Latin America's Coup Wave of the 1960s/70s: Diffusion and Counter-Diffusion

• In Event: Waves of Democratization and Authoritarianism in Latin America

Abstract

As part of a book project on the cross-national diffusion of authoritarian rule in Europe and Latin America during the twentieth century, this paper examines the wave of military coups in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s. Historical research suggests that the adoption of autocracy was fundamentally an exaggerated reaction to the threat of Communism emerging from the Cuban Revolution. As the striking revolutionary “success” inspired radical leftists across Latin America to initiate precipitous emulation efforts, it induced conservative and even centrist sectors to suppress these rash replication attempts with full force. Specifically, I develop a theory that highlights the cognitive-psychological mechanisms with which conservative political forces derived their acute threat perceptions and defined their harsh responses. The paper then explains how and why reaction to revolutionary threats unfolded in two stages, namely an immediate rash of repression and, then, the sequential imposition of autocratic rule. The paper finally examines the emergence of new reactionary regime models, especially Brazil’s developmental dictatorship and its theorization via the “National Security Doctrine,” which provided an additional impetus to the spread of authoritarian rule. As the conclusion emphasizes, with these arguments the paper contributes to substantiating and assessing a novel explanation of anti-democratic “reverse waves.”

Author

• Kurt G Weyland, University of Texas/Austin