Mexico and the European Union signed a new Political and Economic Association Agreement in December 1997 and ultimately a free-trade agreement in March 2000, aiming to establish a new model of relations with a more dynamic trade and investment component. This article analyzes the 1997 agreement as background to the final accord. Economic and political changes in the 1990s modified both parties’ participation in the international political economy, helping to overcome some of the structural obstacles to the relationship. The policy toward Latin America adopted by the EU in 1994 was influential. The negotiation process revealed divergences over the scope of the liberalization process and the so-called democracy clause.

Democratic transitions create an opportunity for elected officials to maximize their leverage over the armed forces and create institutions that permanently shift power away from the military. This article develops a theoretical argument about how civilian control- is established. Venezuela institutionalized weak civilian control in the wake of its 1958 democratic transition, allowing the regime to survive the 1992 coup attempts. Argentina moved close to strong civilian control by 1995, although such control is exercised through questionable institutional channels.

The Salvadoran and Guatemalan cases correspond to a new model of public security that is widely shared across Latin America. The more localized processes of demilitarization in the two countries, moreover, appear to share a similar dynamic. In the midst of real reforms, however, the deterioration of public security as directly experienced by much of the population is cause for worry. An examination of the reforms established in the peace accords leads to an interpretation of these experiences in a comparative regional framework.

In many Latin American countries, corruption and administrative inefficiency have emerged as significant threats to democracy and governability. This case study employs McCubbins and Schwartz’s U.S.-centered model of “fire alarm” and “police patrol” oversight to analyze how effectively Chile’s Congress has conducted its oversight functions. Chile’s experience with authoritarian rule, the weakening of Congress, and changes in the relationships between citizens and state institutions have undermined its tradition of fire alarm oversight, forcing Congress to rely on less-effective police patrol activities.

Drawing on theories of regime change, revolution, and democratization, this paper proposes a process theory to account for the 12 major regime transformations that have occurred in Central America since 1970. Political regimes, coherent systems of rule established among a coalition of dominant political actors, change when their prevailing political rules and their ruling coalitions undergo transformation. External forces are important to this process. The focal case is Guatemala and its prospects for democratic consolidation.

Comparing the Aylwin and Frei administrations, this article probes the question of why civilian authorities did not always use the legal and political tools they had acquired to respond to the military’s institutional and political demands. Actors’ preferences, leadership style, and strategic decisions influence the way civilian leaders use those tools. Civilian responses have important and sometimes unintended consequences for the stabilization of the civil-military relationship in new democratic regimes.

The European Union’s attempts to strengthen ties with Latin America relate to a broader international strategy of demonstrating that it is a “global player” and attaining the image of a “civilian power.” Yet many observers suspect that European aid is simply instrumental to trade and investment promotion and other interests. They question whether the EU’s strong position as a donor in Latin America means that Latin America is strongly important to the EU. This article reviews the history, context, and latest trends in EU aid to Latin America, then looks at the prospects for a biregional partnership.

The decisive victory of Alberto Fujimori and his congressional list in 1995 did not reflect a delegative view of democracy among the Peruvian electorate. Instead of uncritically supporting their reelected president, as a delegative model would predict, Peruvians have rejected the illiberal and possibly unconstitutional policies of his second administration. Relying on public opinion poll data, this study argues that the same issues that facilitated Fujimori’s 1995 landslide will probably work against him in 2000.

European NGOs have reoriented their Latin American aid policy to embrace the notion of building citizenship, developing civil society, and promoting democratization as the keys to long-term development. Stimulated partly by the new aid policy agenda, this shift also reflects a sea change in the thinking that shapes European NGO strategies. This article explores the significance of the new emphasis on civil society for EU policies toward Latin America and as a contribution to democratization.

In Brazil, an era of military confusion and dissatisfaction that followed the end of the Cold War has largely dissipated since the mid-1990s. Despite scarce federal resources under current economic policies, the Cardoso government has managed to eliminate the most immediate budgetary causes of military unrest. Military authoritarian influence remains, moreover, in areas such as Amazônia. The military’s own efforts, the president’s moral and economic support, and the legislature’s traditional apathy toward relevant issues have fostered a new form of military influence in the Brazilian democracy.

Recent change in Guatemala is part of a complex transition that has continued in Central America since the 1960s. It involves the region’s ongoing, gradual, highly conflictive, and contradictory entrance into the global economy and society. The transnational model of society in the Isthmus is inherently unstable, with contradictions internal to global capitalism. The constraints of the exclusionary socioeconomic system undermine efforts to open up the political system as contemplated in the peace accords. Authentic democratization requires a radical redistribution of wealth and power toward the poor majority; but the accords ratify existing property relations and rule out such a redistribution.

This article presents a short summary of the world-systems perspective on globalization as relevant to considering the possibilities and probabilities of Guatemala’s prospects for democracy and development. Guatemala’s structural position in the larger global political economy is examined. The strategy of “globalization from below” as popular movement alliances’ response to neoliberal corporate globalization is considered in the Guatemalan context.