This study explores the ideological response of Argentina's Generación del Ochenta to the ‘modernisation’ over which they presided. It begins with a brief analysis of the political role of the Generación, the urban reform of Buenos Aires, and the socio-economic developments associated with both. It goes on to discuss the nature of the elite, the socialisation of its members, and the informal networks central to its role. It concludes by discussing the role of ideology in elite domination, particularly in response to perceived threats associated with the nation's dramatic changes, focussing upon the writing of the Generación's exemplar, Miguel Cané.

This article seeks to explain the breakdown of post-colonial order in the northern Brazilian province of Maranhão that culminated in the Balaiada rebellion (1838–41). Interpretations usually do not take into account the intense political agitation of the previous decades, which already involved lower class participation, and they fail to recognise the major socio-economic differences between the areas touched by the revolt. The main arguments are, first, that the struggle for Independence in Maranhão, more violent than in most other provinces, opened the door to lower class involvement in politics under liberal leadership. Secondly, the struggle between local elites for regional power led to exclusion of peripheral elites within the province and fuelled lower class unrest. Significant moments of rupture between liberal leadership and popular movement occurred as early as 1823–4 and 1831–2. Thirdly, the main structural factor leading to the 1838 outbreak of rebellion was the resistance to military recruitment by the free lower classes, which provided a unifying slogan to otherwise heterogeneous groups of peasants, cowboys, and fishermen. Fourthly, the differences in social structure between the cattle producing South, the cotton plantation belt of the Itapecuru valley and the strong subsistence sector in Eastern Maranhão account for substantial differences in terms of support and leadership during the Balaiada. Whilst fazendeiros lead the struggle in Southern Maranhão, as well as in most of the neighbouring Piauí province, leadership in Eastern Maranhão was almost entirely of lower class origin. Finally, the dynamics of the movement could lead in Eastern Maranhão to a rupture with elite liberalism and envisage the alliance between free rebels and maroons.

Commemorating the expulsion of Portuguese troops from Salvador, Bahia, on 2 July 1823, the Dois de Julho festival represented Bahian society collectively and marked differences of national origin, class, and race. It challenged the Brazilian state's official patriotism by articulating a regional identity, and through its commemoration of the independence-era popular mobilisation, presented a story of Brazil's origins that contradicted the official patriotism which celebrated Emperor Pedro I as Brazil's founder. Dois de Julho's popularity and durability, moreover, suggest a significant and socially-broad engagement with the imperial state, which cannot be considered a remote and alien entity to the urban population.

The social and economic history of North-Eastern Brazil has largely been written as the story of slave-holding plantations. In contrast, this article focuses on the peasant agriculture of tobacco in the state of Bahia. It shows how the small-scale cultivation of tobacco for the European (mainly German) export market had already started well before the end of slavery. Tobacco cultivation gradually expanded to become the most important export product in the first decade of the twentieth century. Apart from its economic significance, the history of Bahian tobacco agriculture throws an interesting light on the social and political relations in the region. Land ownership among the tobacco farmers expanded, but most of them remained locked into ties of dependency to commercial intermediaries and large landowners. On the other hand, the latter's dominant position did not lead to a strong position for tobacco interests in the regional political arena. Finally, the tobacco producers originated in the black (ex-)slave community. This article argues that this specific ethnic make-up played an important role in the organisation of the tobacco sector and its relative neglect by regional and national politicians.

The electoral democracy created by the Sáenz Peña Law of 1912 opened up dramatic new possibilities for working-class political identity. In the important port city of Rosario, the Radical politician Ricardo Caballero crafted a political discourse that combined an explicit defence of working-class interests with a nostalgic depiction of the country's rural past. By linking class consciousness with images drawn from the popular culture of the ‘gauchesque,’ Caballerismo constructed a distinctively working-class version of Argentine nationalism and citizenship.

This article seeks to demonstrate the need to incorporate the international component of political strategy into analysis of the behaviour of democratising elites, a standpoint that too often has been neglected in democratisation theory. It explores a little-known aspect of Argentina's foreign policy that took place under the stewardship of the transitional democratic administration of President Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989). Specifically, it reveals that the first-freely elected administration that followed the Procesco military dictatorship articulated and implemented a strategy that aimed at defending and promoting democratic values in relation to Argentina's Southern Cone and Andean neighbours. Argentine bilateral relations with Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Chile are analysed through this analytical standpoint. It is argued that the Alfonsín government pursued such a policy out of a blend of fear for its own perpetuation and principled beliefs about the value of democracy as a mode of governance.

