Reflections on Uneven Democracies ― The Legacy of Guillermo O'donnell

The third wave of democratization produced a wealth of enduring social science. Beginning in the 1970s, it prompted scholars to develop important theories on authoritarian breakdowns and transitions to democracy. No one in the field was more influential than Guillermo O’Donnell (1936–2011), whose pathbreaking work shaped the scholarship of generations of social scientists.

Reflections on Uneven Democracies honors the legacy of O’Donnell’s research by advancing debates related to his work on democracy. Drawing together a veritable Who’s Who of eminent scholars—including two of O’Donnell’s closest collaborators, Philippe Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead—the volume examines issues related to democratic breakdowns and stability, the nature and quality of new democracies, institutional strength, the rule of law, and delegative democracy.

This reexamination of some of the most influential arguments about democracy of the past forty years leads to original approaches and insights for a new era of democracy studies. Students of democracy and institutional performance, both Latin Americanists and comparativists more generally, will find this essential reading.

Daniel Brinks is an associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of The Judicial Response to Police Killings in Latin America: Inequality and the Rule of Law. Marcelo Leiras is an assistant professor of political science and international relations at Universidad de San Andres in Argentina, where he is also director of the Master of Public Administration and Policy program. Scott Mainwaring is the Eugene and Helen Conley Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He is the coauthor of Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America: Emergence, Survival, and Fall.