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 The Dubious Link: Civic Engagement and Democratization, Stanford University Press, 2004. It is often argued that civic activity, such as the participation of average citizens in voluntary associations, benefits all democracies. But sometimes the involvement of citizens contributes to the collapse of democracy, the exclusion of minorities, and the deepening of society's fragmentation. This book challenges the idea of a positive, universal connection between civil society and democracy, and argues that the specific context in which people organize shapes the character of civil society.
The Dubious Link examines the "dark side" of civil society ─the cases in which the participation of average citizens leads to undemocratic results. Combining a variety of research methods, this study looks at the vital sphere of associational life in pre-Nazi Germany, anti-desegregation movements in the United States, and new organizations for human and civil rights in democratic Argentina. The book concludes with a statistical analysis of the impact of civil society on a set of contemporary democracies.
Table of Contents and Introduction
Recent Reviews:
Comparative Political Studies
Latin American Politics and Society
 Repensando la Argentina: Antes de diciembre de 2001 y más allá de mayo de 2003, Woodrow Wilson Center, 2003 (Co-edited with Hector E. Schamis).
On April 3, 2003, A. C. Armony and H. E. Schamis together with the Argentina Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center organized a meeting to discuss the current situation in Argentina. The idea of the seminar was to evaluate the country’s situation beyond the economic and political chaos surrounding Fernando de la Rua’s resignation in December 2001, and to present alternative avenues to reconstruct Argentine economy and society. The participants discussed economic policies, Argentina’s position in world affairs, Argentine democracy and political parties, culture, education, human rights and civil society. The open discussion led to this publication, which is an edited version of the conversation that took place at the Wilson Center. The book was launched in Buenos Aires on October 21, 2003. The book launch consisted of an open discussion on Argentina's situation by three prestigious Argentine journalists: Nelson Castro, TN; Martín Granovsky, Página/12; and Joaquín Morales Solá, La Nación.  Repression, Resistance, and Democratic Transition in Central America, Scholarly Resources, 2000 (Co-edited with Thomas W. Walker).
For Central America the last third of the twentieth century was a time of dramatic change in which most of the countries there went from dictatorship to formal, political democracy. Especially during the late 1970s and 1980s, events in Central America were the focal point of U.S. cold war policy and, for a while, the lead international story in the U.S. media. However, the Central American experience during this period is also important for the unusual set of cases of democratic transition it gave us. Unlike South America and many other parts of the world, where the rebirth of democracy in the 1980s and early 1990s was relatively sudden and peaceful, the process of democratic transition in most Central American countries was made possible only through violent conflict ─costing over 350,000 lives─ that either toppled the dictatorships or forced them to negotiate transitions to a more democratic system. The purpose of this book is to discuss Central American paths to democracy and to see what these cases add to our understanding of democratization processes.  Argentina, the United States, and the Anti-Communist Crusade in Central America, 1977-1984, Ohio University Press, 1997.
This book seeks to understand a little known aspect of Latin America’s recent authoritarian past: the extraterritorial role played by national security forces responsible for unprecedented programs of state terror in their countries. A crucial case of these activities beyond borders was the anti-communist crusade led by the Argentine military in Central America in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This book shows in detail how the perpetrators of the infamous “dirty war” in Argentina transferred their model of mass repression to Central America and how the United States supported this effort, endorsing the barbaric methods applied by the Argentine military in Central America.  Spanish Version: La Argentina, los Estados Unidos y la Cruzada Anticomunista en América Central, 1977-1984, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 1999.
Recent Journal Articles (See CV for full publications list): “Babel in Democratization Studies” (with Hector Schamis). Journal of Democracy 16, No. 4 (October 2005)
“Indictments, Myths, and Citizen Mobilization in Argentina” (with Víctor Armony). Latin American Politics and Society 47, No. 4 (October 2005).
Recent Book Chapters (See CV for full publications list): “Fields of Citizenship” In Joseph S. Tulchin and Meg Ruthenburg, eds., Citizenship in Latin America (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, forthcoming).
“Transnationalizing the Dirty War: Argentina in Central America” In Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniela Spenser, eds., In from the Cold: Writing a New History of the Latin America Cold War (Durham and London: Duke University Press, forthcoming).
“Theoretical and Comparative Reflections on the Study of Civil Society in Cuba” In Joseph S. Tulchin, Lilian Bobea, Mayra P. Espina Prieto, and Rafael Hernández, eds., Changes in Cuban Society Since the Nineties (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center, 2005).
“Producing and Exporting State Terror: The Case of Argentina” In Cecilia Menjívar and Néstor P. Rodríguez, eds., When States Kill: Latin America, the U.S., and Technologies of Terror (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005).
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