Robert H. Dix

Democratization and the Institutionalization of Latin American Political Parties

In this article, the author assesses the prospects for the consolidation of democracy in Latin America in the 1990s, compared with the failure to achieve that goal in the 1960s, by examining the institutionalization of political parties in the two time periods. Samuel Huntingtons criteria of institutionalization (adaptability, complexity, autonomy, and coherence) are used and employ a variety of indicators (some empirical, some more judgmental) to assess the degree of change between the 1960s and the 1980s. He concludes that, although there is significant variation among countries, for the majority of them, and for the Latin American region as a whole, political parties have indeed become somewhat more institutionalized over time, thereby modestly enhancing the prospects for the consolidation of democracy in the 1990s.

Military government and the movement toward democracy in South America

Introduction Ecuador The Politics of Transition Thomas G. Sanders A New Political Direction? Howard Handelman Postscript Howard Handelman Peru The Politics of Transition Thomas G. Sanders The March to Civilan Rule Howard Handlman Postscript Howard Handelman Brazil Decompression Thomas G. Sanders In the Name of Democracy: the Presidential Succession Norman Gall Human Rights and Political Process Thomas G. Sanders Postscript Thomas G. Sanders Uruguay Military Authoritarianism and Political Change Howard Handelman Economic Policy and Elite Pressures Howard Handelman Postscript Howard Handelman Chile Military Government and National Organization Thomas G. Sanders The Catholic Church under a Military Regime Thomas G. Sanders and Brian H. Smith The ONew InstitutionalityO and the OConsultationO Thomas G. Sanders Postscript Thomsa G. Sanders Select English-Language Bibliography on South American Political Systems and the Military in Politics

The Politics of Colombia

As the relationship between the United States and Latin America becomes an important focus of world attention, The Politics of Colombia is a welcome study of this South American country. A comprehensive analysis of the international influences on Colombian politics, as well as of the countrys policymaking processes, this book will introduce the reader to one of the more important, yet least known, countries of the hemisphere.

DAVID SCOTT PALMER. Peru: The Authoritarian Tradition. Pp. xvi, 134, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1980.

vital issue: the United States did not want another war. The &dquo;police action&dquo; concept, the &dquo;containment&dquo; of Marxism-this was the choice of the Western powers during this time, carefully encouraged by such disingenuous allies as India and the United Nations. To Rhee this was disaster, blindness, and deadly day-to-day frustration. The shillyshallying at Panmunjom, the shifts in United Nations’ actions and attitudes, the whole unhappy road of appeasement, &dquo;peaceful settlement,&dquo; diplomacy rather than force-all created finally a picture that weakness was the word for Western policy, that constant pushing and shoving would achieve Communist goals if persisted in-and there is nothing so persistent and so consistent and so never-changing as Marxists’ goals. Staying power is their middle name, and Syngman Rhee knew it with every bone in his body. For him appeasement was impossible. In October of 1945, after decades of exile, Syngman Rhee finally returned to Korea. Soon after he returned, I-therl inspector general of U.S. forces in Koreaarranged to meet Dr. and Mrs. Rhee at various points in their first swing around Korea. On one occasion, I witnessed him hold 10,000 and more Koreans spellbound in the hot sun while he spoke, giving them back their country with his sincerity, his authority, and his demonstrated courage and steadfastness. It was an impressive demonstration, only one of many. He had the Korean people solidly on his side, and he never lost their allegiance. In 1954, by sheer obstinacy and disdain for the prevailing political winds, Rhee had brought his country through the Korean war, had obtained material aid for rebuilding devastated South Korea, and had forced the United States to commit itself to Korean defense and major economic aid; but he had failed to convince the United States to push the Communists back up and off the Korean peninsula. And this &dquo;sin of our fathers&dquo; for which we are paying today looks as if it will be repeated tomorrow. From this distance of 20 and more years, Oliver looks back and voices a few personal conclusions-though he keeps the stream very clear in his dayto-day reportage of events as they took place. One conclusion, not given as his own but to which he clearly subscribes, is that the Vietnam War might never have taken place if the U.N. had persisted until victory in Korea. And yet another conclusion is that &dquo;allowing the Red Chinese to win in Korea ... helped Mao Tse Tung consolidate his control over the mainland.&dquo; There emerges from these letters of Dr. Rhee’s a portrait of an honest, able, devoted, tireless patroit and statesman; very human, very straightforward, very much like an American in his training and viewpoint, but an American of the eighteenth century, rather than the twentieth. Our own founding fathers would have felt at home with him; our statesmen of his time, quite evidently, did not. GEORGE FOX MOTT

18.95. Paperbound,

of French visitors 1918-1933, hence the central place of Dr. Duhamel, the fierce criticism by lettr6s convinced of the dehumanizing menace of America. Puritan, anti-individualist, urban, mechanized, imperially-minded, grasping and coarse, the Americans were pictured as the anti-France. By no means all intellectuals saw it this way, but there was a widely accepted agreed-upon image then that has known various reincarnations since. Disenchantment with American withdrawal of the 1919

9.95

that Colombians enter politics basically to acquire this high status which important political office bestows. He buttresses this idea with a wide variety of arguments: what the politicians themselves say, the kinds of problems which cause political crises, which are almost always issues of apportionment of high status jobs, and the patronage that goes with them, the behavior of congressmen and their attitude towards their positions, the origins of the numerous factions within the two major parties, and several others.