Postliberal democracy emerging? A conceptual proposal and the case of Bolivia

Abstract

Recent political changes across Latin America that challenge mainstream conceptions of liberal democracy have led to speculation about some kind of postliberal democracy possibly emerging in the region. Up to now, however, a systematic assessment of this proposition is lacking, as is an explicit conception of postliberal democracy. In order to contribute to filling this research gap, the present paper proposes a conceptual framework for analyzing political change towards postliberal democracy, in Latin America and beyond, and probes the plausibility of this framework in a case study on Bolivia. It argues that the concept of postliberal democracy indeed helps us understand the contemporary transformation of Bolivian democracy and that it has comparative advantages over alternative conceptual frameworks like (radical) populism and defective (illiberal, delegative) democracy.