Putting Latin America Back on the Map

• Author: Arturo Valenzuela
• Position: Professor of Government and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University. He was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Inter-American Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council during 1999-2000

Consolidation of democratic institutions is a vital part of Latin America's recovery

The U.S. National Intelligence Council, in its "Mapping the Global Future"-a widely cited study on global trends shaping the world of 2020-concludes that the 21st century will be the Asian Century, with the rise of India and China as world powers. The report, which drew on the advice of over 1,000 experts on three continents, barely makes mention of Latin America. Outside of Canada and the United States, and occasional references to Brazil as a rising economic power, the countries of the Western Hemisphere south of the Rio Grande appear once again to have been sidelined by the dramatic changes of an increasingly globalized world. In addition, many observers argue that Latin American democracies are weak and unresponsive and that economic reforms have failed to generate substantial growth or reduce glaring income inequalities-the highest of any continent.

In my view, this portrait of the state of Latin America is overly pessimistic and downplays significant progress in the past quarter of a century. Until the 1980s, most countries in the region were governed by repressive authoritarian regimes that were incapable of implementing the far-reaching economic and political reforms they promised when seizing power at a time of political polarization and open conflict. Central America was in the throes of civil wars, while Colombia was racked by the growing power of international drug cartels that operated with impunity while drawing armed insurgents into the business. Unresolved border disputes threatened international peace, and standards of living declined in the wake of the international debt crisis.

The poor performance of authoritarian regimes and the end of the Cold War help explain the dramatic shift toward civilian elected governments. From 1930 until 1980, 40 percent of all governmental changes in Latin America were by military coups. That number dropped by half in the 1980s and disappeared after 1991, when the last classic military coup took place in Haiti. Historic democracies such as Chile and Uruguay returned to civilian rule, and countries with weak or no democratic traditions-such as Bolivia, Paraguay, and most of the countries of Central America-experienced for the first time successive transfers of power that followed constitutional precepts. Mexico, which had...