The success of the Radical Party in Argentina under Hipólito Yrigoyen has frequently been attributed to the creation of an effective political machine. While the machine did exist, it cannot explain Yrigoyen's overwhelming popularity with many sectors. Such political organisations and client–patron relations flourished in many cities throughout the world. This article examines employment with the municipality of Buenos Aires, and concludes not only did governments both before and after Yrigoyen have similar policies but all major political parties shared in the spoils. However, they failed to reap similar political benefits. The roots of Yrigoyen's popularity lie elsewhere.

The tenuous organisational structure of the Venezuelan neighbourhood movement explains its failure to live up to the lofty expectations which social movements created in Latin America in the 1980s. To understand why structural looseness prevails, it is necessary to examine social cleavages as well as the disparity between the theoretical model which underpins much discourse and legislation, on the one hand, and the daily practice of neighbourhood associations, on the other. An additional area of enquiry is the division in the national leadership between an apolitical current and one that views electoral politics as a natural avenue for the movement to pursue. Scholars, even those who have recently emphasized the importance of links between social movements and political structures, overlook the importance of organisational unity at the national level.

Banks in Porfirian Mexico widely engaged in the practice of making long-term loans to their own directors, a practice known as ‘auto-prestamo’. This was neither pernicious nor fraudulent. Rather, Porfirian banks behaved as the financial arms of extended kinship and personal business groups. These groups used banks to raise impersonal capital for their diversified enterprises and give their partnerships a more permanent institutional base. Investors in these banks knew full well that they were investing in the businesses of a particular group and developed sophisticated techniques to monitor bank directors. However, because entry into banking was severely restricted under Porfirian law, the system concentrated economic power in a few hands and contributed to Mexico's oligopolistic industrial structure.

With the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement); the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional), and political crisis/reform all posing questions both old and new about Mexican nationalism, this article reconsiders the dimensions of the subject, the issues, and the empirical evidence. After setting out an analytical and theoretical framework for the study of nationalism, it concentrates on the many components of Mexican nationalism, the historic and on-going nationalist debates over the Indian, the American and the state, and the nature of nationalist policies over the years. It then reviews research related to such theoretical issues as the linkages between nationalist sentiments, ideas and policies, the social bases of nationalist ideas and perceptions, and the changes in nationalism. The article aims to place longstanding discussions of Mexican nationalism in a theoretical context and to derive conclusions which indicate appropriate directions for future research.

This article examines the relationship between pact-making and democratic transitions in Nicaragua (1988–1997) and El Salvador (1990–1997). We argue that the process of elite bargaining about regime change affects the prospects for the consolidation of democracy. We emphasise three factors: (1) the choices key actors make as they bargain about bargaining, (2) their willingness to ‘under-utilise’ their power and (3) the influence of historical and structural contingencies upon the key choices made. Essential to our discussion of historical and structural contingencies is the interrelation of domestic and international actors and the importance of demilitarisation and institutional reform. We argue that these three factors favoured El Salvador more than Nicaragua, although neither nation has overcome the political polarisation characteristic of transitional regimes.

This article studies the Mexican cristero rebellion of 1926–9. While scholars assert that the rebellion was the product of a clash between ‘modern’ liberal and ‘traditional’ Catholic mentalities, it is argued here that Ladislao Molina was an astute political actor who embraced a liberal ideology in order to establish a cacicazgo in his home region of Michoacán. When Molina was threatened by state encroachments and agrarian demands, he, like other members of the middling rural strata, promoted a Catholic rebellion not because of religious piety but in order to protect his sphere of influence.

Evidence from six Mexican states is analyzed about changes in government organisation and performance arising from decentralisation and the recasting of federalism structures. Spurred by rising pluralism, greater electoral transparency, alternancia, and willingness of the Centre to ‘let go’, a more genuine structure of shared powers is emerging between the executive (governors), the legislature and the judiciary. The government bureaucracy is undergoing modernisation, and governors are seeking to share power with legislatures as a means of sharing the responsibilities of statecraft. Local congresses are exercising greater ‘checks’ and ‘balances’ vis-à-vis the executive branch. Finally, the judiciary is beginning to be reorganised, particularly at the national (Supreme Court) level, where it is starting to develop jurisprudence relating to inter- and intra-governmental relations.

