A review of Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone, by Alfred Stepan.
About the Author
Larry Diamond is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy.
Following a military coup in 1999 and flawed and violence-ridden elections in 2000, democracy in Côte d’Ivoire faces an uphill battle against the forces of xenophobia and ethnic chauvinism.
Some autocracies are dominated by their militaries, while others hold the generals in check. The key is this: If an autocratic regime did not create its military, it will struggle…