Rethinking Political Transitions in Today’s Latin America

Latin America has largely moved beyond authoritarian rule and internal armed conflict. Yet, many countries face a dual threat: the rise of powerful criminal networks and the steady erosion of institutional checks by elected leaders. These challenges demand a new way of thinking about political transitions – less as changes in political or post-conflict regime, and more as efforts to strengthen democratic resilience and reduce systemic violence.

This IFIT publication maps the distinctive dilemmas of the current era and proposes a framework to respond. Drawing on lessons from across the region, it identifies both immediate entry points and long-term goals for moving from weak to strong democracies and from high to low violence contexts. It is a call to redefine what transition means for today’s Latin America.

(This is an English-language executive summary of Las transiciones políticas hoy en América Latina. To read the full publication in Spanish, click here.)

The DOI registration ID for this publication is: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18299654