George A. Lopez - Böcker

This volume examines the causes, consequences, and dynamics of that style of governance by force that has come to be known as state terror. The collection deals with theoretical issues and examines case applications as well. The editors distinguish among the study of oppression, repression, and state terror systems. State terrorism in the form of enforcement terrorism, economic repression, military control, and the legal oppression of apartheid in Latin America, Argentina, the Philippines, and South Africa is discussed. One chapter explores American containment policy. Theoretical chapters on state terrorism include editor George Lopez's scheme for the analysis of government terror, editor Michael Stohl's discussion of the international dimensions of this problem, and an agenda for continued investigation.

Although the repressive violence of governments against their own citizens has received some scholarly attention in the past decade, our understanding of this phenomenon is far from complete. At least one central question remains: To what extent is government repression a function of a nation's political or economic development situation? This volume addresses the question through case studies of repressive regimes in second and third world nations. Of interest both for the study of repression and the analysis of development processes, it examines the links between development, dependence, and state repression in a variety of political and cultural settings.Individual essays examine repression and development in specific countries in Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Regimes as diverse as Marcos' Philippines and Communist Poland are considered. The analyses focus on a wide rrange of topics, including strikes against transnational corporations, the relation between political development and martial law, economic choices as a function of military-security dependence, the new international division of labor, and state violence in agriculturally modernizing nations. While deomonstrating that repression is interwoven with local culture and the perceived options of local elites, this book provides clear evidence of the links between repression and the larger economic and political factors that bind states together in international affairs. Written by a distinguished group of specialists in contemporary political economy, it offers new insights and information of interest to scholars, students, and agency officials. It also provides an agenda for further research in this controversial and vitally important area.

This volume is the product of three coalitions of research interests focused on a single topic of inquiry: the processes of liberalization and democratization within authoritarian regimes in Latin America. The three branches of research may be characterized as, first, individuals researching the changing character of human rights violations, repression, and state terror in various Latin American nations; second, scholars of redemocratization (the process through which governments gradually revert to a more democratic regime); and third, experts in the comparative analysis of Latin American politics who believe that a cross-national perspective is necessary to complement current theoretical and case study work on liberalization and redemocratization. The opening chapter provides a theoretical basis for the discussion, and the closing essay analyzes the relationship between redemocratization in Latin America and U.S. foreign assistance policies there. A bibliographic essay and an index complete the volume.