Forging Democracy from Below: Insurgent Transitions in South Africa and El Salvador
The recent replacement of authoritarian rule by democracy in both South Africa and El Salvador poses a puzzle: why did the powerful, anti-democratic elites of these countries abandon death squads, apartheid, and the other tools of political repression and take a chance on democracy? Forging Democracy From Below shows how popular mobilization — in El Salvador an effective guerilla army supported by peasant collaboration and in South Africa a powerful alliance of labor unions and poor urban dwellers — forced the elite to the bargaining table, and why a durable settlement and democratic government were the result.
- Author
- Elisabeth Jean Wood
- Format
- paperback
- Pages
- 274
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Language
- english
- ISBN
- 9780521788878
- Genres
- africa
- Release date
- 2000
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