The increasingly global phenomenon of democratic transition and consolidation have been analysed by scholars who have borrowed from Joseph Schumpeter and Robert Dahl in defining the type of democracy that societies emerging from very different authoritarian experiences are seeking to achieve.2 Although most authors tend to agree on a procedural definition of democracy, they have differed in their analysis of the critical features of democratic transition and consolidation. To varying degrees all of these views are relevant for an understanding of the prospects and problems of democratic consolidation in Ecuador.