Populism and Democracy in Latin America. The Cases of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela (1994-2020)

Populism has an ambivalent relationship with liberal democracy. Populist leaders often claim power for the people and consider themselves true democrats, while their detractors accuse them of being demagogues or authoritarians. In the academic literature these two ways of understanding populism coexist: as a threat to liberal democracy, or as an opportunity for political change that contributes to expanding democratic spaces. The aim of this article is to analyze how V-Dem's main indices of democracy evolved in the Latin American countries that have had governments ascribed to the populist left. We seek to assess whether populism is a threat, an aid, or simply a theoretical matter without major practical implications for democracy.