Industrial Modernization and Political Change : A Latin American Perspective

The rise of a new wave of authoritarian regimes in the economically more advanced countries of Latin America has stimulated new debate on the relationship between socioeconomic development and political change. This article builds on the perspective gained since the publication of Guillermo O'Donnell's Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism on Latin America, calling for the specification of a more general model of national political change. This model should incorporate a reclassification of political systems by disaggregating and differentiating regimes, coalitions, and policy. As a first approximation, a unified argument should focus on the availability of diversified or special economic resources, the political strength of the popular sector, and perceptions of threat as key independent variables