David M. K. Sheinin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813042398
- eISBN:
- 9780813043005
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813042398.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
After the 1976 coup, the military regime immediately set about trying to show that it was a defender of human rights. This task involved demonstrating that Argentina continued to adhere to a set of ...
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After the 1976 coup, the military regime immediately set about trying to show that it was a defender of human rights. This task involved demonstrating that Argentina continued to adhere to a set of constitutional norms and legal precedents that made human rights abuses anathema to the exercise of law. In the first instance, this was an exercise in manipulation and obfuscation where an outline of legal protections of human rights led to the use of the legal system as a masque for state terror. Many Argentines believed themselves to be part of a process in which a new Argentina would establish progressive norms for the protection of human rights. A key population the military became explicitly concerned with in this ordering of Argentine life toward the modern was indigenous Argentines. One symptom of the violence of authoritarian rule was that some Argentines could find a way to ignore state terror while at the same time identifying themselves as promoters of the human rights of indigenous Argentines toward their integration into modern society as Argentines freed of their “primitive” past.Less
After the 1976 coup, the military regime immediately set about trying to show that it was a defender of human rights. This task involved demonstrating that Argentina continued to adhere to a set of constitutional norms and legal precedents that made human rights abuses anathema to the exercise of law. In the first instance, this was an exercise in manipulation and obfuscation where an outline of legal protections of human rights led to the use of the legal system as a masque for state terror. Many Argentines believed themselves to be part of a process in which a new Argentina would establish progressive norms for the protection of human rights. A key population the military became explicitly concerned with in this ordering of Argentine life toward the modern was indigenous Argentines. One symptom of the violence of authoritarian rule was that some Argentines could find a way to ignore state terror while at the same time identifying themselves as promoters of the human rights of indigenous Argentines toward their integration into modern society as Argentines freed of their “primitive” past.
Benjamin A. Cowan
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469627502
- eISBN:
- 9781469627526
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627502.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This book argues that Cold War struggles against “subversion” must be understood in cultural terms, as a reaction to the consequences—both real and perceived—of modernization. Inscribing Brazil’s ...
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This book argues that Cold War struggles against “subversion” must be understood in cultural terms, as a reaction to the consequences—both real and perceived—of modernization. Inscribing Brazil’s Cold War military rulers and their supporters into a decades-long trajectory of right-wing activism and ideology, and locating them in a transnational network of right-wing cultural warriors, the book demonstrates that anti-modern moral panic animated powerful, hard-line elements of Brazil’s countersubversive dictatorship (1964-1985). This moral panic conflated communist subversion with the accoutrement of modernity, and coalesced around the crucial nodes of gender and sexuality, particularly in relation to “modern” youth, women, and mass media. Transformations in these realms were anathema to the Right, who echoed the anxieties of generations past, pathologizing and sexualizing these phenomena, and identifying in them a “crisis of modernity” and of communist subversion. Hence the Cold War became more than a military struggle against rural guerrillas and urban terrorists; from the perspective of key activists and technocrats, the battle must be waged across sexual and bodily practice, clothing, music, art, mass media, and gender. Addressing historiographical neglect of the Right in Brazil and beyond, the book culturally historicizes the Western Cold War in a transnational sense by uncovering Atlantic networks of right-wing activism that validated anti-modern and anticommunist anxieties. These networks included Brazilian, European, and North Atlantic anticommunists, from the famous to those whose stars waned after the Cold War.Less
This book argues that Cold War struggles against “subversion” must be understood in cultural terms, as a reaction to the consequences—both real and perceived—of modernization. Inscribing Brazil’s Cold War military rulers and their supporters into a decades-long trajectory of right-wing activism and ideology, and locating them in a transnational network of right-wing cultural warriors, the book demonstrates that anti-modern moral panic animated powerful, hard-line elements of Brazil’s countersubversive dictatorship (1964-1985). This moral panic conflated communist subversion with the accoutrement of modernity, and coalesced around the crucial nodes of gender and sexuality, particularly in relation to “modern” youth, women, and mass media. Transformations in these realms were anathema to the Right, who echoed the anxieties of generations past, pathologizing and sexualizing these phenomena, and identifying in them a “crisis of modernity” and of communist subversion. Hence the Cold War became more than a military struggle against rural guerrillas and urban terrorists; from the perspective of key activists and technocrats, the battle must be waged across sexual and bodily practice, clothing, music, art, mass media, and gender. Addressing historiographical neglect of the Right in Brazil and beyond, the book culturally historicizes the Western Cold War in a transnational sense by uncovering Atlantic networks of right-wing activism that validated anti-modern and anticommunist anxieties. These networks included Brazilian, European, and North Atlantic anticommunists, from the famous to those whose stars waned after the Cold War.
