Participación política y electoral en las democracias de América Central a inicios del siglo XXI

Abstract

Democracy in Central America arrived later than in the south of the continent (often after violent processes), even so it belongs to the “third wave of democracy” by it’s own right. That arrival raised the need of agreements between opposing political forces, sometimes military enemies with thousands of victims on their backs. The new rules of the game resulted in peace agreements or new Constitutions that implicitly raised some of the dilemmas developed on Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract: how to make the social contract overcome the state of war (literally, in the case of Central America), how to ensure freedom and equality in highly unequal societies and how to establish, with the agreement of all parts, the legitimacy of authorities.