This article examines the tensions between the Gran Colombian republican constitution of 1821 and Simón Bolívar's fear of a mulatto takeover. It focuses on Cartagena in the 1820s, where the mulatto general José Padilla challenged the socio-racial hierarchy and accepted notions of equality of the city, heading a three-day coup in 1828 against Bolívar's attempt to impose a new authoritarian constitution. Padilla failed to rally the mostly African-derived population of Cartagena behind the republican views of Francisco de Paula Santander and was promptly executed. Using the protagonists' correspondence, manifestos, criminal investigations, consular reports and censuses, the article analyses the factors in the city's demography, political leadership and culture, and in the composition of its military forces, that explain Padilla's failure. It highlights the role played by race and by Bolívar's views of mulattos in the process.

Cycles of bureaucratic corruption in nineteenth-century Cuba evolved according to institutional conditions shaped by interest groups, financial needs, imperatives of colonial governance, and internal conflicts and war. Corrupt gain inimical to general public interest was not a consequence of cultural constants, but of unreconstructed institutional flaws and weaknesses. The risks of engaging in bureaucratic corruption diminished under the systematic condoning of administrative faults, collusive allowance of illegal slave trafficking, and a code of illegal rewards expected by loyalist officials opposing colonial reform. Despite some few anti-corruption initiatives, the prosecution and punishment of corrupt officials was lax. The implicit, yet significant, financial, institutional and political costs of corruption contributed to the demise of Spanish imperial dominion over Cuba and left a damaging burden and legacy for Cuban civil society.

Beset by a variety of diseases, numerous public health measures were advocated in late-nineteenth century Chile. Among these was the call for mandatory vaccination. Although the state supported programmes to encourage vaccination, these were voluntary. In the early 1880s, however, some legislators argued that compulsory vaccination would substantially reduce the death rate. Surprisingly, the legislature rejected this proposal. Claiming that the vaccination legislation would enhance the power of the executive branch, the congressmen soundly rejected an apolitical proposal designed to improve public health.

Brazil's President Fernando Henrique Cardoso will be remembered for his administration's accomplishments as well as the problems his government left unresolved. On the one hand, fiscal policy represents one of Cardoso's success stories: the Plano Real curbed inflation, established economic stability, and enabled the central government to rein in subnational governments' out-of-control spending patterns, which had been a key source of macroeconomic instability. However, the question remains whether Brazil can truly escape from the political and economic consequences of past fiscal profligacy. Despite many successes, Cardoso's own policies have created additional obstacles that future administrations will necessarily confront, in particular a dramatic increase in Brazil's internal debt. Observers of Brazil should count both sides of the accounting ledger when evaluating the Cardoso administration. Much has been gained, but the costs of those gains must be recognised and the impact of those gains on the range of policy choice available to future administrations understood. This article explores the factors that contributed to Brazil's macroeconomic difficulties prior to 1995, and then explores how the Plano Real provided the Cardoso administration with leverage to constrain the capacity of subnational actors to affect Brazil's economy. Subsequently, however, the paper describes how the Cardoso administration's policies have created Brazil's current ‘fiscal straitjacket’, and concludes by discussing how Cardoso's policies will constrain future administrations.

This article examines the recent trends in extending the global garment production process to the rural areas of the Laguna region and the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. As these remote regions are incorporated into global markets, several similar patterns and rationale are found behind the policies followed by state governments to attract these types of enterprises. The implications for regional economic development are also discussed.

This article compares the effects of tax reform on tax compliance in Argentina and Chile. After constructing three different comparative indexes of tax compliance, it proposes a comprehensive approach, which includes political, economic and sociological explanations to address the different behaviour of taxpayers in each country. It concludes that Chile was able to enhance better tax compliance because it has implemented a permanent, stable and rational policy that allowed for the development of an effective tax administration – a process never fully accomplished in Argentina. Tax reforms may enhance better compliance only after they reverse the entrenched evasion strategies of the taxpayers.