“Protected Democracies” and Military Guardianship: Political Transitions in Latin America, 1978-1993

1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Loveman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
South America ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Political Transitions ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Media Censorship

In 1979, over two-thirds of Latin America's people were living under military rule. By 1993, however, not a single military regime remained in Central or South America or the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Elected presidents (even if former generals, as in the case of Paraguay's first post-Stroessner government) and legislatures replaced military dictators and juntas. Foreign observers certified the “fairness” of elections in Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Paraguay — even when outgoing military regimes permitted elections only after certain parties or candidates had been excluded from participation. Political parties and opponents of incumbent governments operated openly. Media censorship declined, and fewer cases of politically-motivated abuses of human rights were reported. “Democratization” seemed to be underway.

Strategy, Ideology, and Human Rights: Jimmy Carter Confronts the Left in Central America, 1979–1981

2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 57-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Soares
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jimmy Carter

This article discusses the Carter administration's policies toward Nicaragua and El Salvador after the Sandinistas took power in Nicaragua in July 1979. These policies were influenced by the widespread perception at the time that Marxist revolutionary forces were in the ascendance and the United States was in retreat. Jimmy Carter was trying to move away from traditional American “interventionism” in Latin America, but he was also motivated by strategic concerns about the perception of growing Soviet and Cuban strength, ideological concerns about the spread of Marxism-Leninism, and political-humanitarian concerns about Marxist-Leninist regimes' systematic violations of human rights.

Bureaucrats and the Senegalese Political Process

1971 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
'Ladipo Adamolekun
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Political Process ◽  
West African ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
The Military

While independence in West Africa focused academic attention on political parties, the proliferation of military régimes in the late 1960s– by 1970, seven West African countries had experienced military rule — brought two other institutions into prominence: the military and civil bureaucracies. This article seeks to throw some light on the place of the civil bureaucracy in Senegal through a study of the role of bureaucrats in the country's political process.

scholarly journals Internal Exile: Effects on Families and Communities

Refuge ◽  
2008 ◽  
pp. 69-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary A. Barbera
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Military

Military regimes throughout Latin America used a variety of tactics to instill terror in the population. In the case of Chile, the military dictatorship used torture, assassination, disappearance, exile and relegación, or internal exile, in its quest to weaken social movements and control social and economic processes. This article will discuss the effects of relegación on the families and communities that the relegados left behind, drawing on human rights literature and interviews of persons in the Santiago shantytown of La Pincoya.

Reagan and the White House’s Maryknoll Nun

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-160
Author(s):  
Theresa Keeley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public

This chapter explains how Ronald Reagan's public diplomacy campaign reflected conservative Nicaraguan and U.S. Catholic viewpoints and language. It talks about the officials who worked with Catholic allies, including a former Maryknoll sister, that critique the Maryknoll and liberation theology in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. It also recounts Reagan's promotion as defender of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church to win support among conservative Catholics for U.S. policy and his reelection bid. The chapter discusses the White House's attempt to move the public focus from human rights in El Salvador to Nicaragua by alleging that the Sandinista government persecuted religion and was trying to create a fake church. It describes the public diplomacy campaign that involved cooperation with religious conservatives, including its design and execution that reflected conservative Catholic viewpoints and language.

Military Power, Impunity and State-Society Change in Latin America

1992 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Patrice McSherry
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
State Terror ◽  
Civilian Regimes ◽  
The Military

AbstractThe transition from military to civilian rule in Latin America has thrown a searchlight upon the legacy of military repression from the era of the national security states, and the problem of still-powerful and unrepentant armed forces. These intertwined problems have profound implications for the possibility of fundamental change in a region long characterized by extreme social inequality and political instability. As Rouquié notes, civilianization of the military state does not necessarily mean the democratization or demilitarization of power. How to deal with the perpetrators of state terror is a burning and controversial issue throughout the region. During the process of transition, the major demand of the military in virtually all states was for guarantees against accountability for human rights crimes—widely called impunity in the region—a demand that implicitly places the military above the law. This issue strikes at the very heart of the transformation of national security states and the democratization of power. Additionally, despite the transition from military rule, structures of the national security apparatus remain embedded within the civilian regimes. An examination of the question of impunity and those embedded structures exposes the tensions between democratization and persisting military prerogatives and power.

After Regime Change: Authoritarian Legacies, Political Representation, and the Democratic Future of South America

1993 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 464-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Hagopian
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
South America ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
State And Society

This article focuses on the legacies of the authoritarian regimes of South America for the contemporary consolidation of democracy. In particular, it considers their lasting effects on the region's informal networks and formal institutions of political representation. It questions several assumptions made by the literature on regime transition and democratic consolidation in South America about political culture, institutional reform, and electoral realignment: taken together, these assumptions are misleading about how much and what kind of political change has occurred in Latin America as a result of authoritarian rule. To understand how the challenges of democratic consolidation have been shaped, the article proposes instead to examine how the economic policies and political strategies pursued by military regimes preserved, altered, or destroyed the clientelistic and corporatist networks of mediation between state and society prevailing at the onset of authoritarianism, as well as those constructed upon the representative base of programmatic political parties.

scholarly journals Zúñiga, Claudia, and Wilson Lopez-Lopez, ed. 2021. Political psychology in Latin America. Washington: American Psychological Association. 268 p.

2021 ◽  
pp. 185-190
Author(s):  
Darío Páez
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Political Psychology ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Psychological Association ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
American Psychological ◽  
Political Conflicts

The book is part of the Psychology in Latin America series of the American Psychological Association (APA) edited by Judith Gibbons and Patricio Cumsille. The book presents a series of chapters written by Latin American researchers from Argentina, Colombia, Chile, El Salvador and Peru on different topics relevant to political psychology in Latin America. The problem of human rights violations and how to confront them, socio-political conflicts and the building of a culture of democracy and peace are transversal axes of the chapters of this book.

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