Market-Oriented Reforms<br > and Democratization<br > in LatinAmerica:<br > Challenges of the 1990s<br >! Eduardo A. Gamarra<br > Introduction<br > 1" atin American democracies reached a critical juncture in the early 1990s.<br > JLanearly a decade after their torturous transitions from authoritarian role.<br > Owing to a weak tradition in new democratic mles and the relative strength<br > of sociopolitical actors， the outcome of transition still faced a period of great<br > uncertainty. Fragile governments survived and， some would argue， democ-<br >o racy even reached minimal levels of consolidation2 Definitions of consolida-<br >i tion (which are mostly minimalist) note that democracy in Latin America is<br > institutionalized through a negative consensus: the armed forces no longer<br > constitute a threat， business supports the system， and labor is too weak to<br > challenge the neoliberat economic project. To claim that consolidation has<br > been achieved， however， overlooks the dynamics of the ongoing<br > democratization process.<br > To view democratization as a dynamic process enables assessment of<br > how distinct political and social acXors appeared and disappeared during the<br > 1980s and early 1990s. This process has no clear-cut outcome and may follow<br > a variety of paths， even a reversion to military rule. Latin American nations<br > most often exhibit a hybrid， which combines authoritarian decision-making<br > processes and democratic legitimation. A careful examination of the dynamics<br > through which sociopolitical actors crafted ways out of the political-economy<br > crisis of the 1980s enhances our understanding of how contenders for political<br > power who initialb; sub，s，ri ~xed to "populisff or more heterodox economic<br > 1<br >