Americans have been so transfixed by the fall of the Berlin Wall — and subsequently riveted to the Persian Gulf crisis — that they have failed to notice the crumbling of the walls that have segmented Mexico and separated it from the United States. Yet Mexico's opening may be more significant for the United States because of its potential for infusing both economies and reshaping the two societies. Challenging a long tradition of state control and anti—Americanism, Carlos Salinas de Gortari is leading this change, transforming Mexico and US-Mexican relations more profoundly and positively than any president in this century.

Not yet one-third into his term, he has already moved decisively to wrestle control from union bosses and drug traffickers; he has sold off state corporations, de-regulated large sectors of the economy, lowered trade and investment barriers, and began, grudgingly, to democratize. Yet his most daring gamble is his proposal for a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States, and he is ready to sell the idea in both countries.

Once again, Chile stands out within the Latin American region. In the early 1970s, Salvador Allende's brand of socialism attracted worldwide attention and captured the imagination of the international Left. In the years thereafter, Pinochet's authoritarianism set the pace for a global resurgence of the new Right. Finally, in just the last few years, Chile has become a symbol of a new sort, rapidly establishing itself as a democratic success story. Chile's democratic progress becomes especially evident when viewed alongside the large set of Latin American countries that have democratized since the late 1970s. Indeed, an analysis of the last presidential and congressional elections in Chile (11 December 1993) indicates that it has undoubtedly made greater strides toward democratic consolidation than any other country in Latin America — all the more striking when one considers that its transition from authoritarian rule was concluded only as recently as 1990.

Brazil Entered the 1990s with its transition from authoritarian rule incomplete. The gradual withdrawal of the armed forces from power brought an end to over two decades of direct military rule in 1985, paving the way for a new constitution and the first presidential election in nearly 30 years. These formal democratizing changes were erected, however, on a foundation of socio-economic structures and political institutions with some decidedly non-democratic features. As a result, Brazilian politics retains some important vestiges of authoritarianism. Pre-existing centers of power in society remain extraordinarily influential within the emerging system, frequently operating beyond the reach of even nominal democratic control or oversight.

If events of the 1980s did not completely transform Brazilian politics, they did redefine the main challenge of the political transition. The initial problem of replacing the military government with a civilian regime has given way to a second, less tangible, task of consolidating democratic institutions and procedures (O'Donnell, 1988).

Dependency Theory has become a major paradigm for understanding Latin American politics. Based on the premises that the study of politics must begin with analysis of underlying socio-economic structures, and that these structures cannot be understood without considering a country's role in the world economy, dependency theory provides a cogent analytical framework that has been upheld in numerous empirical studies. The model of politics presented by dependency theorists is a bleak one: because economic dependence polarizes society between a small class of wealthy elites and a large mass of impoverished workers and peasants, politics in dependent societies is reduced, essentially, to class struggle between these highly mismatched forces. Except under unusual circumstances, authoritarianism is the inevitable result.

Holy Week in San Pedro, Colombia, a small town near the bustling city of Cali, begins with a procession that commemorates Jesus’ triumphal march into Jerusalem. The week climaxes on Holy Friday with processions and rites which act out Christ's crucifixion and death. The remaining days of Saturday and Sunday, days that ostensibly glorify Christ's victory over death, evoke little enthusiasm; only the priest and a few hard-core faithful trudge through the rites necessary to terminate the week.

The events which lead to the agony of Christ (his march into Jerusalem and the Last Supper), most of all the agony itself (the struggle up Calvary), are the events that the townspeople celebrate.

Since the late sixties, Guatemalans have murdered each other at an astonishing rate. This wave of politically related terrorism and assassinations began to grow rapidly in 1966 and has continued, fluctuating in intensity, to the present. In 1967, for instance, incidents of violence averaged 70 per month, causing some 30 monthly deaths; in 1971 the figures had risen 60%. This article describes the historical antecedents of this conflict, its development as right-wing terrorists sought to counterbalance leftist guerrilla insurgency and the subsequent evolution of violence. Seeking an explanation for why violence was greater in some areas than in others, the essay examines two structural theories which suggest that conflict may be most intense where the strength of contending political parties is most nearly equal and where socioeconomic change is greatest.

