This issue begins the last volume of the twenty years of LARR edited at the University of New Mexico. A new team of editors at the University of Texas at Austin, led by Peter Ward, is already at work selecting and editing the articles and review essays that will appear in next year's Volume 38 (2003). The transition offers an appropriate time to reflect on the broader issues involved in the enterprise of academic publishing of a journal such as LARR.

This study evaluates the impact of state policies on forest cover in Costa Rica, focusing on the influence of public policies on private incentives for preserving forest cover. Three periods are analyzed: the “laissez-faire period” when high rates of deforestation were largely unrestrained; the “interventionist period” when state policies created protection for some wildlands, especially with the creation of parks and reserves, but when many regulatory policies produced mixed results at best; and the current “hybrid period” featuring major policy changes and mixing market-oriented and interventionist approaches but not always in a coherent design. Despite significant successes, current policies appear unlikely to provide sufficient incentive to maintain the desired amount of forest cover unless the international community compensates Costa Ricans for the benefits that their forests provide the world.

For many who thought of Venezuela as a consolidated democracy, the 1992 coup attempts came as a complete surprise. Those familiar with the deterioration of its democratic regime, in contrast, were more surprised that the coups did not succeed. This article provides an institution-centered explanation of the puzzle of why the 1992 coup attempts occurred, why they failed, and why the Venezuelan military has remained quiescent in the years that followed. Institutions of civilian control created during the post-1958 “Punto Fijo” period, particularly those based on fragmenting the officer corps, prevented the collapse of the democratic regime in 1992. These same institutions allowed civilians to regain authority over the armed forces during the Rafael Caldera administration and have ensured the subordination of the armed forces to elected authorities to the present. It is also argued that the institutional basis for civilian control has been dismantled during the Fifth Republic, heightening the likelihood of future civil-military conflict and threatening regime stability.

In the twentieth century, big business in Mexico invested much more in voluntary encompassing associations than business did elsewhere in Latin America. Multisectoral associations like the CCE, the CMNH, Coparmex, and COECE are rare in the other large countries of the region. Three primary factors gave Mexican business stronger incentives to invest in these associations. First, Mexican business was excluded from elections, PRI politics, and appointments to top government positions and therefore relied more on associations to channel business's organized participation in politics and policy making. Second, in some periods, government actions were threatening to business interests and prompted defensive organization. Third, in other periods of closer cooperation between business and government, government officials relied heavily on these associations to mediate relations with business, giving big business further incentives to invest in associations.

The Mexican Constitution was revised in 1992 to foster privatization of agrarian reform lands. Legal inheritance protections for spouses were removed, and individual title holders (85 percent male) obtained rights to sell land formerly considered family patrimony. State disinvestment contributed to economic crisis in the land-reform sector. This longitudinal study of four communities in northern and central Mexico explores the counterintuitive effects of agrarian law, customary inheritance norms, and women's changing roles in household economies and community sociopolitics on the material and ideological bases for women's entitlement to land. Quantitative and qualitative data show that women's rights to land under customary inheritance norms were upheld locally and that women's control of family land increased along with growing responsibility for production and community activism. Women's property rights were enhanced rather than eroded as families and communities struggled to meet the economic and social challenges posed by the neoliberal agenda.

Observers have argued that as indigenous peoples become more acculturated and their reserves more populous, they begin to exploit tropical rain forests much as colonists and other outsiders do. The history of changes in land use between 1950 and 1980 among the Shuar, an indigenous group in the Ecuadorian Amazon, would appear to support this convergence thesis. The Shuar began to clear land, plant pastures, and acquire cattle, much like their mestizo competitors for land. Using survey and remote-sensing data for a later period, from 1987 to 1997, we demonstrate that convergence has given way to divergence in land-use trends among the two groups. While mestizo smallholders throughout the region continue to rely on cattle ranching, Shuar smallholders close to roads have begun to reforest their lands and cultivate former garden crops like coffee and cacao as cash crops. These recent trends in Shuar land use suggest that even when Amerindians become more acculturated, they still maintain more biologically diverse landscapes than their mestizo neighbors.

Costa Rica has been the real success story of Latin American democracy. For the last half-century, this small country has held free, fair, and competitive elections, experienced regular rotation of rulers and parties, and rarely violated human or civil rights. Consistent voter turnout rates of 80 percent and a firmly entrenched two-party system appeared to be unalterable features of the electoral landscape since the late 1950s. While democracy still seems securely entrenched, the 1998 elections brought a major shift. Abstention increased by 50 percent, and votes for minor parties in the legislature doubled, reaching one-quarter of the electorate. This research note presents evidence that the shift is the result of long-term forces, using cross-sectional survey data collected from 1978 to 1999. Notable declines in the legitimacy of the political system explain the drop in turnout and the rise of minor parties. The study then attempts to explain why this decline may have occurred.

This research note is meant to serve as a working tool for scholars interested in pursuing archival investigations in Oaxaca City. Over the last fifteen years, the city has experienced a cultural renaissance characterized by renovation of its colonial architectural treasures and the establishment of institutions dedicated to the arts. This cultural renewal has provided the context for an equally impressive reinvigoration of the city's archives, thanks to the commitment of local historians, social scientists, and archivists to rescuing and cataloguing a wealth of historical documentation. To encourage and facilitate research, we provide a summary of the holdings and contact information for ten archives in addition to a select bibliography of secondary sources.