The tentative reemergence of democracy in Latin America in the first half of the 1980s has encouraged scholars and policymakers to take a new look at the “older” democratic experiences on the continent in their search for viable political models. Just as Chile and Uruguay were once considered the “Switzerlands of Latin America,” so Venezuela has now become the political darling of the development set. As Peter Merkl wrote in 1981, “It appears that the only trail to a democratic future for developing societies may be the one followed by Venezuela…. Venezuela is a textbook case of step-by-step progress.” Praxis, however, has produced a certain wariness toward “textbook cases” of this sort. The demise of past democratic regimes whose stability had been unquestioned for decades warns that the search for models is fraught with perils. Despite its having an established party system, Venezuela should not be expected to provide a formula for those who seek paths to democratization.

A heated debate has arisen over U.S. policy toward the large number of Salvadorans and Guatemalans who have come to the United States in recent years. The question is whether the U.S. government should continue to deport these individuals or should offer them some special protection. The key point of debate is the motivation of the émigrés. Officials of the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Justice have maintained that Salvadorans and Guatemalans who come here are merely economic migrants in search of a better life, and that as such, they are ineligible for any special treatment under U.S. immigration law. According to representatives of the Reagan administration, the fact that many Central Americans pass through Mexico on their way to the United States is evidence of their economic motivations.

Protestantism has grown strikingly throughout Latin America in the last two decades. Estimating such growth is hazardous in the absence of firm national survey data, but the phenomenon is clearly embracing sizable segments of national populations. In Guatemala, estimates of Protestants in the national population ranged from 20 to 25 percent by the early 1980s, with more recent estimates approaching 30 percent.

In his acclaimed synthesis of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Alan Knight observed that “the social bandit's career in Academe has somewhat paralleled his life under the greenwood tree. Introduced by Professor Hobsbawm, he was initially welcomed, even feted, and he put in many appearances in academic company; but then (inevitably, after such uncritical acceptance) some academics grew leery, and the recent trend-especially among experts—has been to qualify, de-emphasise and even deny his role.”

On 10 October 1988, President Miguel de la Madrid authorized loading of the first of two reactor units at the Laguna Verde nuclear power plant, on the Mexican gulf coast above the port of Veracruz. De la Madrid's decision to move ahead with Laguna Verde, Mexico's first foray into commercial nuclear energy production, came as no surprise. What was extraordinary was that it proved to be one of the most controversial policy actions of his sexenio. Culminating twenty years of planning and development, the Laguna Verde project, which had been emblematic of Mexico's technical progress and promise at its outset, had turned into a political albatross.

The past fifteen years in Peru have seen dramatic changes in the role of the public sector in the accumulation and distribution of capital. Increasing structural pressures on the economy, combined with growing disillusionment over the distributional results of the prevailing economic liberalism, set the stage for a nationalist military coup in 1968. With the advent of General Juan Velasco Alvarado and his Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas, the public sector shifted from its previous ancillary position of facilitating private investment to emerge as the prime generator of economic growth.