William T. Barndt
September 2005
Princeton University
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Table 1: Executive Assaults in South America, Some Examples
•
Colombia 1981. President Julio Turbay imposes censorship restrictions on news related to the
upcoming presidential elections. He orders the dismissal of the director of state television for
protesting.
•
Argentina 1986 President Raul Alfonsin suspends freedoms of association and public assembly
following protests in the transportation sector.
•
Brazil 1990. President Fernando Collor de Mello orders the police to imprison store-owners and
media figures accused of ‘undermining’ government policy.
•
Peru 1991. In a set of decree laws, President Alberto Fujimori declares heavy penalties for any media
that publish government-declared “secret information,” and annuls the results of regional elections.
•
Venezuela 1994. President Rafael Caldera suspends constitutional guarantees enabling the
government to arrest suspects without charging them and restrict public assembly.
•
Bolivia
1999. President Hugo Banzer attempts to quash peasant protests by ordering the detention of
leaders and curtailing freedom of assembly.
•
Ecuador 2003. President Lucio Guttierez introduces a new policy threatening to intervene in media
that publish or broadcast insults at the government.
•
Venezuela 2004. President Hugo Chávez Frias orders the National Guard to prohibit an opposition
march from occupying a plaza in downtown Caracas.
quotidian assaults tend to be enacted by particular types of presidents governing particular types of
states. More specifically, quotidian assaults are more likely to be attempted by presidents with
backgrounds in the armed forces or with no previous political experience who are elected to govern
patrimonial states.
Although different factors provoke each of the three different types of assault, overcoming
any type of assault depends on the same configuration of causes: Evidence from Ecuador and
Venezuela demonstrates that defeating an assault requires (1) that the state security forces abstain
from supporting the president and (2) that particular business elites oppose him. As it turns out, the
opinions that provoke anti-insurgent and socioeconomic assaults and the tactics used to contest
them are much more likely to provoke the wrath of the state security forces and alienate business
elites than the opinions and tactics associated with quotidian assaults. Consequently, anti-insurgent
and socioeconomic assaults are nearly impossible to defeat, while assaults on everyday or quotidian
critiques of the president are defeated more easily.
Convention