Specificity of Latin American Federalism Development: Political Aspects
There are only four federations in Latin America but due to their territory and population Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela dominate in this part of the world. Being among the oldest federations they have some common features with other federal states. At the same time Latin American federalism have some specific characteristics in their organizational structures and principles and methods of its functioning. Special attention is paid to the relationship between federalism and basic parameters of the political regimes and political systems of corresponding countries, mainly to the correlation between federalism and democracy. The article using the example of Brazil confirms the possibility of maintaining the basic principles of federal statehood in authoritarianism in cases when national and regional political elites manage to reach a share powering agreement. As a result during the transition period from authoritarian rule to democracy one of the main problem is to synchronize the democratization process in the centre and in the regions. The article reveals the dominating trend in Latin American federations development - to strengthen the foundation of so called “integrated” federalism. The idea is to solve the national problems by accelerating development of large regions uniting several units of the federation without creation of a new administrative-territorial level of government.