The Need for a People’s Military
Chris Hollenbeck With the task of transitioning to democracy being so daunting, it’s no wonder the United States has undergone a policy of nation building so frequently. It seems that because there is no easy way to become a consolidated…
Political Institutions Matter While Determining Strength of Democracy
Though the development of mankind has historically trended towards egalitarianism and political democracy, periods of turmoil are often marked by dramatic increases of executive power and, in dire circumstances, regressions to authoritarianism. Such a phenomenon can be observed throughout Latin…
Transition to Democracy
This week the readings mostly focused on how the Latin American governments were able to transition into a democratic form of government from their various authoritarian regimes. The readings explored the different aspects of how specific countries were able to…
Transitions to Democracy from Authoritarianism
The superiority of a democratic government is something we’re taught from such a young age in the United States. You just sort of grow up believing that the country you are living in is the best one and makes decisions…
Transitions to Democracy from Authoritarianism
The common theme among this week’s article is that Latin American countries were able to move to a Democratic structure. Different arguments as to why emerge as the three articles get more in-depth. As a quick summary, Hunter uses military force to…
International Contexts
The School of the Americas very much eludes to the idea of Isolationism when it comes to the US and foreign military affairs. If not even to that extreme, Gill seems to blame all of Latin American struggles on the…
Defined by Doctrine
When attempting to define Latin America in an international context it is uniquely a region that is fundamentally defined by outside factors and prerogatives. Even the label ‘Latin America’ dates from the 1830’s with Frenchman Michel Chevalier, who after a…
The Forgotten Choice: an Analysis of American Imperialism
This week’s readings focus on the effect that international actors, specifically the United States, had on Latin American Development. For the purpose of this post, I will focus on the arguments made by Gill in her piece, The Military, Political Violence, and…
The United States are not the problem solvers
The United States is perceived to have taken the role as the savior for many Latin American countries. After looking into the actions they have taken over the past century, it seems that the United States has actually caused of…
Blog Post Schoultz
Next week’s reading on Schoultz’s “Benevolent Domination: The Ideology of U.S Policy toward Cuba” discusses the stance of the United States on Cuba, the history between American-Cuban relations, the reasons as to why these relations were the way they were,…