Military and police defections and acts of non-cooperation during presidential breakdowns have received limited scholarly attention. This article examines the role of the security forces in three presidential breakdowns in Ecuador, occurring in 1997, 2000, and 2005. Drawing on interviews, media reports, government documents, and secondary literature, the article argues that four key factors shaped military and police defections and non-cooperation: (1) the participation of retired military and police personnel in nonviolent protest movements; (2) the relatively small social and ethnic distance between active-duty security forces and participants in mass demonstrations; (3) the type of military training and instruction received by members of the armed forces; and (4) pressure exerted by actors in the international community.
Keywords: nonviolence, civil resistance, defections, non-cooperation, Latin America, Ecuador.