This article assesses the contributions of studies in the rational choice (RC) tradition to scholarly understanding of Latin American politics. It groups some representative works according to their use of RC assumptions, and also reviews some of the major works in the institutionalist tradition. It argues that works in the RC tradition have neither forced a major rethinking of established theories nor filled major lacunae, although they have illuminated some phenomena that were only partly understood. The RC approach works best for narrow questions in which power relations and structural constraints are stable, whereas its essential assumptions become untenable in questions that involve shifting power relations among social groups and the state over time.

Despite repeated conflict with organized labor, the government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–94) pushed an aggressive divestment agenda that transformed Mexico into Latin America's leading privatizer. Explanations of Salinas's achievements typically emphasize centralized presidential power (including control over the ruling party) and autonomy; technocratic and political savvy; and weak labor opposition. This article questions such a pure “capacity-outcome” approach. Of equal importance are the learning effects of repeated interaction between the state and labor, which changed the course of divestment struggles and thereby influenced their outcomes. Lessons learned in successive confrontations led to patterns of interaction conducive to widescale privatization. The article develops this argument through comparative analysis of major divestment episodes in the aviation, mining, steel, and telecommunications sectors.

It is difficult to write about a martyr. One has to contend with the keepers of the flame, who have strong personal and political reasons for preserving the hero's image. Moreover, myths usually contain elements of truth. Although Leonardo Ruiz Pineda is not known as widely as Zapata, Sandino, Che, or Camilo Torres, there are unmistakable efforts on the part of Venezuela's democratic leaders to include him in the pantheon of Latin America's recent revolutionary heroes.

Socio-Economic or General Cultural Similarities between Brazil and the rest of Latin America would seem sufficient to support similarities of interests and close cooperative relationships. Yet Brazil's Lusophone culture, the immensity of the country, the geographical distance of much of its population from Spanish American population centers, and middle and upper class fascination for things American or European led instead to a sense of separateness and distinctness which impeded serious Brazilian selfidentification, beyond rhetoric, as a Latin American nation despite its geographical location. Thus the question of how Brazil should relate to the rest of Latin America has been a topic of domestic and continental debate, with increasingly practical consequences as the South American development process continues. The recent shift toward more intense, collaborative relations, in particular, invites analysis of current trends and speculation on possible outcomes.

La figura egregia del patricio puertorriqueño Eugenio María de Hostos ha resultado ser en los últimos años objeto de innumerables estudios los cuales han aumentado la bibliografía de este hombre de dimensión universal.

Una fase de su vida, sin embargo, ha sido pasada por alto. A pesar de que encontramos estudios y ensayos sobre sus ideas políticas, pedagógicas, sociológicas, filosóficas, moralistas, literarias y revolucionarias, no encontramos en esta extensa bibliografía ningún intento de examinar el pensamiento militar en Hostos. Esta dimensión militar hostosiana es para mí una de las manifestaciones más activas del “hombre completo”.

Será mi propósito en este breve ensayo demostrar el impacto del pensamiento militar como influencia y como parte integral de este “inquebrantable espíritu”.

Quando se fizer a história da literatura brasüeira de nosso tempo, que lugar ficará reservado a Tristão de Atayde? O de crítico literario? O de crítico de idéias e problemas macionais e universais? O de sociólogo, filósofo, psicólogo, economista? Ou o de doutrinador e homem de ação católico?

Ninguém, creio eu, estará disposto, hoje em dia, a negar-lhe o laurel e a palma que lhe cabem em qualquer dessas categorias ou esferas de saber. A sua fecunda e variada obra testemunhará sempre urna presença em todos os domínios do pensamento brasileiro, seja qual for o ângulo de apreciação. Mas, nos cinquenta anos laboriosos da atividade de escritor de Tristão de Atayde, não haverá aspectos mais salientes, relevantes ou expressivos?

Como se sabe, êle começou a sua carreira fazendo crítica literária pura e simplesmente, ou antes de corpo e alma, sem se embaraçar com o sentido da existência em termos religiosos ou filosóficos de cristianismo ou catolicismo.

A moderna fase, iniciada no século XV, de contactos de europeus com regióes tropicais — contactos que têm importado na maior ou na menor europeização dessas regiões — permite-nos considerar êsse fenômeno em têrmos nao só de Historia Social e de Antropologia Cultural como de Sociología de Historia ou de Sociologia da Cultura. Em qualquer dessas especialidades, é assunto, ésse, de importancia máxima para a interpretacáo e a compreensáo do Homem Situado: assunto já de Antropologia Filosófica. Em têrmos, quer da primeira, quer de qualquer outra dessas especialidades — principalmente em têrmos, sociológicos ou antropo-filosóficos — já nos é permitido empregar a expressáo “eurotropical” para caracterizar, globalmente, ésse tipo de contactos interregionais, interraciais e interculturais.

