This article examines the World Bank's role in the market policy reform experiences of Mexico and Argentina. It argues that while reform was driven by domestic elites, the bank played an important role, providing technical advice and financial support and helping to spread market reform ideas. The nature of the bank's involvement, however, differed substantially in the two countries because of their distinct political arrangements, histories, and geopolitical positions in regard to the United States. In the recent era of second-generation reforms, the World Bank's involvement in compensatory policy development has become more focused, although still more intense in Argentina than in Mexico. This involvement has important implications for the quality of democracy, insofar as the 1990s market reforms were formulated by insulated international policy networks unaccountable to the public. Recently, the bank has declared its commitment to involve civil society in its lending policies, a move that may have important implications for democratic development.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the development policies applied to Latin American countries in the post-war period, particularly those designed to develop manufacturing production for the domestic market through tariff protection. The paper will try to find out whether such policies (1) brought about reasonably high rates of growth; (2) distorted the structure of domestic prices and hindered the later development of manufactures exports; (3) provoked persistent balance of payments disequilibria, thereby forcing the countries to borrow abroad in large quantities; and (4) weakened the countries' capacity to resume development in the future, once the current debt crisis is overcome.

Advancing conclusions, the first and fourth questions can be answered with a relatively high degree of confidence: inward-oriented policies promoted a high rate of growth during the three decades spanning 1950 to 1980, but narrowed the import coefficient to a degree that will force the countries to depend almost solely on export promotion to resume their development in the future.

This article examines whether conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have had a significant effect on reducing murder rates in Mexico and Brazil, using time-series municipal-level data on murders in both countries. The findings, over the period 2005–8, show that the greater the proportion of beneficiaries enrolled in a CCT program in each municipality, the lower the number of murders. There are, however, important differences between the two countries, with a much larger effect in Brazil than in Mexico. This holds even when controlling for GDP and levels of development.

The growing importance of third world countries in the international system brings their potential for conflict and cooperation to the forefront. Given the fact that the East-West conflict tends to intensify the North-South conflict, a general tendency toward more warlike antagonisms is becoming evident within the Third World. In view of this trend, Latin America as a region becomes particularly interesting; conditions here have always led to conflict situations between the various countries, but specific historical factors seem to have kept these conflicts from erupting to the same extent that they have in other regions of the Third World.

Conflicts between two states do not suddenly occur. Their virulence rather gradually develops from a mixture of border conflicts, historical animosities, economic disputes, differences in political systems, arms races, and certainly, the influence of the big powers.

Taking the 1997-98 electoral season as its case study, this article seeks to determine whether Colombia’s party system is undergoing deinstitutionalization. The resilience of the Liberal Party and the lack of an organized alternative to the traditional parties may mean that Colombia is in the process of party system transformation.

After a period of economic stagnation that lasted from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, Uruguayan economic growth took off. Between 1974 and 1981 real GDP growth averaged 3.8% per annum (p.a.) versus .7% p. a. between 1956 and 1974. Yet, in 1974 Uruguayan prospects appeared rather dismal—inflation was high and accelerating, the fiscal deficit amounted to 4.5% of GDP, international reserves were largely exhausted, the debt service ratio exceeded 40%, the terms of trade were falling as a result of the oil price rise, and the EEC had just cut off imports of Uruguayan beef. How Uruguay achieved a dramatic turnaround in the face of these poor initial conditions is an interesting case study in the role of stabilization cum liberalization programs.

Until relatively recently, the small, poor countries of Central America were typically regarded as particularly poor candidates for democratization, despite a good measure of early and sustained success in Costa Rica (Ebel 1972, 1984; Rosenberg 1987). Nevertheless, over the years 1984–1996, “transitions to democracy” have been realized throughout the region. Given the extremely negative economic conditions of the 1980s and 1990s and the extent and historical intractability of political violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, these transitions via peace processes and “elections of the century” are remarkable achievements. Still, the fullness and consolidation of democracy remain very much up in the air, as is widely the case among countries that have experienced some degree of democratic transition during the last two decades (the so-called “third wave”). This situation raises the prospect of a historical era in which the poorer provinces of the globe are populated largely by “hybrid regimes” that are, at best, highly incomplete democracies.

