This article examines direct appeals to Portuguese monarchs and how this extrajudicial option was invoked by slaves and free persons of African descent in colonial Brazil. It also addresses the production and content of appeals and what these reflect of the lives of Afro-Brazilians, relations between slave and owner, manumissions, judicial and individual abuse of women and popular perceptions and expectations of a monarch. The pros and cons of this appellate recourse are discussed in the context of colonial governance and of how royal acts of private justice reinforced the moral authority of monarchs, the sacred quality of monarchy and those personal qualities of magnanimity and compassion associated with the ideal of kingship.

To date, factor endowments or comparative advantages in the international economy, have been at the centre of explanations for the economic performance of Argentina in the nineteenth century. Historians have focused on the increasing volume of rural exports and the availability of land on the frontier. Yet, the contemporary fiscal and monetary events have been ignored. From the 1820s to the 1860s, the state was mainly financed by issues of inconvertible paper currency. Hence, depreciation and high volatility of the means of payment became a basic feature of the Buenos Aires economy. This article will reassess the expansion of the rural economy in the light of the impact of inflationary finances.

The predominant interpretation of nineteenth century Latin America is to see the failure of constitutional democracy in the region in terms of the inability of liberal elites to break with an authoritarian past. Against these views, we argue that the divorce between liberalism and democracy in Latin America was the unintended outcome of the institutions created by the liberal elite in response to the problems of territorial fragmentation and factional conflict that emerged after the fall of the Spanish empire. Using the cases of Argentina and Mexico, we support this proposition by focusing on the creation of a centralised form of government and a system of electoral control by the ruling elites as the main factors that through time prevented the evolution of the liberal regime into a competitive democracy.

There is no good faith in America, nor among the nations of America. Treaties are scraps of paper; constitutions, printed matter; elections, battles; freedom, anarchy; and life, a torment.

Simón Bolívar

This article uses both new and published data on Mexico's foreign trade to measure terms of trade and to investigate the relationship between trade and the early growth of domestic industry. This analysis yields five conclusions: (1) Mexican terms of trade declined, largely due to the dramatic fall in the price of silver; (2) the growing diversity of Mexican exports significantly cushioned the short-term impact of silver depreciation; (3) declining terms of trade did not characterise the entire era, but instead were concentrated in two periods: 1891–97 and 1912–21; (4) although net barter terms of trade declined, Mexico's capacity to import – measured by the income terms of trade – improved markedly, and (5) this proved absolutely crucial in financing the concurrent process of incipient import-substituting industrialisation. In other words, the Porfiriato witnessed a development process in which trade growth and the spread of domestic manufacturing were highly complementary. Without the former, industrialisation would have been severely handicapped.

This article examines how Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar emerged as the ‘strong man’ of Cuba. Historians have pointed out that from 1934 to 1940 Batista's primary support came from the army and the police. We also know that, like many other Latin American leaders at the time, Batista went through a ‘populist phase’. Populists acknowledged the reality that ‘the masses’ were a new force in society and that ‘the people’ were at the centre of the nation and the state. Populist discourse functioned to construct a ‘people’ out of fragmented and scattered populations. Batista was very aware that in order to rule Cuba he had to appeal to ‘the people’ and to the revolutionary sentiments of 1933. But we need more information about exactly what Batista's political ideas were and how he put them into practice. This article shows how Batista became, in his own words, the ‘architect’ of the post-revolutionary state between 1937 and 1940. Batista supervised Cuba's transition from a military dictatorship in 1934 to a nominal constitutional democracy in 1940. The aim is to shed some light on how this remarkable transition took place.

This article analyses the role of the economic team known as the ‘Chicago Boys’ and of the main political faction in Pinochet's Chile, the ‘Gremialists’, founded by Jaime Guzmán in the Catholic University in 1966. These two sectors of the elite had a common professional and political career and were the principal civilian groups of the dictatorship who developed a long-term political strategy that deeply influenced both the economic and political orientation of the military regime. They shared a long-term power strategy, that was basically defined by the ‘Gremialists’. The article focuses on the role played by ODEPLAN in shaping the economic reforms. It demonstrates that the coherence of the economic model inherent in the implementation of its policies is to be found in the integration of the policies with a political project, articulated by the ‘Gremialists’.

I want to make it clear that I am convinced that the main responsibility for all that is going on in Chile lies not with the military, but rather with the civilian advisors and the whole climate of adulation and servilism that the economic right has created around them, The ideology of the government was born in the most traditional circles of the economic right, disguised under the sign of ‘nationalism’ and shielded behind ‘the courage to declare oneself anti- Marxist’.

Latin American fish production has expanded significantly in recent years. Unfortunately, as management systems in the three major Latin American fish producing countries have not developed at the same pace, all three countries now experience problems of overfishing and industrial overcapitalisation. This article examines the distinctive national fisheries development programmes that have led to this ‘tragedy of the oceans’. By comparing and contrasting the Peruvian, Chilean and Mexican management styles, it offers a critical assessment regarding the likely direction of future Latin American fisheries policy.

The purpose of this commentary is threefold. First, to review the origins and definitions of the concept of social capital as it has developed in the recent literature. Second, to examine the limitations of this concept when interpreted as a causal force able to transform communities and nations. Third, to present several relevant examples from the recent empirical literature on Latin American urbanisation and migration. These examples point to the significance of social networks and community monitoring in the viability of grass-roots economic initiatives and the simultaneous difficulty of institutionalising such forces.

Current interest in the concept of social capital in the field of national development stems from the limitations of an exclusively economic approach toward the achievement of the basic developmental goals: sustained growth, equity, and democracy. The record of application of neoliberal adjustment policies in less developed nations is decidedly mixed, even when evaluated by strict economic criteria. Orthodox adjustment policies have led to low inflation and sustained growth in some countries, while in others they have failed spectacularly, leading to currency crises, devaluations, and political instability. The ‘one-size-fits- all’ package of economic policies foisted by the International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury on countries at very different levels of development have led to a series of contradictory outcomes that orthodox economic theory itself is incapable of explaining.