This article will attempt to “map” the class structure of Latin American societies on the basis of several recent empirical studies and statistics provided by such organizations as the International Labour Office (ILO), the Regional Employment Program for Latin America (PREALC), and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). This formal exercise should help clarify existing class structures by reducing a large and complex list of designations to a manageable number. On the basis of this classification, changes in class composition and struggles during the last two decades will then be examined. The article is thus divided in two parts, one dealing with class structure and the other with class dynamics.

On 28 February 1986, the Brazilian government announced a “heterodox” inflation stabilization program that rapidly came to be called the Plano Cruzado. It was intended to halt an inflation that appeared to be escaping control and untamable through orthodox stabilization policies. Although at first the Plano Cruzado seemed to succeed dramatically in eliminating inflation without recessionary side effects, it failed by the end of 1986, as inflation revived, external accounts collapsed, and real growth sagged.

Jacaltenango is a forlorn, unkempt-looking town lying in the tierra templada toward the western edge of the Cuchumatán highlands of Guatemala. It is perhaps best known to the academic world as a stop on the route taken by Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge (1926, 1927) in their pioneering reconnaissance of Mesoamerica earlier this century, a place to which the latter returned with Douglas Byers to document an intriguing array of Maya cultural survivals (La Farge and Byers 1931). More recently, one of its native sons has given local lore and storytelling eloquent written form, as well as documenting the town's painful experience during counterinsurgency operations in the early 1980s (Montejo 1984, 1987).

No issue in Mexican politics received more attention in selecting the 1982 presidential candidate than the role of the technocrat. The technocrat's influence on the Mexican state has had widespread consequences, such as changing political recruitment patterns, altering the socialization of political leaders, shifting career channels essential to advancement within the political system, and most significantly, causing adjustments in the stability of the political system. Crucial to any discussion of the changing role played by the technocrat in Mexican politics is a clear understanding of the term technocrat. This essay therefore will discuss conceptualizations of the technocrat, attempt a working definition of the term in the Mexican context, provide empirical evidence as to the presence of technocrats in Mexican politics, and suggest possible consequences for the political system.

The Latin American middlemen known as caciques in Mexico and coronéis in Brazil are one of the most widespread sociopolitical features of Mexico and Brazil in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The pervasive institutional arrangements established by such political entrepreneurs at local and regional levels, within the framework of the most “center-dominant” polities of Latin America, are well documented in the literature. In this case, pervasiveness does not imply mere continuity. As changes in structure, meanings, and significance have occurred with the passing of time, the phenomena termed caciquismo and coronelismo have undergone social and semantic transformation. It would therefore be useful to begin by reviewing these historical metamorphoses.

The twelve years of military rule in Peru between 1968 and 1980 witnessed few abuses of human rights, in marked contrast to the activities of military governments in Southern Cone countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Yet paradoxically, the return to democracy in Peru, with the election of Fernando Belaúnde in 1980 and Alan García in 1985, has brought sharp escalations in political violence and terror. Guerrilla activity by the Sendero Luminoso (“Shining Path”) in the highlands, urban terrorism, and a severe economic crisis have combined to pose a serious challenge to the authority of the state. Thus it is problematic to speak of a “return to democracy” while Peruvians are being subjected to expanding military control and repression.