We develop a theory of political transitions inspired in part by the experiences of Western Europe and Latin America. Nondemocratic societies are controlled by a rich elite. The initially disenfranchised poor can contest power by threatening social unrest or revolution and this may force the elite to democratize. Democracy may not consolidate because it is more redistributive than a nondemocratic regime, and this gives the elite an incentive to mount a coup. Because inequality makes democracy more costly for the elite, highly unequal societies are less likely to consolidate democracy and may end up oscillating between regimes or in a nondemocratic repressive regime. An unequal society is likely to experience fiscal volatility, but the relationship between inequality and redistribution is nonmonotonic; societies with intermediate levels of inequality consolidate democracy and redistribute more than both very equal and very unequal countries. We also show that asset redistribution, such as educational and land reform, may be used to consolidate both democratic and nondemocratic regimes.

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A Theory of Political Transitions

All fourteen major peacebuilding missions launched between 1989 and 1999 shared a common strategy for consolidating peace after internal conflicts: immediate democratization and marketization. Transforming war-shattered states into market democracies is basically sound, but pushing this process too quickly can have damaging and destabilizing effects. The process of liberalization is inherently tumultuous, and can undermine the prospects for stable peace. A more sensible approach to post-conflict peacebuilding would seek, first, to establish a system of domestic institutions that are capable of managing the destabilizing effects of democratization and marketization within peaceful bounds and only then phase in political and economic reforms slowly, as conditions warrant. Peacebuilders should establish the foundations of effective governmental institutions prior to launching wholesale liberalization programs. Avoiding the problems that marred many peacebuilding operations in the 1990s will require longer-lasting and, ultimately, more intrusive forms of intervention in the domestic affairs of these states. This book was first published in 2004.

At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict

Part I. Theoretical Framing: 1. Questions, approaches, and cases 2. Citizenship regimes, the state, and ethnic cleavages 3. The argument: indigenous mobilization in Latin America Part II. The Cases: 4. Ecuador: Latin America's strongest indigenous movement 5. The Ecuadorian Andes and ECUARUNARI 6. The Ecuadorian Amazon and CONFENAIE 7. Forming the National Confederation, CONAIE 8. Bolivia: strong regional movements 9. The Bolivian Andes: the Kataristas and their legacy 10. The Bolivian Amazon 11. Peru: weak national movements and subnational variation 12. Peru. Ecuador, and Bolivia: most similar cases 13. No national indigenous movement: explaining the Peruvian anomaly 14. Explaining subnational variation 15. Conclusion: 16. Democracy and the postliberal challenge in Latin America.

/pdf/contesting-citizenship-in-latin-america-the-rise-of-9gph2wnhsh.pdf

Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge

I o n e of the challenges facing the international community in the post-Cold War era is the increasingly pervasive problem of civil conflict.’ Indeed, all of the thirty major armed conflicts fought in the world in 1995 were intrastate wars.’ Devising ways of responding to this violence has been a topic of considerable debate among policymakers and students of conflict management in recent years.3 But no less important is the task of determining what to do once the fighting stops. Operations that aim to prevent violence from reigniting after the initial termination of hostilities-commonly called “postconflict peacebuilding”have been conducted in eight war-shattered states since the end of the Cold War: Namibia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Angola,

Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism

Latin American populism is generally associated with the
 developmental stage of import substitution industrialization; it is
 thus widely presumed to have been eclipsed by the debt crisis of
 the 1980s and the free market reforms of the neoliberal era.
 However, the leadership of Alberto Fujimori in Peru suggests that
 new forms of populism may be emerging despite the fiscal
 constraints of neoliberal austerity. This new variant of populism
 thrives in a context where economic crisis and social dislocation
 undermine traditional representative institutions, enabling
 personalist leaders to establish unmediated relationships with
 heterogeneous, atomized masses. Political support can be
 cultivated through populist attacks on entrenched political elites or
 institutions, along with targeted but highly visible poverty alleviation
 programs. This new form of populist autocracy complements the
 efforts of neoliberal technocrats to circumvent the representative
 institutions that are integral to democratic accountability. The
 Peruvian case thus demonstrates that populism has been
 transformed rather than eclipsed during the neoliberal era and that it
 should be decoupled theoretically from any particular phase or
 model of economic development.

Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism in Latin America: The Peruvian Case

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/21B8AA5E12FABD0D24A1485E7486AE3A/S0022216X00006775a.pdf/div-class-title-marta-casaus-arzu-span-class-italic-guatemala-linaje-y-racismo-span-san-jose-costa-rica-flacso-1992-356-div.pdf

Marta Casaus Arzú, Guatemala: Linaje y Racismo (San José, Costa Rica,: FLACSO, 1992), 356.

RESUMEN: Durante la ultima decada las recomendaciones de politica del Banco Mundial han puesto enfasis en la reforma institucional y en un papel mas activo del Estado en la promocion de las transformaciones economicas orientadas hacia el mercado. La atencion prestada a estos temas contrasta con la trayectoria previa del organismo, preocupada sobre todo por la gestion de los grandes agregados macroeconomicos. La nueva tematica es presentada como respondiendo a la conveniencia de ir mas alla del "Consenso de Washington" que influyo decisivamente en las reformas estructurales de la decada de 1980 e inicios de la siguiente. Este articulo discute los alcances y limitaciones de la nueva propuesta desde una perspectiva politica, poniendo el acento en las configuraciones de poder que enmarcan las recomendaciones del organismo. Se reconocen en estas dos vertientes: una de caracter doctrinario, preocupada ante todo por completar el programa de reformas impulsado por el "Consenso", y otra, pragmatica, que plantea la reformulacion de algunas de sus premisas en aras de un efecto mas equilibrado en terminos economicos y sociales. Aunque difieren en el margen de accion que reconocen para el Estado, ambas variantes comparten un enfoque que da prioridad a los instrumentos de gestion respecto de los grandes objetivos del desarrollo, reduce la politica a administracion y soslaya la historicidad del Estado y de la construccion institucional. ABSTRACT: Over the last decade, World Bank's political prescriptions have stressed on institutional reforms and on a more active role of the State in promoting market-oriented refoms. However, this organism has traditionally focused on macroeconomic aggregates. This new approach is rooted in 'Washington Consensus' and its a decisive impact on the structural reforms that took place over the nineties. This paper discusses, from a political perpective, achievements and limitations of this new approach. It emphasizes on the power configurations that Trame this organism' prescriptions. These prescriptions have a double character. On one side, there is a doctrinary character: the fulfillment of the package of reforms. On the other side, there is a pragmatic character: the reformulation of some of its postulates in order to achieve, in economic and social terms, more balanced effects. Despite differences in the attributed State's scope of action, both perspectives emphasize on management tools to achieve the main goals for development, both of them reduce politics to administration, and both of them ignore historicity of States and of institutional frameworks.

¿Más allá del "Consenso de Washington"? Un enfoque desde la política de algunas propuestas del Banco Mundial

For many years now, people in the third world have been rejecting the modernizing theory of development. From the perspective of the third world, one must first ask: development from what, for what, and for whom? The answers to these questions determine whether or not "development" can be translated into improvements in the general living conditions of the people. The model described in Kerala clearly indicates an early choice: rather than providing tax breaks and incentives for private internal and external investments in infrastructure and industry, the government chose to apply most of its resources and efforts to altering dramatically the distribution of wealth as well as generally improving basic services. This choice, in itself, is not a new experience for socialist-inspired governments. It clearly was also the choice, for example, in Cuba, which achieved similarly impressive results in decreasing the infant mortality rate and increasing literacy and access to housing, health care, and education. Most third world socialists would agree that the first step to development is the dramatic improvement of government services meant to fulfill the basic needs of the population. In underdeveloped and poverty-stricken conditions, the efficient and egalitarian distribution of food, housing, health services, and education is an enormously important effort to which most government resources must be allocated.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Carlos M. Vilas

Papers

Marta Casaus Arzú, Guatemala: Linaje y Racismo (San José, Costa Rica,: FLACSO, 1992), 356.

¿Más allá del "Consenso de Washington"? Un enfoque desde la política de algunas propuestas del Banco Mundial

Four Comments on Kerala

Entre la democracia y el neoliberalismo: los caudillos electorales de la posmodernidad

Latin American Populism: A Structural Approach