ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a critical interpretation of Latin America's democratization and its implications for human security in the hemisphere. US interventions in Central America and the Caribbean proved insufficient to prevent the popular mobilizations that precipitated a crisis of domination in Venezuela and Cuba. The crisis of the dictatorships in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile involved first and foremost the erosion of the political alliances that had permitted the implementation of the repressive socioeconomic projects. The transition from dictatorship to limited democracy has to be seen in the context of the earlier transition to national security regimes, both in the bureaucratic-authoritarian context of the Southern Cone and in the less institutionalized setting of Central America, Paraguay, or Bolivia. The ending of the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, declining insurgent threats in Colombia and Peru, as well as the effects of structural adjustment packages on defense budgets suggest a trend toward demilitarization.
