The Long Shadow of National Security Dictatorships in the Southern Cone

We are being governed by the civilians of the dictatorship"-this meme has circulated in Argentina and Chile to describe a growing far right's reclaiming of public figures, values, and policies from past military dictatorships.Indeed, as the historian Barbara Weinstein notes in the afterword to Carassai and Coleman's volume (232), the region has seen the election of leaders whose claims about the past should "elicit revulsion" among citizens in democracies.Things have been changing fast.In 2023, the fortieth anniversary of the restoration of democracy in Argentina boasted a consensus affirming human rights and a democratic politics of memory.Distressing graffiti and other signs vindicating the military dictatorship were seen as isolated, marginal expressions-or so many of us chose to believe.