21
Declining State of Democratic Institutions and the Implications for Governance
five countries, with a population of more than 80 million and a gross
domestic product of more than $600 billion.
The second challenge, which has led to an institutional crisis in Latin
America, is the issue of corruption. According to the Latinobarometer
survey of 2010, only 37 percent of respondents believed that there
was improvement in fighting corruption over the last two years, and
11 percent of the population admitted that they or their families
participated in corruption within the last 12 months. This perceived
corruption is blamed for an increase in violent crime with 31 percent
of respondents (the majority) stating that police corruption was the
cause of violence. There are several reasons for this corruption. The
first are weak controls on acts of corruption by government ministers,
and the politicization of the fight against corruption. For example in
the case of Venezuela, the government uses the fight against corruption
as a mechanism for political persecution of the opposition. The second
problem causing corruption are the bureaucratic hurdles required to
accomplish anything administratively. Highlighted by Hernando De
Soto’s famous examples in his book
The Mystery of Capital
, De Soto
outlines the bureaucratic hurdles to conducting legitimate business
in Peru. For example, it took De Soto’s team six hours a day, 289
days to register their business; the legal cost for this was $1,251.00, a
prohibitive amount for the average Peruvian citizen.
In Venezuela, birth certificates expire every six months and must be
renewed. In Nicaragua, it can take up to three years and 10 trips
to a person’s home village for a renewal of the
cedula
, the national
identification card. All of these problems create an environment that
is ripe for corruption as “enablers” spring up to assist in processing
documents which would otherwise be free.
Probably the most significant cause of corruption which has laid waste
to many institutions is the drug trade. Drug production and transport is
by far the most significant illicit business venture across Latin America.
Venezuela has become a major drug transit route. According to the
2009 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report, Venezuela
