Drawing upon theories about regime change, revolution, and democratization, this paper develops a process theory to account for the ten major regime transformations that have occurred in Central America since 1970. Political regimes, coherent systems of rule established among a coalition of dominant political actors, change when both the systems' prevailing political rules and its ruling coalition undergo transformation. Various external and domestic forces shape this process. The theory is outlined and the Central American cases are briefly discussed, with special attention to Guatemala and its democratic prospect.

JOHN A. BOOTH is Regents' Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas. He is the author of The End and the Beginning: The Nicaraguan Revolution (1985), coauthor of Understanding Central America (1993), and coeditor of Political Participation in Latin America, Vols. I and II (1978, 1979), Elections and Democracy in Central America (1989), Elections and Democracy in Central America, Revisited (1995), and Costa Rica: Quest for Democracy (1998). He has published numerous journal articles and anthology chapters on political participation, political culture, violence, revolution, and democratization in Central America, Mexico and Colombia.

Central America's political regimes have changed enormously and repeatedly in the last two decades. It took the United States almost two centuries of war and gradual evolution to move from authoritarian rule by Britain to constitutional democracy with voting rights for the whole populace. In stark contrast, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador have traversed a the great political distance from authoritarianism to civilian democracy at a vertiginous pace, although by divergent paths. That four countries have moved so far toward democracy so rapidly places into dramatic relief the region's regime change.

Just a decade ago social scientists struggled to explain why revolutionary insurrections occurred in Central America in the 1970s and 1980s while two neighboring countries escaped such violent turmoil. Since then, geopolitical change, the efforts and cooperation of Latin American powers, international institutions, Central American governments, and the labors of domestic forces have ended the lengthy civil wars in Nicaragua (1990) El Salvador (1992) and Guatemala (1996), and the 1990 election in Nicaragua terminated the Sandinista revolution. Elections during the 1980s replaced the military regimes of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala with civilian governments. Four of the region's five nations thus underwent dramatic, multiple regime changes from the military authoritarian status quo of the 1970s to civilian democracy by the 1990s.

This paper seeks to account for such far reaching political transformation in the region and to examine Guatemala's place within it. It sets forth a theory that incorporates and seeks to account for disparate phenomena: political stability, guerrilla insurgency, military reformism, personalistic authoritarianism, socialist revolution, and civilian-led liberal democracy.

An Overview of Regime Change in Central America

Regimes are coherent systems of rule over mass publics established among a coalition of a nation's dominant political actors. The coherence of the system of rule refers to the existence of a persistent and identifiable set of political rules by which access to power and decision making occur. Regimes are thus distinct from the separate governments or administrations that operate under the same general rules. For instance, Costa Rica has had a single civilian democratic regime since the 1950s, consisting of a series of constitutionally elected presidential administrations. Guatemala in the 1970s had a military authoritarian regime, subdivided into governments headed by various president-generals.

One regime may be differentiated from another when it changes both the fundamental rules of politics and the makeup of its coalition (a regime shift). I believe that seven basic regime types encompass Central American experience between 1970 and 1998: military authoritarian, dominated by a corporate military establishment in coalition with a narrow range of civilian sectors; personalistic military, the only case of which is Nicaragua, dominated by the Somoza family and military in coalition with Liberal and Conservative party and key financial sectors; reformist military, dominated by reformist military elements and intent upon a liberalizing or democratizing political transition; civilian transitional, with elected civilian rulers backed by a strong military and mainly incorporating center and rightist parties; revolutionary, in this case Nicaragua's Sandinista-led center-left coalition; institutionalized revolutionary, the Nicaraguan regime that established an electoral system in 1984 and new constitution in 1987; and civilian democratic, with elected civilian constitutional governments, broad coalitions, and political competition open to parties from left to right.

Using this scheme, Table 1 arrays Central America's regimes since 1970. Across these three decades only Costa Rica remained politically stable, that is, did not change regimes. Among the other four countries there occurred eleven regime shifts (changes between categories). Nicaragua's 1978-1979 insurrection led to a de facto Sandinista government from 1979 through 1984, followed by an institutionalized regime constructed through the 1984 election and new constitution. This institutionalization of the revolution permitted citizens to oust the revolutionary government in 1990. Honduras's military regime, anxiously eyeing neighboring El Salvador's and Nicaragua's revolutionary turmoil at the end of the 1970s, moved quickly toward civilian democratic rule. El Salvador and Guatemala traversed three similar stages after military authoritarian rule: in each a military-led reformist regime embroiled in civil war replaced itself with a a transitional civilian regime. The settlement of each war eventually ushered in a much more inclusive civilian democratic government.

How did these Central American regime shifts occur? What were the particular processes or instruments at play? One answer is that the processes and means were quite divergent across the cases. Military coups d'etat ushered in reformist military episodes in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. A widely based mass insurrection initiated the revolutionary regime in Nicaragua. Hoping to manage change and thus protect their interests, transitional military regimes voluntarily began holding fairer elections that eventually returned civilians to power in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. The first Nicaraguan revolutionary government established an election system and new constitutional rules that allowed citizens to oust the FSLN in 1990. Negotiated settlements of three civil wars admitted previously excluded actors into the political arena.

Table 1. Central American Regime Types^a, 1970-1998 (with regime inception date).

^aExplanation of regime type notation: CD = civilian democratic,

MA = military authoritarian, RM = reformist military, Rev = revolutionary, IR= institutionalized revolutionary, CT = civilian transitional, and CD = civilian democratic. See text for fuller explanation of types.

^bUninterrupted from 1949 to the present.

These multiple and complex regime changes necessitate a broad, widely encompassing explanation of how most of Central America has moved from authoritarian stasis through geopolitical crisis to emerge hugely transformed and unprecedentedly democratic. Of particular interest is whether the region's revolutionary turmoil and its democratizing steps were distinctive and unrelated processes, or similar products of a larger common process. We also need to understand why the ultimate outcomes in each Central American nation have been so apparently similar despite the distinctive paths of regime change illustrated in Table 1.

