Transitions to democracy
O’Donnell talks a lot about the transition a country makes to democracy and how to go about it. He points out the difficulties involved in doing this and even when you intend to instill democracy, the policies that you may use to do this can backfire and have the opposite effect. This makes me initially think of the problems that Venezuela is currently experiencing. They continue to face many economic problems. As do countries like Brazil and Argentina. Even though they are having problems I do not believe these problems will lead to military intervention. The military is weaker today than it used to be. This is shown by the fact that there are less military coups and government changes in the region. The outcome is just too unpredictable. Especially when the people now have much more power than they used to possess. In all countries except Cuba, they have some form of a democracy. Hunter makes the point in his article that the military has less power today than they used to. I think another point that makes this fact clear is the article by Navarro. She talks about Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo. These were the mothers and grandmothers who would search for the missing children that the military juntas had stolen. They are still an active group today. They females used to be the only ones that could search for the children because they could go around and not be a perceived threat to the military. The military used to have so much power that it could just kidnap children and young adults and no one could stop them. Today they are being held responsible by truth commissions and courts of law. This is because the power has gone over to the people and the military has last a fraction of theirs to the democracy. So the transitions that were led back in the twentieth century were usually done by the military and in my opinion will not be happening today in countries like Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil (where mass upheaval can currently be found) due to the two main points of uncertainty for what could happen and weaker militaries.
This is an interesting response to the readings. I certainly agree with the point many political scientists have made that transitioning from a democracy back to an authoritarian regime is extremely unlikely. The weakened militaries have given more power to the people, so it may be the responsibility and duty of the people and their elected officials to intervene as the military would. In that case, it wouldn’t even be necessary for the military to intervene, let alone discussing if it is possible. In addition, I’m not sure how prominent organizations like Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo still are since they are not really needed without the military regimes, but it is definitely interesting to note their previous roles.