thanks for the link I just spent a good time laughing my butt off at all the content available on Comedy Central. well, as a matter of fact I did expect to dislike every word coming out of Bolton's mouth, but I think he does have a point. maybe it was just me or Stewart's demeanor did betray a slight dissapointment with his audience's knee-jerk reactions to the ugly republican dude rather than his actual arguments.

a government, or a president, does have a mandate to install in positions of power like-minded thinkers and political allies, for if not the electoral system makes no sense at all.

while Bolton's and most Bush appointee's 'vision' may be repulsive to both your liberal academic sensibility and my progressive, admittedly sophist view, the famous quote from a certain Usamerican "founding father" comes to mind, something about 'fighting to the death for your right to say it, even if I don't like it '

surely Bush does have the right to appoint whomever he wishes to office, and if he has authority to appoint justice officials then this extends to them as well. the simple demarcation line is simply constitutionality and law, which appears to be clearly broken in the latest DOJ firing attorneys case but not so in the Bolivian situation.

as you know, the TC's ruling upheld the legal and traditional temporary appointment of Evo's Supreme Court justices. there is however, a valid question as to whether it overstepped its own authority by issuing an order to remove the temporary justices, based on its own interpretation of an adequate length of temporary service.

it is clear to me to that point and thus I don't understand your use of the term delegative democracy in the last sentence of the first paragraph. were you to have written, this is typical of confrontation in a representative democracy , I would be in complete agreement. or "pacted democracy", since we are discussing Bolivia and it is not but 5 years since the ruling "coalition" of political parties divided up the booty of judicial appointments.

however you did include that reference and upon reading the linked pdf I do find that this is again an argument in which essential differences of opinion come to bear as far as substance. if I understand correctly and broadly speaking, the basic premise is that the democratic revolutionary governments of our dear south america are walking if not flagrantly crossing a dangerous line between true democracy, and a bastardized system which holds only some of the form but not enough of the substance to warrant the respect and signing off of the western academic community.

perhaps our disagreement on this first point of form can be reconciled by my stating that while I understand the existence of (though not the grounds for) a marked fear and uncertainty as to the legality and democratic legitimacy of a massively elected executive pushing for radical transformation in the whole of government and not only its cornered in branch, none of these actions have yet come to pass.

President Morales and his cabinet as well as MAS legislators have not in any way shape or form infringed upon the constitutional separation of powers expressed by judicial independence, and the suspicion of such an intention or the (incorrect in my analysis) projection of the situation to Fujimori's outright suspension of the constitution or Chavez' controversial yet not unconstitutional actions, is laughably not enough in my opinion to pretend to assign the constitutional and democratic government of the sovereign republic of Bolivia a status any other than that of full blown democracy, such that it must be respected in every way and in all matters as an equal and obligatory interlocutor for all matters internal to the nation by foreign powers and academics.

As you state yourself, the substance of actual executive branch attacks on the judicial branch up until now is limited to verbal accusations. the allegations of difficulties investigating members of the government due to obstructions and oversight from the accused themselves may well be true- or may fizzle as have so many others-, but they would hardly be an indictment as to the form or substance of democracy practiced specifically by this government, rather a continuation of corruption and lack of legal accountability from elected officials which were the norm for the unquestioned (by the proponent of delegative democracy concepts, insofar as to their constitutional legitimacy if not also to their efforts at institutionalization) representative (stage 1) democratic governments of the past

so what I'm saying in less convoluted terms, is that you are wrong to characterize the current arm wrestling between President Morales and the Judicial branch as anything other than standard practice within the confines of representative democracy. and rather the initiative to characterize the actions of the massively electorally-backed executive branches of today's democratic revolutionary south american governments as something other than democratic (i.e. delegative democracy)in the layman's terms is both a forced; or imported, or imposed, projection, and that it casts some doubt on your ability to accurately assess the next stage of discussion, related to actual substance.

the substance debate which would really be interesting is the finer point of whether an electoral decision by a Bolivian majority should be enough- or allowed from a Usamerican foreign policy point of view- to transform the deep structures of power and social organization and who should be in charge of or leading the transformation.

unfortunately our agreement on some basic premises is necessary for such a discussion to prosper, by which I don't mean holding the same opinion or that I hold any absolute truth on these 3 or any other points, but being on the same page:

1) the above issue of form and whether current Bolivian judicial "crisis" is a perception/possibility or a reality of executive tyranny

2) the futility of- or necessity of not- turning towards Venezuela as a point of reference as if western academic agreement on the subject Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias were stirred in concrete and mostly correct

3) the need to reach some basic agreement as to the historical and ongoing military, political and social interference of the Usamerican empire (and the international financial/economic system for which it claims to speak) in our dear south america and the impossibility of discussing or studying south american democratic forms/substance in a supposed vacuum away from such historical and current influences which are obvious to all, in my humble opinion

That’s a very long comment to a very short post. But let me answer briefly to some of your points:

I’m glad you read the O’Donnell white paper on “delegative democracy” that I linked to. It was later published in the Journal of Democracy (JoD) & has since become a staple of democratization studies. Another important (and similar) term is “competitive authoritarianism” (an article by Steven Levitsky & Lucan Way, also in JoD). Both of these describe a situation well beyond normal “representative” democracy.

Representative democracy merely states that leaders are elected to represent citizens. Normally, representatives also reflect their society’s pluralism (socioeconomic, ethnic, religious, gender, etc). This isn’t always the case of course, and there’s different views on whether someone must “look” like you to be able to “represent” (like an advocate or lawyers) your interests.

But it is in Madisonian or “pluralist” democracy that the concept of divided government is developed. The idea is simple: there is no “majority” there are only a number of minority groups that form constantly shifting alliances to seek power. To solve the problem of tyranny of the minority (or majority), Madisonian democracy develops a system of checks & balances. These prevent any one groups from usurping too much power.

I’m not sure why (anonymous commenter), you think that what Bush did (in firing the DOJ lawyers) was a breach of separation of powers, but what Chávez & Morales are doing is not. In both types of cases, the chief executive is seeking to centralize power around his person & eliminating potential checks to his authority. I believe (as do most political scientists) that any government that concentrates too much authority in one branch (or, worse, a person) has many problems.

Keep in mind two things:

First, most political scientists use “democracy” to mean a system of decision-making. We don’t use it as a normative term to mean “the good society” or “social justice” or anything of the sort. Democracy’s can make bad decisions. What matters is whether the decisions are made under a system we have come to recognize as “democratic” (if you want to know what kind of system we mean, I suggest you read Robert Dahl’s Polyarchy as a starting point). For example, for all its liberalness, Monaco is not a democracy.

Second, outside of the “activist” academia, there is substantial convergence (even among “progressive”) academics that Chávez has violated many of the norms we believe are necessary for competitive, liberal, democratic politics. We may like his pro-poor rhetoric; but he has clearly stripped Venezuela of any sense of “competitive” politics. In some ways, one could compare Chávez’s regime (as a regime type) w/ Singapore or 1960s Mexico.

Finally, I’d also remind you that Evo is doing more than merely “verbally” attacking the courts. It’s one thing to insult them. Sure, that’s freedom of speech, etc. But it’s another thing to threaten to mobilize a popular uprising to forcibly remove them from office. And that’s exactly what he’s done. And since he previously tried it (at the loss of three lives & many injuries) against the prefect of Cochabamba in January, suggests that he’s willing to use that kind of brute force.