are no longer military governments in the region and the number of traditional coups has dropped precipitously. In fact, since the signing of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, Latin America and the Caribbean has only seen four leaders removed by internal armed forces\u2014Venezuela<\/a> (2002), Haiti<\/a> (2004), Honduras<\/a> (2009), and Bolivia<\/a> (2019), and the latter two examples occurred following broader challenges to democratic governance in the countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite fewer coups, continue to see declines in democracy across the region. According to Freedom House<\/a>, all of the 34 countries that signed onto the Democratic Charter have seen their scores decline in at least one year since 2002 and half had lower scores in 2025 than in 2002. In the place of armed groups removing presidents however, there has been a rise in alternative assaults on democracy. These have included actions from both those in power and those seeking to overthrow democratically elected leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once taking power, many leaders across the region have sought to maintain power by rolling back political rights and manipulating electoral and political rules. These have included constitutional rewrites<\/a> that concentrate power in the executive branch, ending<\/a> term limits, attacks on the media, rolling back political and human rights protections to show that work is getting done, and ruling by executive decree by declaring<\/a> states of exception. These actions that have often fallen short of being considered a complete breakdown of democracy on their own. This coupled with the OAS\u2019s institutional preference for executive privilege have meant that the Democratic Charter often fails to address<\/a> these crises before its too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, those opposition in countries have found new ways to remove elected leaders or attempted to prevent them from taking power. One of the key ways that oppositions have found to sidestep democratic elections is to remove leaders through impeachment processes. While impeachments can play an important role in democratic society, there have been multiple cases where the basis for impeachment was questionable\u2014such as the impeachments of Paraguay\u2019s Fernando Lugo<\/a> (2012) and Brazil\u2019s Dilma Rousseff<\/a> (2016)\u2014leading supporters to call them \u201cimpeachment coups.\u201d At the same time, the removal of leaders through impeachment processes can create political instability as evident<\/a> in Peru\u2019s nine presidents over the last decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At other time, the opposition has disliked election results and sought to leverage force and legal procedures to overturn election outcomes. Leaders in the United States<\/a> (2021), Brazil<\/a> (2023), and Guatemala<\/a> (2024) all sought to turn the tides of recent elections through misinformation, public protests, and legal manipulation. While none of these cases saw democratic elections overturned, the rise of inauguration interference<\/a> remains troubling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strengthening democracy\u2019s defense<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Americas mark the 25th<\/sup> anniversary of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, they must grapple with the realities of democratic governance in the region and identify opportunities to meaningfully defend democracy. The Charter was designed to prevent what at the time were the most common threats to democracy and assumed that leaders from across the region would agree on what constituted a \u201can unconstitutional interruption of the democratic order or an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime.\u201d However, this has not been the case; democratic erosion has become common place and democratic crises are viewed through the ideological lens and national interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the OAS and its members want to defend democracy, they need to amend the Inter-American Democratic Charter to address some of the challenges that the current regime faces. This would require that the OAS strengthen its toolbox for preventing democratic decay rather than only responding once democratic challenges have become crises. While the OAS already does some programming in this space, strengthening these programs is critical. In addition, the OAS must create mechanisms that allow different elements of society to invoke the Charter and not only presidents. For both of these mechanisms to succeed, the OAS should support the creation of an independent reporting body to warn about and condemn democratic backsliding in the way that the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights does for human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 25th<\/sup> anniversary of the signing of the Inter-American Democratic Charter serves as a moment to reflect on the state of democracy and multilateralism in the Americas. Despite the recent increase<\/a> in public support for democracy, democratic erosion persists and regional efforts to stave democratic decline have faltered. If the region wishes to maintain its status as a beacon of democratic governance, regional organizations must find ways to collectively defend democracy\u2014even when its members are the threat they are guarding against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years after its creation, the Inter-American Democratic Charter faces the challenge of containing democratic erosion that the OAS\u2019s tools have failed to prevent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":808,"featured_media":59110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17040,16844],"tags":[15635],"gps":[],"class_list":["post-59223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oea-en","category-democracia-en","tag-debates"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/808"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59225,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59223\/revisions\/59225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59223"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=59223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}