International Factors and Regime Change in Latin America, 1945-2005.

In this paper we analyze transitions to democracy (and semi-democracy) and democratic breakdowns in 20 Latin American countries between 1945 and 2005. We argue that domestic conditions cannot explain the region-wide wave of democratization that took place in 1978-95. Our transition models control for standard socio-economic predictors as well as for domestic institutional conditions (including the nature of the authoritarian regime in transition models, and the type of party system in breakdown models). We include a battery of additional predictors to capture the impact of international factors, including measures of diffusion (using spatial lags, and distinguishing short-term and long-term effects) and an original indicator of US support for democracy. Our results indicate that political leaders tend to emulate transitions in neighboring countries in the short-run, even though there is no evidence of a long-term equilibrium effect at the regional level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]