Research Paper on:
Latin America's Military Uses and Democratization

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
slowly but surely, with some bumps along the way, one question looms large. Just as one is worried about Russian missiles that might have been left over after its  collapse, weapons and military power is something troublesome. In Latin America, the nations still exist in their various states. Thus, one has to ask whether or not militaries are a  problem for the process of democratization in Latin America? If not, do the problems now lie elsewhere? While progress has been made politically, the military could indeed become a thorn  in the side of nations that really want to change. What has happened to the military in Latin American countries? First, it pays to take a look at the  transitioning of Latin America. What happened was that in Latin America, prior to democracy, there was turmoil. Yet, entrenched in the people was a desire for change. This in part  may be due to an admiration of democratic countries, and embrace of democratic values (Diamond, Linz and Lipset 8). What would lead up to democratization would be a  combination of structural and contingent factors. One also sees structural and contingent factors as important to the future of democracies. For example, leadership style is important (14). Thus,  that is a changeable factor as leadership can often be a surprise. In fact, leadership is perhaps the most unpredictable factor in any country, even in a democracy with  its systems in place. For example, one can see that the world would be quite a different place if George Bush was not in office, and perhaps Al Gore was  leading the U.S. into war. Similarly, in Latin America, leadership is an important but unknown entity. Similarly, the effectiveness of such leadership is associated with overall success or failure of