This article examines whether changes in electoral participation contributed to electoral volatility in Latin America between 1945 and 2000. As a result of literacy voting requirements and authoritarian interludes that disenfranchised large portions of the population, new voters in Latin America probably had different political interests from the previous electorate and were not socialized to electoral politics. The article considers the hypothesis that the inclusion of new voters with different interests produces an immediate, short-term change in aggregate voting patterns, and a lack of socialization of new voters generates lingering instability in electoral behavior. Accounting for confounding factors, the analysis of legislative elections in 12 countries indicates that the expansion of the electorate temporarily disrupted voting patterns in Latin America but did not lead to long-run party system decay.

Does social background affect legislators’ behavior in office? Do individuals with specific social ties tend to be mainly concerned with representing their group of reference, beyond partisanship? This article deals with these questions by analyzing bill-drafting patterns by representatives in the Argentine Congress who belong to an understudied group: workers. The wide presence of a broad, populist party (Peronism) that historically incorporated organized labor, along with other groups, provides consistent variation for empirical assessment. Evidence demonstrates that only labor-based representatives in general, regardless of party membership, tend to use legislative resources to target workers, while every other member of the populist party does not consider labor issues at all in their legislative tasks. Such findings open new directions for analysis of representation, legislative performance, and strategies developed by dissimilar groups in broad political organizations.

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.

In Just 20 Years Peru has shifted from beacon of hope to basket case. As late as the mid-1970s, Peru's reformist military government (1968-1980) appeared to offer significant possibilities for economic and political development (defined as improved distribution of income and greater participation by the citizenry). From 1940 to 1975, economic growth and low inflation had been the norm. A major agrarian reform during the military docenio (12-year rule) created production cooperatives nation wide; the industrial community gave workers a meaningful management role in the operation of their firms. Both stirred the imagination of many Peruvians and the academic community alike.

In years past, Mexico's political system was often cited as a model for political development in the “third world” (Scott, 1974, 1965). While most Latin American governments allowed associational interest groups little opportunity to articulate their needs and demands, Mexico's ruling party (the PRI) provided institutionalized representation for three major segments of the nation's population: the agrarian sector (peasants and agricultural workers); the middle class (the “popular sector”); and organized labor unions. Anderson and Cockcroft (1966: 16) indicated that “the Mexican national leadership seem … to be committed to tolerating a substantial amount of political pluralism. It is taken for granted … that occupational groups attempt to promote their interests and demands through organizations.”

More recently, however, a “revisionist” group of political scientists has disputed the contention that Mexico is moving toward democratic pluralism; instead they characterize its political system as essentially authoritarian (Purcell, 1973; Johnson, 1971; Stevens, 1970; Davis and Coleman, 1974). In this article I shall examine the degree of latitude which the Mexican political system allows independent labor movements I in articulating the demands of their members and in pressing I those demands on the ruling party.

Negotiations between the European Union and MERCOSUR aim to establish the first free trade agreement ever between two customs unions. Among the potential obstacles are compliance with World Trade Organization rules, treatment of “sensitive” products, and competition from the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. This analysis reviews the economic background on both sides, the motivation, and the prospects for success, along with the agreement’s potential impact on the largest third party, the United States.

The article argues that preauthoritarian institutions have strongly influenced postauthoritarian labor politics in Chile and Uruguay. The nature of preauthoritarian labor administration—state corporatist in Chile, pluralist in Uruguay—had a strong impact on postauthoritarian collective outcomes, whether or not they were modified by the dictators or the ideological disposition of the postauthoritarian governments. Variation in preauthoritarian labor politics between Chile and Uruguay gave historical foundation to different union fortunes in the postauthoritarian era. That result points to the contemporary influence of preauthoritarian institutions, with or without authoritarian modifiers.

