During the last decades we have seen an increasing support for democracy in Latin America. However, little is known about what political elites have in mind when they think of that abstract idea. This paper analyzes the concepts to which democracy is linked in eighteen Latin American countries, and how perceptions of democracy have changed since the mid-nineties. It also assesses the implications and determinants of conceiving democracy in economic, political and social terms. Data comes from the Project of Parliamentary Elites in Latin America conducted by the University of Salamanca
