XXXII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association
Merilee Grindle
Harvard University
Raúl Madrid
University of Texas/Austin
Florencia Garramuño
Universidad de San Andrés
September 11, 2013, marks the fortieth anniversary of
the violent coup that toppled a long-existing democratic
regime in Chile. This country was not alone in
experiencing repressive military rule. Indeed, during the
1960s and 1970s, democracies in Argentina, Uruguay,
and Brazil were replaced by military governments.
Moreover, during the same period, and extending to the
1990s, authoritarian regimes held power in numerous
other countries — Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador,
Panama, Peru, and Paraguay among them.
Many of these authoritarian regimes made systematic
use of violence, repression, disappearances, and fear to
suppress resistance, protest, and human rights. They
targeted enemies of the state broadly and used exile,
torture, and executions as instruments of state power.
Resistance to state repression was also widespread.
Beginning in the 1980s, democratic processes of
government were reestablished throughout Latin
America and new constitutions were written and
introduced against a backdrop of public memories of
past political experiences of repression and injustice,
many of them constructed under years of authoritarian
rule. Sufficient time has now passed for scholars to
assess the longer term consequences of collective
memory and institutional development and to reflect
on a number of major questions: