 Charles
T. Call, War Transitions and the New Civilian Security in Latin America Does
democratization automatically democratize police forces? Can brutal and
unaccountable forces be supplanted by internal security systems rooted in
respect for citizen rights, elected civilian control, and accountability?
Significant demilitarization of internal security is possible in Latin
America, but only where the armed forces are seriously weakened in
conjunction with transitions toward democracy. Failure in warfare has
usually been necessary to debilitate military regimes in Latin America. A
comparison of war transitions (democratization through failure to win a
war) to democratic transitions in which the armed forces were not
strategically weakened demonstrates that war transitions best account for
internal security reforms in new democracies. |