Brazil, during the past thirty years, has undergone extensive social and economic change, amounting to a Brazilian “Industrial Revolution”. It is always somewhat arbitrary to assign dates to broad historical events, but, if establishment of a starting point for the Industrial Revolution would aid in its understanding, the best date is probably 1930. In the economic field, it is true, World War One represented a first step; in the cultural field, the Week of Modern Art (1922 in Sao Paulo) was the first significant manifestation of a really Brazilian culture. But in both cultural and economic fields, and especially in the political field, the Revolution of 1930 (when Getúlio Vargas came to power), and the world depression beginning in 1929, are the most important events. The phase that many sociologists, economists, and historians call either the National Revolution or the Industrial Revolution, the stage that W. W. Rostow prefers to call the take-off period, began at that time in Brazil.

Like the reports of Mark Twain's death, the claims of a wave of democratization sweeping Latin America may be exaggerated. Yet the resurgence of electoral politics and the receding of military rule since the 1980s are trends that hold significance both for the future of Latin America and for inter-American relations. The transitions from bureaucratic-authoritarian rule in South America, and from the oligarchy-military alliances in Central America, have been a major focus of recent US policy attention. From the human rights approach of the Carter administration to the Reagan rollback doctrine, US policy became more actively engaged in controversial attempts to define and impose “democracy” in the region. After the end of the Cold War, US action or inaction remained key factors in the events surrounding the 1989 elections in Panama and the 1990 elections in Haiti and Nicaragua.

In recent years, many Latin American countries (LACs) have embarked upon trade liberalization drives. This article reviews the radical changes in trade policy which this has entailed, together with the current and foreseeable results, and offers some policy recommendations regarding complementary measures.

The first sustained experience with trade liberalization in recent decades was in Chile, which launched a process in the 1970s that, by the end of that decade, had made its economy one of the most open in the world.

When delegating governing tasks to a coalition partner, the president would like to give a minister ample administrative powers to be able to effectively accomplish the political mission. Due to information asymmetries, the president runs the risk that this discretion might be used to pursue policy outcomes that may harm the president's preferences. This trade-off between delegation and control is key to understanding governance strategies the president chooses to minimize agency risks and coordinate public policies. With Brazil as a case study, this article demonstrates that presidents have strategically made frequent use of junior ministers as watch-dogs of coalition partners, especially when coalition allies are ideologically distant from the president's preferences. Yet neither the portfolio salience nor the president's decision to share powers with coalition partners proportionally seems to interfere in such strategic decisions.

Why has the Cuban government been so successful in its system of social control, and why might that system's effectiveness now be on the wane? This study argues that Cuba combines formal and informal systems of control that simultaneously emphasize openness and rigidity. The formal system is geared to block all antihegemonic acts, particularly those that, if left unchecked, could become symbolic acts encouraging similar behavior that the authorities deem undesirable. The system favors reactive rather than proactive approaches, as exemplified by the rapid action brigades. Noninstitutionalized collective behavior is also taking place, as is the emergence of civil society.

Venezuela, once the most governable democracy in Latin America, is now a very fragile democracy. This article describes the formula that made Venezuela governable in the 1970s, traces its development in the 1960s, and explains why it broke down in the 1980s, leaving the democratic regime in danger in the 1990s. This historical perspective is necessary for anyone seeking to understand the prospects for democratic govemability in the Caldera government, for this administration will be expected to provide an alternative to the old formula. At the same time, it will be judged by comparison with the achievements of the old formula. If Caldera's democratic alternative is judged a failure, many Venezuelans will be inclined to give the nondemocractic alternative a second look. The historical perspective is also useful in deriving lessons that can be applied to other Latin American democracies. First, because Venezuela's formula worked well for a while, it helps to identify the elements of democratic govemability.

In Nicaragua in July 1979, the Sandinista popular revolutionary movement finally succeeded in overthrowing the dictatorship of the Somoza family, which had been placed in power and then supported for many years by the U.S. government. Analysis of the revolution, even in conservative U.S. government sources (LeoGrande, 1979; Montgomery, 1980), has noted the greed and corruption of the Somoza dynasty and the poverty, illiteracy, and poor health of Nicaragua's masses. More liberal sources (Koeppel and Harvey, 1980; Burbach and Draimin, 1980) comment favorably on the democratic and social justice orientation of the new revolutionary government. Coverage of the revolution, however, has barely mentioned the east coast, an isolated, ethnically complex, and fascinating part of the country.

The Growth of the illegal, psychoactive drug industry has had a dramatic impact on Colombia. Most studies of the financial effects of this industry — mainly cocaine and its by products, but extending also to marijuana, quaaludes, other psychoactive substances, and, more recently, heroin — have focussed upon trying to estimate its size and determining its impact on the national economy. On the whole, the conclusion of most observers has been that its effects on the latter have been more negative that positive (Kalmanovitz, 1989; Reyes, 1990; Sarmiento, 1990; Urrutia, 1990; Thoumi, 1987).

Few political transformations have attacked social inequalities more thoroughly than the 1959 Cuban Revolution. As the survey data in this article show, however, sixty years on, structural inequalities are returning that echo the prerevolutionary socioethnic hierarchies. While official Cuban statistics are mute about social differences along racial lines, the authors were able to conduct a unique, nationwide survey with more than one thousand respondents that shows the contrary. Amid depressed wages in the state-run economy, access to hard currency has become key. However, racialized migration patterns of the past make for highly unequal access to family remittances, and the gradual opening of private business disfavors Afro- Cubans, due to their lack of access to prerevolutionary property and startup capital. Despite the political continuity of Communist Party rule, a restructuring of Cuban society with a profound racial bias is turning back one of the proudest achievements of the revolution.

In many developing countries with weak formal institutions, the protection of state actors is essential for organized criminal activities and illicit markets to emerge and thrive. This article examines the relationship between the state’s regulation of drug trafficking and its associated violence in highly fragmented markets. It argues that political competition influences coordination among the police, generating different types of regulatory regimes. Police with greater coordination implement protection rackets that curb violence; uncoordinated police carry out particularistic negotiations with drug traffickers that exacerbate criminal violence. This argument is illustrated with a subnational comparison of two Argentine provinces that experienced a similar drug market expansion with different patterns of violence. These cases show how corrupt states can obtain relative order in highly fragmented drug markets, and illustrate police influence in shaping the evolution of drug dealing in metropolitan areas.

Implementing market-oriented reforms is often a contentious affair, especially in new democracies. It can be time-consuming when the democratic process permits many opportunities to examine (and to block) controversial proposals. Conversely, when debate is limited by various means, the pursuit of reform can undermine the democratic regime. How, then, can market-oriented reforms and democracy be consolidated simultaneously?

While financial globalization has created powerful incentives for Latin American governments to privatize old age pension systems, reliance on short-term capital flows has also constrained the ability of cash-strapped governments to enact that reform. Analysis of the technocratic process of pension reform in Argentina and Brazil provides evidence. Instead of simply generating unidirectional pressures for structural pension reform, financial globalization has created a double bind for Latin America's capital-scarce governments, fostering long-term incentives to privatize pension systems while heightening the risk of punishment in the short term.

The literature on the origins of democratic institutions is split between bottom-up and top-down approaches. The former emphasize societal factors that press for democracy; the latter, rules and institutions that shape elites' incentives. Can these approaches be reconciled? This article proposes competitive political parties, more so than degrees of modernization and associationalism, as the link between the two. Competitive political parties enhance society's bargaining power with the state and show dominant elites that liberalization is in their best interest; the parties are thus effective conduits of democracy. In the context of party deficit, the prospects for democratization or redemocratization are slim. This is illustrated by comparing Cuba and Venezuela in the 1950s and 1990s.

Latin America is a region of sharp ethnic inequalities. Uruguay has usually been considered an exception to this pattern, although no data were available to confirm this assumption until recently. This article uses the Household Survey of 2006 to analyze the wage gap between Afro-descendants and whites through OLS equations, decompositions, and quantile regressions. The analysis finds that discrimination explains approximately 50 percent of the racial wage gap for men and 20 percent for women. Discrimination operates partly through occupational segregation. Differences in schooling are the most important explanatory factor for the rest of the gap. Quantile regressions show that discrimination declines across percentiles for men.

Scholars debate whether the recent conversion of millions of Latin Americans to evangelical Protestantism bodes well for democratic participation or reinforces authoritarian culture and practices. Using a resource model, this study examines the link between participation in religious organizations, political engagement, and political participation in Brazil and Chile. Survey data indicate that religious organizations, particularly Protestant ones, can provide skills that members can transfer to political activity; and that different religions can result in different politics.

What happens to a country's system of labor laws when its government embraces market-oriented reforms? In a twist on the prediction that labor regulations will be repealed, researchers find that laws remain in place but are not faithfully enforced, a phenomenon known as de facto flexibility. This article examines the case of Brazil to understand its near-opposite; namely, resilience and renewal in the enforcement of labor regulations. It finds that labor unions have combined the corporatist authority they gained under state control with the autonomy they acquired under democratization to devise new modes of action and to safeguard existing regulations. Meanwhile, labor inspectors and prosecutors rely on existing laws to combat precarious work conditions and promote formal employment relations, which strengthen the unions. This mutually supportive arrangement is neither perfect nor free of tension, but it shows how workers can be protected even when employers are subjected to global competition.

Many existing explanations of electoral volatility have been tested at the country level, but they are largely untested at the individual party level. This study reexamines theories of electoral volatility through the use of multilevel models on party-level data in the lower house elections of 18 Latin American countries from 1978 to 2012. Testing hypotheses at different levels, it finds that irregular institutional alteration increases electoral volatility for all the parties in a country, but the effect is more significant for the presidential party. At the party level, the results show that while a party that is more ideologically distinctive than other parties tends to experience lower electoral volatility, party age is not a statistically significant factor for explaining party volatility.

Are party switchers successful at furthering their careers? Most research on party switching focuses on the decision to switch and with which party to affiliate. Less attention is paid to the costs and benefits of switching parties. Moreover, previous research examining the electoral success of party switchers has often ignored how costs vary between the candidate selection process and the general election. This study addresses this gap in the literature by using original data on the careers of Mexican federal deputies to examine the costs and benefits of switching parties at the candidate selection stage and during general elections. The results suggest that party switchers are more successful at winning ballot access than nonswitchers but are less likely to win office. These results help explain why ambitious politicians would switch parties, given the known risks of changing party affiliation.

This article asks whether economic liberalization, under certain institutional conditions, is indirectly related to drug violence. Focusing on Mexico’s drug trade, where violence was historically limited by politicoinstitutional arrangements, this study examines how trade liberalization shapes social exclusion in key trafficking regions and, in turn, shapes the industry. It argues that the change in development strategy has increased the flow of workers into the drug trade by reconfiguring the agricultural sector in regions where drugs are produced while failing to absorb surplus labor in manufacturing centers containing key smuggling routes. Through both mechanisms, workers enter an illicit market with new institutional settings that allow for fierce competition and the use of violence. Using panel data on drug violence from 2007 to 2011, the study finds that exposure to trade is associated with violence in both drug-producing and -smuggling regions, but with a more sizable effect in the former.

Over the last decades, indigenous movements have propelled the political empowerment of historically marginalized groups in Latin America. The Maya struggle for ethnic equality in Guatemala, however, since its reawakening during the peace process, has reached an impasse. Based on field research consisting of dozens of elite interviews, this article analyzes the patterns of and obstacles to present-day Maya mobilization. It combines movement-internal and -external factors in an overarching theoretical argument about indigenous movements' capacity to construct strong collective voices. In the Guatemalan case, organizational sectorization, the lack of elite consensus on key substantive issues, and unclear alliance strategies compromise the effectiveness of horizontal voice among Maya organizations. These problems are exacerbated by the lasting effects of the country's unique history of violence and state strategies of divide and rule, preventing the emergence of a strong vertical voice capable of challenging the Guatemalan state.