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Article: Latin America's fledgling, fumbling democracies.
- Article from:
- The Review of Policy Research
- Article date:
- March 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Policy Studies Organization. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Mexico is a major player in a drama long taking place across Latin America. This drama is usually discussed in terms of democracy and development, but those terms often obscure more than they reveal about conditions in individual countries and what is happening or not happening around the hemisphere. The time-frame of the discussion is usually recent decades--"since the neoliberal reforms began" in the mid-1980s or early 1990s, or before the "lost decade" of the 1980s--and the topics are mainly alternative economic policies and political elections. But the real drama often juxtaposes deeper inertia and change, tradition and transition, paternalism and popular ...