The theoretical literature presents conflicting expectations about the effects of trade openness on the ability of states to interdict drug trafficking. One view expects that trade openness will undermine drug interdiction; a second argues the opposite; a third argues that trade openness does not necessarily affect drug interdiction. This article assesses empirically the effects of trade openness on drug interdiction for countries in the Americas using a pooled time-series cross-sectional statistical model. It finds that trade openness decreases the interdiction capabilities of states in drug-consuming countries while increasing those of states in drug-producing countries. Greater openness to trade does not have a consistently significant effect on the interdiction capabilities of states in drug transit countries.

This article examines the evolution of transnational Zapatista solidarity networks. Although scholars have described an emerging “mutuality” between the Zapatista movement and its allies at the level of international framing, this article considers how the Zapatistas forged this mutuality on the ground, through active redefinition of alliances with Northern supporters. It argues that the Zapatistas delimited who was included in their solidarity networks, set new terms for partnerships, and redefined legitimacy in their transnational alliances. In so doing, they asserted their autonomy from donors. They also fostered discourses and practices of mutual solidarity and Southern leadership, shifting the balance of power between North and South. The case both illuminates the possibilities for Southern movements to challenge Northern control from within and suggests potential pitfalls of doing so; by defying Northern NGOs' influence, the Zapatistas may have risked their long-term viability.

More than 100 freedom of information (FOI) laws have been enacted worldwide, nearly half within the last 10 years. Yet these cross-domain, lynchpin transparency measures have received little scholarly attention. This article assesses the 16 FOI measures adopted across Latin America. Is secrecy being surrendered in a region marked by legacies of opacity? Why are some laws fulfilling their de jure potential in practice while others are not? This article aims to achieve 3 general objectives. It analyzes the de jure and de facto strength of Latin American FOI regimes; it exposes critical data-based and methodological challenges in evaluating and comparing transparency laws; and it illustrates how a causal mechanism, driven by the interactive dynamics of legislative balances of power and cabinet compositions, has had a determinate influence in shaping the strength of FOI regimes from adoption to implementation and reform.

Although Ecuadorian presidents tolerate most opposition voices most of the time, they routinely try to restrict the basic political liberties of particular critics. In doing so, they initiate executive assaults. Why do some of these executive assaults succeed while others fail? This article analyzes patterns of support for and opposition to publicly contested assaults in Ecuador between 1979 and 2004. Using a combination of statistical tests and a case study, it develops an argument based on the relative power of different types of organizations and associations to influence the outcomes of assault conflicts. The analysis demonstrates that executive assaults fail only when neither the state security forces nor the business sector supports them. In this situation, particular business organizations are able to force presidents to back down. The analysis provides new insights into the social foundations of democratic practice in Ecuador, and Latin America more broadly.

Since 1999, growing citizen dissatisfaction in Bolivia has been manifest in a cycle of often violent protests. Citizens believe that they have no means of expressing themselves except demonstrations. The public has grown weary of neoliberalism, which is perceived as benefiting only the elite. A recent economic downturn provided the catalyst for the unrest. Underlying these economic concerns, however, are fundamental problems with representation. The second Bolivian “revolution” involved not only the shift from state-led economic development to neoliberalism but also a shift from corporatism to pluralism. Representative institutions have not fully responded to the new pluralistic landscape, despite a range of political reforms. Many Bolivians find that their voice in government has weakened even as their needs have grown. The Bolivian case thereby highlights the obstacles young democracies face in winning over decreasingly tolerant citizens.

This study challenges the common view of authoritarianism as an unambiguously centralizing experience by investigating the subnational reforms that military governments actually introduced in Latin America. It argues that the decision by military authorities to dismiss democratically elected mayors and governors opened a critical juncture for the subsequent development of subnational institutions. Once they centralized political authority, the generals could contemplate changes that expanded the institutional, administrative, and governing capacity of subnational governments. This article shows how cross-national variation in the content and consistency of the generals' economic goals led to quite distinct subnational changes; in each case, these reforms profoundly shaped the democracies that reemerged in the 1980s and 1990s.

How does political competition shape institutions that govern the expansion of social policy subnationally? Brazilian states have shown a surprising variation in the design of their public health institutions, which regulate the distribution of health resources and citizen access to public health care. While many states have experienced fragmentation, some have remained highly centralized and discretionary, and only a select few have established a coordinated system based on power sharing and rules-based distribution. Accounts that link public health care expansion to federal government imposition, the presence of the public health care movement, and leftist parties cannot fully explain this variation. Instead, in the three Brazilian states examined here, the nature of subnational political competition triggered different institution-building strategies. The findings indicate that plural political competition yielded incentives for limiting state-level discretion and for sharing power with municipal governments, while political concentration reinforced the attraction to centralized and discretionary policymaking.

If one interprets China's sizable rise in Latin America as an unprecedented phenomenon, it follows that the concurrent story of declining U.S. influence in the region is an event hastily acknowledged at best and ignored at worst. In this article, we ask whether Chinese economic statecraft in Latin America is related to the declining U.S. hegemonic influence in the region and explore how. To do so we analyze foreign direct investments, bank loans, and international trade from 2003 to 2014, when China became a major player in the region. We use data from 21 Latin American countries, and find that an inversely proportional relationship exists between the investments made by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), bank loans, manufacturing exports, and the U.S. hegemonic influence exerted in the region. In other words, Beijing has filled the void left by a diminished U.S. presence in the latter's own backyard.

Government-initiated referendums (GIRs) have so far been neglected by the debate on the effects of institutions on policymaking in presidential systems. The literature on Latin American politics has focused on isolated cases of GIRs, which are largely interpreted as epiphenomenal to a regional trend toward personalistic neopopulism. This article provides a conceptual framework for the systematic comparative study of GIRs. It argues that presidents' propensity to promote legal changes through referendums and their concomitant capacity to dominate policymaking are subject to the interaction of two institutional variables (constitutional rules regulating the competences of elected officials in GIR processes and minimum turnout requirements) and two political variables (preference distribution in the legislature and the position of the median voter). These propositions are tested through a comparative analysis of referendum experiences in Colombia and Bolivia, two cases with similar political settings and significant variation in each of the institutional variables.