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The "second wave" metaphor is a convenient but somewhat misleading approximation to how the republics of Latin America adjusted to the post-1945 balance of world forces. In a short period the region experienced a reverberating jumble of democratizing experiments. Although these were loosely linked they were also fragmentary, unstable, and potentially clashing. These diverse, kaleidoscopic, and partially reversible processes developed unevenly over time, often recycling prewar concerns. They reflected competing understandings of what democracy might involve. Some features were highly localised, some expressed region-wide linkages, while global influences also played a part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the democratic trajectories of Latin American nations 40 years after the third wave of democratization, reflecting on their resilience and challenges. Topics include the endurance and fragility of democracy in Argentina and Chile, institutional mechanisms to contain authoritarianism, and widespread electoral dissatisfaction amid democratic shortcomings. It mentions role of electoral and political systems in managing power, and the widespread disillusionment with democratic processes in countries like Argentina and Chile.

This essay probes the logic and boundaries of the concept of polarization and tests its utility as compared to available overlapping and adjacent analytical frameworks. Until recently, political polarization was a marginal theme in the study of comparative politics, but under the pressure of unexpected events it lately has achieved a new centrality. Case studies have multiplied, and a growing inventory of indicators has become available. Some of the terminology used (for example, "pernicious") is notably denunciatory. It rests on underspecified theoretical foundations and its conceptual contours have received scant attention. Polarization's current appeal is largely due to its evident relevance to some recurrent and pressing aspects of political behavior that previously were overlooked. But it risks over-extension and conceptual stretching. This essay thus seeks to evade such pitfalls by specifying the morphology of the concept, identifying its scope conditions, and situating it in relation to proximate terms of comparative political analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography affects political destiny and this is certainly the case in Eastern and Central Europe. Geopolitics has cast a significant influence over the region's political development that until recently democratic aspirations have been vetoed down. Nonetheless, the events since 1989 have shown that political inventiveness can override the effects of geopolitics on a nation's political future.

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Copyright of Latin American Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This concluding paper reviews possible interrelationships between the economic and political dimensions of contemporary liberalizations in Latin America and Southern and Eastern-Central Europe. After noting the absence of certain negative features (impediments to a liberal economic and political order) the paper proposes a more positive justification, based on the examination of four possible interrelated linking mechanisms. Responses to chronic fiscal crisis, the stabilization of popular expectations, the strengthening of 'transparent' and accountable institutions, and external forms of reinforcement can all, in principle, contribute to the coordinated reinforcement of a more democratized state and a more liberalized market system (without this implying a single uniform end-result applicable to all situations). This special issue has focused on some theoretical questions. Whether these possible linkages operate in practice requires empirical verification.

This introductory paper surveys a variety of Western analyses of the emergence of a liberal social order, ranging from the Scottish enlightenment, through responses to the French Revolution, and discussions of American exceptionalism, to various Central European reactions to the traumas of the interwar period, to 'dependency' theory and Christian Democracy. It identifies a number of central issues that are reappearing, in somewhat modified form, in the analysis of contemporary economic liberalization and political democratization issues in the South and East. Contrary to some recent triumphalism, most Western social theory has been deeply preoccupied with the fragility and reversibility of economic cum political liberalization processes.

Although some conventional liberal democratic regimes are likely to become consolidated in Latin America, the dominant pattern is better understood as |democracy by default', and in a few cases little more than |facade democracy' is to be expected. This paper reviews the major factors accounting for the fragility, instability and policy ineffectiveness of many of these new regimes. Although current fiscal crises lend some plausibility to the |neo-liberal' analyses of democratization, the paper argues that in the longer run consolidated democracies will tend to develop a range of |social democratic', participatory and interventionist features that are at variance with the neo-liberal model. Latin American nation-states are relatively well integrated and contain a stock of human and social resources that should favour constitutional outcomes, so that although many of these new democracies will remain provisional and incomplete for the time being, they possess the potential for subsequent extension and entrenchment.

The six major regional organizations (ROs) covered in this special issue all originated prior to the rise of liberal internationalism, and were repurposed by it. After 1989 they converged towards a common discourse on democratic conditionality, and developed a capacity to discipline and sanction non-compliance, preferring persuasion and appeals to regional norms rather than coercion. This concluding overview highlights the relevance of such metaphors as ecosystem, family resemblance, and peer review; and directs attention to the temporal and spatial scope conditions of the cases considered; and to the bargaining involved. As the ecosystem of liberal internationalism and regional democratic solidarity has faded, 'pushbacks' have appeared from regimes 'targeted' for sanctions and/or 'shaming.' Since states must coexist in permanent interaction with their neighbors, and because the democratic 'like-mindedness' of regions fluctuates, such RO stigmatization cannot be a one-shot game. Rather, it will be interactive, and contextually negotiated over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a vast social science literature on the politics of protest and 'bottom up' mobilisation. One strand concerns peaceful protest is stable constitutional systems. Another deals with revolutionary mobilisation to overthrow repressive regimes. This article focuses on an intermediate cluster of recent contributions of more direct relevance to today's Maghreb. These all concern mass movements seeking more inclusive democratic dispensations. Such mobilisations are voluntary and pluralist in spirit (not revolutionary) and so favour peaceful and inclusionary forms of expression.1 But they confront regimes that lack constitutional legitimacy, and that in their insecurity may react with arbitrary repression. So these processes involve acute uncertainty and intense risk for participants. Three main approaches are outlined and compared. Aletta Norval draws from her South African experience in her formulation of ideas about 'aversive' democracy. Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly have produced ground breaking work on 'contentious' politics that partly reflects their base in the USA. The Essex school inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe is more attuned to Latin American and some European experiences of 'agonistic' mobilisation. While all three approaches have important ideas to contribute, each also displays conceptual and empirical limitations. This article aims to highlight the useful insights of each, and provide some guidance about how well they 'travel' to North Africa, and how lessons from this region might be fed back into the global debate about 'informal' political activism in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on major Emerging Market Democracies (EMDs), and their "statecrafting" options under the pressures of globalization, including the recent build-up of counter-currents culminating in the massive "sudden stop" of 2020. Even under the most adverse circumstances, these countries have never just been "rule-takers," and their political economy trajectories always involve coalition-building and politically negotiated adaptation and reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]