Week 5: Transitions to Democracy-From Authoritarianism
The transitions to democracy from authoritarianism marked an interesting time period for Latin America. This week’s readings do quite an effective job in analyzing different aspects of these transitions. O’Donnell and Schmitter make very interesting arguments in their piece on…
Transition To Democracy
The readings this week focus mainly on the transition of authoritarian regimes into democratic states. The way some scholars viewed the rise of democracy was through the scope of declining military influence in Latin American states. Karl’s definition of democracy…
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…