Skip to main content

The process of democratization in Latin America

Studies In Comparative International Development volume 27, pages 3–24 (1992)Cite this article

Abstract

During the 1980s, Latin America experienced the longest and deepest wave of democratization in its history. The origins of this process of transformation are to be found in the interaction between domestic and international forces. At the international level, the key events were the oil shocks of the 1970s, the related expansion of international lending, and the subsequent debt crisis. The speed and extent to which these changes were translated into democratization were conditioned by the political alignments of the private sector and structural fragilities of authoritarianism at the national level. The persistence of the democratization trend through time reflects the importance of other factors, including global political change, the receding threat of the revolutionary left, the internationalization of capital markets, constraints on domestic policy choice, and political learning, which have converged at the domestic level to reduce the incentives and opportunities for authoritarian reversals.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price includes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

References

  • ALVAREZ, SONIA E. 1991Engendering democracy in Brazil: Women’s movements in transition politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • BOOTH, DAVID and BERNARDO SORJ 1983Military reformism and social classes: The Peruvian experience, 1968–80. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • BOOTH, JOHN 1991 Socioeconomic and political roots of national revolts in Central America.Latin American Research Review 26:33–73.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1985The end and the beginning: The Nicaraguan revolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • BULMER-THOMAS, VICTOR 1987The political economy of Central America since 1920. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • CARDOSO, FERNANDO HENRIQUE and ENZO FALETTO 1979Dependency and development in Latin America. Translated by Marjory Mattingly Urquidi. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • CAROTHERS, THOMAS 1991 The Reagan years: The 1980s. InExporting democracy: The United States and Latin America. Edited by Abraham F. Lowenthal, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • CATTERBERG, EDGARDO 1989Los argentinos frente a la política. Buenos Aires: Planeta.

    Google Scholar 

  • CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS DE LA REALIDAD CONTEMPORÁNEA 1991 Evaluación del primer año de gobierno democrático. Santiago.

  • CLEAVES, PETER S. and HENRY PEASE GARCIA 1983 State autonomy and military policy making. InThe Peruvian experiment reconsidered. Edited by Cynthia McClintock and Abraham F. Lowenthal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • COLLIER, DAVID, ed. 1979The new authoritarianism in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • COMISIÓN ECONÓMICA PARA AMÉRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE 1990Notas sobre la economía y el desarrollo. No. 500/501.

  • CONAGHAN, CATHERINE M. 1988Restructuring domination: Industrialists and the state in Ecuador. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • CONAGHAN, CATHERINE M., JAMES M. MALLOY, and LUIS A. ABUGATTAS 1990 Business and the ‘Boys’: The politics of neoliberalism in the central Andes.Latin American Research Review 25: 3–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • DOS SANTOS, MARIO R., ed. 1987Concertación político-social y democratización. Buenos Aires: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales.

    Google Scholar 

  • DUNKERLEY, JAMES 1984Rebellion in the veins: Political struggle in Bolivia, 1952–1982. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • ECKSTEIN, SUSAN, ed. 1989Power and social protest: Latin American social movements. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ESCOBAR, ARTURO and SONIA E. ALVAREZ, eds. 1992The making of social movements in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • GAMARRA, EDUARDO A. 1989 Mass politics and elite arrangements: Elections and democracy in Bolivia. Presented at the XV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association.

  • HARTLYN, JONATHAN 1989 Colombia: The politics of violence and accommodation. InDemocracy in developing countries, vol. IV:Latin America. Edited by Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

    Google Scholar 

  • HUNEEUS, CARLOS 1987Los chilenos y la política. Santiago: Instituto Chileno de Estudios Humanisticos.

    Google Scholar 

  • HUNTINGTON, SAMUEL P. 1989 The modest meaning of democracy. InDemocracy in the Americas: Stopping the pendulum. Edited by Robert A. Pastor. New York: Holmes & Meier.

    Google Scholar 

  • INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND 1975International financial supplement on economic indicators. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1987International financial statistics. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1988IMF Yearbook. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • JAQUETTE, JANE, ed. 1989The women’s movement in Latin America. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman.

    Google Scholar 

  • KAHLER, MILES 1990 Orthodoxy and its alternatives: Explaining approaches to stabilization and adjustment. InEconomic crisis and policy choice: the politics of adjustment in the Third World. Edited by Joan M. Nelson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • KARL, TERRY LYNN 1986 Petroleum and political pacts: The transition to democracy in Venezuela. InTransitions from authoritarian rule: Tentative conclusions. Edited by O’Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1990 Dilemmas of democratization in Latin America.Comparative Politics 23: 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • KAUFMAN, ROBERT 1989 Economic orthodoxy and political change in Mexico: The stabilization and adjustment policies of the de la Madrid administration. InDebt and democracy in Latin America. Edited by Barbara Stallings and Robert Kaufman. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • LEVINE, DANIEL 1978 Venezuela since 1958: The consolidation of democratic politics. InThe breakdown of democratic regimes: Latin America. Edited by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • LIPSET, SEYMOUR MARTIN 1959 Some social requisites of democracy: Economic development and political legitimacy.American Political Science Review 53: 69–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • LOVEMAN, BRIAN 1991 Misión cumplida? Civil-military relations and the Chilean political transition. Presented at the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D.C.