Renaud Egreteau
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190620967
- eISBN:
- 9780190686468
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190620967.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Asian Politics
This book examines the political landscape that followed the 2010 elections in Myanmar and the subsequent transition from direct military rule to a semi-civilian, ‘hybrid’ regime. Striking political, ...
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This book examines the political landscape that followed the 2010 elections in Myanmar and the subsequent transition from direct military rule to a semi-civilian, ‘hybrid’ regime. Striking political, social, and economic transformations have indeed taken place in the long-isolated country since the military junta disbanded in March 2011. To better construe – and question – what has routinely been labelled a ‘Burmese Spring’, the book examines the reasons behind the ongoing political transition, as well as the role of the Burmese armed forces in the process. The book draws on in-depth interviews with Burmese political actors, party leaders, parliamentarians, active and retired army officers. It also takes its cue from comparative scholarship on civil-military relations and post-authoritarian politics, looking at the ‘praetorian’ logic to explain the transitional moment. Myanmar’s road to democratic change is, however, paved with obstacles. As the book suggests, the continuing military intervention in domestic politics, the resilience of bureaucratic, economic and political clientelism at all levels of society, the towering presence of Aung San Suu Kyi, the shadowy influence of regional and global powers, and the enduring concerns about interethnic and interreligious relations, all are strong reminders of the series of elemental conundrums which Myanmar will have to deal with in order to achieve democratization, sustainable development and peace.Less
This book examines the political landscape that followed the 2010 elections in Myanmar and the subsequent transition from direct military rule to a semi-civilian, ‘hybrid’ regime. Striking political, social, and economic transformations have indeed taken place in the long-isolated country since the military junta disbanded in March 2011. To better construe – and question – what has routinely been labelled a ‘Burmese Spring’, the book examines the reasons behind the ongoing political transition, as well as the role of the Burmese armed forces in the process. The book draws on in-depth interviews with Burmese political actors, party leaders, parliamentarians, active and retired army officers. It also takes its cue from comparative scholarship on civil-military relations and post-authoritarian politics, looking at the ‘praetorian’ logic to explain the transitional moment. Myanmar’s road to democratic change is, however, paved with obstacles. As the book suggests, the continuing military intervention in domestic politics, the resilience of bureaucratic, economic and political clientelism at all levels of society, the towering presence of Aung San Suu Kyi, the shadowy influence of regional and global powers, and the enduring concerns about interethnic and interreligious relations, all are strong reminders of the series of elemental conundrums which Myanmar will have to deal with in order to achieve democratization, sustainable development and peace.
Erik Ching
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469628660
- eISBN:
- 9781469628684
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469628660.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter provides an overview of Salvadoran history over its long twentieth century, roughly 1880-2010. It employs a structure-agency framework, arguing that structural conditions put El Salvador ...
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This chapter provides an overview of Salvadoran history over its long twentieth century, roughly 1880-2010. It employs a structure-agency framework, arguing that structural conditions put El Salvador on the pathway to civil war in the 1980s, but also that Salvadorans made decisions that allowed those conditions to manifest themselves. Hypothetically, Salvadorans could have made alternative choices and avoided war. The chapter’s narrative revolves around the topics of coffee, landed elites, military regimes, authoritarianism, modernization and mass mobilization. In regard to the post-war era, the chapter contends that the negotiated settlement that brought an end to the war addressed some of El Salvador’s longstanding needs, but left some key issues unresolved, like economic justice.Less
This chapter provides an overview of Salvadoran history over its long twentieth century, roughly 1880-2010. It employs a structure-agency framework, arguing that structural conditions put El Salvador on the pathway to civil war in the 1980s, but also that Salvadorans made decisions that allowed those conditions to manifest themselves. Hypothetically, Salvadorans could have made alternative choices and avoided war. The chapter’s narrative revolves around the topics of coffee, landed elites, military regimes, authoritarianism, modernization and mass mobilization. In regard to the post-war era, the chapter contends that the negotiated settlement that brought an end to the war addressed some of El Salvador’s longstanding needs, but left some key issues unresolved, like economic justice.