Market-Oriented Reforms
and Democratization
in LatinAmerica:
Challenges of the 1990s
! Eduardo A. Gamarra
Introduction
1\" atin American democracies reached a critical juncture in the early 1990s.
JLanearly a decade after their torturous transitions from authoritarian role.
Owing to a weak tradition in new democratic mles and the relative strength
of sociopolitical actors， the outcome of transition still faced a period of great
uncertainty. Fragile governments survived and， some would argue， democ-
o racy even reached minimal levels of consolidation2 Definitions of consolida-
i tion (which are mostly minimalist) note that democracy in Latin America is
institutionalized through a negative consensus: the armed forces no longer
constitute a threat， business supports the system， and labor is too weak to
challenge the neoliberat economic project. To claim that consolidation has
been achieved， however， overlooks the dynamics of the ongoing
democratization process.
To view democratization as a dynamic process enables assessment of
how distinct political and social acXors appeared and disappeared during the
1980s and early 1990s. This process has no clear-cut outcome and may follow
a variety of paths， even a reversion to military rule. Latin American nations
most often exhibit a hybrid， which combines authoritarian decision-making
processes and democratic legitimation. A careful examination of the dynamics
through which sociopolitical actors crafted ways out of the political-economy
crisis of the 1980s enhances our understanding of how contenders for political
power who initialb; sub，s，ri ~xed to \"populisff or more heterodox economic
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