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Guatemala in Search of Democracy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Henry J. Frundt
Henry J. Frundt*
Affiliation:
Ramapo College (NJ)
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Extract

In the political debate which swirls around “democratization” Guatemala must be counted. The policies of its first civilian government since the 1960s, now completing its term, have been important for the success of regional peace. Yet a new wave of violence surrounds the preparation for elections and is testing the government's fragile accomplishments. Underlying such phenomena is Guatemala's struggle to discover what democracy really means in the Latin context where elected officials often serve as a façade for ongoing military control.The contest extends the debate beyond bourgeois and popular conceptions of democracy, especially when Guatemala's civilian-military government is characterized as a “permanent counter-insurgency state” (see Anderson and Simon, 1987; exchange of letters in The Nation, 1989; Guatemalan Church in Exile, 1989). Such a portrayal effectively reduces the nation's democratic manifestations to a charade.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , Fall 1990 , pp. 25 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1990

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies, Rutgers University, 6 April 1990.

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