ABSTRACT
The 1980s saw the end of military dictatorships in the Southern Cone and a transition toward democracy. Fear of crime began to tear the fabric of urban life, and remains one of the main challenges to democracy in the region. The end of dictatorship and the wave of democratization that followed both unfolded in the midst of a crippling economic crisis. The government has concealed the structural reasons for the permanent economic crisis because they form part of the neoliberal project that Prista governments have applied since 1983. Neoliberalism was the name given to a set of austerity measures involving fiscal discipline and state withdrawal from economic matters. The term "economic stabilization" conventionally refers to the reduction of inflation and the fiscal adjustment required in order that the reduction be sustained. Foreign debt, inflation, and stagnation choked political leaderships of every persuasion, seriously threatening political stability.
