The relations between Argentina and the United States have been characterized by long periods of distrust and mutual hostility alternating with relatively brief intervals of rapprochement and collaboration. This pattern of habitual antagonism followed by sporadic reconciliation has turned the Argentine-US relationship into a peculiar case of rivalry in the interamerican scene. However, there has never been a period such as the one between 1980 and 1989, in which the bilateral relations fluctuated so widely between conflict and harmony.

From one of the poorest countries in Europe in the late 1950s, Spain emerged as a middle industrial power by the time of the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975. Subsequently, under the leadership of King Juan Carlos I, Franco's successor as chief of state, Spain negotiated a smooth transition from authoritarianism to a parliamentary-monarchy. On the first of January 1986, the Iberian nation acceded to full membership in the European Community (EC). However, prior to this date and independently of the EC (now the European Union), the Spanish state had already set in motion, in 1981, two great undertakings related to Latin America: (1) the commemoration of Columbus' fateful voyage to the New World in 1492 and (2) the formation of an “Iberoamerican Community of Nations.”

In his insightful book On the Law of Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan states that international law “is not higher law or better law; it is existing law. It is not a law that eschews force; such a view is alien to the very idea of law. Often as not it is the law of the victor; but it is law withal and does evolve” (Moynihan 1990, 19).

The rise of leftist governments in the Americas and the adoption of policy initiatives contrary to U.S. interests highlight a disconnect in interamerican relations, which cannot be understood simply as U.S. “neglect” of Latin America. In contrast to arguments that attribute the deteriorating relations to U.S. preoccupation with the Middle East, the article examines whether the “War on Terror” acted as a guiding paradigm for the George W. Bush administration in Latin America. Opposition to this “War on Terror” paradigm was evident following Colombia's 2008 air strike in Ecuador. Justified as a preemptive strike against a terrorist threat, Colombia's action met regional condemnation. The article argues that this Colombia-Latin America division reflects a larger geostrategic disconnect, whereby the “War on Terror” is challenged, causing the increasing marginalization of Washington and resistance to U.S. policy.

Mexico and the European Union signed a new Political and Economic Association Agreement in December 1997 and ultimately a free-trade agreement in March 2000, aiming to establish a new model of relations with a more dynamic trade and investment component. This article analyzes the 1997 agreement as background to the final accord. Economic and political changes in the 1990s modified both parties’ participation in the international political economy, helping to overcome some of the structural obstacles to the relationship. The policy toward Latin America adopted by the EU in 1994 was influential. The negotiation process revealed divergences over the scope of the liberalization process and the so-called democracy clause.

The Aylwin and Frei administrations have taken a cautious approach in formulating economic policies. This article analyzes how they have maintained economic stability, fueled sustained growth, and coped with inflows of foreign capital. While achieving successes in macroeconomic policy, export development, and poverty alleviation, Chile also faces challenges, including high social inequality and the increasing difficulty of dealing with the effects of financial globalization.

This article studies the motivations of party leaders to form “minimum winning” electoral coalitions—alliances that cease to be winning if one member is subtracted. In Brazil, concurrent elections stimulate political actors' coordination, and electoral alliances are allowed. In 2002 and 2006, moreover, the Electoral Supreme Court obliged those parties with presidential candidates to replicate this electoral arrangement in the district. Under “verticalization,” parties with presidential candidates could not form alliances with rival parties in the concurrent legislative and gubernatorial elections. Verticalization arguably pushed party leaders to form minimum winning electoral coalitions. This new rule forced them to reconsider the contributions of each possible ally in the elections for president, federal deputy, and governor. Examining the elections from 1998 to 2006, this study finds that under verticalization, while parties did form more electoral coalitions with those partners they considered crucial to win, they did so at the expense of policy.

Según lo que aquí visto, es tan buena la justicia que es necesaria que se use aun entre los mesmos ladrones (Sancho Panza).

The growth and importance of the underground economy has come under increasing attention from the economic profession in recent years. However, there is no consensus as to precisely which economic activities can properly be defined as forming this segment of the larger economy, although one observer has commented that they range “from relatively legal to totally criminal, that somehow escape official attention and may distort official statistics and lead to erroneous policies” (Tanzi, 1983:10). The “relatively legal” activities, which exist at one end of the spectrum, basically consist of those normal activities whose exercise is either inhibited by government red tape or which are subject to restrictions (such as minimum standards) which their agents are reluctant to meet.

This article examines the political strategies of the EZLN, or Zapatista army, in Chiapas and the EPR, which operates mostly in Oaxaca and Guerrero, through a content analysis of their communiquiés. It argues that these two guerrilla movements demonstrate, through their cultural production, significantly different priorities and preferences; and that these differences reflect different strategic choices. Whereas the EZLN has chosen to pursue a revolutionary strategy similar in key respects to the “war of position” described by Gramsci, the EPR remains closer to the “war of movement.”

Because of its early positive assessments, participatory budgeting (PB) has been and continues to be praised by several policymakers, and the Brazilian model has become an institutional blueprint around the world. No one questions the way the model has evolved in Brazilian municipalities with a long tradition of PB, but it was institutionalized there through practice and not through state legislation. It is thus highly permeable to political will and evolving ideas. Looking at the case of Belo Horizonte, where it was implemented in 1993, this study argues that while the political rhetoric of PB has remained central to political discourse over time, a significant but gradual policy change has occurred in practice. This change has important implications: not only does it have an impact on the policy outcomes of PB, but it also contributes to delegitimating the process for its participants, abetting its gradual deinstitutionalization.