Central America's small, neighboring nations have marked commonalities of history, global context, and political and economic development. These similarities in themselves suggest that much that affects Central America is likely to be part of a larger world dynamic. Just as common forces led to Central America's rebellions, many of the same forces shaped the overall process of regime change that eventually led from authoritarianism toward democracy. Indeed, the revolutionary movements themselves were key forces driving the multiple regime changes that led to the region's formal democratization.

A Theory of Regime Change in Central America

An explanatory argument integrating Central America's insurrections and democratization may be developed within a framework of regime change theory and drawing upon the political science literatures on democratization, and revolution.

Students of regime change have focused on causes, processes, and outcomes. Moore explored how the characteristics of several established regimes and the interaction of their various challengers led to the particular characteristics of new regimes. O'Donnell examined the role of military-middle class coalitions as bureaucratic authoritarianism replaced civilian governments in Argentina and Brazil. The contributors to Linz et al.'s The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes examined the nature of democratic regimes and both the causes of and processes by which they collapsed to be replaced by authoritarian rule. Some decades later, O'Donnell, et al.'s The Transitions from Authoritarian Rule performed a similar exercise for authoritarian goverments of southern Europe and Latin America. Gasiorowski has employed quantitative analysis to account for factors that contribute to regime change.

From the regime change literature we know that regimes are systems of rule over mass publics established among a coalition of a nation's dominant political actors. Regime coalition members benefit from inclusion in the regime. Social and economic change can generate and mobilize new political actors who may seek inclusion into the ruling coalition and its benefits, and who may or may not be admitted by those within the regime. Socioeconomic change can dramatically affect the resources available to the regime. Contented, indifferent, unorganized, or effectively repressed populations do not struggle for inclusion in the regime, nor do they violently rebel. Strong, flexible, resource-rich regimes with satisfied allies rarely collapse or wage war against their populations.

In a classic work, Anderson explains that Latin American regimes have corporatist tendencies, one implication of which is that new actors are admitted to the regime coalition only when they prove themselves capable of destabilizing it. Regime transformations in the region are thus often highly conflictive because excluded forces have to fight for inclusion. This theory accounts for the well-documented case of Costa Rica's last regime shift. The narrowly based and coffee-grower dominated quasi-democracy of the 1930s was disrupted by emergent working- and middle-class actors. Middle-class forces took the lead in forging a new regime after winning a brief but violent civil war in 1948.

A second relevant theoretical literature is that on political violence and revolution, part which perforce also examines regime change. For a rebellion, a phenomenon that John Walton usefully designates the national revolt, to occur there must be a fundamental basis of conflict that defines groups or categories of affected persons that provide "recruiting grounds for organizations." What bases of conflict are most likely to lead citizens to resort to a national revolt? Walton, Skocpol, Paige, Olson, and many others generally agree that rapid economic change and evolving class relations typically drive the mobilization required for a violent challenge to a regime. For agrarian societies, their inclusion into the world capitalist economy through heavy reliance upon export agriculture may harm huge sectors of the peasantry, urban poor, and middle sectors, providing large numbers of agrieved citizens.

Once motivated, groups must organize and focus their struggle for change upon some target, most likely the state or the regime. Aya and Tilly have shown that effective organization for opposition requires the mobilization of resources, and emphasize the key role of the state in shaping rebellion. The state or the ruling coalition are typically the targets of national revolts, but the state also reciprocally affects the rebellion as it both represses rebels and promotes change. Walton, Skocpol, Goldstone, and Gurr concur that once a contest over sovereignty begins, political factors such as organization and resource mobilization by both sides eventually determine the outcome. Goldstone and DeFronzo particularly emphasize the contribution to successful revolutionary movements of foreign actors, domestic interelite competition and alienation, and other factors that may weaken the state's capacity to act.

The third relevant literature is the rapidly growing body of scholarship on democratization. What domestic forces lead to democratization, the process of moving from an authoritarian to a democratic regime? The four main explanations for democratization focus on political culture, political processes, social structures and forces (both domestic and external), and leaders and elites. The cultural approach argues that the ideal of political democracy may evolve within a society or spread among nations by cultural diffusion among elite and mass political actors. Elite and mass preference for democracy promote its adoption and help sustain a democratic regime. In contrast, process approaches examine the mechanics of and paths toward democratic transition. In these emphases they resemble and somewhat overlap the regime change literature.

Structural theories emphasize how shifts in the distribution of critical material and organizational resources among political actors can lead to democracy. Democratic regimes emerge when the distribution of political and economic resources and the mobilization of actors permit formerly excluded actors to disrupt the extant authoritarian coalition. Another structural approach involves the imposition of democracy by external actors. The fourth approach examines the roles of leaders. Key societal elites must engineer specific democratic arrangements (elite settlements) and agree to operate by them. The broader the coalition of political forces involved, the more stable and consolidated a democratic regime will be.

These three literatures have much in common. Each concerns the process of regime change, although the democratization literature emphasizes transition in one particular direction. Elements of all three envision a polity as having numerous actors whose makeup and roles may evolve. They jointly treat political regimes as coalitions of key actors that survive by successfully mobilizing resources in and around the state or governmental apparatus. All three recognize that regimes can enter into crisis, whether driven by challenges from without, deterioration from within, or the erosion of state capacity. All three have causal explanations for change, although there are divergent emphases and outright disagreements within and between fields over the importance of such factors as psychology, political culture, leaders and elites, masses, and social structures. However, the more sophisticated treatments in the revolution/violence and democratization literatures tend to view causality as both complex and multiple.

Finally, each of these fields and a substantial literature on foreign policy recognizes that international constraints affect regime change. Foreign governments may act as players in domestic politics, strengthening a prevailing regime by supporting it or weakening it through opposition or withheld support. External actors may supply resources to domestic actors, altering their relative strength and capacity to act. Key external actors may pressure domestic actors to adopt certain policies or regime types, employing as inducements such vital resources as money, trade, arms, and political cooperation. The international context may also constrain a nation's regime type by demonstration or contagion effects. For example, having mostly democratic neighbors makes it easier to adopt or retain a democratic regime.

