ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a comparative analysis of two typical cases illustrative of the first model of transition: "incumbent entrenchment". This is a model that combines the presence of a non-democratic incumbent with a situation where mainly civilian actors are involved in the transition and the army plays no role in the process. Political alternation finally took place in 1978, and the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PDR) won the election with the promise of social and democratic reform after the years of President Joaquín Balaguer's authoritarianism. The Bolivian situation is characterized by two fundamental structural conditions: a dimension related to economic development and another that concerns the ethnolinguistic composition of society. Post-colonial Bolivian society had developed along ethnic and class lines: on the one hand, the ruling elite of Spanish descent and, on the other, the great indigenous majority, exploited for mining and agriculture.
