Ecuador's return to civilian rule and representative government in 1979 signified a real turn toward democracy. Political parties flourished, popular movements were reinvigorated, and the military has not taken formal, sustained control of the government since the1970s. Yet, as the sociologist Carlos de la Torres shows, it is a fragile, incomplete, and contradictory form of democracy that remains clientelistic, prone to populist impulses, highly unstable, and ultimately corrupt.