Based upon these elements I propose the following outline of a theory of regime change: Political systems are nation states with defined populations and territorial boundaries. Political systems exist within an international context consisting of various types of actors and forces, including nation states, formal and informal alliances among nations, the world political economy, international organizations, political and ideological groupings. A political regime is a coherent systems of rule over a nation's mass public established among a coalition of dominant political actors. Political actors within nations encompass individuals and (more importantly) organized groups, factions, ideological groupings, parties, interest sectors, or institutions. Each of these pursues objectives within the political system, and each employs its own resources. Actors may or may not constitute part of the regime coalition, the group of actors who dominate and benefit most from the state, its resources, and its policy making capacity.

Political regimes persist based upon at least two things. They must constantly satisfy an endogenous objective of managing the state and economy so as to benefit coalition members enough to retain their loyalty. They must also continuously satisfy the exogenous objective of keeping actual and potential outside-the-regime actors (both domestic and external) content or indifferent or, if neither of these, keeping them disorganized, unmobilized, or otherwise effectively managed or repressed. Many factors can disrupt or destabilize a regime. International or domestic economic forces can undermine the political economy of a regime (harm a nation's established economic system or the security of regime coalition's members or other actors). Such forces may include very rapid economic growth, or a sharp economic downturn. Powerful external actors (a major regional power or hegemon, for instance) may withdraw active support and resources from a regime or may shift from tacit support to active opposition to it, thus creating a permissive external environment for internal actors to challenge a regime. Ideologies may suggest or other political systems may exemplify alternative political and economic rules (republicanism instead of monarchy, socialism instead of capitalism, or civilian democracy instead of military authoritarianism) to key actors within or outside the regime coalition.

A regime experiences a crisis when such forces (a) undermine the loyalty and cooperation of some or all of the coalition members, (b) undermine the resource base and capacity of the regime to respond to challenges or opponents, or (c) mobilize enough outside-the-regime actors against the regime. Regime crises may take various forms based upon the severity of the challenge and distribution of resources among actors: Regime coalition members may renegotiate the regime's political rules and benefits and deny significant adjustments to outside-the-regime actors. Regimes may make policy changes to mollify aggrieved outside actors. Regimes may initiate cooptative incorporation of new coalition members to quell a disruptive challenge to the regime; this will typically involve some reform of extant political rules and payoffs. Outside-the-regime actors may initiate a violent challenge to the regime's sovereignty via a coup d' etat, insurrection, or even an external invasion. Inside-the-regime actors may also employ a coup to displace incumbents or, more interestingly, to initiate a new regime.

The evolution and outcome of the regime crisis will depend upon the ability of the regime and its challengers, if any, to mobilize and deploy their respective resources. The closer to parity of material, political and human resources are the regime and its challengers, and the stronger both are, the longer and more violently they will struggle over power. The dominant actor (such as the military) in a weak to moderately strong regime confronted with a weak but potentially growing opposition might initiate a regime change (cooptative reform and the inclusion of new actors) in order to minimize expected damage to its interests. Other things equal, a strong, flexible, resource rich regime will be most likely to reform and/or successfully repress or continue to exclude its opponents and to survive. A weak regime confronting a strong opposition coalition may be overthrown and replaced by a radically different, revolutionary regime that will subsequently exclude some or all of the old regime's coalition. A protracted regime crisis, especially a lengthy civil war, eventually increases the likelihood of a negotiated settlement and major regime transformation with new political rules, redistributed benefits, and the inclusion into the political game of both the challengers and key old-regime actors.

The consolidation of any new regime will derive from the eventual resolution of forces among the various political actors, which may in turn depend heavily upon the role of foreign actors. A single regime shift may not bring enough change to permit political stability. Military reformism, for instance, though intended to pacify a polity by including certain new actors and by policy reforms, may yet fail to satisfy violent opponents with antagonic ideologies. Despite establishing a new coalition, new rules, and new policies, a revolutionary regime may quickly attract direct or indirect outside-the-regime opposition. To the extent that important actors (domestic or foreign) remain unsatisfied or unsuccessfully repressed, therefore, the consolidation of a new regime will fail. For a newly constituted regime, protracted instability increases the likelihood of its failure and further regime shifts.

Explaining Regime Change in Central America

Drawing upon the common elements of the theories examined above, the following propositions seek to account for the origin and development of regime change in Central America since the 1970s. The argument emphasizes the world economic and geopolitical and ideological context and its evolution, the regimes present in the 1970s and the causes of the crises that undermined them, regimes' and actors' responses to crisis, and the interplay of resources and foreign forces.

The Evolving Context

The U.S. View. The geopolitics of the Cold War predominated on the world scene in the 1970s and set the context for Central American geopolitics. U.S. policy was preoccupied with the threat of the Soviet Union and its perceived desire to expand its influence within the Western Hemisphere. The United States thus tended to regard most of the region's political and economic reformists and the opponents of Central America's friendly, anticommunist, authoritarian regimes as unacceptable potential allies of pro-soviet/pro-Cuban communism. Civilian democracy, though an ideological preference of the United States, remained secondary to security concerns in this tense world environment.

Central America's authoritarian regimes thus usually enjoyed the political, military, and economic support of the United States. U.S. policy thus weakened and marginalized Central American moderates and ultimately encouraged many of them to ally with the radical left, which viewed civilian democracy and elections as tools by which an unjust capitalist political-economic system manipulated the lower classes of dependent nations.

U.S. thinking regarding the ideological geopolitics of Central America evolved in several stages. First, in the late 1970s Congress and the Carter administration came to view the inhumane anticommunist authoritarianism of Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador as unacceptable. This policy shift encouraged Central America's reformists and revolutionaries and briefly created a permissive international environment for regime change and encouraged an upsurge in opposition mobilization. After the Sandinistas' victory in 1979, the United States temporarily reverted to the previous Cold War hard line, but during the Reagan and Bush administrations Washington gradually moved toward accepting electoral democracy in two stages. First, in the mid 1980s elections per se were encouraged to promote limited reform that might strengthen the governments in El Salvador and Guatemala against their revolutionary challengers. Second, the end of the Cold War reduced the perceived geopolitical threat of communism in general and, therefore, the perceived danger of the Central American left. This permitted the longstanding U.S. second-order preference for civilian democracy to surface and become a vehicle for the promotion of peace settlements acceptable to U.S. policy makers.

