Nuestra modernidad, entre la Iglesia y los ejércitos

Abstract

The military regimes established in the Latin American republics during the 1970s and 1980s require explanation through a historical and cultural interrogation which goes beyond immediate economic and social determinations. The roots of those regimes, argues this article, are to be sought in conditions endogenous to each national society, namely, the historical failure of liberal revolutions, the persistent influence of agrarian oligarchies; the incomplete separation between the Church and the State; and the convergence of the ideology of the Church with the armies so that the latter can arrogate to themselves a metaconstitutional right to control the Republican institutions.