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From Authoritarian Crises to Democratic Transitions

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APERTURA Y CONCERTACION. By AGUIARCESAR, SARACHAGADARIO, TERRAJUAN PABLO, and WONSEWERISRAEL. (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1985. Pp. 105.)
FUERZAS ARMADAS, PARTIDOS POLITICOS Y TRANSICION A LA DEMOCRACIA EN LA ARGENTINA. By FONTANAANDRES. Estudios CEDES. (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, 1984. Pp. 40.)
DICTADURAS Y DEMOCRATIZACION. By GARRETONMANUEL ANTONIO. (Santiago: FLACSO, 1984. Pp. 109.)

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Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Charles G. Gillespie
Charles G. Gillespie*
Affiliation:
Amherst College
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Type
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Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , 1987 , pp. 165 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

∗

I am grateful to Robert Kaufman and Karen Remmer for their general suggestions on this essay and to Scott Michael for comments on the section on the Chilean regime.

References

Notes

1. Transitions from Authoritarian Regimes, edited by Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). The first volume discusses European cases; the second, Latin America; and the third and fourth, theories and comparisons. One reason that I have not included a discussion of this project is that I contributed the chapter on Uruguay.

2. An early attempt in such a direction is Dankwart Rustow's “Transitions to Democracy,” Comparative Politics 2, no. 3 (1970):337–63. While stimulating, Rustow's argument is directed more toward long-term historical phases than toward short-term dynamics.

3. Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971).

4. Alfred Stepan, “Military Politics and Three Polity Arenas: Civil Society, Political Society, and the State,” to be published by Oxford University Press in a book he is editing entitled Democratizing Brazil. A Portuguese version was published in Brazil as a separate item. See Stepan, Os Militares: Da Abertura à Nova República (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1986).

5. “State and Alliances in Argentina, 1956–76,” Journal of Development Studies 15, no. 1 (1978):3–33.

6. Some of the answers may lie in Smith's earlier dissertation. See “Crisis of the State and Military-Authoritarian Rule in Argentina, 1966–1973,” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1980.

7. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 27, no. 2 (Summer 1985):55–76.

8. See Scott Mainwaring and Eduardo Viola, “Transitions to Democracy: Brazil and Argentina in the 1980s,” Journal of International Affairs 38, no. 2 (Winter 1985):193–219.

9. A similar version appears in Transición a la democracia, prepared by Augusto Varas (Santiago: Asociación Chilena de Investigaciones para la Paz–Ainavillo, 1984).

10. Guillermo O'Donnell, “Notas para el estudio de procesos de democratización a partir del estado burocrático-autoritario (Documento de trabajo),” Estudios CEDES 2, no. 5 (1979); reprinted in El análisis estructural en economía, edited by José Molero (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1981).

11. This essay was also published in Uruguay y la democracia, Vol. 3, edited by Charles Gillespie, Louis Goodman, Juan Rial, and Peter Winn, 101–20 (Montevideo: Banda Oriental, 1985).

12. See also Luis González, “Uruguay 1980–1981: An Unexpected Opening,” LARR 18, no. 3 (1983):63–76. My essay, “Uruguay's Transition from Collegial Military-Technocratic Rule,” appears in O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, Vol. 3. The concept of democradura was coined by Philippe Schmitter.

13. For the opinion that in Uruguay the military were psychologically, as well as structurally, the prisoners of the country's deeply rooted democratic traditions, see Liliana De Riz, “Uruguay: la transición desde una perspectiva comparada,” in Gillespie, Goodman, Rial, and Winn, Uruguay y la democracia 3:121–38.

14. As Juan Pablo Terra has pointed out, the Uruguayan military's threat to impose a new constitution unilaterally lacked credibility, given the previous referendum and primaries. See his “Seguridad nacional y democracia en Uruguay,” in Varas, Transición a la democracia, 147–58.

15. The pact conformed to O'Donnell's model in “Notas para el estudio de procesos de democratización” of an alliance between “soft-liners” in the regime and moderates in the opposition, but with the odd twist that the Left (hitherto treated as antisystem by the military and other parties) joined the moderate camp.

16. The orientation of much of the speculative literature on how parties may promote transitions by “consociational” mechanisms would seem to be a red herring in the Uruguayan case, although such mechanisms may play a larger role in democratic consolidation. The concept was first invented by Arend Lijphart in his article “Consociational Democracy,” World Politics 21, no. 2 (1969):207–25.

17. As Karen Remmer pointed out to me, another obstacle to a strategy of moderation was the die-hard determination of Pinochet and his allies to hold onto power. Aguiar suggests that in Uruguay, a “feudalization” occurred within the armed forces, that is, an increasing decentralization and fragmentation of power that posed a major obstacle to any new alliance seeking to postpone the promised elections.

18. See Bolívar Lamounier, “Opening through Elections: Will the Brazilian Case Become a Paradigm?” in Government and Opposition 19, no. 2 (Spring 1984):167–77.

19. See Bolívar Lamounier, “Apontamentos sobre a Questão Democrática Brasileira,” in Como Renascem as Democracias, organized by Alain Rouquié, Bolívar Lamounier, and Jorge Schvarzer (São Paulo: Editora Brasilense, 1985), 104–40.

20. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, “O Papel dos Empresários no Processo de Transição: O Caso Brasileiro,” Dados 26, no. 1 (1983):9–26.

21. See Francisco Weffort's remarks in the roundtable discussion published in O Futuro da Abertura: Um Debate, edited by Bolívar Lamounier and José Eduardo Faria (São Paulo: Instituto de Estudos Econômicos, Sociais e Políticos de São Paulo-Cortez Editora, 1981), 50–52.

22. An earlier version of Donald Share's and Scott Mainwaring's essay appeared under the title “Transitions from Above” in the Kellogg Institute Working Paper Series published by Notre Dame University. The version cited here was published as “Transitions through Transaction: Democratization in Brazil and Spain,” Political Liberalization in Brazil, edited by Wayne Selcher (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1986).

23. O'Brien's essay contains a number of inaccuracies and peculiar judgments. For example, he confuses the level of the consumer price index with its rate of change (p. 154); he describes the onslaught on the welfare state as leading to a “class apartheid system” (p. 157); his penchant for oxymoron leads him to accuse the “Chicago Boys” of “a mystical belief in economics as an exact science” (p. 151); and he calls the Unidad Popular experiment “essentially Eurocommunist” (p. 144).

24. The single candidate chosen by the commanders in chief for the presidency will then have to be confirmed in a plebiscite, opening up a degree of hope for change, according to some.

25. Carlos Huneeus, “La política de la apertura y sus implicancias para la inauguración de la democracia en Chile,” Revista de Ciencia Política 7, no. 1 (1985):25–84.

26. The reimposition of a state of siege following the unsuccessful attempt on Pinochet's life in September 1986 has led to a new crackdown, but Chile still remained freer than Uruguay prior to the Naval Club pact in most respects.