Research Paper on:
Latin American Country Democratization and the Connection Between Contingent and Structural Factors

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
significant in that there have been numerous contingent factors within the structure, something that has become quite important in evaluating democratization of the countries. First, a look at the driving  forces behind democratization is in order. The path of political development has numerous positive implications in terms of democratization (Diamond, Linz and Lipset 8). It at least resolved  some of the chaos (8). Clearly, the structural factors were weak, which was in some way something that prompted a surge towards democracy. There were political factors that were not  equated with structural problems, and so it was more political than structural in one sense. In fact, understanding that the structural factors were indeed problematic will help one to comprehend  why democracy was so important to the region. What happened was that in Latin America, prior to democracy, there was turmoil. Yet, entrenched in the people was a desire  for democracy. 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, it has  been noted that 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 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