Democracy in the Final Quarter of the 20th Century in Latin America Essay

Democracy in the Final Quarter of the 20th Century in Latin America - Essay Example The Latin American region also meant that the struggle was intense and largely supported by the US in an attempt to buttress its hegemony in the region (Bethell, 2009). The seventies saw the emergence of leftist ideas in Latin American nations. The political-military elite of these nations saw the rise of leftist ideas as a threat to the already established systems of governance. In order to protect their nations from leftist ideology, the ruling elite turned to more authoritarian forms of government such as military dictatorships. The example of Chile, Argentina, Venezuela and many other Latin American countries supports this idea. These regimes often employed brute tactics to weed out the leftist factions and to avoid an armed struggle against the central governments. Harrowing tales of murder, political assassinations, rape, plundering, confiscation of property and the like are rampant in Latin America at the time. Chile’s dictator Auguste’ Pinochet, for example, is famous for the blatant elimination of his political opponents without any trials. The struggle in Nicaragua that put the Sandinista regime in charge was marked with bloo d and violence to fortify the seat of power. These actions on the part of these regimes infused a spirit of freedom from oppression in the masses in these nations (Skidmore & Smith, 2005). It is, therefore, no surprise that there were myriad leftist armed struggles in Latin America that were calling for regime change by the final quarter of the twentieth century. The entanglement of these military regimes in armed struggles also meant that the economy had to pay a heavy price. In certain other cases such as Argentina, the economy turned to shambles due to nepotism, mismanagement and usurpation of public resources (Stein & Hunt, 2007). It was common practice for military regimes to take onto armed adventures in order to divert public attention from the state of the economy. For example, the Argentinean military regime was made famous by its  myopic decision to invade the Falklands that exposed the Argentinean military’s weakness against a formidable British military.