State Reform and Reform of Politics

Recent years surveys show that Latin American citizens have felt clearly neglected by the democratic institutions at times of economic crisis, like those of last years. This would seem to demand a transformation of these institutions, to cut the reasons for citizens’ dissatisfaction.

The structural reforms supposed a drastic reduction of the resources of the State, which inevitably affected its capacity to palliate the effects of adverse economic situations. The reappearance of the crisis has reframed the necessity of public policies to compensate the inequalities and protect people against the adversity. But now, the governments do not seem already able to offer a safety net in front of market crises. And the new insecurity also affects those who before had felt safe against the traditional poverty and exclusion in Latin America.

For reasons of efficiency of the economic model, second-generation reforms have been considered to improve the qualification of the administration, of the judicial system, and of the police and security forces. Nevertheless, the program of the reforms of second generation maintains a logic almost exclusively economic.

The alternative proposal (PNUD, 2004) is to construct a democracy of citizenship, based on social fairness, in which democracy serves to determine the minimums effective social rights and the citizens can freely decide on the existing options to organize economy and society. But a pre-condition for it would be that the political debate is centered in the social demands and the problems and ways to satisfy them, not in impossible promises and late excuses.

It is necessary not only to reform the institutions of the democracy to obtain more efficient parliaments and more responsible governments, or to modify the systems under which legislators and governors are chosen, but also to reform the parties, to make them more responsible and accountable and less tempted to sacrifice everything to the immediate electoral yield.