With the exception of Venezuela, the authoritarian institutions operating under democratically elected governments in Latin America are not as bad as Russia's. It is true that power is more decentralized in Latin America, where governments have not been able or willing to wrest back economic influence from the private interests that surfaced during the market reforms of the 1990s, and where the institutions of the state are too weak to suppress voluntary associations and civic activity.

If we compare Mexico and Russia, the evidence seems to confirm Vorozheykina's views. Mexico was also dominated by a party-state for much of the 20th century and underwent a process of reform in the 1990s aimed at fostering liberal democracy and privatizing a large part of the economy.

Despite its many flaws, reform improved the political and economic environment. In Russia, liberal democracy never quite surfaced, and, according to Vorozheykina, ``economic reform did not amount to transferring assets from the state to the private sector but from private hands to private hands using the state trademark.'' In other words, the collapse of the Soviet Union was followed by the capture of the state by certain factions. Putin then reacted against the oligarchy of the 1990s by establishing his own oligarchy. By contrast, although there was much crony capitalism and the reforms did not exactly produce Jeffersonian checks and balances, Mexico's system is freer.