Characteristics of Political Process-

• Political control "from above" with selective incorporation of new groups as they develop resources that could become a threat to elites (cooptative "democracy");
• A state that controls a relatively weak civil society but a state that is weak relative to dominant elites;
• Weak or personalist political parties; relative absence of independent groups with power;persistent impunity; a strong military undergirding the state.
• Growth without development (the modernization of inequality)

Bradford Burns shows how inequitable social, political, and economic institutions have persisted into the independence period.

Jan Knippers Black shows how the social order and structure of power in Latin America are maintained in periods of "reform," revolution, or counterrevolution and the dynamics of each of these processes (how reform, revolution, and counterrevolution occur, under what conditions, and with what results).

Jorge Nef shows that just as there was continuity betwen the colonial period and the period of independence, there is continuity between the period of repressive military governments (1970's and 1980's) and the current wave of "democratic governments." He argues that these democracies are limited, that they exclude key goups, that they are controlled by the same alliances of domestic and foreign that governed during the military period, and that they represent facades instituted to derail any real and needed fundamental change. The current Receiver State is but a variation of the Repressive State of the 1970's and 1980's.

Carlos Vilas shows the specific ways in which market based economies linked to limited democracies (neoliberalism) undermine democratic government. He presents an alternative vision of democracy based on popular participation and a vibrant civil society.

Questions:

1. What factors account for the continuity of inequality in Latin America from the colonial to the post-colonial (independence) period?
2. What are the dynamics of evolutionary, revolutionary, and counterrevolutionary change in Latin America?
3. In what ways is the current period of "democracy" in Latin America linked to the period of repression of the 1970's and 1980's?
4. In what ways does neoliberalism undermine democratic governance?