Summary Of Costa Ric The Breakdown Of Democracy

The Breakdown of Democracy: A Comparative Analysis of Chile and Costa Rica

On September 11, 1973, within a matter of hours, the once proud and historic democracy of Chile gave way to a coup d’état orchestrated by the most senior and trusted leaders of the State's military. As explained by Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela in A Nation of Enemies, “The coup shattered … the myth that Chile's 150 year old civilian constitutional government was invincible”(Constable, p.20). Looking for answers to the various questions about how a State, with such an austere culture of civility and history of democratic rule (Constable, p.20), could devolve into a military dictatorship it helps to compare this State with another one that has a similar culture. For this purpose, I will compare the circumstances and results of the breakdown of Chilean democracy with Costa Rica's ability to remain democratic in the face

In the case of Costa Rica, at numerous times during the 20th century the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in operations to counter the threat of communism from neighboring countries, and provided support for Contra rebels who were engaged in a civil war with neighboring Nicaragua (Background, p.2). The CIA also interfered with the affairs of Chile to counter the threat of communism. During the 1964 Chilean presidential campaign, the CIA “funneled a huge amount of aid” to back a Democratic presidential candidate (Constable, p.22). As was the case with the CIA involvement in Costa Rica, the underlying principle was to combat the spread of communist ideology. In the case of Costa Rica, the support given to the Contras by the CIA generated a great deal of polarization between citizens who believed that the United States should not be involved in their affairs, and those citizens that thought the State should do more to combat communism (Background,