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Lusatra t1_j9whkpn wrote

Reply to comment by domestic_omnom in [OC] Latin America is the 3rd most democratic region in the world, ahead of Asia and Africa. Here’s where its countries stand: by latinometrics

Uruguay has a very low corruption index, one the lowest in the world. Chile is also low, but not as much as Uruguay. That really helps a country to develop

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domestic_omnom t1_j9whv41 wrote

Yes... But why is Uruguay like that when the neighboring countries are not.

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arturocan t1_j9ww3sg wrote

For starters because Uruguay isn't its neighbours. Due small population everyone knows each other and you can't hide your dirty laundry effectively. Then the neighbours are swimming in rich resources with lots of possibilities to profit for being corrupt. So as result of being less resourcefull, less corrupt, and having more humble begginings with lots of struggle Uruguay developed its own identity and political culture making it a polar opposite on certaint aspects of his "brother" argentina, ending looking something like twins separated at birth.

This is skipping a lot of info but is an understandable summary.

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xarsha_93 t1_j9yxtgw wrote

There are a few things playing in Uruguay's favor. One, it's tiny, it has a smaller population than the average capital city in Latin America, and two, most of the population stems from Europeans who came in the 20th century with investment money from Europe.

During the World Wars and whatnot, a lot of Latin America saw an influx of investment because Western Europe was a mess. Countries like Venezuela and Argentina also benefitted from that to varying extents, but Uruguay as a whole was completely changed by that process because the newcomers made up the majority of the population.

Buenos Aires underwent a similar process and if you took just Buenos Aires (which has about the same population as Uruguay), it would rank similarly.

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