Radicals, Reformers, and Reactionaries
The Prisoner's Dilemma and the Collapse of Democracy in Latin America
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2834049 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Barbara Geddes (0000-0002-7679-341X, University of California, Los Angeles), Youssef Cohen |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 403 |
| Publication date | 1996-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Hispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2517211 |
| OpenAlex | W2317928036 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 36 |
Latin American democracies of the 1960s and 1970s, most theories hold, collapsed because they had become incompatible with the structural requirements of capitalist development. In this application of game theory to political phenomena, Cohen argues that structural conditions in Latin American countries did not necessarily preclude the implementation of social and economic reforms within a democratic framework. Focusing on the experiences of Chile and Brazil, Cohen argues that what thwarted democratic reforms in Latin America was a classic case of prisoner's dilemma. Moderates on the Left and the Right knew the benefits of coming to a mutual agreement of socioeconomic reforms. Yet each feared that, if it co-operated, the other side could gain by colluding with the radicals. Unwilling to take this risk, moderate groups in both countries splintered and joined the extremists. The resulting disorder opened the way for military control. Cohen further argues that, in general, structural explanations of political phenomena are inherantly flawed; they incorrectly assume that beliefs, preferences and actions are caused by social, political and economic structures. One cannot explain political outcomes, Cohen argues, without treating beliefs and preferences as partly independent from structures, and as having a causal force in their own right
Democracy · Development economics · Dilemma · Economics · Epistemology · Latin Americans · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Prisoner's dilemma · Prisoners of war · World War II · Law · Philosophy · Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America · Political theory and Gramsci · Politics and Society in Latin America
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Constitution without constitutionalism
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Democratization During the Third Wave
Perestroyka 2.0
Venezuela
Latin America’s New Turbulence
Critical responses to neoliberal globalization in the Mercosur region
The first reorganisation of the CPSU central committee apparat under Perestroika
In Search of a Theory of Polarization
Transitions to Democracy
Explaining Civil-Military Relations in New Democracies
Political Reforms in the Philippines
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Unlikely candidates for democracy
Theory-driven comparative analysis
Negotiating Civil-Military Relations in Post-Authoritarian Argentina and Chile
Putin's Legacy and the State of Democracy in Russia
Teoria dos jogos e política comparada
Why Aren't Kurds Like the Scots and the Turks Like the Brits
Nominal, Ordinal, and Narrative Appraisal in Macrocausal Analysis
Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
Democratization and Research Methods
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Determinants of Democratization
The Fourth Wave of DemocracyandDictatorship
Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy
| Unique citing works | 27 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,2 |
| Citation span | 1996 - 2016 (21) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |