Institutional violence, conflicts, and social and political authoritarianism:

the prescriptions of the reports (RRDH-AL/UNDP/UN) compared with the propositions of Edelberto Torres-Rivas

Abstract

Edelberto Torres-Rivas demonstrated that institutionalized violence and social authoritarianism, added to social ills, are almost insurmountable obstacles to the constitution of democracy in Latin America. The authors of the Human Development Reports (RRDH-AL/UNDP/UN) on this continent seek to diagnose the unfavorable elements of democratization understood as the expansion of both institutional (free and periodic elections and rights) and constitutional guarantees (of freedoms of expression, organization and participation) as well as the effectiveness of social appeasement and human development expressed in the access to health, education and income and in other improvements unfolding from these three axes. These documents, which will be read in the light of Torres-Rivas' writings, also contain prescriptions for combating institutional, social and interpersonal violence. It was found, with the help of Torres-Rivas, that the diagnoses and prescriptions are formulated in a way to circumvent the socio-historical processes that deny democracy.