Political Challenge in Latin America: Rebellion and Collective Protest in an Era of Democratization

Democratization is expected to quell violent political challenge while opening channels for nonviolent opposition. By offering the opportunity for revolutionary groups to promote their interests and seek change without recourse to violence, democracies are expected to stifle violent opposition with inclusion. Yet, revolutionary groups have continued to threaten governments throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a period marked by extensive democratic opening. Meanwhile, democracy is tied to the mobilization of civil society, opening channels for nonviolent challenge to government, arguably increasing instability, especially in the short term. Using a negative binomial event-count model on a pooled cross-sectional sample of 18 Latin American countries for the period 1980-93, this article examines the effects of an array of theoretical determinants on occurrences of violent rebellion and nonviolent collective protest. For rebellion, some traditional expectations are supported, including the role of state capacity and repression, although social development is also identified as an important determinant. For collective protest, repression exerts a demobilizing influence, as expected. Of primary interest, democracy significantly impacts both rebellion and collective protest, although its effect is surprising: increasing democracy promotes violent rebellion while quelling protest overall in the time period under analysis, supporting work suggesting a continuation of political challenge despite recent democratization.