Fujimori's Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America

Fujimori's Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America
Author: Charles Dennison Kenney
Publisher:
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN:

This text explores why and how democracy broke down in Peru in 1992. The author's argument is that institutional factors - especially the absence of a legislative majority - were crucial to the collapse of democracy in Peru during and before this period and throughout Latin America since the 1960s.

Fujimori's Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America

Fujimori's Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America
Author: Charles Dennison Kenney
Publisher:
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN:

This text explores why and how democracy broke down in Peru in 1992. The author's argument is that institutional factors - especially the absence of a legislative majority - were crucial to the collapse of democracy in Peru during and before this period and throughout Latin America since the 1960s.

Party Systems in Latin America

Party Systems in Latin America
Author: Scott Mainwaring
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 525
Release: 2018-02-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1107175526

This book generates a wealth of new empirical information about Latin American party systems and contributes richly to major theoretical debates about party systems and democracy.

The Fujimori Legacy

The Fujimori Legacy
Author: Julio Carrión
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780271027470

Offers a comprehensive assessment of President Alberto Fujimori's regime in the context of Latin America's struggle to consolidate democracy after years of authoritarian rule. This book also helps illuminate the persistent obstacles that Latin American countries face in establishing democracy.

Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America

Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America
Author: Scott Mainwaring
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2014-01-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1107433630

This book presents a new theory for why political regimes emerge, and why they subsequently survive or break down. It then analyzes the emergence, survival and fall of democracies and dictatorships in Latin America since 1900. Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán argue for a theoretical approach situated between long-term structural and cultural explanations and short-term explanations that look at the decisions of specific leaders. They focus on the political preferences of powerful actors - the degree to which they embrace democracy as an intrinsically desirable end and their policy radicalism - to explain regime outcomes. They also demonstrate that transnational forces and influences are crucial to understand regional waves of democratization. Based on extensive research into the political histories of all twenty Latin American countries, this book offers the first extended analysis of regime emergence, survival and failure for all of Latin America over a long period of time.

Institutions on the Edge

Institutions on the Edge
Author: Gretchen Helmke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2017-01-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1316889327

Why does institutional instability pervade the developing world? Examining contemporary Latin America, Institutions on the Edge develops and tests a novel argument to explain why institutional crises emerge, spread, and repeat in some countries, but not in others. The book draws on formal bargaining theories developed in the conflict literature to offer the first unified micro-level account of inter-branch crises. In so doing, Helmke shows that concentrating power in the executive branch not only fuels presidential crises under divided government, but also triggers broader constitutional crises that cascade on to the legislature and the judiciary. Along the way, Helmke highlights the importance of public opinion and mass protests, and elucidates the conditions under which divided government matters for institutional instability.

Fujimori's Peru

Fujimori's Peru
Author: Catherine M. Conaghan
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2005-08-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0822973154

Alberto Fujimori ascended to the presidency of Peru in 1990, boldly promising to remake the country. Ten years later, he hastily sent his resignation from exile in Japan, leaving behind a trail of lies, deceit, and corruption. While piecing together the shards of Fujimori's presidency, prosecutors uncovered a vast criminal conspiracy fueled by political ambition and personal greed. The Fujimori regime managed to maintain a facade of democracy while systematically eviscerating democratic institutions and the rule of law through legal subterfuge, intimidation, and outright bribery. The architect of this strategy was Fujimori's notorious intelligence advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos. With great skill, Fujimori and Montesinos created the appearance of a democratic public sphere but ensured it would work only to suit their personal motives. The press was allowed to operate, but information exchange was under strict control. The more government officials tampered with the free flow of ideas, the more they inadvertently exposed the ills they were trying to cover up. And that proved to be their downfall.Merging penetrating analysis and a journalist's flair for narrative, Catherine Conaghan reveals the thin line between democracy and dictatorship, and shows how public institutions can both empower dictators and bring them down.

Electoral Rules and Democracy in Latin America

Electoral Rules and Democracy in Latin America
Author: Cynthia McClintock
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2018-03-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190879777

During Latin America's third democratic wave, a majority of countries adopted a runoff rule for the election of the president, effectively dampening plurality voting, opening the political arena to new parties, and assuring the public that the president will never have anything less than majority support. In a region in which undemocratic political parties were common and have often been dominated by caudillos, cautious naysayers have voiced concerns about the runoff process, arguing that a proliferation of new political parties vying for power is a sign of inferior democracy. This book is the first rigorous assessment of the implications of runoff versus plurality rules throughout Latin America, and demonstrates that, in contrast to early scholarly skepticism about runoff, it has been positive for democracy in the region. Primarily through qualitative analysis for each country, the author argues that, indeed, an important advantage of runoff is the greater openness of the political arena to new parties--at the same time that measures can be taken to inhibit party proliferation. In this context, it is also the first volume to address whether or not a runoff rule with a reduced threshold (for example, 40% with a 10-point lead) is a felicitous compromise between majority runoff and plurality. The book considers the potential for the superiority of runoff to travel beyond Latin America--in particular, and rather provocatively, to the United States.

Harsh Times

Harsh Times
Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2021-11-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0374601240

The true story of Guatemala’s political turmoil of the 1950s as only a master of fiction can tell it Guatemala, 1954. The military coup perpetrated by Carlos Castillo Armas and supported by the CIA topples the government of Jacobo Árbenz. Behind this violent act is a lie passed off as truth, which forever changes the development of Latin America: the accusation by the Eisenhower administration that Árbenz encouraged the spread of Soviet Communism in the Americas. Harsh Times is a story of international conspiracies and conflicting interests in the time of the Cold War, the echoes of which are still felt today. In this thrilling novel, Mario Vargas Llosa fuses reality with two fictions: that of the narrator, who freely re-creates characters and situations, and the one designed by those who would control the politics and the economy of a continent by manipulating its history. Harsh Times is a gripping, revealing novel that directly confronts recent history. No one is better suited to tell this riveting story than Vargas Llosa, and there is no form better for it than his deeply textured fiction. Not since The Feast of the Goat, his classic novel of the downfall of Trujillo’s regime in the Dominican Republic, has Vargas Llosa combined politics, characters, and suspense so unforgettably.

Presidential Impeachment and the New Political Instability in Latin America

Presidential Impeachment and the New Political Instability in Latin America
Author: Aníbal Pérez-Liñán
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2007-07-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139464450

Documents the emergence of a pattern of political instability in Latin America. Traditional military coups have receded in the region, but elected presidents are still ousted from power as a result of recurrent crises. Aníbal Pérez-Liñán shows that presidential impeachment has become the main constitutional instrument employed by civilian elites to depose unpopular rulers. Based on detailed comparative research in five countries and extensive historical information, the book explains why crises without breakdown have become the dominant form of instability in recent years and why some presidents are removed from office while others survive in power. The analysis emphasizes the erosion of presidential approval resulting from corruption and unpopular policies, the formation of hostile coalitions in Congress, and the role of investigative journalism. This book challenges classic assumptions in studies of presidentialism and provides important insights for the fields of political communication, democratization, political behaviour, and institutional analysis.