Crime and violence have made public security a major concern to voters throughout Latin America. Existing research predicts that such widespread concerns should make public security a consistently successful issue in presidential election campaigns. Yet recent empirical reality in Latin America has been more varied. This study argues that success on public security is not so automatic. Human rights concerns combine with low trust in security forces to make success on security contingent on the correct conditions. Two key conditions affect the use of the issue: the degree to which security threats are organized and the degree to which recent repression has occurred. Then, winning votes depends on two further conditions: having a civilian background and a campaign that balances security with other issues. Together, these factors explain the dramatic variation in success, and suggest a key change from Latin America's past.

The election of Hugo Chávez as Venezuela's president in 1998, less than seven years after his unsuccessful military coup attempt, marked a pivotal moment in one of the most dramatic political transformations in the nation's history. This article explores public reaction to Chávez's shift, especially the question of why Venezuelans would entrust democratic governance to a man who had once attempted to topple the nation's democratic regime. Two hypotheses are proposed: one of converted militancy and one of democratic ambivalence. Analysis of survey data from 1995 and 1998 demonstrates that Chávez's initial base of support drew heavily on Venezuelans who were ambivalent or hostile toward democracy. By 1998, and consistent with the converted militant hypothesis, Chávez won support from a substantial portion of citizens who valued democracy. Yet democratic ambivalence also contributed to Chávez's winning electoral coalition.

This paper examines the process of reform in the Mexican telecommunications sector and makes comparisons with similar processes in the United States, New Zealand, and Brazil. Differences in policy responses are explained by the structure of the political institutions and the policy context in any given country. The policy lessons to be drawn from the regulatory experiences examined are that the sequence and the pace of reform influence policy outcomes. The speed with which the Mexican reform was carried out led to a lack of the institutional and legal support necessary to create a level competitive playing field. The permanence of a vertically integrated firm in the Mexican market, moreover, introduced consequential costs to the regulation of the industry. The results of this paper support the theoretical argument that privatization, in itself, does not guarantee the development of the sector and point to the need to attain a more effective regulation of competition in telecommunications.

This article comparatively analyzes the strategies and political impact of “pro-life” and feminist movements in the struggle over abortion policy in Mexico. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, it argues that anti-abortion movements are more likely to influence policymaking in contexts where they can tap into hegemonic religious institutions’ networks and alliances and indirectly provide incumbents with legitimizing moral and financial support in exchange for restrictive reforms. Partisan contexts shape incumbents’ need for such support. Feminist activists, by contrast, have neither elite connections nor access to similar mobilization resources. To make this argument, the analysis examines pro-life and feminist movements in two Mexican states: Yucatán, where Congress passed a restrictive reform; and Hidalgo, where an identical initiative failed.

Agrarismo is the body of thought that is understood to have guided Mexican peasant struggles in this century. It seems reasonable to expect an essay on peasant ideology to open with a clear definition, or at least a list of the doctrines that form the content of this ideology. But agrarismo has often served as an imprecise catchword for a wide variety of goals espoused by peasants and peasant leaders during seven decades of struggle in the Mexican countryside. Even when we consider only the mainstream of agrarianist thinking in twentieth-century Mexico, we find that an agrarista vision of a just order has implied committment to a strikingly diverse series of programs from 1910 to the present day.

Since the 1950s, the development strategy of Paraguay has relied on export-led growth. To accomplish this the government placed great emphasis on price and exchange rate stability, first achieved in the late 1950s. Counting on limited resources, the country attempted to attract foreign investment while its own investment programs were directed primarily toward increasing domestic infrastructure, with road construction as a top priority. The latter opened up the eastern frontier region and provided an alternative outlet to the sea via the Brazilian highway system. Historically, Paraguay has counted on the Paraná River and on Argentinian ports for its access to the Atlantic.

Is Socialism a means to eliminate or reduce dependency and its alleged concomitants? According to a number of authors, including those of the most influential recent approaches to the study of Latin American politics and development, it is. Indeed, for most of these authors socialism is the only desirable or acceptable way to address the problems of dependent capitalism. For them, capitalism is inherently exploitative and repressive; socialism is the only desirable or acceptable path to a more autonomous, egalitarian, free and just society (Cardoso and Faletto, 1979: ix-xxiv, 209-216).

As some of the foregoing implies, and as is obvious to anyone familiar with the literature, for many authors the truth or falsity of this view is not a matter amenable to resolution by anything so mundane as reference to historical experience. For such analysts, this view is true by definition. The analyst using this perspective first “assumes” it to be true and then “demonstrates” that it is true by citing data that support it (Cardoso and Faletto, 1979: x).

