Answer:
Governments in Latin America have had a long history of oligarchic characteristics. A culture that is so strongly based on familial ties has seen this translated into positions of power in which particular families have remained in government for extended periods of time. In the fight for independence against Spanish and Portuguese colonialism, elites of European origins were able to dominate political positions and continued to rule under the racist notion that non-white Latin Americans could not govern themselves. The United States continued to use this notion in relation with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 to justify unilateral intervention in Latin American affairs in the name of spreading democracy. The Monroe Doctrine allowed the United States to use religious, racial, and other cultural differences between the United States and Latin America to legitimize intervention under the pretext of spreading western culture. This action functioned as one of the first measures of U.S. imperialism in Latin America and U.S. anti-democratic actions to promote democracy.