Tracking Civil Liberty in Latin American and (Post-)Communist Countries

The paper utilizes a new dataset on civil liberties covering 20 Latin American and 28 post-communist countries from 1977 to 2003. It is shown that, despite the overall trend in the direction of more liberal regimes in both regions, significant intraregional and interregional disparities existed in this period. The communist regimes were characterized by a stable and severe repression of all civil liberties to a higher degree than other autocracies. Consequently, their collapse initiated a very sudden and steep improvement in the level of civil liberty. In comparison, the Latin American wave was more gradual, uneven and modest; the patterns of repression were more diverse, and the average respect for the specific liberal rights was higher across the period. After the Cold War, however, the gap decreased and the Latin American countries became more homogeneous while the group of former communist countries turned more heterogeneous.

The paper also identifies some regional similarities. The liberal rights were practically respected in the same order throughout the period, i.e., freedom of religion, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and independent courts. Moreover, semi-liberal regimes often constituted a plurality in both regions after 1991. Finally, both Latin American and post-communist countries faced tendencies towards a greater gap between the respect for self-government and civil liberty, respectively, and increasing sub-regional homogeneity.

All in all, the paper provides a comparative account of regime changes that answers some research questions in itself. More important, though, the revealed patterns also suggest hypotheses and propositions that may help explain the regional and country specific similarities and differences found.