schirmer also questions the utility of traditional conceptualizations of civil military relations and measures of democracy going back to the barracks and permitting civilians to occupy the presidential palace is not enough this case adds credence to the research of j patrice mcsherry and others who have conceptualized guardian and facade democracy after reading this book one cannot help but cringe at certain quantitative measures of democracy such as polity which assigns guatemala a democracy score of eight out of a possible ten in the guatemalan military project is a must read for scholars interested in central america democratization civil military relations and conflict resolution it is unclear if schirmer questions polity at all the comment of a book reviewer on the polity scores after the end of the civil war seem less important for this article but could possible be included as now