The Quality of Democracy in Latin America. Edited by Daniel H. Levine and José E. Molina. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2011. 299p. $65.00 cloth, $26.50 paper. - Democratic Governance in Latin America. Edited by Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. 440p. $85.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1028-1030
Author(s):  
Charles H. Blake
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Stanford University ◽  
Quality Of Democracy

Scaling-Up and Zooming-Out: Understanding How and When Participatory Institutions Matter

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared Abbott ◽  
Benjamin Goldfrank
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
National Level ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Participatory Institutions ◽  
New Generation

The three books reviewed here represent a new generation of rigorous scholarship on participatory institutions (PIs). They demonstrate that – under certain conditions – it is possible to build large-scale PIs that strengthen democratic governance and improve citizens’ lives. Nonetheless, significant challenges remain. Due in part to the absence of either high-quality national-level comparative data or fine-grained subnational data, and in part to research design choices of existing studies, the literature remains limited in its capacity to make general claims about the causes and effects of large-scale PIs. Ultimately, the key question collectively addressed, but not fully answered, by the works reviewed is whether governments can build PIs that deliver on their promise to improve the quality of democracy and enhance public service provision on a large scale in diverse contexts beyond Brazil.

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