The sword of Damocles. Authoritarianism, totalitarianism and state terrorism in Latin America

Abstract

Despite the dauntless efforts that most Latin American societies have made throughout the past few decades to promote democratization, liberalism and democracy itself at all levels, authoritarianism, totalitarianism and state terrorism still represent a serious menace to the stability and development of these nations. In order to gain a better grasp of the dynamics an authoritarian/totalitarian regime implies and of its conceptual and political relation to democratic system, we first examine the difference between authoritarian and totalitarian dimensions and we analyze state terrorism, a form of defensive political violence arbitrarily subordinated to the repressive machinery and to political and economic interests of Latin American dictatorships. We also identify the main coercive and punitive measures that the state terror system operates with, mentioning altogether the reasons that justify the psychosocial propensity of Latin American nations for the paternalistic figure of authoritarian leaders. Finally, we point out the political strategy they adopt so as to obtain unconditional popular support, namely populism, readjusted to nowadays social, political and economic context under the guise of neopopulism.