The US.-sponsored programs of military and police collaboration with the Central American governments during the Cold War also contributed to the surveillance capacity of those states during the period when the Central American state formation process was being completed. Guatemala is used as a case study. Washington’s contribution was framed by the conventional discourse of “security against communism” but also by an underlying technocratic ethos in which “modernization” and “security” were higher priorities than democratization.

This article compares union-government relations in Mexico and Argentina when education was decentralized in the early 1990s. The Mexican union accepted decentralization after obtaining concessions from the government that placated its opposition; but the Argentine teachers’ unions militantly resisted the reforms, only to see government officials ignore their demands. These cases illustrate the significance of partisan identities, union fragmentation, and leadership competition in the interaction of public sector unions and government officials.

The constraints imposed on Chile’s democratic transition by the military regime, plus the impact of structural reform and the political renovation of the dominant parties of the center and left, have made the traditional party allies of the popular sectors unable or unwiIIing to represent those constituents in the political arena. This argument is substantiated through an overview of pacted democratic transitions, an analysis of the evolution of party-base relations in Chile, and a consideration of the institutional impediments to further democratic reform.