Democracia de mayoría y democracia de consenso - Sistemas de gobierno - Presidencialismo - Semipresidencialismo - Parlamentarismo Semiparlamentarismo - Otros sistemas mixtos - Sistema electoral y sistema de gobierno - Elección directa del presidente - La dimensión política del territorio : etnias, naciones, regiones y sistema político. El Cleavage centroperiferia, la articulación territorial del estado y los efectos sobre los partidos - Sistemas federales y partidos - Procesos autonómicos y partidos -

Are interactions between soldiers, politicians, and civilians improving? Every nation has to come to grips with achieving a more enduring harmony between government, the armed forces, and society if it aspires to strengthen its democracy. While there is an abundance of studies on civil-military affairs, few examine all three of these actors, let alone establish any standards with which to assess whether progress is being made. This ambitious book devises a novel framework equipped with six dimensions, each of which opens a unique window into civil-military affairs, and which form a more integrated view of the subject. Those dimensions are accompanied by a set of benchmarks and metrics that assess progress and compare one country against another. The framework is applied to case studies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, with the conviction that insights could be gleaned that may be relevant elsewhere. Ultimately, by unpacking the civil-military relation into its various dimensions, this study has shed light on what it takes to transform what was once a politically-minded military into an organization dedicated to serving a democratic state and society.

The study of civil-military relations in Latin America produced a rich debate and research agenda prior to 2000. But this agenda was largely abandoned during the past decade as the spectre of military dictatorship has virtually disappeared, with the political role of the military in many countries dramatically diminished. Indeed, in no country that has initiated a process of holding the military accountable to civilian control has the military openly rebelled. Yet, the institutions and public attitudes that guarantee democratic civilian control of the military exist in a general context of political polarisation, citizen insecurity and in many countries a sense of developing ungovernability. The military coup in Honduras (2009), the military response to the police rebellion in Ecuador (2010), and the speculation concerning the Venezuelan military's behaviour in the event that Hugo Chavez is incapacitated or dies (2013), demonstrates the relevance and importance of the civil-military relationship today. In this volume leading scholars from Latin America, the U.S. and Spain debate the ability of contemporary Latin American civil-military relationships to weather these challenges. The authors examine new types of regimes (the rise of participatory democracy), new political orientations (the renaissance of the Left in Latin America), and new missions for the military. Debate centres on the indicators to evaluate the level of consolidation of civilian control, the manner in which these indicators are measured, and the empirical ambiguities that arise. These challenges must be confronted in order to effectively address the question of how much progress has been made in the region in subordinating the military to civilian control, which countries are lagging behind, and why. Published in association with CILAS, University of California, San Diego.

Much attention has been paid to globalization, yet little has been focused on the relationship between the national and sub-national levels of politics. This publication has separate sections on the state in transition; on regionalism, nationalism and separatism; and on the security forces and the maintenance of order. The three states chosen - Britain, France and Spain - have historical similarities as ex-imperial, Atlantic seaboard states with weighty historical and institutional traditions. But they also differ in their institutions, in their centre-periphery relations and in their varying responses to the new phase of change. The authors assess the new constitutional configurations in each state - decentralisation, devolution or autonomous governments - and analyse the effect on the peripheries and the maintenance of order. The book also includes chapters on conflict in Northern Ireland and the Spanish Basque country and discussion of nationalist identity and assertion in the three countries.