This article examines business political behavior in Colombia during the scandal-ridden presidency of Ernesto Samper (1994-98), highlighting the mechanisms by which grupos (diversified economic groups) undermined the ability of organized business to present collective political positions. Evidence that the presidential campaign had been funded by drug traffickers prompted business associations to demand Samper's resignation. But grupos, the firms of which are affiliated with associations, supported the president. This division weakened the position of organized business regarding the resignation, as well as its own political legitimacy. This study argues that grupos face strong incentives to act outside business associations to advance their particular interests. Scholars assessing the strength of organized business in Latin America will increasingly encounter the impact of grupos on business institutional responses to policy.

From 1912 until the late 1920s Argentina faced an agrarian social and economic crisis of proportions unprecedented in the republic's history. Trapped between unstable prices and the exactions of landlords, thousands of tenant farmers organized, went on strike, and at times sabotaged agricultural production. This unrest swept across the cereal belt, a 160,000,000-acre zone of extremely fertile soil in the provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, Córdoba, and Buenos Aires, and in the national territory of La Pampa. After 1919, rural unrest acquired new complexity when tens of thousands of landless workers employed by the tenant farmers began strike movements of their own. The purpose of the present article is to analyze the origins and characteristics of this rural upheaval and then to examine the responses to it formulated by the republic's national political leaders.

The free-lance writer Claire Sterling has done what academics have so far failed to do: document the fact that corruption and the violence which so often accompanies it, represent a real security threat to the nations of this world (see Sterling, 1984, 1990, 1994). In three data-packed books, Sterling has exposed the ugly, dark side of the waves of money which flow through many major financial systems and, quite literally, flood some of the small states. Even the most jaded student of the Caribbean, for instance, has to take seriously some of her most recent revelations, not the least of which is the following startling assertion:

While Sterling errs in calling Aruba a sovereign state - its defense and foreign policy are still under control of The Netherlands - her account of how the Caracas-based Cuntrera brothers had managed to penetrate Aruba and buy everything “from hotels . . . to the prime minister . . . ” found partial corroboration in the massive investigation of the Sicilian Mafia launched in Italy in the early 1990s.

The recent coups and attempted coups in Haiti, Venezuela, and Peru serve as a sobering reminder of the military's central role in the political life of Latin America. Earlier assessments of the prospects for democratic consolidation now seem overly optimistic in light of these events. At a minimum, they point up the need to focus on the role of the military during transitions from authoritarianism and the consolidation of democratic regimes. As Stepan has suggested, prolonged military rule can leave important legacies which serve as powerful obstacles to democratic consolidation (Stepan, 1988: xi-xii). Understanding these legacies and the problems they present is essential in developing strategies aimed at democratizing civil-military relations.

This is no less true in El Salvador, where the prospects for democratization are closely linked to the future of the country's armed forces.

Do primaries help political parties perform better in general elections, or do they undermine electoral performance by contributing to internal divisions and to the weakening of party organizations? This article examines the effect of holding a primary on the general election prospects of candidates, using cases from two of the three major parties in Mexico's 2006 national legislative elections. In both parties, primaries fail to systematically produce candidates with advantages in the general election, due largely to organizational deficits of the parties and low entry requirements for aspiring precandidates. Indeed, outside urban centers, where parties tend to be better organized, primaries actually seem to hurt party performance in subsequent general elections.

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.

The 2000 presidential election of opposition candidate Vicente Fox signaled an end to seven decades of Mexico's single-party regime and seemed to herald the advent of truly competitive politics. But by 2003, economic reform had largely stalled, and Fox's party suffered a historically unprecedented midterm loss in the congress. This article analyzes the underpinnings of policy gridlock in the Fox administration. Fox inherited the need for microeconomic restructuring and increased competitiveness, more innovative and pragmatic state policies, the need to pay attention to the country's sharp income inequalities, and the challenge of crafting a political strategy that could build a middle ground and foster policy consensus. With his party's minority standing in the congress, Fox was constrained from the start by divided government. But more effective statecraft and coalition building would have helped. These will be essential elements for the success of any post-Fox regime.

This article analyzes the constitution of dockworkers’ power and its impact on trade union strategy in recent labor disputes in Chile and Colombia. Dockworkers’ strategic location in the economies of both countries would predict a high degree of shop-floor power among both groups. In practice, however, Colombian dock-workers had far less shop-floor power than their Chilean counterparts, as a result of mitigating social and political factors. Consequently, they developed a strategy this study terms human rights unionism, relying on external allies and lawsuits for leverage, rather than shop-floor action. Dockworkers in Chile, by contrast, adopted a strategy termed class struggle unionism, relying on nationally and internationally coordinated shop-floor action. This article therefore proposes an expanded model of workers’ structural power, incorporating the roles of state and society to better account for power differentials and divergent strategic pathways among workers who share a common position in the economic system.

Scholarly attention has increasingly shifted from diminished subtypes of democracy to hybrid regimes, particularly competitive authoritarianism. Such regimes retain democracy’s formal features while failing to meet its minimum standards. When properties of distinct concepts like democracy and authoritarianism are combined, however, confusion, inaccuracy, and mischaracterization of cases may occur. By disaggregating political systems into electoral institutions, surrounding rights and freedoms, constitutionalism, and the rule of law, this article complicates the binary distinction between a midrange definition of democracy and competitive authoritarianism. A number of Andean cases are found to fall on the spectrum of defective democracies between these categories. Defective democracies break down when rulers violate the conditions necessary for institutionalized alternation in power by means of public participation and loyal opposition in an electoral regime. Given leaders’ reliance on electoral legitimacy, however, even defective democracies may prove surprisingly resilient.