Regional economic integration schemes abound in Latin America, yet very little is known about the degree of popular support for such programmes. Now that democratic regimes rule in almost all of Latin America, public opinion can have an important impact on national policies. This paper examines the attitudes toward economic integration in 17 mainland Latin American countries with interview data from over 18,000 people. Bi-variate and multivariate analyses are conducted on the factors related to support for regional integration. Perceived benefits of integration and perceptions of personal and national economic situation prove to be important factors, as are higher levels of education, support for democracy and gender (males favour integration more than females). Two novel findings are that a positive opinion of the European Union along with satisfaction with the functioning of democracy are both linked to greater support for integration.

This article analyses the surprising emergence of a comprehensive and coherent neo-liberal developmental model during the period of military rule in Chile. Rather than reflecting a clear and definitive choice, the political process that produced this model was characterised by hesitation, policy contradiction, shifting priorities, and incremental choices. This was a result of the military's efforts to deal with two, often conflicting, overarching goals – economic and political stabilisation – as they evolved and were redefined over time. The focus on incremental, iterated decision-making weaves the insights of other explanations based in underlying institutional, coalitional, or ideational factors into a micro-political explanation that is consistent with the substantial variations in policy outcome across different phases of military rule.

The objective is clear: to reinstate the legitimate President in his functions and ensure his maintenance in power until the end of his mandate. The question which is posed is to know how to achieve this objective: international force or national compromise? – Boutros Boutros-Ghali, UN Secretary-General.

This article argues that the training and employment policies of Chile's transition governments since 1990 have failed significantly to promote the development of human resources and occupational citizenship, and identifies key structural and political causes. In particular, the weak development of the property rights of labour and of markets in skill are seen as enduring economic and institutional legacies of the period of dictatorship which continue to constrain key areas of economic development as well as social citizenship rights. The article advocates an analysis of citizenship and skill development that identifies the problem of institutional coordination between a range of different services in labour markets. It suggests that the social organisation of skill markets in Chile systematically discriminates against long-term investments in workers. Hence, even in Chile where economic reformers have sought to maximise markets, decisions on skill investments are, to an important degree, conditioned by power relations and organisational inertia inside individual firms and, at the aggregate level, by the selective channelling of information and the (unplanned) institutional structuring of training supply.

Since the trade liberalisation of the mid 1980s the trade regime facing Mexican manufacturers has changed dramatically. The economy has moved from one where import substitution behind tariffs and some licensing restrictions was the norm to a highly open trading environment with virtual free trade between Mexico and its largest trade partner the USA and modest tariffs of around 10 per cent with other countries. Since the late 1980s manufactured exports have grown dramatically at one of the fastest rates of any economy, although financed by large capital inflows the net trade balance in manufactures remains negative. This paper surveys the recent evidence on the impact of this liberalisation process on manufacturing performance. Various performance indicators can be used to assess the impact on manufacturing. Here four are discussed: (1) revealed comparative advantage measures of net trade balance; (2) efficiency wage estimates of unit labour costs; (3) total factor growth; (4) export growth. The performance of different branches of manufacturing is examined using these indicators and tests are conducted to establish links between movements in these indicators and the degree of exposure to foreign competition experienced by the various branches. The general conclusion is that the evidence is ambiguous with only some studies supporting the view that the greater the trade liberalisation in a branch the greater will be the subsequent improvement in performance.

Even before Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London in October 1998, the past hung heavily over Chile's distinctive transition to democracy. This was apparent during the previous year in the attention given to its conflictive recent history in television and radio talk shows and in newspaper and magazine articles. Since the return to elected rule in 1990, volumes on the dictatorship and the Popular Unity government were staples in Santiago bookstores. With the approach of the 25th anniversary of the 1973 military coup, what had been a steady stream of publication turned into a torrent of personal and political memoirs, extended essays, political journalism, and scholarly studies evoking the country's divided historical memory.