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During the post-Cold War period, democracy has come to be seen as virtually the only legitimate form of government in Latin America. This paper explores the role of international and regional organizations in promoting and protecting democracies, especially in moments of severe political crisis. Specifically, the paper looks at crises in Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina to understand how IGO’s react to different kinds of crises, the variations between regions, and the different roles assumed by different organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intervention of the international community ? and specifically the form of new multilateralism activated by the Organization of American States (OAS) ? to crises in Peru and Venezuela. Although from a comparative politics perspective, these two cases present striking contrasts, with respect to the study of global governance it is the commonalities in the response that attractions attention. Reshaping existing regional sovereignty norms and practices, both interventions contained extensive ?internal? as well as ?international? components in which the boundaries or barriers between diplomacy and domestic politics were blurred. The centrepiece of both initiatives was the establishment of a ?mesa,? an OAS-facilitated dialogue roundtable or forum involving key domestic political and civil society actors from government and opposition in a sustained collective effort to negotiate a consensual and peaceful solution to political crisis. In the body of the work the process of this ?tale of two mesas? is traced through three distinctive components: the actors at the table; the agendas; and, relative achievements. As our paper demonstrates, significant differences between the two mesa processes make it difficult to articulate a single, coherent model. Nonetheless, we conclude that both the Peruvian and Venezuelan mesas exemplify a promising mode of multilateral intervention: ?intervention without intervening.? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to understand how domestic security threats shape state institutions and regime structures. More specifically, it discusses the impact of insurgency movements on the nature of civil-military relations and democratic openings in a country. This is an important theoretical question with great policy relevance. For centuries, civilian leaders have struggled with the problem of subordinating militaries to their authority. The lack of civilian control has become a major factor that blocked the consolidation of democracies in numerous countries. Political science literature has, so far, failed to provide a well-developed answer to this research question. Although the majority of the scholars believe that domestic security threats inevitably lead to an increase in the political involvement of the armed forces (Huntington, 1962; Stepan, 1976; O’Donnell, 1979; Hunter, 1997; Desch, 1999; etc), similar levels and types of internal security threats have, in fact, divergent effects on civil-military relations and broader regime-related questions. To understand the causes of this variation, I conduct a comparative case study by focusing on two countries, namely Turkey and Peru, which have fought against Kurdistan Workers’ Party and Shining Path insurgents, respectively, from the 1980s onwards. With this study, I intend to show that the presence of an internal threat is not a sufficient condition to account for changes in civil-military relations and regime structures. Instead, I discuss the importance of strategic interests and calculations of civilian governments and their armed forces, as well as the silent bargaining process between these actors in explaining this research question. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of strategies employed by democratizing rivals in South America on the prospects for consolidating democracy. It explores the relations between two pairs of rivals from South America, namely Argentina and Chile and Ecuador and Peru. It examines the effects of the approach in resolving rivalry adopted by domestic and international actors which focused on the pragmatic aspects of cooperation. The author cites the benefits of including the military into internationalist agendas of rival countries, Argentina and Chile.