This came up as a bar bet last night, and none of us could figure it out. The subtlety here is that we’re talking specifically about a presidential democracy in which the executive is largely separated from legislative, as opposed to a parliamentary democracy.
So, that being the case, apparently there are only 4 presidential democracies that have survived more than 40 years. We tried to work it out at the bar, and all we could really agree is that of course the US is one of them, and most of the countries in Latin America are presidential democracies, but we had no idea which ones survive(d) as formal presidential democracies for 40 years or more. Googling this subject seems to be somewhat fruitless on this specific question. I think Mexico and South Korea may be in the running.
Costa Rica would be the fourth. Presumably the Philippines is disqualified because they adopted a new constitution in 1987. Here is a list of the dates of adoption of the current constitution in each country.
We’re talking about purely presidential democracies, where executive authority isn’t shared between the executive branch and legislative branch. By that definition, France is semi-presidential (some authority shared) and Israel is parliamentary (legislative has all the authority).
Venezula has had elected presidents since 1959, excepting the few days of coup d’etat in 2002. I’m not sure if it has functioned under the same constitution since that time, though.
I’m not sure we can count Liberia as the government has been suspended and transitional goverments installed too many times.
Phillipines might be a contender, I understand they changed their constitution in the 80’s but the outcome was still a presidential democracy as I understand.
It wasn’t a democracy under President Marcos. It was a presidential system, but not democractic until the flower power revolution that brought Corazon Aquino to power in the mid-80s.
There’s lots of countries that have had nicely written constitutions that on paper look democractic. The key though, is whether in practice they were true democracies.
Mexico is an ambiguous example. President Fox was the first President who wasn’t a member of the PRI in, oh, seven decades or so, if memory serves me right. Would you say Mexico was a democracy throughout that period? if not, when exactly did it become a democracy?
(It most likely disqualifies itself on two counts: the constitution was amended/rewritten recently, and it’s kind of not a recognized nation anywhere except among a few other minor countries.)
If the constitution changed, but the balance of power remained identical, or almost identical, to before, wouldn’t that count? We don’t even have a written constitution, see, but you wouldn’t deny that we’re a long-standing parliamentary democracy.
As others have pointed out, it depends exactly what you mean by “democracy,” and also what you mean by “survived.” Do brief lapses, as in the case of Venezuela, put the country out of the running?
The two unambiguous cases I can think of are the US and Costa Rica. Costa Rica has had a stable and basically democratic government since 1949.
Mexico has had a nominally democratic presidential system since the 1920s. However, it has essentially been a one-party state for most of that time.
Colombia has had an essentially democratic presidential government since 1957.
Venezuela has had a democratic presidential government since 1958; perhaps the 2-day coup against Chavez would rule it out.
Although a presidential system, South Korea has had periods of dictatorship within the last 40 years. Taiwan also has had a presidential system, but it was not very democratic until fairly recently.
Personally, I would go with the US, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Colombia.
Though I wonder if the period of “agreed alternance” in the 60s (the main parties made an accord to take turns in office for the first 12 years of the new constitution) would affect the longevity count, if we’re going to be fastidious about how really democratic is the government at a given time.
Let’s see, Costa Rica and USA are pretty clearly in.
With some others you have to account for local peculiarities, including periods of nominally “democratic” but in practice noncompetitive rule (e.g. the Colombian “alternancia”; the PRI running Mexico for 70 years; Venezuela in Chavez’ second term after the opposition folded.)
Still, if it means “greater than 40 years as of now” that places us in the range of the place having been a free country, under a presidentialist republican system, since 1965 or earlier. Rebellions or uprisings of limited scope should not count if the continuity of the constitutional order is maintained (such as the attempted coups in Venezuela).
So do we have any input from the OP as to what the “correct” answer actually is? As has been pointed out in this thread, the “'correct” answer largely depends on technicalities.
I only heard it from someone else who was stumped, and with all the subtleties that have come to light, I really don’t know for certain. I feel like we have to go with the longest unbroken rule of technical presidential democracies (which doesn’t really feel right as it marginalizes the practical concerns of liberal democracies, but again, we don’t really know the full context of the question). So, I’m going with US (1776), Costa Rica (1949), Mexico (1917), and Colombia (1957). Bring it up next time you go to the bar and see if you get a better answer.
