The relationship between capitalism and democracy has been a focal question in political science for years. Compelling arguments have been advanced on all sides of the debate. Democracy promotes capitalism. Capitalism promotes democracy. The two are correlated but are caused by other variables, including everything from a given country's political culture to its position in the world economy. Now the recent turn toward neoliberal economic strategies in Latin America has revitalized the question of whether any one form of capitalism is more compatible with democracy than others.

The containment of communism
was for the United States a
problem of external defense;
for the underdeveloped countries
like Brazil, it was a problem
of internal development.
Roberto Campos, A lanterna na popa

The authoritarian regimes that in recent decades ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, Brazil from 1964 to 1985, Chile from 1973 to 1990, and Uruguay from 1973 to 1984 all used violence to crush dissent and the law to regulate and legitimate that violence. Repression under the Brazilian regime was particularly legalistic in the sense that the number of killings was relatively low but the rate of judicial prosecution high. Available evidence suggests that more individuals were brought into military courts for political crimes in Brazil than in any of the other authoritarian regimes in the region.

Consensus is growing about the fundamental principles underlying economic policy reforms. In addition, a series of recent comparative studies have increased scholarly understanding of the political conditions necessary for launching such reforms. Yet understanding of the factors that make reforms sustainable over the longer term is far less developed. A wide-ranging and unresolved debate continues over the roles played by institutions, politicians, interest groups, and the popular sectors. The influence of such groups tends to be marginal during the initial implementation of policies, a process involving an insulated group of technocrats. As the reforms proceed, the opposition of different societal groups to specific policies may have some impact but is less critical to the success or failure of the adjustment program than overall economic performance (see Geddes 1995). The primary strength of these groups is retrospective and collective: they can vote reforming governments out of office. Elections—and therefore voter behavior—are critical in sustaining economic reforms over the long term. Voters can reverse economic reform programs, and at times they do. Yet they also can play a major role in making programs more sustainable by legitimating their continuation at the ballot box.

The belief survives among us
[Latin Americans] that United States
scholars would write better histories
of Latin America if they studied
less and invented more.
Daniel Cosío VillegasHistory and the Social Sciences in Latin America

This article will analyze the way in which U.S. historians' writing on Latin America, especially on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has been influenced by the changing relationship between the United States and Latin America. It will also trace more briefly the changing approaches of historians from Latin America. In my view, the two groups have taken different routes but have arrived at much the same destination.

During the 1820s, the works of English utilitarian philosopher and jurisconsult Jeremy Bentham attained a remarkable diffusion throughout Spanish America, enjoying a high reputation among the leaders of the revolt against Spanish rule. Colombian Francisco de Paula Santander professed himself to be Bentham's admirer, while Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda took his advice on freedom of the press. Simón Bolívar, el Gran Libertador, went so far as to assure Bentham that his name was never pronounced “even in these savage regions of America, without veneration nor without gratitude.”

In the 1530s, a handful of Spaniards conquered an immense Andean empire. Thirty years later, some Andean subjects of what was by then an immense Spanish empire resolved not to worship the Spaniards' God. Their resistance was associated with a Quechua ritual phrase, “Taki Onqoy,” usually translated literally as “disease of the dance.” This movement was suppressed rapidly by Spanish authority and left no traces except in a few Spanish documents.