A review of Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone, by Alfred Stepan.
About the Author
Larry Diamond is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy.
Praetorian politics are not making a comeback. Africa’s recent putsches have more to do with democracy’s failure to deliver than any fondness for military rule.
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Across the Arab world, militaries have played a key role in determining whether revolts against dictatorship succeed or fail. What factors determine how and why “the guys with guns” line…
