Latin American Perspectives

The literature on democratic consolidation has devoted considerable attention to civil-military relations at the elite level and such matters as the preservation of military coup attempts and the reduction of military autonomy. In general, however, there is insufficient attention in the literature to the issue of the demo cratic control of everyday forms of state coercion. By "everyday forms of state coercion" I mean routine policing, intelligence work, and military operations that do not involve the seizure of the executive or the shutting down of other branches of government. Over time, changes in practice in these realms have the potential for the "hollowing out" of the democratic regimes from within, through the gradual expansion of the budgets, functions, and autonomy of the coercive institutions that engage in them.