Uno de los libros más comprensivos (y comprensibles) acerca de la revolución mexicana, el de Lorenzo Meyer y Héctor Aguilar Camín (A la sombra de la revolución mexicana) comienza con esta frase enigmática: “No esperaban que llegara” (11). Lo que llega es obviamente la revolución. ¿Pero quiénes son los que quedan sobrecogidos por ese advenimiento? La respuesta es obvia: aquéllos que ejercen la tarea de ver y por lo tanto de preveer, esperar e incluso alumbrar lo nuevo: los intelectuales. La revolución mexicana, por el contrario, se caracteriza por la espontaneidad y por la prescindencia de idearios generales de dirección los cuales (a pesar de los múltiples programas y “planes”) sólo cristalizan y se encarnan en las masas revolucionarias a posteriori y actúan, por lo tanto, retrospectivamente.

In presidential systems such as those of Latin America, the institutionalization of legislatures as autonomous representative bodies able to constrain executives and check abuses of power is an important aspect of democratization. Drawing on the experiences of Mexico's state governments, this paper seeks to explain differences in legislative institutionalization. It argues that pluralism within the legislature, rather than electoral competition in itself, provides the best explanation for institutionalization. A process-tracing analysis of the state legislature of Michoacán supports this argument, and a statistical analysis of Mexico's thirty-one states confirms that pluralism in the electorate does shape legislative pluralism—and so indirectly the extent of pressures for institutionalization—but reveals that differences in state electoral laws also play an important role.

The economic crisis of the 1980s and the shift to outward-looking development strategies ignited interest in promoting agricultural exports throughout Latin America. In the 1990s, export strategies continue to dominate discussion on agricultural development in the region. Especially for smaller developing countries in Latin America, agricultural and natural-resource exports appear likely to lead efforts to stimulate export growth. Extraordinarily rapid agro-export growth has already been achieved in many countries. From the middle to late 1980s, nontraditional agricultural exports grew at rates of 222 percent in Chile, 78 percent in Guatemala, and 348 percent in Costa Rica. In Paraguay, the most agrarian country in Latin America, agricultural exports nearly tripled during the otherwise difficult decade of the 1980s.

The demographics of the Paraguayan War (1864–1870) have long fascinated historicans and sociologists. If the oft-repeated tales of a 70 percent loss of life in Paraguay are accurate, then this war represents a singular case in modern history, one full of implications for students of militarism, gender, and culture. This study analyzes a newly discovered census from 1870 and reworks earlier censal materials. The authors conclude that the old stories of a steep loss of population during the war are basically correct.

Despite the significance of the Panama Canal in the maritime economy, the Republic of Panama has not yet been studied adequately, particularly its domestic archives. After a critique of existing historical writing on major Panamanian topics, problems, and deficiencies, this research note provides a brief history of the national archives in Panama and the most significant private collections. The coverage identifies the contents, subdivisions, and shortcomings of these archives as well as finding aids and catalogues. It also describes the most relevant published sources on the history of the Isthmian Republic, including government publications, periodicals and newspapers, and compilations.

Among the policy changes associated with neoliberalism in Latin America, tax reform has played a leading role as it has been crucial not only to price stabilization but also to managing economic liberalization. But it also has a larger significance, since it involved a reconstitution of core state powers, and these could prove useful to any future government that seeks to expand the state's economic role. This paper seeks to determine its causes more precisely by analyzing data from fifteen Latin American countries from 1977 to 1995. Findings show that the definition of “tax reform” has been remarkably similar across the region with less progressivity, fewer exemptions, a new leading role for the value-added tax (VAT), and the strengthening of tax administration. The data analysis then finds reform is predicted by (in roughly descending importance) past inflation, explicit IMF performance conditions, new administrations, more authoritarian-elected governments, the dominance of the president's party in the legislature, established electoral systems, closed-list proportional representation, less polarized party systems, and more numerous parties. Little or no support exists for the causal importance of past changes in gross domestic product (GDP), the constitutional powers of the president, party institutionalization, or partisan balance. The analysis concludes by placing these results in historical context, referring to theories of state formation and the building of institutions in exchange for resources.

In the 1980s, students and practitioners of the political economy of development in Latin America became enthralled with East Asia's spectacular economic performance. Researchers wrote cross-regional comparisons trying to discover where Latin America had gone wrong and how it could catch up to the “four dragons,” meaning South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong (see Deyo 1987; Gereffi and Wyman 1990; Haggard 1990). This quest to determine the key ingredients of East Asia's growth held particular policy relevance as many Latin American countries sought to escape from the “lost decade.” The best-known attempts to describe the political basis for East Asia's successful turn toward policies stressing export-led growth have emphasized two factors: initiative of state leadership and highly capable technocracies insulated from societal interference (Haggard 1990; Wade 1990). Among Latin America countries, Chile, the region's premier exporter, seemed to confirm these ideas.