Center for Development and Democracy in the Americas

During the 90's it looked that Latin America had embarked in Democracy and market reforms and stability. The Leadership of Multilateral Institutions towards democratization, State Reform, Free Trade and Markets Integration seemed unquestionable. But this was only in the surface. The issue of poverty had gone to far and became to big at the same time, a real threat to the reform and democratic movement shall the initiatives not succeed in the short term.

Today, The Americas look divided. The US leadership is fragile and old evils had regrouped and reorganized. Washington Consensus Reformers called the 80's the lost decade, the 90's promised to be the decade for progress. Is that the case? Evidently not.

On the Economic front, The Washington Consensus was a necessary but insufficient program, an incomplete proposal. It pushed too far and too fast in many places, and its political implementation turned into mismanagement, inadequate sequencing and more fiscal instability, which led to new crisis and the reemergence of populism. The problem of poverty was overlooked and simplified, and perhaps nobody realized the credibility problem that important political parties had was linked to the cultural problem of poverty. The great expectations and resentments of the poor were considered by oversimplification of the problem a popular movement for the freedom agenda. Given the lack of grass-root, reformers missunderstood that the poor were confused and demanding, to some extent, in the absence of citizenship education and organization, for new forms of populism, more government intervention and political patronage, therefore, corruption present in most countries was widespread and corrosive in the social fiber.

Finally, Venezuela is speaking out a new model: the pacific revolution through the “abuse of democracy”. Together with Fidel Castro's regime expertise, and new potential allies in the region, Hugo Chavez has found an export market for his Anti-American, militaristic, leftist populism, fueled by the economic power granted by abundant oil resources. This is enough to argue for great security concerns specially in a world threaten by terrorism.

The Inter-American System develops important tools to promote democracy and economic freedom. The Democratic Charter of the OAS, The Inter-American Human Rights legal structure and recently the initiate for FTAA. However, they face the weaknesses inherent to international law aggravated by the institutional arrangements that govern the Inter-American System. This may lead to an undesirable unilateralism or multiple strategies, which will result in further divisions and trade asymmetries.

Believers in the democratic idea and free market development need to reorganize an offensive, an initiative to reassume the cause of freedom as a source to overcome or solve the problem of poverty as the root for all the problems we see currently in The Americas. We believe in multilateralism and international law with its institutions to address and serve as venue to solve the problem, but perhaps to make it possible, the Inter-American System must reform itself to achieve such end.

That is the rationale that stimulates us to create THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE AMERICAS.