Böcker i Kellogg Institute Series on Democracy and Development-serien

This study focuses on the relationship between the use of national courts to pursue retrospective justice and the construction of viable democracies. Included are essays on the experiences of eight countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Poland and South Africa.

Among the challenges for democracies in Latin America and Southern Europe are weakened political parties, politicized militaries, compromised judiciaries, corrupt police forces and widespread citizen distrust. These essays offer an examination of the political structures and institutions bequeathed by authoritarian regimes.

This volume contains Guillermo O'Donnell's qualitative theoretical study of the quality of democracy and Vargas Cullell's description and analysis of the empirical data he gathered on the quality of democracy in Costa Rica.

This study describes a Latin American legal system which punishes only the poor and a ""democratic"" state which fails to control its own agents' arbitrary practices. The contributors argue that judicial reform cannot be seperated from human rights and that justice must be made available to the poor.