ABSTRACT
Numerous publications have addressed democratic transitions, focusing especially on the recent processes of democratization in Latin America and Southern and Eastern Europe. This chapter reviews some of the arguments proffered as to how and why transition modes matter. It presents the view – though more sustained comparative work would be required to make the case more convincingly – that the nature of the transition and its institutional legacies were more directly related to subsequent outcomes and crises in Colombia than in Venezuela. A comparison of Argentina and Brazil highlighted how the historical and contemporary factors and the nature of possible "missed opportunities", could turn out to be more important than the characteristics and institutional realities of the mode of transition in understanding subsequent democratic evolution. A comparison of Colombia and Venezuela served to emphasize the importance of distinguishing across seemingly similar institutional inheritances from a period of transition to draw out their differing longer term implications.
