South America has experienced dramatic political changes during the last decade. Almost all the military regimes established during the 1960s and 1970s have made room for democratically elected governments. The end of the last authoritarian cycle and the initiation of a democratization process have produced a vigorous debate among experts in South American politics about the present chances for the consolidation of democracy in the Southern Cone. Can we consider the current process of democratization as marking a historical end of authoritarian rule in the region? Or are we simply witnessing a mere democratic intermezzo, after which authoritarianism will recover its longstanding supremacy within South American political development? This book constitutes a general introduction to the role of the State in the current process of democratization in the Southern Cone region. It offers a comprehensive and multidisciplinary overview of the various problems with which the recent democratic governments have been confronted. A central focus of attention is the role played by the state and its institutions in the elimination of the authoritarian legacy and in the construction of a democratic polity.

Organized labor has played a critical role in political transition away from authoritarianism in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Buchanan views the institutional networks where these new governments strive to maintain democracy, focusing on the role of national labor administrations.This book argues that because democratic capitalist regimes are founded on a state-mediated class compromise, institutionalizing labor relations is a major concern. Institutions that foster equitable labor-management bargaining are at the foundation of workers' acquiescence to bourgeois rule.

Report offers an extended theoretical and methodological discussion of the logics of collective action and processes by which labor is incorporated into the substantive phases of democratic regime consolidation in the Southern Cone of Latin America. Keywords: South America; Class Compromise; Organized Labor; Argentina; Uruguay; Brazil.

Scholars of Latin American politics have been challenged to account for the varied outcomes of the transitions from authoritarian to democratic government that have occurred in many countries south of the border during the past two decades. What explains why some transitions were relatively smooth, with the military firmly in control of the process, while others witnessed substantial concessions by the military to civilian leaders, or even total military collapse? Rather than focus on causes external to the military, such as the previous legacy of democratic rule, severe economic crisis, or social protest, as other scholars have done, Craig Arceneaux draws attention to the important variables internal to the military, such as its unity or ability to coordinate strategy. Using this &"historical-institutionalist&" approach, he compares five different transitions in Brazil and three countries of the Southern Cone&—Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay&—to show what similarities and differences existed and how the differences may be attributed to variations in the internal institutional structure and operation of the military.

The transition to democracy underway in Latin America since the 1980s has recently witnessed a resurgence of interest in experimenting with new forms of local governance emphasizing more participation by ordinary citizens. The hope is both to foster the spread of democracy and to improve equity in the distribution of resources. While participatory budgeting has been a favorite topic of many scholars studying this new phenomenon, there are many other types of ongoing experiments. In Barrio Democracy in Latin America, Eduardo Canel focuses our attention on the innovative participatory programs launched by the leftist government in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the early 1990s. Based on his extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Canel examines how local activists in three low-income neighborhoods in that city dealt with the opportunities and challenges of implementing democratic practices and building better relationships with sympathetic city officials.