Military Intervention In Latin America

Dissatisfaction for government, along with perceived threats, had previously led to military interventions in Latin America prior to the 60s. However, following this and into the 70s, a new form of the intervention began taking place that differed from those before. As defined by Guillermo O’Donnell, an Argentine political scientist, the new military interventions were referred to as bureaucratic authoritarian regimes. Bureaucratic authoritarian regimes were systems of power in which the military, and typically foreign trained technocrats, took over the government for an undefined amount of time in order to lead society out of perceived political, or economic crisis through conservative policies. The phenomena of bureaucratic authoritarian …show more content…
The aforementioned political scientist Guillermo O’Donnell not only coined the term bureaucratic authoritarian, but also put forth one of the most important economic arguments as to why these regimes appeared. Within his work Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism, he stated that late industrializing nations were intrinsically different then those that industrialized countries earlier. O’Donnell also attempted to explain why there was a reversal of democracy in Latin America as opposed to the increase in democracy for early developing nations, such as in the United States. His general belief was that balance of budget crisis, fiscal deficit, and inflation were consequences of the various stages of late industrialization. O’Donnell believed that industrialization in late developing dependent countries began at an easy stage, during which they created textiles, clothes, or food. There was not much capital needed for this stage, and countries were be able to industrialize rapidly while maintaining democracy and strong unions. However, once a country “exhausts” this easy stage by fulfilling consumer demand, they will continue to the