Civil-Military Relations in Brazil and the Coup of 1945: The Application of a New Model to Explain Military Behavior

Abstract

Recent events in Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, and Colombia demonstrate very clearly that democracy remains unconsolidated in Latin America. The instability brought about by massive corruption, populism, economic chaos and guerrilla warfare also indicates that the sustainability of democracy rests on a number of factors. In this paper I apply a theory of military behavior to the 1945 coup d'etat in Brazil that deposed the dictator Getulio Vargas.