“A new economic order is essential for world peace,” proclaimed President Carlos Andrés Pérez of Venezuela (1976) on November 16, 1976, at the UN General Assembly in fulfilling “the mandate which Simon Bolivar gave [the Venezuelans] more than 150 years ago” (Pérez, 1976: 28). Responding to this call of destiny and reaffirming Venezuela's claimed Bolivarian tradition of placing “its resources.at the service of its people, at the servi of Latin America, at the service of humanity” (Pérez, 1976: 28f President Pérez (nicknamed Simonsito) sought in and through the New International Economic Order (NIEO) a new Lebensraum, not of destructive territorial expansion, but of increased purchasing power, dignity, equality, and independence for the poor, weak, underprivileged countries (Pérez, 1976: 7, 11). The NIEO, “a moral obligation of all nations,” “is required as a¡ desideratum of peace,” especially since the disintegrating “old international economic order which emerged from the Second World War … was an unjust system of relations based on inequality … designed to benefit those countries which had accumulated the fruits of technical progress” (Pérez, 1976: 9).

Five Years after the lapse that occurred in European-Latin American relations as a result of the Malvinas/Falklands conflict (Rhein, 1983; Bodemer, 1985), and two years after the entry of Spain and Portugal into the European Community (CE), it would appear appropriate to review the relations between the European Community and Latin America. At the suggestion of the president of the Spanish government, Felipe González, who, among European heads of state, not only has a strong personal interest in Latin America, but also displays the most differentiated knowledge of the region, the European Council decided, in 1986 at The Hague (La Vanguardia, 1986), to charge the Commission of the European Community to come up with new guidelines regarding EC relations with Latin America.

Urban morphology and growth have been studied by sociologists and others in the United States for half a century. A question raised in some recent studies is: To what extent are urban forms and growth processes universal? Sargent (1972) has proposed a universal model of urban dynamics intended “to relate processes to the spatial development,” particularly residential development, of the city. Sargent uses Buenos Aires between 1870 and 1930 as a case study. This article applies his model to another Latin American capital, Caracas, during approximately the same time period in order to demonstrate imperfections in the model as it relates to the way in which transportation systems expand, the forces which influence their expansion, and the manner in which they affect city growth.

In a March 1980 address to the Venezuelan Congress, President Luis Herrera Campíns stated: “Effective action by Venezuela in the sphere of international affairs must take into account certain key facts: Economics—we are a producer-exporter of oil; politics—we have a stable, consolidated democracy; and geopolitics—we are at one and the same time a Caribbean, Andean, Atlantic, and Amazonian country” (Venezuela Up To Date, 1980: 8). President Herrera's statement reveals a Venezuelan interest in geopolitics; at the same time, it outlines the difficulties in achieving a coherent geopolitical strategy.

Partimos da noção de estrutura social, cuja conceituação já propuzemos, noutra oportunidade, nos seguintes têrmos: quando falamos em es- ‘ trutura social referímo-nos a urna sociedade encarada do ãngulo das relagóes dos homens entre sí e dos homens com as coisas materiais que o cercam; relações interdependentes e geradas históricamente na atividade social de produzir e reproduzir as condições essenciais de sobrevivencia do grupo. Dêsse modo, tôda estrutura social contém, no mínimo, essas tres partes, que lhe são inseparáveis: por base, urna forma histórica de produção; por corpo, um sistema de estratificação social; por cúpula, um conjunto de instituigóes e de valôres sociais — cujo escôpo é sancionar e manter, como um todo, o sistema estreitamente interdependente formado por essas partes.

By Mid-1986, The Contadora Group's search for a negotiated peace in Central America had reached a seemingly insurmountable impasse. Negotiations were deadlocked over the issues of arms limitations, democratization, and US support for the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries (contrarevolucionarios or contras). The United States and its closest Central American allies - Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador - demanded that Nicaragua reduce the size of its armed forces and install a democratic political system before they would end support for the contras Nicaragua's Sandinistas, in turn, refused to disarm until the United States and its Central American neighbors halted their support for the contras, they also rejected all proposals for direct negotiations with the contras.

