This paper intends to provide someelementary definitions to guide an investigation about the recent Latin American processes headed new left governments. A parallel is proposed between formal economy/formal democracy, on the one hand, and substantive economy/substantive democracy on the other. Possible logical paths of political and economic transformation are sketched and some hypotheses regarding their mutual causality are advanced. The main hypothesis posed is that, for avoid reversibility; these processes should include an effective radicalization of democracy.En este trabajo se proponen algunas definiciones básicas para orientar una investigación sobre los procesos recientes en América Latina bajo gobiernos con proyectos nacional-popul...