Reagan’s external politics and re-democratization in Latin America (1981- 1988)

Abstract

At the moment of the transition of authoritarian regimes to democratic regimes, several ones are the elements, actors, and interests in this process. Political regimes and ideologies so diverse in Latin America, established in different moments, but interlinked in a same process – Regime of National Safety during the dictatorships and democracy afterwards – did not just arise from internal relations and interests of local groups, but they were also fomented by international actions, whose implications are the subject of this text. In general, we have impression that Ronald Reagan’s politics was truculent to Latin America in the 80’s, but this article proposes to observe and analyze Reagan and his advisers’ activities with the aim of verify the influence of this politics on Latin America. The interest of the text is elaborate a charting about the reasons that North American government had, in order to conduct an external politics with the purpose of dismissing dictatorial government, fomenting the necessity of democratic opening in Latin America. That region was understood as a strategic area to United States of America then.