The Costa Rican separation of powers. Divide and survive: an assessment of the resilience of Costa Rican democracy

Abstract

The late Giovanni Sartori once declared in a television interview that assemblies are terrible Constitution writers. The Constituent Assembly of Costa Rica of 1949 must have been an exception. It produced a coherent and foresighted constitutional text that is still in force today. Some 62 constitutional reforms have not altered its original vision, but rather refined it. The 1949 Constitution does have its critics, but it is undeniable that under this Constitution, Costa Rica has had uninterrupted elections since 1953, making it Latin America’s oldest electoral democracy, both in procedural and substantive terms. In this paper, I explore the resilience of Costa Rican democracy. I first provide an overview of the most common explanations of Costa Rica’s democratic transition and stability. I find that notwithstanding the value of these explanations, they underexpose the essential role of the institutional arrangements of
the 1949 Constitution. I argue that the resilience of Costa Rica’s democracy is also explained by its institutional design, in particular the way in which it compartmentalizes poIr in the political system, both horizontally and vertically. Third, I consider criticisms of the quality of Costa Rica’s democracy. I show that Costa Rica is not immune to democratic backsliding, but that its effects are less pronounced than in other countries, precisely because of the way the political system was designed. Finally, I conclude how this “Costa Rican Separation of Powers” could serve as a template for constitutional engineers.