Two facts stand out from even the most cursory inspection of income distribution data in Latin America. First, income is highly concentrated, making the region one of the most unequal in the world. Second, despite the fact that the region has now reached an intermediate position among the world's nations in terms of per capita income (some US$2,000 per year on average), a level which, by historical standards, would presuppose a more equitable distribution of income, this has not happened. In fact, the distribution of income in Latin America has become, if anything, more highly skewed than ever. The question then is: why is this so? The explanation forms the heart of this paper. Precisely because neither of these statements would hold if the countries to which they apply were either “average” or “well-behaved,” the explanation thatfollows assumesa “neostructuralist perspective” (Lustig, 1991) — i.e., one that ascribes causality to a number of regional charactristics related to its history and the interaction among its factor, cultural, and institutional endowments.

Do conditional cash transfer programs reduce voters' incentives to hold their government accountable for its performance? Studies show that these programs generate considerable electoral returns for the governments responsible for them. One important and unexplored question is whether these popular programs have also changed the landscape of accountability in Latin America. Survey data from 16 Latin American countries that have adopted CCT programs do not offer support for the claim that such programs have a detrimental effect on electoral accountability for corruption and for the economy. Only in countries where CCT programs do not follow strict rules do beneficiaries attribute relatively less weight to the government's economic performance, but this effect is marginal. These findings fill an important gap in the literature and offer reassuring evidence that cash transfers can alleviate poverty while preserving voters' incentives to exercise electoral accountability in crucial areas of government performance.

The intriguing character of Caribbean history has fascinated many. The epic story of Spanish discovery, conquest and empire is deeply rooted in these ancient island sands. Haiti holds a unique attraction, because, for years, she was a French island in a Spanish sea and was the first Latin American republic to gain independence. On January 1, 1804, after the leadership of the inspired Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haiti emerged a free nation. Twelve years later, Venezuela's valiant Simón Bolívar, deeply committed to the independence struggle on the mainland sailed to Haiti and requested help. There, he met one of Hispanic history's most dynamic personalities, the guerrilla warrior, Francisco Xavier Mina. Until now, the story of their rendezvous and the events surrounding it has remained one of history's many secrets.

There is a moment in “I, Claudius” where Claudius, the king, looks back at all that had happened during his lifetime and before and decides that it is all rotten and has to be destroyed. And he makes a statement. He says: “Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.”

In a very real sense, Claudius’ curse sums up much of what has happened in Cuba during the last several years. All of the weaknesses and pathologies of the Castro regime, many of which had been hidden beneath its monolithic façade, have come to the surface. The revolution has soured. The situation has grown so bad that most political observers today assume that the regime is in its “final hour.” Cuba is “collapsing,” and the only real questions are when and how Fidel will go and what will replace him.

While Castro must leave sooner or later, reports of his impending demise have been much exaggerated. A golpe de estado is possible, but not probable.

There has been much discussion of the role of the church in social change in Latin America (Considine, 1964; D'Antonio and Pike, 1964; Haddox, 1965; Houtart and Pin, 1965; Jimenez, 1967; Lalive, 1968; Silvert, 1967; Willems, 1967). Recent arguments contrast a view that the church is integral and innovative in the development process (Vallier, 1970) with the view that the church is reactive and survival oriented, thus incapable of playing a leadership role in the process of social change (Mutchler, 1971). Both of these arguments specify the church as an instrumental force, interacting with other bureaucracies both internal and external to the country, in the process of development. The incursion of non-Catholic churches into Latin America is seen as important in influencing the established church as an actor in the change process, as well as serving as an initiator—or retarder—of change.

In 2015, Chile fundamentally reformed the electoral system it had used since 1989. The old system was characterized by high levels of malapportionment, or differences across districts in the ratios of voters to representatives. In the first elections after redemocratization, malapportionment favored the ideological right, but elections since 2000 have yielded no evidence that malapportionment produced ideological bias. The new, postreform electoral system reduces malapportionment in the lower chamber, although it remains pronounced in both chambers. Nevertheless, analysis of results from previous elections, coupled with information about the new districts, suggests that, consistent with recent experience, malapportionment will not produce ideological bias in elections to either chamber.