STUDY The Pragmatic Turn of Democracy in Latin America Thamy Pogrebinschi August 2013 n In recent years, participatory and deliberative experiments have increasingly become an integral part of Latin America`s democratization process. Given the speed with which they have been multiplied and institutionalized, a reassessment of the course of democratization in Latin America is necessary. n The expansion and incorporation of experimentalist forms of government in a num­ber of Latin American democracies does not aim to destabilize representative insti­tutions, nor to substitute them with alternative, participatory or deliberative ones. Rather, this pragmatic change in Latin American democracies attempts to correct some of the alleged failures of representative institutions as well as to attain social ends that they seem unable to achieve. n Democracies described as delegative, defective or pseudo democracies, and which emerged in the third wave of democratization are being progressively displaced by pragmatic democracies. This experimental form of governance combines representa­tion, participation and deliberation as means to achieve social ends. n The escalation of political experimentalism raises important questions on how to evaluate the quality of democracy. New criteria are necessary to account for the democratic experimentation taking place in Latin America. Once the validity of this new, experimental model of democracy is recognized, Latin America could provide new and more creative recipes to enhance the quality of democracy elsewhere.