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Guillermo O’Donnell
Democratization, Political Engagement,and Agenda-Setting Research
Guillermo O’Donnell is a leading theorist of authoritarianism and de-mocratization and one of the most distinguished Latin American politicalscientists.O’Donnell’s
 Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism
(1973) of-fered a pioneering analysis of the breakdown of democracies in South Amer-ica in the 1960s. He argued that the form of authoritarianism experiencedby South America starting in the 1960s was novel because it was based onmodern technocrats and a professionalized military organization, insteadof populist politicians or traditional military strongmen. To capture thisdistinctiveness, he coined the term
bureaucratic authoritarianism.
O’Donnellargued that this new form of authoritarianism emerged as the result of political conflict generated by an import-substitution model of industrial-ization. He cast his argument as an alternative to the thesis, advanced mostnotably by Seymour Martin Lipset, that industrialization produced democ-racy. In South America, O’Donnell argued, industrialization generated notdemocracy, but bureaucratic authoritarianism. This work, along with a se-ries of subsequent articles, triggered an important debate in comparativepolitics and Latin American Studies about the political consequences of economic development. The central contributions to this debate were pub-lished in a volume edited by David Collier,
The New Authoritarianism in Latin America
(1979), which assessed and critiqued O’Donnell’s thesis.The next phase of O’Donnell’s research focused on the demise of au-thoritarianism and transitions to democracy. His coauthored book withPhilippe C. Schmitter,
Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclu-sions about Uncertain Democracies
(1986), was one of the most widely readand influential works in comparative politics during the 1980s and 1990s.O’Donnell and Schmitter proposed a strategic choice approach to transi-
This interview was conducted by Gerardo Munck in Palo Alto, California, on March 23,2002.
 
274GUILLERMO O’DONNELL
tions to democracy that highlighted how they were driven by the decisionsof different actors in response to a core set of dilemmas. The analysis cen-tered on the interaction among four actors: the hard-liners and soft-linerswho belonged to the incumbent authoritarian regime, and the moderateand radical oppositions against the regime. This book not only became thepoint of reference for a burgeoning academic literature on democratic tran-sitions, it was also read widely by political activists engaged in actual strug-gles to achieve democracy.O’Donnell’s research since the early 1990s has explored the question of the quality of democracy. His work warns against teleological thinking,that is, the tendency to see countries that democratized in the 1970s and1980s as following in the tracks, though several steps behind, of the long-standing democratic countries of the West. To highlight the specificity of contemporary Latin American countries and the deficiencies of their de-mocracies, he proposed the concept of ‘‘delegative democracy,’’ by whichhe meant a form of democratic rule that concentrated power in the handsof elected presidents. His recent work centers on the current problems facedby most Latin American democracies as a result of deficiencies in the rule of law and the social capabilities of citizens. His key articles on the quality of democracy have been published in
Counterpoints
(1999b) and
The Quality of  Democracy 
(2004).O’Donnell was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1936. He received alaw degree from the University of Buenos Aires in 1958 and a Ph.D. inpolitical science from Yale University in 1988. He taught at the Universityof Buenos Aires (1958–66), the Argentine Catholic University (1966–68),and the University of El Salvador (1971–75), all in Buenos Aires. He was afounding member of CEDES (Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad) inBuenos Aires (1975–79), and a researcher at IUPERJ (Instituto Universitáriode Pesquisas do Río de Janeiro) (1980–82) and CEBRAP (Centro Brasileirode Análise e Planejamento) in São Paulo (1982–91). Since 1983 he hastaught at the University of Notre Dame, where he was academic director of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies from 1983 until 1998.He was president of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) in1988–91, was vice-president of the American Political Science Association(APSA) in 1999–2000, and was elected to the American Academy of Artsand Sciences in 1995.
Early Interests and Training: From Law to Political Science
Q: How did you first become interested in the study of politics?
A: My interest developed through my engagement with politics in Argen-tina. I entered the university quite young, at just sixteen. By then I was
 
Democratization, Political Engagement, and Agenda-Setting Research275
already an avid reader of history and philosophy. Because of the problemwith my leg, I had more time to read than other kids.
1
When I was a child,my mother practically fed me history books. So my leg gave me a compara-tive advantage, or disadvantage, depending how you look at it. I becameinvolved in politics at the University of Buenos Aires, where I was a studentleader. I joined the Humanist Party in the Law School and, as a representa-tive of this party, I was a member of FUBA (Buenos Aires University Federa-tion). In 1954 we got into deep trouble with Perón’s government, and thepresident, vice-president, and secretary general of FUBA were put in jail. Inspite of my visibility, I was one of the very few who was not caught in thelate night raid. So I became the acting president of the whole thing, inhiding. I had the strange experience of seeing my photograph posted as adangerous person who had to be caught. When Perón was overthrown by acoup in 1955, I was a well recognized leader, and I thought I was beginninga successful political career. But it didn’t take me long to discover that be-ing deeply interested in politics didn’t mean I was a good politician. So Ijumped ship after some unfortunate experiences.
Q: You did not initially study political science. Indeed, in 1958 youreceived a law degree from the University of Buenos Aires.
A: I studied law, not because I particularly wanted to study law, but becausein these times it was the closest thing to studying politics. In the 1950s and1960s there were no Political Science departments in Argentina. In the LawSchool, there was something called political law and constitutional law,which was the closest I could get to political science. Also, being a lawyeroffered me the opportunity to make a living. That’s why I got into law.I found law school immensely boring. In those days, half the scholarsworking in political theory and constitutional theory thought everythinghad already been said by Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the other half—themodernists—thought everything had already been said by Hans Kelsen.Everything else was nothing. It was really very, very boring.
Q: Why did you decide to leave Argentina in 1968 and go to Yale tostudy political science at the graduate level?
A: I got married, I had children, and to support my family I practiced law fora number of years. But I kept my interest in studying politics, and beganteaching history of political ideas in the Catholic University of BuenosAires. But I soon felt I wanted to become more empirically oriented. I wasreading some North American books, for example, Lasswell and Kaplan’s
 Power and Society 
(1950) and Lasswell’s
 Politics: Who Gets What, When, How 
1. O’Donnell had polio as a child, which damaged one of his legs.
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