Economists have long recognized the importance of migration between less developed and more developed countries, and they have devoted considerable attention to analyzing it within the framework of traditional economic theory (Thomas 1954; Kindleberger 1967; Tapinos 1974; Greenwood 1979; Chiswick 1980; Wachter 1980; Stark 1983). But international migration entails not only an economic exchange of work for wages, it is also fundamentally a social process. Repeated human contact inevitably produces ties between persons in sending and receiving societies. Social networks are created that connect individuals in disparate cultural settings, and these ties ultimately change the context within which economic processes are played out. Understanding how such ties develop and change over time is therefore crucial to understanding the phenomenon of international migration.

For eighteen months, between March 1982 and August 1983, Guatemala was ruled by a born-again Christian, General Efrain Ríos Montt. He drew world attention to Guatemala because of his brutally effective suppression of the nation's guerrilla movement and his idiosyncratic style of rule but above all, because of his religion. The idea that a Protestant could serve as the chief of state in a country as staunchly Catholic as Guatemala struck many observers as an anomaly. Closer examination reveals, however, that it was not anomalous for a Protestant to be president of Guatemala. By 1982 nearly 30 percent of the Guatemalan population were Protestants, the result of a quiet wave of conversion that started during the nineteenth century and has accelerated dramatically in the last three decades. The idea that President Ríos Montt's religion would influence his entire administration was even less surprising, for Protestantism has been wed to politics in Guatemala ever since it first arrived in the country. The purpose of this research report is to examine the development of patterns in the relationship between the Guatemalan state and Protestantism as they evolved during the formative years between 1872 and 1954 and to explore the effects of this relationship on Protestant conversion.

The encounter between Atahualpa and the Spaniards in Cajamarca Plaza on 16 November 1532 provided the dramatic moment that has been highlighted in narratives of the conquest of Peru by generations of historians, from Francisco de Jerez and Titu Cusi Yupanqui to William Prescott. More recently, James Lockhart's highly influential Spanish Peru (1968) and its companion, The Men of Cajamarca (1972), have defined the striking encounter at Cajamarca as the starting point for understanding the conquest history of Peru. Edward Said and Peter Hulme, however, have suggested that within the genre of conquest narrative the conflict among different versions of the same event mainly revolves around the issue of where the story should start. If so, readers are impelled to take the designated beginning of the history of Spanish Peru—the events at Cajamarca—as not merely a dramatic framing device for telling history but as a choice implying an ideological understanding of the Spanish role in Peru. In recent American historiography, this choice of beginning with the events at Cajamarca has become a means of telling a classic tale of upward social mobility for Spaniards, one that starts with the capture of treasure at Cajamarca.

For the last ten years, Central America has been in upheaval, experiencing fundamental social and political change, with the Nicaraguan revolution representing the most dramatic rupture with the past. This revolution, the civil war in El Salvador, two recent coups in Guatemala, and the militarization of Honduras by the United States are all aspects of the crisis currently transforming the region. This article will argue that these dramatic events comprise a general disintegration of what might be called the “old order” in Central America. While the particular characteristics of each country must be taken into account, a process of creative destruction can be identified that is best understood at the level of the region as a whole.

The institution of female domestic service in La Paz has been characterized by continuity as well as change, despite the profound social transformations brought about by the Bolivian National Revolution in 1952. Domestic service has historically been the most important source of employment for women in Bolivian cities and Latin American urban centers in general (Glave 1988; Arrom 1985; Kuznesof n.d.). Live-in domestic service continues to be the norm in La Paz, even though the number of live-out household workers is increasing. The dependent nature of the Bolivian economy and enduring gender biases have precluded the absorption of women into “formal sector” employment, and generally depressed wage rates do not permit most women in La Paz the luxury of being full-time mothers, wives, or daughters. As a result, salaried domestic service is not only persisting but expanding as a prolonged economic crisis forces growing numbers of female Aymara Indian immigrants from the countryside to seek wage employment in the homes of criollo women in the city.

The proximate cause of democratic breakdown in Argentina has invariably been a military coup. In overthrowing civilian governments, however, the armed forces have not acted in a vacuum. Before the 1966 and 1976 coups, military officers made sure that key landowner, business, and labor leaders would support or at least accept military intervention. The importance that the Argentine military places on civilian opinion raises the question of the conditions under which civilian leaders might become more likely to oppose a coup. One promising development would be for these elites to channel their political demands increasingly through political parties. By investing resources in party activity and becoming more habituated to pressing demands through party channels, Argentine socioeconomic elites would gain a larger stake in the survival of the electoral and legislative institutions that parties require to be effective. This article will analyze the relationship between one such elite, the Peronist union leadership, and one of Argentina's main political parties, the Peronist Partido Justicialista (PJ).

It has often been observed that “Where power is, women are not.” Noting women's virtual absence from the realm of conventional politics, Jane Jaquette urged scholars in 1980 to look beyond elections in studying female political participation in Latin America. Arguing for an “expanded notion of the political,” she called for research on female participation within different social classes, especially their role in “informal networks, … clientele linkages, … strike activities, urban land seizures and barrio politics”. This article employs a community study method to investigate women's grass-roots participation in politics and labor mobilization following World War II in the region of greater São Paulo known as ABC (named after the municipios of Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, and São Caetano).