The main goal of this article is to explore if, and under which conditions, regional organizations can contribute for the promotion and protection of the democracy in their state-members. The main highlighted factos are the identities of the regional organizations, the interests of the leading countries, the pressure of external actors, and the effects of the overlapping regionalism phenomenon, that is, the effects of the commitments derived from the participation of several organization simultaneously, which can have similar, complementary or contradictory precepts. In terms of empirical analysis, this article analyzes the commitments with democracy in South America, focusing on the OAS, the MERCOSUL and the Unasul. The case of the 2012 Peruvian democracy crisis is used to ilustrate the possibilities and limitations f the part of regional organizations.
Regional organizations; Democratic clause; OAS; Unasul; Mercosul; Paraguay