Central American Viewpoints. Leftist had long regarded electoral democracy as a tool of capitalist domination. The 1970s ideological standoff between models of electoral democracy and revolutionary socialism began to evolve once Nicaragua's Sandinistas came to power in 1979. Once in power the FSLN began to view electoral democracy as an organizational arrangement compatible with the economic/particpatory democracy it sought to construct. The FSLN also viewed electoral democracy as a strategem that might enhance the acceptability of their revolution to the openly hostile United States and their Central American neighbors. Thus in 1984 the Sandinistas began the institutionalization of the revolution.

A second phase of the evolution of the ideological politics of democratization occurred in El Salvador and Guatemala during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Exhausted by long civil wars and with no prospect of victory, the FMLN and URNG began to view electoral democracy as a minimally acceptable regime should they be allowed to participate freely and compete fairly for office. The armed forces of each nation, also exhausted, decided that they could accept electoral rules of the game with the leftists included in exchange for peace and their own institutional survival.

Other Actors' Views. European nations, other Latin American nations, and such international organizations and the United Nations and Organization of American States once largely deferred to U.S. influence in the region. However, during the 1980s they became increasingly fearful that the isthmian civil wars and U.S. intervention could escalate further. These external actors therefore embraced and promoted electoral democracy as mechanism for promoting their interest through the pacification of Central America.

The Catholic Church in the isthmus was influenced by liberation theology in the 1960s and 1970s, a phenomenon that encouraged social mobilization and even some Catholic participation in insurgency. By the 1980s, however, the institutional Church had disavowed liberation theology but endorsed democratization and improved human rights as means toward achieving social justice.

In summary, the geopolitical and ideological contexts within which Central America's regimes and actors operated evolved substantially from the early 1970s through the mid 1990s. (a)The powerfully influential United States initially obviated electoral democracy in Central America for security reasons, but eventually embraced it for instrumental reasons and an evolving perception of its security vis-a-vis the region. (b) Both left-wing and right-wing actors in Central America initially opposed electoral democracy, but tactical and ideological needs deriving from geopolitics and protracted civil wars led them to accept and pursue the model. (c) Other external actors, especially European and Latin American powers and international organizations, moved from effective indifference toward electoral democracy in Central America to embrace it on behalf of their own security interests.

The 1970s Regimes

In the early 1970s only Costa Rica among the region's nations had a broadly inclusive, constitutional, civilian-led democratic regime. The other four nations had military-dominated authoritarian governments: Nicaragua's personalistic military regime was dominated by the Somoza clan and a narrow coalition made up of key business interests and parts of the two major parties. Guatemala and El Salvador had military authoritarian regimes, allied with some business and large-scale agricultural interests and with the collaboration of weak political parties. Honduras had a military authoritarian regime, but it incorporated one of the two strong traditional political parties, and tolerated a strong but anticommunist labor sector.

Causes of Regime Crises

A wave of economic problems afflicted all five Central American countries in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Rapidly escalating oil prices and resultant inflation, the deterioration of the Central American Common Market (in the mid and late 1970s), and natural or economic catastrophes (e.g., the 1972 Managua earthquake, 1978-1979 Common Market trade disruptions) greatly reduced real income and employment among working-class and some white-collar sectors.

The grievances caused by increasing inequalities, declining real income, economic and natural catastrophes, and the political dissatisfactions of would-be competing elites led in the mid- and late 1970s to burgeoning agrarian, labor, neighborhood, and community self-help, opposition party mobilization, and to reformist demands upon the state and protests about public policy. Regime coalitions experienced some defections, and the economic resources of all five regimes eroded.

Regime Responses to Crisis

In both the short and long terms Central American regimes responded quite differently to unrest, mobilization, and demands for change. In the short run the divergences were most striking. Where regimes responded to reform demands with ameliorative policies to ease poverty and permit the recovery of real wages, with political reform, and with low or modest levels of force or repression, protests failed to escalate or subsided. Costa Rica's broadly based, capable, and flexible regime managed its challenges and survived intact. Honduras' military authoritarian regime voluntarily enacted ameliorative economic policies and returned power to civilians. In contrast, where regimes responded in the short run by rejecting ameliorative policies and sharply escalating repression, protests and opposition organization and resource mobilization increased, national revolts occurred, and regime crises ensued (Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala).

In the longer run, the regimes that responded with violent repression and refusal to ameliorate the effects of economic crisis found themselves facing violent, broadly based insurrections. They struggled to mobilize the economic and political resources to resist the revolts, including external assistance derived mainly from the United States. They also eventually undertook fundamental regime change itself (liberalizing and democratizing their rules and broadening their coalitions) and various other policy reforms in the struggle to manage, repress, divide, and isolate their violent challengers.

Outcomes

The outcomes of Central America's regime crises depended upon the relative success of each regime versus its opponents in mobilizing and maintaining domestic and economic and material support and organization. Failure to stabilize the situation (to placate or repress enough outside-the-regime actors) led to regime shifts.

Nicaragua. Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle lost U.S. and regional support and vital economic resources, permitting the Sandinistas to oust him and establish the revolutionary regime with a center-left coalition and revolutionary rules. The excluded Somocista Liberals, ex-National Guard elements, and an increasing number of disaffected other economic and political forces formed various outside-the-regime forces, including the U.S.-backed contra rebels. The revolutionary regime's response to its own regime crisis and the counterrevolutionary war included nearly continuous economic and political reform, including the adoption of electoral democratic rules in 1984 and a new constitution in 1987. Soviet economic and political support waned after 1987, as did U.S. support for the contras. The 1987 Central American (Esquipulas) Peace Accord negotiated by Central America's presidents eventually facilitated a cease fire in Nicaragua and then a negotiated end to the war. In 1990's election Nicaraguan voters replaced the FSLN government and ended the revolution. This ushered in a new nonrevolutionary civilian regime, with both the left and elements of the right participating. In 1996 Liberal Nationalists returned to the arena and won the election, possibly consolidating a post-revolutionary regime.

