This well-organized symposium, the product of a conference at the Carter Center, deftly combines the insights of scholars and political leaders. The focus is on Latin America's stunning movement toward democracy in the 1980s, and on how this democratic progress can be consolidated so that the pendulum does not swing back to authoritarian rule. Of particular interest are the theoretical discussions by Laurence Whitehead, Guillermo O'Donnell, Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, and the policy proposals offered by the editor, a former National Security Council official in the Carter administration.
