Hi NDD--

While you may be correct as to the reason the Colombian military is coup averse, I suspect that it is only one of many reasons. Among those are an internalization by Colombians, civilian and military alike, of the democratic norm of elected government along with greater internalization of the difficult in Spanish concept of the English word "compromise." (Reflected in the National Front.)

As to the rest of LATAM, more complex still. First, there are the countries that have disolved their militaries - Costa Rica, Panama, and Haiti. They face no coup threat although that does not eliminate the threat of other politcal violence, eg Haiti. Costa Rica has internalized democratic norms; it has a democratic political culture. Panama, IMO, is well on its way there as well.

My experience with El Salvador suggests that its military faced its crisis in 1989 with the last major FMLN offensive and its reaction to the murder of the Jesuits ordered by a member of the Tandona resulted in a change of institutional culture that helped the ESAF internalize democratic norms. I have seen similar behavioral and norm change in the Argentine military as a result of its failure as a military in the Falklands/Malvinas war and the revelations of the dirty war.

Where I have not seen this kind of norm change is in Chile, usually upheld as the model Latin American democracy. I would note that Chile and Uruguay shared that same evaluation until the military coups that overthrew their respective civilian governments in 1973 and 1974. I would suggest that your blanket analysis needs to be revised to take account of the changes in the norms of the individual countries and their militaries as well as the change in the norms region wide. The latter are, of course, not as strong in some countries as in others but there has been such a change throughout the region and it is reflected in Guatemala and Peru although not as strongly as Argentina and El Salvador or, even, Colombia.

Cheers

John