That revolutionary processes broke out only in some countries, even though economic change was a factor across the region, suggests that the disorders of capitalist modernization are not a sufficient explanation for the emergence of radical political challenges. The political conditions and institutions that framed those structural changes and their negative impacts on particular groups and classes must also be considered.

I believe that the people have different motivations for fighting than those acquired by a more sophisticated leadership. Politically, people have more rudimentary motivations: often they simply have no choice, like in the case of the peasantry, such an important component of the struggle in El Salvador, which joined the guerrillas because it couldn't be on the other side, because their families were simply murdered. They know since they were born that the Army is evil and that the guerrillas are against the Army. That's about it.