Honduras. Faced with domestic turmoil and the Nicaraguan revolution next door, the Honduran military regime made a quick, preemptive transition to civilian democracy. The traditional Liberal and National parties dominate the fairly inclusive regime. The armed forces, flush with massive political, economic and military resources earned by cooperating with U.S. efforts to defeat the revolutionary left in Nicargua and El Salvador, still loom large and call into question the full consolidation of civilian democracy.

El Salvador and Guatemala. Coups instituted reformist military regimes that repressed outside-the-regime centrists but failed to defeat leftist rebel coaltions. The failure of this strategy, plus pressure from the United States (a major resource supplier to the Salvadoran regime) led both nations' military regimes to adopt civilian transitional governments with broader coalitions and liberalized rules. This won over some of the political center in each country, depriving the rebel coalitions of important allies and resources and contributing to the stagnation of both civil wars. The Central American Peace Accord of 1987 provided a mechanism for eventual negotiations between parties to the stalemated civil conflicts. Military exhaustion, U.S. exasperation with the Central American quaguires, and the end of the Cold War eventually led to shifts in all actors' positions. The United States, other outside actors, national militaries, the civilian reformist regimes, and the rebels all eventually embraced more inclusive civilian democracy and some economic reforms, position changes that helped settle both wars.

Reflections on Guatemala's Democratic Prospects

This broad theory about Central America regime change suggests many possible avenues for the investigation of the prospects for Guatemala's new civilian democratic regime. To a real extent Guatemala's regime crises and shifts have been shaped by global political and economic forces. These forces have also wrought similar effects upon other Central American nations and their regimes. Thus such forces seem likely to continue significantly shaping Guatemala's chances for democratic conolidation. I will focus here mainly upon recent data and developments that give us insights into the political economy, Guatemalans attitudes and behaviors, and the geopolitical context.

The Political Economy

Turning first to the political economy of the Guatemalan regime, Table 2 permits a comparison of Guatemala's overall recent economic performance to that of the other Central American nations. The fundamental and obvious lesson in the data is that Guatemala is a poor nation, with 1996 GDP per capita of only $916 and having made only modest progress in earnings per head over the prior decade. During the ten years that ended with year of the settlement of the Guatemalan civil war, Guatemala's relative economic performance remained stable when compared to the trends of Latin America overall and some of its neighbors. Guatemala's GDP per capita (in constant 1990 dollars) was roughly 32 percent of Latin America as a whole in both 1987 and 1996. Similarly, Guatemalan GDP per capita was roughly 45 percent of Costa Rica's in both 1987 and in 1996. Guatemala's growth rate of GDP per capita from 1990 to 1996 was 1.1 percent per annum, equal to Costa Rica's but only a third of El Salvador's. El Salvador's growth rate accelerated after 1992 when that country's civil war ended, fueled partly by a "peace dividend" of new investment and economic recovery, and partly by large quantities of international aid. Guatemala may expect to reap something of a peace dividend, but may have considerably less foreign assistance to boost its economic perfornance.

Table 2. Gross Domestic Product per Capita (in 1990 US $), Central America, Selected Years 1987-1996.

Source: Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), Latin America After a Decade of Reforms: Economic and Social Progress in Latin America, 1997 Report, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 221

Table 3. Selected Ecomomic Data on Guatemala, 1987-1996.

Source: Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), Latin America After a Decade of Reforms: Economic and Social Progress in Latin America, 1997 Report, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 280.

Table 3 provides data on important trends in the Guatemalan economy from 1987 through 1996. GDP growth remained relatively healthy throughout the decade, but was attenuated by a population growth rate that ate up much of the new activity. The government ran modest deficits during most of this decade, and was able to steadily reduce the burden of its external interest payments. Guatemala's terms of trade improved substantially from 1987 through 1996, contributing to a relatively positive ecomomic performance for a nation plagued by so much political turmoil. The worst aspects of the decade's economic performance came in inflation. Driven by a sharp drop in the value of the quetzal in 1990 and 1991, consumer prices increased 41.2 and 33.2 percent in each of those years. This price jump prompted a sharp drop in real wages that had not yet been made up by 1996 even though inflation was back under control.

High levels of societal prosperity and economic growth are not requisites for successful democratization or democratic survival, but at least some economic resources and economic expansion makes democratic consolidation easier. The more resources a state may deploy in the public policy arena, to some extent a function of general national economic health, the better the chances for democracy's successful founding and survival. Given these conditions, the data in Tables 2 and 3 suggest that Guatemala has at least a reasonable chance for democratic survival and consolidation. The economy is relatively poor, but considerably stronger than those of two other newly democratic regimes in the area, Honduras and Nicaragua.. Recent economic trends (terms of trade, GDP and GDP per capita, foreign debt burden, and deficits) suggest a reasonably favorable economic trajectory for democratic politics.

The more worrisome political economic trends for Guatemala are those for inflation and real wages. The erosion of these factors that so affect the lives of ordinary citizens, at least temporarily curtailed in the mid 1980s (Table 3), have the potential to generate mass protest and popular sector and labor mobilization. Guatemalan security forces have historically been intolerant of such turmoil, so its occurrence early in the consolidation phase of civilian democracy could imply some risk for institutions.

Political Culture, Attitudes, and Participation

Another question about Guatemala's democratic prospect is the extent to which the attitudes and behaviors of its citizens may support the civilian democratic regime. While mass culture cannot assure democracy, to the extent that a nation's citizenry embraces democratic norms, eschews authoritarian values, and participates peacably in politics the prospects for democratic consolidation are enhanced.

Table 4 compares Guatemala to four other Central American nations based upon public opinion surveys conducted in the early 1990s. Nearly identical questions on numerous attitudinal and participation items were asked of the urban residents of each nation. The Guatemalan survey was conducted in 1992 during the second period of the transitional civilian regime that had begun in 1985, but four years prior to the negotiated settlement of the civil conflict that had afflicted the country since the 1960s. It thus serves as something of a benchmark survey of urban Guatemalans part way through the series of regime changes that led to civilian democracy in 1996.

