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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Of the ten countries in South America, nine now have presidents who are dictators or who at some time during their careers have exercised dictatorial power. The tenth, Uruguay, with its tradition of working democracy, has resisted this trend towards personalist government. Recently it took an important step in the diffusion of executive power when through orderly constitutional reform the national presidency was replaced by a nine-man executive committee. The nation's stability has been attested to by those most cautious of judges, the international investors, who, fearful of trouble in Europe after the outbreak of war in Korea, moved their capital holdings from Berne to Montevideo. The country's democracy has been even more welcomed by those who have found it an oasis of freedom from Perón's police state across the river. Uruguay has successfully met Latin America's ever basic problem, political stability under democratic procedure.
Casual visitors who call Uruguay the Switzerland or Denmark of South America probably have in mind its small size; its location between two large states, Brazil and Argentina; its population of merely two and a half million; its pastoral economy, political liberty, social legislation, and government economic activities; and especially its penchant for a Swiss-style pluripersonal executive. Yet at best this comparison is severely out of context.
1 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The Agricultural Development of Uruguay. Report of a Mission Sponsored by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations at the Request of the Government of Uruguay (Washington, D. C. and Rome, 1951), pp. 2–3Google Scholar.
2 Hanson, Simon G., Utopia in Uruguay; Chapters in the Economic History of Uruguay (New York, 1938)Google Scholar, and Pendle, George, Uruguay: South America's First Welfare State (London and New York, 1952)Google Scholar deal with government economic activities and social legislation.
3 The best published biography is Guidici, Roberto B. and Conzi, Efraín González, Battle y el Batllismo (Montevideo, 1928)Google Scholar.
4 For the political history of Uruguay see Devoto, Juan E. Pivel, Historia de los Partidos Políticos en el Uruguay, 1811–1897, 2 vols. (Montevideo, 1942–1943)Google Scholar, and Uruguay Independiente (Barcelona, 1949)Google Scholar; Felde, Alberto Zum, Evolución Histórica del Uruguay, 3d ed. (Montevideo, 1945)Google Scholar; and Acevedo, Eduardo, Anales Históricos del Uruguay, 6 vols. (Montevideo, 1933–1936)Google Scholar.
5 Fabregat, Julio T., Los Partidos Políticos en la Legislación Uruguaya (Montevideo, 1949)Google Scholar, is a compilation of the pertinent laws.
6 Directorio del Partido Nacional, El Partido Nacional y la Reforma de la Constitución (Montevideo, 1952), pp. 35–47Google Scholar. This publication contains the discussion of the pact by the Herrerista directorate. The only other important public disclosure of the pact-making process was in a speech by Trueba, Andrés Martínez, El Día (Montevideo), November 4, 1953Google Scholar.
7 Fitzgibbon, Russell H., “Adoption of a Collegiate Executive in Uruguay,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 14, pp. 616–42 (Nov., 1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, considers that the modifications were sufficiently basic to constitute a new constitution. This article also compares the Swiss and Uruguayan constitutions.
8 Acción (Montevideo), August 16, 1951Google Scholar.
9 El Día, August 23, 1951.
10 República Oriental del Uruguay, Ley Constitucional sancionada el 26 de octubre de 1951, que será sometida a plebiscite de ratificación el 16 de diciembre de 1951 (Montevideo, 1951), pp. 3–94Google Scholar.
11 El Diario (Montevideo), December 15, 1951Google Scholar.
12 Acción, December 15, 1951.
13 Acción, December 17, 1951; Directorio del Partido Nacional (cited in note 6), p. 14.
14 Speech by Eduardo Acevedo Alvarez, Minister of Finance, El Día, November 7, 1953.
15 El Día, February 2, 1954.
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