Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2000. Forging Democracy from Below: Insurgent Transitions in South Africa and El Salvador.

At first blush, comparing El Salvador and South Africa would seem like an odd thing to do. After all, in both cases there were contemporaneous insurgencies that would seem to provide a better basis for a comparative study. However, Wood makes a compelling argument in this work, which is that in both cases the conflict resulted in a negotiated democratic settlement driven by regime economic elites reassessing their positions in the conflict and the value of a labor-coercive oligarchical political structure. In El Salvador, this change was driven by a restructuring of the economy away from agricultural export to service and manufacturing. In South Africa, this was driven by both capital flight and sanctions, but also by a transition from low-wage, low-skill, labor intensive modes of production to high-wage, high-skill, labor efficient modes of production. In these new economic realities, the disruption caused by insurgent mobilization severely hampered the profitability of elite enterprises, and thus a split in the regime coalition emerged between political hardliners and economic accomodationists. In both cases this was demonstrated by a shift from reactionary leaders (Botha, d'Aubisson) to elite-friendly negotiators (deKlerk, Cristiani). And even though the insurgent organizations used very different tactics (FMLN was military dominant, ANC relied on labor unrest and 'ungovernability') both cases resulted in a settlement that met insurgent political demands while securing the financial positions of economic elites (limiting Salvadoran land reform and rejecting South African nationalization of industry). So, in the cases under scrutiny, the model works.

The catch is that these cases had some fairly unique attributes, which Wood acknowledges. First, the economy was able to restructure and allow the emergence of new elites. Second, the resources in question were divisible in a way that other identity struggles may not be. Third, the regime and the insurgents were economically integrated, so that recalcitrance by either side would represent a significant blow to the other. Thus, before this theory can be applied, some careful analysis of the relationship between the combatants and their motivation need to be undertaken.

Wickham-Crowley, Timothy P. 1992. Guerrillas & Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since 1956.

This book is a work of comparative sociology that postulates a theory about why some 20th century Latin American insurgencies succeeded and others failed. It does this by analyzing the set of insurgencies in two waves: the first being the Cuban-inspired focos that took place between 1956 and 1970 and the second being the post-foco movements that took place between 1970 and 1990. Wickham-Crowley codes the entire set of cases (312), but goes into detailed explanations of a smaller subset. In the first wave, he compares Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Peru and Venezuala. In the second, he compares Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, and Colombia. The cases are all compared using a standard set of variables: Peasant Support, Guerrilla Military Strength, Patrimonial Praetorian Regime, Loss of US Support, and Social Revolution, which are further broken down and explored in the text.

The result of his analysis is that "revolutionaries came to power in Latin America from 1956 to 1990 only when a rural-based guerrilla movement secured strong peasant support in the countryside and achieved substantial levels of military strength; if that movement also faced a patrimonial praetorian regime (a.k.a. mafiacracy), then it was structurally pressured to seek, and succeeded in securing a cross-class alliance against the patrimonial dictator who, lacking the social bases of support to resist such an alliance, in the end fell to a national resistance; under such conditions the United States tended to withdraw support from the dictatorship because of the symbolic and social pressures exerted by the constitutionalist and electoral symbols under which the revolutionaries and their more moderate allies united." (320)

Wickham-Crowley also finds there are three variants for failed insurgencies: "In variant A, the guerrillas did indeed secure substantial peasant support in the countryside, but popular support alone was not enough to carry them to victory. They faced an unweakened form of political regime -- either an electoral democracy or a collective military dictatorship -- and failed in their attempt. Military strength is irrelevant, and US support for the regime simply falls out of the analysis and becomes irrelevant to the outcome. Why? Because some of these regimes retained US support, while some lost it, yet all of them defeated or at least have stood off the insurgents." (322)

"In variant B, the guerrillas usually assayed attempts against stronger regimes supported by US backing and failed. Peasant support was absent in every one of these cases, either because the peasantry was unwilling to do so, or because no revolutionary movement seeking such support made an appearance. Guerrillas here also lacked substantial military might, in any event. The cases for this variant where guerrilla movements were present included Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, and various lesser focos of the 1960s, and Brazil and Mexico in the 1970s." (322)

"Variant C is a most interesting case, for it contains every case of a patrimonial praetorian regime that did not fall to revolution: Nicaragua (1958-1963), Haiti, Paraguay (twice), and Panama under Manuel Noriega. In the absence of a strong guerrilla movement (either absent or weakly supported guerrillas), those regimes did not succumb to revolution, and US support for the regime once again becomes irrelevant to the outcome." (322-323).

While the conclusions are compelling, it is the work on each of the variables that comprises the bulk of the book. And that can get mind-numbing in a hurry, but fortunately Wickham-Crowley has a penchant for the use of handy explanatory charts. So for peasant support check out pg. 261, for Regime Weaknesses look at pg. 279, and for levels of US support look at pg. 85.