Deepening Democracy: Global Governance and Political Reform in Latin America. By Francis Adams. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. 184p. $64.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.

The Quiet Revolution: Decentralization and the Rise of Political Participation in Latin American Cities. By Tim Campbell. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. 216p. $24.95.

The terms employed by the authors of these two books may be different, as are their titles, but the phenomena they identify are amazingly similar and the periods they examine are practically identical. What Francis Adams identifies as a “remarkable political transformation” and Tim Campbell calls a “quiet revolution” are the steps toward democratization and decentralization that have marked Latin American politics and society in the last two decades. Taking as their point of departure the political reforms of the state since the late 1980s, the empowerment of civil society through decentralization, and the fact of democratic transition itself, both authors paint a picture of progress and hope for a region of the world that not very long ago seemed mired in the throes of authoritarian governance and economic crisis attributed to nondemocratic, overcentralized, and inefficient state practices.