ABSTRACT
Latin American political parties and interest groups, as suggested in the last chapter, are involved in the current transition of the area from its corporatism historic past to a newer system based on pluralism and democracy. During the 1990s the conflict was between two different views of what the political rules of the game should be. On the one side are the new forces that desire majority rule, human rights, and freedom of association. On the other side are those that favor traditional ways of doing things, where the emphasis was often on creating an administrative state above party and interest-group politics, and in which such agencies as the church, the army, the university, and perhaps even the trade unions were often more than mere interest groups, forming a part of the state system and inseparable from it.