Ernesto Sábato es una de las figuras más destacadas del ambiente intelectual de la Argentina contemporánea. Ensayista y novelista, es un escritor que se ha lanzado con todas las fibras de su ser a la lucha desesperada con los problemas de nuestro tiempo. Siempre ha habido escritores que se han contentado con el arte “desinteresado”, los que se han ocupado principalmente de mundos fantásticos, los que han preferido observar, en contraste con los que han convertido su obra en instrumento por el bienestar social, los que participan activamente en la creación de una literatura de “servicio”, los que “agonizan”.

An emerging consensus holds that Cuba's communist regime is moving away from Fidel Castro's brand of orthodox Marxism-Leninism and toward — something else. Cuban officials now publicly profess their indifference to labels such as “socialism” and “communism,” referring, instead, to some vague “Cuban way” of social and economic organization. Even Castro himself claims that his hostility to multiparty politics stems less from an adherence to Marxism and owes more to the calls of José Martí, Cuba's national hero, for national unity of purpose and organization.

All of this may point to a growing belief in Havana that communism cannot long endure as a legitimizing factor for the regime and a corresponding attempt to locate a new source of legitimacy in the alleged uniqueness of Cuba's socialist system. The implication of such an attempt would be: (1) that the Cuban regime differs fundamentally from the collapsed Eurasian communist regimes, and (2) that its future is therefore likely to differ also — and fundamentally. In other words, it has a future.

This article analyzes the campaign of Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Alemán (1997–2002) against organized competitors, what has been called his war against the nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. Alemán's attacks on the NGO sector are shown to be consistent with the logic of the new populism in Latin America. At the same time, his choice of targets—prominent NGO figures who were often foreign-born and always female—must be explained with reference to the specifics of Nicaraguan civil society and its evolving relationship with the political parties. This study argues that by choosing to respond to the challenges of international neoliberalism and local feminism through the anti-NGO campaign, Alemán helped to weaken democracy in Nicaragua.

Colombia's current attempt at agrarian reform began in December 1961 with the passage of Law 135, “On Social Agrarian Reform.” The Law has as its central objective a change in land tenure relationships in the densely populated western (or Andean) section of Colombia, where latifundia and minifundia often exist side by side. The Law established the Colombian Agrarian Reform Institute (Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria or INCORA) as a semiautonomous governmental agency to direct the process of reform. In recent months, however, the pace of the reform, which began ten projects during the first six months of 1962, has been slowed considerably due to a multitude of problems, among which the most serious are unswerving opposition to the program by both the large landowners and their allies on the right, the Movimiento Revolutcionario Liberal (MRL and its allies on the left, and inadequate financing.

La primera impresión que acude a mi memoria pensando en Berni es la de un viaje que realicé a Rosario en compañía de su mujer y de su hijo. Berni estaba a la sazón en Europa y nuestra visita tenía como motivo inaugurar en el Museo Castagnino de esa ciudad, una muestra de los grabados que habían obtenido para Berni el galardón más alto que otorga la Bienal de Venecia. El recuerdo aludido se vincula sin duda al hecho de que Berni es de Rosario y que, aunque vagamente, conservo en la retina algún paisaje suyo cuando el artista casi adolescente reflejaba las impresiones del campo santafesino: el cielo claro, los trigales, la opulencia de la llanura reventona de cosechas, un aire de prosperidad agrícola que envuelve al viajero durante la travesía de esta región, el ganado gordo, el sol brillante, el paisano bien alimentado. Una trayectoria elíptica hasta las villas miseria que ocupan una de sus más recientes etapas pero en las que se conserva de algún modo la exuberancia de una riqueza natural que sin duda acompaña a Berni desde la niñez y que ha quedado estampada en su subconsciencia con la fuerza de un tatuaje.

The unemployment problem in Colombia was recently discussed by Geithman and Landers (1973) in this journal. They argue that one of the fundamental causes of unemployment is a “higher capital-labor ratio” than would otherwise exist, according to factor endowments and the structure of final demand. This is attributed to the dependency of less developed countries (LDCs) on capital from advanced countries (ACs), with laborsaving characteristics suitable for the latter (Geithman and Landers, 1973: 317). Their excessive capital intensity thesis is based on Bruton's cross-sectional statistical study (1967), which made a number of simplified assumptions which should be examined in some detail.

Since Bruton and Geithman and Landers use the production function in their analysis, it is necessary to briefly discuss its most important characteristics. The quantities of capital (K), labor (L), and other inputs required by the industrial sector or the entire economy to achieve various levels of output (Q), can be viewed as a generalized production function.