The Soldier and the State in South America: Essays in Civil–Military Relations. Edited by Patricio Silva. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 212p. $59.95.

Abstract

This nice, tight volume offers a novel approach to looking at the civil–military issues that have been a major focus of political science and Latin American studies over the past four decades. Using 10 short essays by predominantly Europe-based scholars (Frederick Nunn of the United States, Celso Castro of Brazil, and Francisco Rojas Arevana of Chile are the exceptions), this collection stretches the evaluative process of civilian–military interactions in the region. Not merely accepting the bureaucratic–authoritarian model of Guillermo O'Donnell or others, it uses a much broader measure of the relationships in society to evaluate the health of Latin America today. It is a short collection that would be an excellent challenge for new graduate students in the subfield of civil–military relations or Latin American politics.