Dictatorships, torture and terror in Latin America

Abstract

This work proposes to examine the role of terror, particulary the paractice of forced disappearence and torture, in the reproduction of Latin American dictatorships. It departs from the position that state violence is always a rational phenomenon, that there exists no dictatorships, however brutal, that does not requiere a minimum of consensus in order to endure, nor is there a terror, however dominating it may seem, that completely subdue the totality of the governed.