  • MARKOFF, JOHN and SILVIO R. DUNCAN BARETTA 1990 Economic crisis and regime change in Brazil: The 1960s and the 1980s.Comparative Politics 22: 421–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MARTZ, JOHN D. 1987Politics and petroleum in Ecuador. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • MAXFIELD, SYLVIA 1989 National business, debt-led growth, and the political transition in Latin America. InDebt and democracy in Latin America. Edited by Barbara Stallings and Robert Kaufman. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MCCLINTOCK, CYNTHIA 1989 Peru: precarious regimes, authoritarian and democratic. InDemocracy in developing countries: Latin America. Edited by Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

    Google Scholar 

  • NEUHOUSER, KEVIN 1992 Democratic stability in Venezuela: Elite consensus or class compromise.American Sociological Review 57: 117–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • NUN, JOSÉ 1976 The middle-class military coup revisited InArmies and politics in Latin America. Edited by Abraham F. Lowenthal. New York: Holmes & Meier.

    Google Scholar 

  • OCHOA, ENRIQUE C. 1987 The rapid expansion of voter participation in Latin America: Presidential elections, 1845–1986. InStatistical abstract of Latin America, vol. 25. Edited by James W. Wilkie and David Lorey. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’DONNELL, GUILLERMO 1978 Reflections on the patterns of change in the bureaucratic-authoritarian state.Latin American Research Review 13: 3–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1979Modernization and bureaucratic-authoritarianism: Studies in South American politics. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1986 Introduction to the Latin American cases. InTransitions from authoritarian rule: Latin America. Edited by Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’DONNELL, GUILLERMO and PHILIPPE C. SCHMITTER. 1986Transitions from authoritarian rule: Tentative conclusions about uncertain democracies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • PRZEWORSKI, ADAM 1991 The ‘east’ becomes the ‘south’? The ‘autumn of the people’ and the future of Eastern Europe.PS: Political Science and Politics 24: 20–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • REMMER, KAREN L. 1985-86 Exclusionary democracy.Studies in Comparative International Development 20: 64–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1991a The political impact of economic crisis in Latin America in the 1980s.American Political Science Review 85: 777–800.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • — 1991b New wine or old bottlenecks? The study of Latin American democracy.Comparative Politics 23: 479–495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • — 1991cMilitary rule in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • RIAL, JUAN 1987 Political parties and elections in the process of transition in Uruguay. InComparing new democracies: Transition and consolidation in Mediterranean Europe and the Southern Cone. Edited by Enrique A. Baloyra. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ROCHON, THOMAS R. and MICHAEL J. MITCHELL 1989 Social bases of the transition to democracy in Brazil.Comparative Politics 21: 307–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • SACHS, JEFFREY and JUAN ANTONIO MORALES 1988Bolivia: 1952–1986. San Francisco, CA: International Center for Economic Growth.

    Google Scholar 

  • SACHS, JEFFREY D., ed. 1989Developing country debt and economic performance vol. I:The international financial system. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • SELIGSON, MITCHELL A. and EDWARD N. MULLER 1987 Democratic stability and economic crisis: Costa Rica, 1978–1983.International Studies Quarterly 31: 301–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • TULCHIN, JOSEPH S. and KNUT WALTER 1991 Nicaragua: The limits of intervention. InExporting democracy: The United States and Latin America. Edited by Abraham F. Lowenthal. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • VARAS, AUGUSTO, ed. 1988El partido comunista en Chile. Santiago: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales and Centro de Estudios Sociales.

    Google Scholar 

  • WHITEHEAD, LAURENCE 1986a Bolivia’s failed democratization, 1977–1980. InTransitions from authoritarian rule: Latin America. Edited by Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • — 1986b International aspects of democratization. InTransitions from authoritarian rule: Comparative perspectives. Edited by Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • WILLIAMSON, JOHN, ed. 1990Latin American adjustment: How much has happened? Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Relations.

    Google Scholar 

  • ZIMMERMANN, EKKART and THOMAS SALFELD 1988 Economic and political reactions to the world economic crisis of the 1930s in six European countries.International Studies Quarterly 32: 305–334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Karen L. Remmer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

Karen L. Remmer is professor and chair of political science at the University of New Mexico and associate editor of theLatin American Research Review. She is the author ofMilitary Rule in Latin America (1989) as well as a series of recent articles exploring the relationship between political democracy and economic performance in Latin America.

Adapted from “Democratization in Latin America,” inGlobal Transformation and the Third World, edited by Robert O. Slater, Barry M. Schutz, and Steven R. Dorr. Copyright © 1993 by Lynne Rienner Publishers. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Remmer, K.L. The process of democratization in Latin America. Studies in Comparative International Development 27, 3–24 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02687137

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02687137

Keywords

  • International Monetary Fund
  • Comparative International Development
  • Democratic Institution
  • Military Regime
  • Authoritarian Rule