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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- 1. The Study of Latin American Politics -- 2. Tensions in the Class Structure: From Social Mobilization to Autonomous Organization -- 3. Actors and Coalitions -- 4. Violence and Revolution -- 5. Military Interventionism -- 6. Socialist Labor Parties: The Early Experience -- 7. Varieties of Populism and Their Transformative Tendencies -- 8. A Modeled Historical Sequence: Argentina, 1938-2000 -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Harvey Kline, Professor Emeritus, University of Alabama, on Colombia Jennie Lincoln, Carter Center, on Venezuela Adriana Crocker, University of Illinois Springfield. on Argentine Mid-Terms Greg Schmidt, University of Texas at El Paso, Update on Peru Moderator: Richard Millett, Professor Emeritus, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

After decades of neglect, interest in the political significance of Latin American Catholicism increased sharply in the late 1960s when it began to appear that the Church might have unimagined potential for promoting social change, particularly in a continent plagued by social upheaval and political instability (Drekonja, 1971: 59-65). In both word and deed, the postconciliar Church manifested a changing social orientation which entailed open involvement in political issues on behalf of the poor. In fact, by August 1968 and the convening of the Council of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) in Medellín, Colombia, the Church seemed to be changing its social and political attitudes so profoundly that reports of a revolutionary Church began to accompany discussions of the political situation in Latin America. Since Medellín, an important literature has evolved from efforts to understand this change in Latin American Catholicism.

Latin America has been one of the critical areas in the study of comparative politics. The region's experiments with installing and deepening democracy and promoting alternative modes of economic development have generated intriguing and enduring empirical puzzles. In turn, Latin America's challenges continue to spawn original and vital work on central questions in comparative politics: about the origins of democracy; about the relationship between state and society; about the nature of citizenship; about the balance between state and market.