Scholarly attention has increasingly shifted from diminished subtypes of democracy to hybrid regimes, particularly competitive authoritarianism. Such regimes retain democracy’s formal features while failing to meet its minimum standards. When properties of distinct concepts like democracy and authoritarianism are combined, however, confusion, inaccuracy, and mischaracterization of cases may occur. By disaggregating political systems into electoral institutions, surrounding rights and freedoms, constitutionalism, and the rule of law, this article complicates the binary distinction between a midrange definition of democracy and competitive authoritarianism. A number of Andean cases are found to fall on the spectrum of defective democracies between these categories. Defective democracies break down when rulers violate the conditions necessary for institutionalized alternation in power by means of public participation and loyal opposition in an electoral regime. Given leaders’ reliance on electoral legitimacy, however, even defective democracies may prove surprisingly resilient.

At the time of the decision to negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), advocates argued that closer integration with Canada and the United States would have a democratizing influence on Mexico's political regime (Baer and Weintraub, 1994: 174–79; Pastor, 1993: 67). Critics of the deal suggested just the opposite, insisting that NAFTA might perpetuate or even reinvigorate authoritarian rule (Aguilar Zinser, 1993: 203–15; Castañeda 1996). With the breakthrough elections of July 2000 and the transfer of executive power to an opposition party the — PAN, or National Action Party — it is timely to ask: were the advocates of NAFTA right all along? Was NAFTA the impetus for Mexico's long overdue transition to democracy?

Political parties are critical to Latin American democracy. This was demonstrated in Peru, where an atomized, candidate-centered party system developed after Alberto Fujimori's 1992 presidential self-coup. Party system decomposition weakened the democratic opposition against an increasingly authoritarian regime. Since the regime collapsed in 2000, prospects for party rebuilding have been mixed. Structural changes, such as the growth of the informal sector and the spread of mass media technologies, have weakened politicians' incentive to build parties. Although these changes did not cause the collapse of the party system, they may inhibit its reconstruction.

In the Children's Department of the Maudsley Hospital an “Item Sheet” is routinely completed in respect of each child who attends. The items on this sheet (or “check-list”) cover a wide range of possible features in a child's personality, history, background and environment, as well as in his psychological and physical condition, and symptomatology.

A number of samples of these Item Sheets have been submitted to statistical analysis, with a view to identifying any common factors that may be present in the case data they summarize. The various samples have been arrived at according to age and sex of the children concerned. An earlier paper (1) has described the results of this procedure in respect of two such samples, boys and girls between eight and ten years of age. A subsequent paper will give an account of the results in respect of thirteen to fifteen year olds. The present report gives the results that emerged for the younger ages of referral to the clinic, boys and girls between approximately five and seven years of age.