Latin America's Democracy and Citizenship in O'Donnell's thinking

The objective of the research is to analyze the contributions, scope and limitations of O'Donnell's political thinking, both in the analysis of the categories he used to understand reality and in his approaches to the political reality of Latin America and the Caribbean. Taking into account the breadth of their thinking, low-intensity citizenship, delegative democracy and horizontal accountability are addressed, highlighting their influence on the theory and analysis of political reality. It is concluded that delegative democracy and horizontal accountability have become guides to the debate and practice of democracy and its quality, and low intensity citizenship has made it possible to make citizenship-agency a central foundation of democracy through of the necessary extension of rights to the most vulnerable sectors. These categories, including delegative democracy, have encouraged the debate of others, such as representative authoritarianism, delegated power and social accountability. The limitations are: decrease of democratic requirements in the delegative democracy, increasing the democratic minimalism; the legitimation of new authoritarianisms through delegative democracy and; the non-inclusion of the socioeconomic dimension of democracy.