Table 4. Attitudes ,Values, and Political Participation, Urban Central Americans, early 1990s.

Source: All items in Table 4 drawn from surveys conducted by the author, Mitchell A. Seligson, and other collaborators in urban Central America betwen mid 1991 and mid 1992, except Costa Rica survey, conducted in 1995. National sample Ns vary between 500 and 900, but all national samples are artificially weighted at 700 respondents to avoid distortions due to population size of country or particular sample.

^aRegional mean is the unweighted country average (mean of previous column entries).

^bIndex measuring support for general participation rights (range 1-10).

^cIndex measuring tolerance for political rights for regime critics (range 1-10).

^dIndex measuring opposition to governmental suppression of civil liberties (range 1-10).

^eIndex of overall support for democracy (mean of three previous indexes).

^fIndex of disapproval of communism based on three items (range=1-6).

^gIndex of attitudes approving of armed forces in society based on 12 items (range = 1-2).

^hIndex of attitiudes justifying military coup under certain circumstances, based on 10 items (range = 1-2).

ⁱIndex of support for civil disobedience and violent political participation (range 1-10).

^jIndex of diffuse support (positive orientations) for the political system (range 1-7).

^kIndex of evaluation of treatment by government offices (range = 1-8).

^lIndex of having voted and being registered to vote (range = 0-2).

^mIndex of campaign-related behavior and electioneering (range 0-2).

ⁿIndex of having contacted public officials (mayor, legislative deputy, etc.), (range 0-3).

^oIndex of participation in formal organizations (union, professional and service associations), (range 0-4).

^pIndex of participation in communal-level activism (groups and self-help projects), (range 0-3).

^qIndex of overall political participation (includes all previous participation items), (range 1-14).

Table 4 first presents data on the level of commitment to democratic norms of Guatemalans and other Central Americans. Each of the four indexes in the "Democratic Norms" portion of the table is a ten-point scale ranging from very low commitment to democratic norms (1.0) to very high commitment (10.0). (A score above 5.0 represents a prodemocratic response. The cell values in Table 4 are country means on each index.) The data in Table 4 reveal that each of the five countries' urban citizens averaged in the prodemocracy end of the scale on all but one of the measures. Guatemalans, however, had the lowest commitment to democracy (virtually tied with El Salvador) in the region. Guatemalans also had the region's lowest levels of support for general participation rights and for rights for regime critics. Indeed, on the latter Guatemalans' scored in slightly the antidemocratic end of the scale.

Thus well before Guatemala had completed its transition to civilian democracy, its urban citizens demonstrated what one might describe as cautious support for democratic norms. They did so despite the high levels of political repression the country had experienced, repression to a real extent still present in Guatemala when the survey was conducted. Repression at the level of the political system in Central America has been demonstrated powerfully to depress support for democratic norms. One should, therefore, probably emphasize not Guatemala's lower democracy norms scores within the region, but rather that Guatemalans' prodemocracy sentiments in 1992 were remarkably high despite existing within a hostile environment.

The second part of Table 4 examines urban Guatemalans' opinions on four other indexes, some of which may be labelled authoritarian or undemocratic norms. Anticommunism has been encouraged by and has served as a powerful justification for political repression for Guatemalan regimes. Despite this Guatemalans expressed only average levels of anticommunist opinions within the regional context. On an index composed of items tapping attitudes supporting or approving of the armed forces, Guatemalans also scored in the middle of the Central American distribution (1.27 on a scale of 1.0-2.0), well below the midpoint of the index. When asked whether certain circumstances (e.g., economic hardship, student unrest) would justify a military coup, Guatemalans also averaged only 1.20 (index range 1.0-2.0), well on the disapproving end of the scale. A strong majority of Guatemalans, like other Central Americans in the early 1990s, thus manifested a healthy skepticism toward the armed forces as a political actor. The final indicator in this group is an index measuring respondents' tolerance of the participation tactics including protest, confrontation, and even political violence. Most Central Americans disapproved of such tactics, with Guatemalans manifesting the second highest disapproval rate.

These results suggest that urban Guatemalans generally disapproved of these authoritarian, militaristic, or confrontational political norms in the early 1990s. This absence of authortarian and militaristic values among Guatemalans corresponds with their general sympathy for democratic norms. Such political values constitute a positive sign for Guatemala's democratic prospect.

Table 4 also reports on two other political attitudes, each an orientation toward government. One may argue that positive orientations toward the state constitute a resource for government. One such orientation is diffuse support for the system, a sense of pride in various national political institutions that may be loosely interpreted as a measure of legitimacy or patriotism. Guatemalans fell in the mid range among Central Americans on an index of diffuse support for the system, below Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans, but above Salvadorans and Hondurans. In contrast, on an index measuring how well they believed they had been treated by various government agencies, Guatemalans had the lowest scores in the region. Taken together these measures suggest that although Guatemalans may feel some pride in their country and its political system, overcoming the legacy of negative feelings about government treatment may constitute a significant problem for the civilian democratic regime. These data suggest that in 1992 Guatemala's civilian transitional government had only a small reservoir of good will from its citizens. Future democratic goverments clearly will need to increase popular good will in order to build the legitimacy of the civilian democratic system.

Finally, political participation constitutes a key element of democracy. Democracy in its essence consists of citizen participation in rule, so that a country's democratic prospect is to some extent a function of its levels of popular political activity. Participation may be sharply curtailed by repression, a phenomenon noted in Central America. Guatemala has had a poor human rights record for several decades, and has been widely considered as one of the region's most repressive regimes prior to the 1996 peace accord.

