Ana María Bejarano is associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto.

"Bejarano's work offers a thorough historical explanation for the rise and decline of democracy in Colombia and Venezuela." —The Americas"Precarious Democracies provides a well-researched and much-needed comparison of Venezuela and Colombia's political evolutions." —Journal of International Law and Politics"Bejarano's book does an admirable job of comparing these two political regimes and tracing their path-dependent histories. . . . We should look forward to Bejarano's next book analysing the next stages in Venezuelan and Colombian 'precarious democracies.'" —Journal of Latin American Studies"Ana María Bejarano's book, Precarious Democracies: Understanding Regime Stability and Change in Colombia and Venezuela, is an excellent contribution to the literatures on Colombia, Venezuela, democratization, path dependence and critical junctures, and political regimes. Based on many years of research, the book offers rich theoretical and empirical contributions. It will become an indispensable and enduring reference point in the literature on Colombia and Venezuela." —Scott P. Mainwaring, University of Notre Dame"This book provides the first sustained, theoretically guided comparison and explanation of the evolution of these two increasingly troubled democracies in South America. The strength of the book lies in its careful deployment of analysis in a historical-institutionalist tradition." —Jonathan Hartlyn, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill