This is part of a four-volume set covering also Asia and Africa, except the Arab and the Communist countries. Unfortunately the first and more theoretical volume had not yet appeared at the time of review, but our appetite for it is whetted by the preface’s announcement that it consists of no less than forty-nine propositions about dozens of variables ranged along ten theoretical dimensions (xv). The editors are certainly sticking their necks out, but for the moment we can only surmise what those propositions are, on the basis of the introduction to this volume, authored by Larry Diamond and Juan Linz.
The potential violence that the political system must channel into legitimate forms of conflict is acknowledged as an important variable in their analysis. Democracy has been feared by dominant classes as allowing too much freedom to the destructive tendencies of the masses, but the elites’ reaction differed according to their values. The latter are seen as an important independent variable by the editors and by most of the contributors, who occasionally appear overconcerned with butchering the dead horse of structural determinism. One may wonder, however, how those values were formed in the first place and may search for backward linkages leading to types of social structure likely to generate alternative political elites.
The individual chapters are very rich on party systems and the varying degrees to which they are based on free associationism, corporative organization, or caudillo leadership. Constitution making also has pride of place in these analyses, which express a marked preference for parliamentarianism. This should be taken with care, because for some reason presidentialism has been established for so long in the area. The authors of the introduction warn against unduly judging Latin American parties by European standards but forget their own injunction when they immediately lament Peronism’s “extraordinary incoherence” (p. 23), which would look less incomprehensible if compared with Roosevelt’s New Deal. They assert, however, that Latin American conditions may require a form of “authoritative” state (p. 27), a concept worthy of further analysis that should not be confused with authoritarianism, though it is equally slippery. Space does not allow a detailed comment on individual chapters, but they all maintain an excellent level, and make this a very welcome addition to the literature.
