Bringing the International Back In: US Hegemonic Maintenance and Latin America's Democratic Breakdown in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

The recent, voluminous academic literature on democratization has tended to reject international forces as prime determinants of regime change in Latin America. Many scholars now focus almost exclusively on domestic factors, such as elite choice, socioeconomic development, and political culture. Those scholars who do look at external forces normally fail to take into consideration US influence in the region. Data presented here suggest that the rise of institutional military rule in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s is directly associated with US hegemonic maintenance policies toward the region. More precisely, the most recent wave of praetorianism in Latin America emerged only after the US government provided high, sustained levels of military aid to the armed forces of the region. Weak democratic regimes received the bulk of the aid, and, invariably, each of these governments succumbed quickly to direct military rule.