Fundamentals of pluralist democracy and political structure of the State in Uruguay

Abstract

This article looks at the process of construction of the Uruguayan State, its evolution over the course of the 20th century and the transformations in state structures that have taken place in recent decades. The historically-grounded approach adopted in this study focuses on the close articulation between the State, political parties and democracy. This analysis of the evolution of the Uruguayan State thus seeks to engage in a permanent dialogue with the constitutive and original elements of Uruguayan pluralism. The study also examines the role of the State in the process of national integration and the formation of collective identities, in particular through the expansion of the social State, starting from the beginning of the 20th century. The article goes on to cover the first reformist waves in the 1960s and ends with the second transition that took place during the final decade of the last century. This last part examines the different facets and characteristics of the end-of-the-century reform process in Uruguay: the tension between centralization and decentralization, between hard and soft models of privatization, and between deregulation and re-regulation.