As a North American Latin woman, I have gone through the educational system (14 years of schooling) without every learning much about the political system of Latin America. Most of my knowledge has become available to me by my parents who are loyal viewers of channel 41 and 47. These two channels are Spanish-speaking channels that along with the traditional game shows, talk shows, and soap operas also include a news broadcast that covers stories and events of all of America. Even with this small advantage, I have often identified Latin America as instable and unpredictable. I have associated Latin America with political insecurity. The thought of my parents desire to return to their ‘motherland’ has left me cringing. Their desire to return has left me uneasy because of my assumption that the characteristics of the Latin American political system consists of revolutions, demonstrations, violence, and terror. According to Charles W. Anderson, the countries that make up Latin America have predictable and stable political systems. Anderson argues that the political system of Latin America has “certain relatively consistent patterns to the game of Latin American politics” (page 5). It is predictable and stable. The political system consists of negotiations between power contenders with different power capabilities. A power contender is “any individual or group which seeks to have its demands implemented through state machinery, to control the allocation of values for the society through state machinery, or to make a specific source of power legitimate for the society through the exercise of a power capability” (page 9). A power contender is a politician or a want-to-be politician that wants to influence political policies, have a say in the political distribution of resources, and/or to include a new political party into the political arena because of the political party’s resources. A...
