# **Box 1:** Lessons from Latin America‘s Authoritarian Transition?

After a prolonged period of authoritarian rule, democratization in Latin America or, redemocratization in some cases, took place in a relatively short period of time. From 1979 to 1986 seven countries democratized in South America, five in Central America and six more in the Caribbean. After democratization in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay quickly transitioned to electoral governments. Brazilian and Uruguayan demands for direct elections were closely tied to the events in Argentina. Later, the three countries pressed together for democratization in Paraguay and Chile. And, although the 1989 coup in which Stroessner was overthrown by his son-in-law General Andrés Rodríguez was the product of infighting, the new president soon faced considerable international pressure to call for elections (Zagorski, 2003). In 1990, Chile, Panama and Paraguay transitioned to democratically elected regimes. El Salvador and Guatemala became fully democratic after the settlement of their civil conflicts in 1992 and 1996 respectively.

This pattern of accelerated regime change has been described as a domino effect or a diffusion process. Przeworski, Limongi et al. (1996) explain that economic factors are not the only ones that matter for the durability of democracy and that the larger the proportion of democracies in a region, the more likely democracy is to survive in a country that is part of it. They highlight that contagion operates independently of the direct influence of Western governments and international institutions.

Similarly, Brinks and Coppedge (2006), using worldwide data on transitions to democracy from 1972 to 1996, show that region matters to predict the likelihood of democratization in a given country. In their work, diffusion is a determinant of the magnitude and direction of regime change since countries tend to follow the direction in which the majority of countries are moving and change to match the average degree of democracy of the contiguous countries, or ̳neighbor emulation.‘ The size of the gap in the level of democracy between a country and its neighbors explains the direction and strength of the pressure that exists for convergence. Thus, democratic neighbors have an impact on authoritarian regimes and this impact spreads across authoritarian neighborhoods until they all stabilize at an average level of democracy. Large, populous and comparatively more prosperous countries have the largest impact on neighboring regimes. Some of the mechanisms used by neighbors to pressure undemocratic regimes include domestic actors in one country urging their governments to demand better human rights protections in the other, military interventions, funding insurgents, supporting a coup, and the promotion of regional organizations interventions in the adjacent country. Furthermore, Pevehouse (2002) and Briks and Coppedge (2006) indicate that regimes that belong to common networks or regional organizations are able to exert more force on each other.

In the same vein, Smith (2005) underscores that the process of diffusion is possible because elites are highly aware of regional phenomena. This allows opposition groups to draw moral and material support from the democratization of a neighboring country, expanding in this way their support base. As well, the first transitions in a region can demonstrate to elites that democracy does not necessarily lead to changes in the economic policies, or the reduction of national security. In Latin America, military regimes and elites were very conscious of the fate of their regional counterparts and drew lessons from the events in nearby countries to protect themselves once the transitions began in their own countries. In addition, the trials faced by the Argentine Junta leaders in 1984 was a particularly threatening development for neighboring military dictatorships, which meant that the costs of prolonged authoritarianism for them soon surpassed the costs of democratization.

_Source:_ Viñuela (2008) 13