The Emerging New Politics of Liberalizing Paraguay: Sustained Civil-Military Control without Democracy

Abstract

The Process of the transition from authoritarianism to more representative forms of government has become a major subject of the scholarship on Latin American politics today (O'Donnell,et al,1986; Malloy and Seligson, 1987; Stepan, 1989; Diamondet al,1988-1990; Lowenthal, 1991). Given this interest, as expressed by the growing literature in this area, little attention has been paid to the transition process now going on in Paraguay, which is now emerging from one of Latin America's most long-standing authoritarian regimes.A number of studies testify to the authoritarian nature of Paraguay's government and society. Johnson indicates that Paraguay ranked either 18th or 19th—out of 20 Latin American nations ... in 9 successive surveys of democratic development, carried out at 5-year intervals from 1945 to 1985 (Jonnson> 1988). A longitudinal study of press freedom found that Paraguay was invariably placed in the category of “poor,” or even “none,” between 1945-1975 (Hill and Hurley, 1980). When Palmer applied his 5 indicators of authoritarianism (nonelective rule, coups, primacy of the military, military rule, executive predominance) to the countries of Latin America, Paraguay consistently ranked first in its degree of authoritarianism (Palmer, 1977).