Democracy, latin america - Essay ExampleLagos notes that, “…low levels of trust in other people constitute a defining feature of Latin American political culture� (Lagos, pg. 142). Latin Americans are characterized by a chronic passivity, where they develop the naive expectation that their problems will be solved by someone else, turning to the state, and democracy, to do so. The statistics show that as individuals move away from institutions such as political parties and government, and toward more domestic issues like television or church, levels of trust increase. These low levels, although not new, are relatively low compared to other regions of the world, and make it almost impossible for the liberalization which democracy entails. Lagos concludes: “…declining levels of interpersonal trust thus constitute an important barrier to… the development of a civil society…� (Lagos, pg. 144).