The last group of variables in Table 4 are measures of citizen participation -- voting, campaigning, contacting officials, membership in groups, and communal activism. Urban Guatemalans reported the second lowest levels of voting and campaigning in the region in the early 1990s, a finding that squares with the low levels of voter turnout observed there. Guatemalans were close to the regional mean on three other types of participation: contacting public officials, group membership, and community activism. Overall, however, Guatemalans ranked second lowest in the region in political participation, a finding consistent with expectations given the levels of repression prior to and during the time of the survey. For citizen participation to flourish in Guatemala, as for democratic norms, political repression will have to diminish and remain blow its recent high levels.

The External Context

Students of democratization and democratic consolidation have argued that the international context may constrain or shape the likelihood of democratization and democratic consolidation in a particular country. Pressure to adopt or maintain democracy from a hegemonic power may lead elites involved in forming new regimes to adopt democratic rules of the game. Pressure to democratize or keep democratic rules from key international lenders or trading partners will tend to shape the preferences of local elites in favor of democratic rules. International organizations such as the United Nations or Organization of America States (OAS) may also exercise similar pressures. Pressure from regional neighbors for democracy, and the examples of and interaction with mainly democratic neighboring regimes can also contribute to a demonstration effect favorable toward establishing and keeping a democratic regime.

Guatemala has clearly been subject to such pressures during its period of transition. U.S. pressure to improve human rights performance began to grow in the late 1970s, followed by a gradual escalation of pressure for elections and further democratization during the 1990s and 1990s. Guatemala's Central American neighbors, Latin American nations, international lenders, and international organizations all gradually escalated diplomatic pressures upon Guatemala to adopt civilian democracy from the mid 1980s on by mechanisms that have been widely discussed elsewhere. Even neighboring Mexico, long a civilian-led authoritarian regime, is undergoing tremendous pressure for democratization and some incipient steps in that direction.

There thus remains in Guatemala's international environment considerable pressure to retain the civilian democratic regime, a factor that should help impede authoritarian reversion in some future regime crisis. Perhaps the best indication of the effectiveness of such these pressures came from the coup attempted by Guatemalan president Jorge Serrano Elías on May 24, 1993. Acting with the acquiescence of some parts of the armed forces, Serrano dismissed the Congress and Supreme Court, established press censorship, and announced his intention to rule by decree. In addition to protests by Guatemalan citizens and interest groups, the United States and OAS made clear to Guatemalan political actors, including the armed forces, that these powerful foreign actors and the international financial institutions they heavily influenced would look with great disfavor on a deviation from constitutional practice. The resolute and courageous resistance to the coup by domestic actors and institutions, occurring as it did within an international context supportive of institutional democracy, helped save the civilian transitional regime.

Many common forces have battered Central America since the 1970s and in the process have shaped much of the sociopolitical change there. I have argued in this paper that both internal and external influences shape the internal process of regime change, the reconfiguration of a nation's dominant coalition of political actors and the prevailing rules of the political game. While specific interactions among local actors and conditions determine much of the detail of what happens in any particular case of regime change, socioeconomic and geopolitical forces operating at and beyond the level of the nation state may heavily shape the resources and behaviors of local actors.

The work of many scholars has revealed how similar forces drove the widespread social mobilization in five Central American nations in the 1970s and the national revolts that occurred in three of them, including Guatemala. I have argued here that regime change may be caused and shaped by forces within the global context that are similar to those shaping national revolts and democratization. The flurry of regime changes toward civilian democracy in Central America since the late 1970s, of which Guatemala is a key example, has arisen and taken much of its form and outcome from global forces that include economic strains and geopolitics. One may reasonably assume that this regional move toward democracy did not occur because the dominant elites or their challengers in several countries somehow conspired with each other to this end. I have examined few details, especially the domestic ones, of Guatemala's regime shifts. While much of what has transpired has arisen because of the decisions and actions of domestic actors, they have not operated in a vacuum.

From the arguments and data presented here, Guatemala's democratic prospect appears better in 1998 than at any time since 1954. Most urban citizens manifest commitment to democratic norms, skepticism about military intervention, and disapproval of antidemocratic methods. While political participation is low for the region, the high repression that kept citizens from engaging in politics has declined. The geopolitical context favors a civilian democratic regime. Economic conditions for the country were reasonably healthy during the 1990s, attenuating the prospects for protest and unrest.

Such positive factors notwithstanding, one must still view Guatemala's prospects with a considerable caution because of the historical role of the security forces and their unwillingness to remain on the sidelines of national politics. The most important question about the consolidation of civilian democracy in Guatemala, I believe, is the extent to which the domestic and global contextual forces can constrain the military until it can institutionalize a new relationship of subordination to civilian rulers and constitutional restraint.

1.See John A. Booth and Thomas W. Walker, Understanding Central America, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), Chapter 5. .

2. This concept of political regimes draws upon that of Charles W. Anderson, "The Latin American Political System," in Charles W. Anderson, Politics and Economic Change in Latin America: The Governing of Restless Nations, (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1967), and also owes something to the conceptualization of John Higley and Michael Burton, " "The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and Breakdowns," American Sociological Review 54 (1, 1989), pp. 17-32; and to Gary Wynia's use of the term "political game," in his Politics of Latin American Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 24-45. .

3. These categories by no means exhaust the range of possible types of regimes. They are proposed as a set that accounts for Central American cases during the period under scrutiny. .

4. Experts on particular countries might wish to refine these types further as applied to individual cases, or subdivide particular regimes into subregimes based on changes in either coalition makeup or rules, but not both.. .

5. Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, (Boston: Beacon, 1966). .

6. Guillermo O,Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic- Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973). .

7. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, eds., The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); O'Donnell, Guillermo, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Lawrence Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). .

8. Mark J. Gasiorowski, "Economic Crisis and Regime Change: An Event History Analysis," American Political Science Review 89 (1995):882-97, and "An Overview of the Political Regime Dataset," Comparative Political Studies 21 (1996):469-83. .

9. Anderson, "Toward a Theory of Latin American Politics," in Howard J. Wiarda, ed., Politics and Social Change in Latin America: Still A Distinct Tradition?, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 239-254. .

10. See John Peeler, Latin American Democracies, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Deborah J. Yashar, Demanding Democracy: Reform and Reaction in Costa Rica and Guatemala, 1870s-1950s, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997); and John A. Booth, Costa Rica: Quest for Democracy, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998).

