This article documents a U.S. Cuban foreign policy cycle that operated in tandem with the presidential electoral cycle between 1992 and 2004. During these post–Cold War years, when Cuba posed no threat to U.S. national security, influential, well-organized Cuban Americans leveraged political contributions and votes to tighten the embargo on travel and trade, especially at the personal level. U.S. presidential candidates, most notably incumbent presidents seeking re-election, responded to their demands with discretionary powers of office. When presidential candidates supported policies that made good electoral sense but conflicted with concerns of state, they subsequently reversed or left unimplemented Cuba initiatives. After describing the logic behind an ethnic electoral policy cycle and U.S. personal embargo policy between 1992 and 2004, this article examines Cuban American voter participation, political and policy preferences, lobbying, political contributions, and the relationship between the ethnic policy and presidential election cycles.

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.

Are international labor rights campaigns making a difference in Latin America? This article reveals that Dominican policymakers and bureaucrats are responding to foreign pressure by redoubling their commitment to a distinctively Franco-Iberian model of labor law enforcement, in which skilled labor inspectors use their discretion to balance society's demand for protection with the economy's need for efficiency. In so doing, they provide an alternative to traditional collective bargaining practices—which at least partly decouples both the intensity of the enforcement effort and the degree of worker protection from the level of unionization—and an example for the rest of the region. The article therefore concludes by reconsidering the Central American experience in light of the Dominican findings and discussing their joint implications for our understanding of administrative reform, industrial relations, and globalization, not only in the so-called CAFTA countries but in Latin America more generally.

Scholars of support for democracy traditionally have been concerned with its causes, with the assumption that higher citizen support for democratic values will enhance democracy's chances of survival in a country. Beyond this fundamental proposition, however, the consequences of varying levels of support for democratic values remain largely unexplored. This article examines the relationship between support for democratic values and views toward immigration in Latin America, a region that is experiencing an unprecedented increase in the movement of people across borders. Through an analysis of Ecuadorian attitudes toward Colombian immigrants, this study finds strong evidence for the argument that support for democratic values has potential benefits not only for democratic sustainability in the region, but also for the reduction of social conflict and distrust that can stem from increasing immigration in a volatile economic context.

Racial politics in Brazil have changed dramatically: the nation-state that once denied racism now enacts racial policies for Afro-Brazilians. The discourse of race has also changed: it is now common for the media to discuss Afro-Brazilians as a voting bloc. Using qualitative methods, this article tests the hypothesis that Afro-Brazilian politicians seek a racial vote from the Afro-Brazilian electorate. Analyzing campaign advertisements from select candidates in Salvador and São Paulo, this study finds that most Afro-Brazilian politicians use racial cues, and interviews show that most Afro-Brazilian politicians address racial issues during their campaigns. Not all of them seek racial votes, however: at the federal level, Afro-Brazilian politicians believe that this strategy would not get them elected. Many use campaigns nevertheless to raise racial consciousness among the electorate.

The theoretical literature presents conflicting expectations about the effects of trade openness on the ability of states to interdict drug trafficking. One view expects that trade openness will undermine drug interdiction; a second argues the opposite; a third argues that trade openness does not necessarily affect drug interdiction. This article assesses empirically the effects of trade openness on drug interdiction for countries in the Americas using a pooled time-series cross-sectional statistical model. It finds that trade openness decreases the interdiction capabilities of states in drug-consuming countries while increasing those of states in drug-producing countries. Greater openness to trade does not have a consistently significant effect on the interdiction capabilities of states in drug transit countries.