MERCOSUR’s success as an economic bloc suggests that it could serve as a stimulus or even a model for security integration. Improved military ties among the MERCOSUR nations have grown out of a sequence of developments, from political rapprochement to economic convergence and improved civilian state control. Yet increased cooperation has not led to a regional defense system. Case studies reveal that national considerations have inhibited most MERCOSUR members from accepting the idea of a regional security alliance.

In the latter half of the 1920s, a half dozen North American, British, and Canadian engineers and geologists individually began secretive explorations for oil, minerals, and likely locations for rubber plantations in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. Their goal: to interest the Ford, Firestone, and Goodyear companies in land that would supply the raw materials for their product—tires. As these land speculators negotiated with the Amazonian state governments for concessions, each thought he had claimed the richest territory with virtually unlimited exploitation privileges. Several scrambled for concessions, and by July of 1927 one individual obtained 2.5 million acres on the Tapajós river in the Amazonian state of Pará. He secretively planted half a million rubber seedlings in the forest (an indication of the vastness, sparse population, and poor communications in the Amazon at that date) and left behind an armed guard to protect the land against incursions by other speculators (Winter, 1927). In a subsequent contract with Pará, Henry Ford then acquired this land to grow rubber.

Few Countries In The World, and certainly none in this hemisphere, could lay more claims to the title “original heroic land” than Haiti. If, indeed, such things mattered in this world, Haitians could rightfully note that, at a time when the dominant secular and religious ideologies defined the African as subhuman and thus “naturally enslavable,” Haitians challenged and defeated the supreme advocates of those doctrines, and their heroism became the stimulus for other liberation attempts.

Not much after independence in 1804, Haitians opened their ports and hearts to all those battling slavery and oppression. Many benefitted from this daring act. Defeated and abandoned by many around him, Simón Bolívar turned to Haiti and they, not once, but twice, acted to help, true to their vows. Quite correctly did Bolívar write Petión that the liberation of America was only one of the debts owed Haiti.

Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have emerged as an important social welfare innovation across the Global South in the last two decades. That poor mothers are typically the primary recipients of the grants renders easy, but not necessarily correct, the notion that CCTs empower women. This article assesses the relationship between the world’s largest CCT, Brazil’s Bolsa Família, and women’s empowerment. To systematize and interpret existing research, including our own, it puts forth a three-part framework that examines the program’s effects on economic independence, physical health, and psychosocial well-being. Findings suggest that women experience some improved status along all three dimensions, but that improvements are far from universal. A core conclusion is that the broader institutional context in which the Bolsa Família is embedded—that is, ancillary services in health and social assistance—is crucial for conditioning the degree of empowerment obtained.

Cuba has entered the decade of the 1990s in a state of profound existential crisis. The countries of Eastern Europe, whose economic and political institutions and ideologies were adopted by Cuba, albeit with some modifications, were abandoning those same institutions and ideologies. Cuba's place in the international system had become one of growing isolation: Cuba had become a curiosity from the 1960s rather than the wave of the future, as it once perceived itself. By mid-1990, it appeared almost certain that the generous subsidization of the Cuban economy by the Soviet Union was about to end. Moreover, the Cuban economy was in serious difficulty as a result of some external factors, namely the convertible currency debt crisis and the problems and uncertainties in its relationship with the Soviet Union since 1985, but also as a result of internal institutional incapacities and deformities.

The Flow of drugs from Mexico to the United States has been a source of trouble in US-Mexican relations for at least two decades. The dominant view in Mexico is that the problem arises from the inability of the United States to control its domestic demand for heroin, cocaine, and marijuana. The dominant US view has been that the Mexican government has failed to make effective efforts to control the supply of drugs. At times — in particular after the killing of Enrique Camarena, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in 1985 — US government anger at Mexico's alleged failure to maintain the integrity of its anti-drug efforts has been the dominant source of friction between the two nations.