11. John Walton, Reluctant Rebels: Comparative Studies in Revolution and Underdevelopment, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), p. 13. .

12. Louis Kriesberg, Social Conflicts, 2nd ed., (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall), p. 29. .

13. Walton, Reluctant Rebels; Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolution, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Mancur Olson, "Rapid Growth as a Destabilizing Force," Journal of Economic History 23 (4): pp. 529-552; and Jeffrey M. Paige, Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and Export Agriculture in the Underdeveloped World, (New York: The Free Press, 1975). For specific applications to Central America, see Charles Brockett, Land Power, and Poverty: Agrarian Transformation and Political Conflict in Central America, (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988); Timothy Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Robert Williams, Export Agriculture and the Crisis in Central America, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986); John A. Booth, "Socioeconomic and Political Roots of National Revolts in Central America," Latin American Research Review 26: (1), pp. 33-73; Edelberto Torres Rivas, Crisis del Poder in Centroamérica, (San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana, 1981). .

14. Kriesberg, Social Conflict, pp. 66-106; Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978); Rod Aya, "Theories of Revolution Reconsidered: Contrasting Models of Collective Violence," Theory and Society 8 (June-December 1979), pp. 39-100. .

15. Jack A. Goldtone, "An Analytical Framework," in Jack A. Goldstone, Ted Robert Gurr, and Farrokh Moshiri, eds., Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Century, (Boulder: Westivew, 1991), pp. 37-51; Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970); Walton, Reluctant Rebels; Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions.

16. Goldstone, "An Analytical Framework;" and James DeFronzo, Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements, (Boulder: Westview, 1991), pp. 7-25. .

17. Ronald Inglehart, "The Renaissance of Political Culture, American Political Science Review 82 (November 1988), pp. 1203-30; Mitchell A. Seligson and John A. Booth, "Political Culture and Regime Type: Evidence from Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Journal of Politics 55 (August 1993), pp. 777-792; Edward N. Muller and Mitchell A. Seligson, "Civic Culture and Democracy: The Question of Causal Relationships," American Political Science Review 88 (September 1994): pp. 645-652; and Diamond, Larry, "Introduction: Political Culture and Democracy," and "Causes and Effects," both in Larry Diamond, ed., Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries, (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994). .

18. Dankwart Rustow, "Thansitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model," Comparative Politics 2 (April 1970); Adam Przeworski, "Some Problems in the Study of the Transition to Democracy," in O'Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993; Seligson, Mitchell A. and John A. Booth, eds., Elections and Democracy in Central America, Revisited, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). .

19. Seymour Martin Lipset, "Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Review 53 (March 1959), pp. 69-105; Tatu Vanhanen, The Process of Democratization, (New York: Crane Russak, 1990); Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Robert D. Putnam "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Journal of Democracy 7 (Summer 1996), pp. 38-52, and Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. .

20. Lawrence Whitehead, "The Imposition of Democracy," in Abraham F. Lowenthal, ed., Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). .

21. Peeler, Latin American Democracies; Larry Diamond, "Introduction: Politics, Society, and Democracy in Latin America,"in Larry Diamond, Juan Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries, Volume 4: Latin America, (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989); John Higley and Richard Gunther, eds., Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; Huntington, The Third Wave. .

22. See, for instance, Abraham F. Lowenthal, ed., Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991); Thomas Carothers, 1991, In the Name of Democracy: U.S. Policy Toward Latin America in the Reagan Years, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991); Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, (Normal: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), pp. 85-106; Dario Moreno, "Respectable Intervention: The United States and Central American Elections," in Mitchell A. Seligson and John A. Booth, eds., Elections and Democracy in Central America, Revisted, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), Thomas W. Walker, "Introduction: Historical Setting and Important Issues,"in Thomas W. Walker, ed., Nicaragua without Illusions: Regime Transition and Structural Adjustment in the 1990s, (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997); Gary Prevost and Harry E. Vanden, eds. The Undermining of the Sandinista Revolution, (New York: St. Martins, 1997). .

23. This combination of alterations -- change in the coalition membership plus an adjustment of the rules -- constitutes the minimum adjustments necessary to be classified as a regime change. .

24. For details on El Salvador and Guatemala see especially: Tommie Sue Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); Enrique A. Baloyra-Herp, "Elections, Civil War, and Transition in El Salvador," in Seligson and Booth, eds., , Elections and Democracy in Central America, Revisited; Susanne Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), and "Electoral Problems and the Democratic Prospect in Guatemala," in Seligson and Booth, eds., Elections and Democracy in Central America, Revisited. .

25. Larry Diamond and Juan J. Linz, "Introduction: Politics, Society, and Democracy in Latin America," in Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Democracy in Developing Countries, Volume IV: Latin America, (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), pp. 42-47. .

26. Ibid., pp. 9-14, 35-36; Larry Diamond, "Introduction: Political Culture and Democracy," in Larry Diamond, ed., Politial Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries, (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 1993), pp. 7-15. .

27. It is an important limitation of this data set that it does not include rural samples. However, the urban populations of each of the Central American countries are those that are closest to the seats of government and the most easily mobilized into political participation that can affect national politics. While we may not learn all we need to know from urban surveys, they do convey material of interest and import for our our research question. .

28. John A. Booth and Patricia Bayer Richard, "Repression, Participation, and Democratic Norms in Urban Central America," American Journal of Political Science 40 (November 1996): 1205-1232. .

29. Of course, one cannot determine whether rural Guatemalans, critically important to national stability, also support democracy and and harbor reservations about the military and confrontational political tactics. However, one may reasonably surmise that because repression was more intense in many rural areas than urban, rural dwellers may be somewhat more authoritarian and less democratic than urbanites. .

30. Booth and Richard, "Repression, Participation, and Democratic Norms." .

31. Diamond and Linz, "Introduction: Politics, Society and Democracy in Latin America," pp. 47-50; Huntington, The Third Wave, pp. 273-274. .

32. Jonas, "Electoral Problems," pp. 35-36, and Booth, "Introduction: Elections and Democracy in Central America: