ABSTRACT
The partial dawning of liberal democracy that took place in Latin America in the early twentieth century, best exemplified by Argentina and Chile, but with more elitist shadows in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia, was short-lived, while it was stillborn in Mexico and aborted in Venezuela. It was caught between populist pressures for enhanced participation and an abrupt end to the economic growth of the 1920s—which caused conservative groups to turn to regimes that would protect their particular interests in the face of decreased resources. Indeed, many of these elements, especially the landowners, had, at best, ambivalent feelings about recent democratic trends and were ready to sacrifice them in order to preserve their own well-being. The notable, and very major, exception was Brazil, where the 1930 Revolution and the ensuing Getúlio Vargas regime allowed that country to catch up in a number of ways, whereas the former leaders in political development backslid as in Argentina, rallied modestly in the case of Colombia, or at best marked time. Indeed, the Brazilian case—and that of Mexico once it climbed out of the anguish and destruction of civil war in the 1930s under Lázaro Cárdenas—was in the forefront of a phase in which urban groups, including the new industrialists and labor sectors, bypassed or misused parliamentary and electoral processes in efforts to attack executive power. These actions were mediated and at times diverted by political entrepreneurs who, by adapting to changing conditions, became leaders of the emerging populist groups.
