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Low Intensity Democracies: Latin America in the Post‐dictatorial Era
Author(s) -
Kruit Dirk
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
bulletin of latin american research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.24
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1470-9856
pISSN - 0261-3050
DOI - 10.1111/1470-9856.00023
Subject(s) - authoritarianism , democratization , latin americans , politics , democracy , political science , political economy , cycle of violence , democratic consolidation , context (archaeology) , political violence , citizen journalism , consolidation (business) , development economics , law , sociology , poison control , suicide prevention , history , economics , medicine , environmental health , archaeology , accounting , domestic violence
In the context of the Cold War and accompanied by the doctrines of National Security, authoritarian and often repressive military or civil‐military regimes emerged in a number of Latin American countries. However, military regimes were not the only ones contributing to the formation of societies mutilated by fear and terror. During the last four decades, the continent became affected by a cycle of violence that involved various armed actors, from the armed forces to the guerrilla, from the paramilitaries to the narcotics‐trafficking Mafia, or from the committees of self‐defence to the ‘common’ criminals. This article focuses on the persistence of military influence and organised political violence more general in post‐authoritarian and indeed post‐Cold War Latin America. After briefly reviewing the historical legacy of so‐called ‘political armies’ in the region as a whole, I offer an assessment of the consequences of this legacy for the current agenda of democratic consolidation in Latin America. Two possible scenarios are examined: that of fairly progressive democratisation and civilianisation of politics, and that of the re‐emergence of violence despite the formal rule of democracy. In the latter scenario, de facto harsh and violent regimes collide with a growing array of rival perpetrators of political and other forms of organised violence.