In the last ten years, Medellín, Colombia has undergone significant socioeconomic improvements and a reduction in homicides. By drawing from qualitative data collected in Medellín, this article shows how, despite these improvements, residents in the marginalized neighborhoods maintain a perception that the state is unable or unwilling to provide them with services, such as employment and order or social control. Criminal gangs in these neighborhoods appear to rely on, and even exploit, the weakness of the state, as they are able to get citizens to perceive them as more reliable and legitimate than the state. This article argues that it is important for Latin American policymakers to promote citizen engagement in the design and implementation of policies to reduce current levels of violence.

For years many Americans have assumed that the United States has exploited Cuba. The greatest opportunity for this control existed when the United States occupied Cuba after the Spanish-American War. The island was ravaged by war, famine, and disease, and the Cubans were exhausted after nearly a decade of depression, and revolution. It would have been easy for the U.S. government and business interests to control Cuba economically. Yet this did not occur. By concentrating our attention upon Cuban sugar production, perhaps the real nature of United States-Cuban economic relations may become apparent.

In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, the McKinley administration found itself caught between two forces. The Congressional Joint Resolution of April 20, 1898, bound the Americans to leave Cuba once the island was pacified, but the Paris Peace Treaty of December 10, 1898, assumed that the United States would remain for a period of reconstruction.

The purpose of this article is to provide, for specialists as well as those who do not follow Panamanian politics, an account of the 1994 election and an assessment of its significance in terms of the consolidation of democracy in Panama. Panama held its first post-transition national election on 8 May 1994, in which not only presidential and legislative, but also local, offices were contested.

This analysis addresses both the electoral process and its product, i.e., which parties and candidates won. These two aspects are assessed separately because they (1) reflect different political dynamics and (2) have different implications for democratic consolidation. As a process, Panama's 1994 election reflected the substantial progress made toward institutionalizing an independent, nonpartisan Electoral Tribunal and building the public's confidence that their votes cast will determine who wins.

Political scientists from the Southern Cone have enriched the discipline with pioneering work. Many of them went into exile for political reasons, and thus produced part of their work abroad. Although Latin American political science has professionalized since the 1980s, many scholars still emigrate for study and employment. Argentines most numerously seek academic careers abroad, while Brazil has many more domestic doctorates and returns home after doctoral studies abroad. Uruguayans emigrate in proportionally high numbers and tend to settle in Latin American countries, while the number of Chileans and Paraguayans abroad is minimal. These contrasting patterns are explained by reference to factors such as the availability of high-quality doctoral courses, financing for postgraduate studies, and the absorptive capacity of national academic markets. Paradoxically, the size and performance of the diasporas may increase rather than reduce the visibility and impact of national political science communities.

The article discusses the quality of available statistics on income and land distribution in Haiti. It is demonstrated that some of the most widely quoted figures do not stand up to methodological scrutiny. Hence, no serious discussion of redistribution, let alone practical measures, can be based on these figures.

Beginning in the early 1960s, manufacturing operations of the larger U.S. corporations became more international in scope with the emergence of the globally integrated production system (Moxon, 1974: 60). Fundamental to the successful functioning of the system was an international division of labor. Generally, workers in less developed countries (LDCs) were utilized for labor-intensive tasks, and capital-intensive, highly skilled phases of production were carried out in the United States. The geographical separation of labor inputs became the hallmark of the internationalization of production directed by multinational corporations (MNCs). More efficient modes of transportation, such as containerization and air freight, and improved communication, information, and production control techniques made possible centralized administration of dispersed production units (Vuskovic, 1980: 10). In addition, the global context of production required a new approach to foreign investment—the offshore installation, which eventually assumed two forms: the export platform and the satellite plant.

During most of its history, the Brazilian Catholic Church has been closely allied with the dominant classes and the state. Conversely, the Church traditionally has had tenuous linkages with the popular classes, and its practices with these classes generally have been paternalistic and authoritarian. This situation began to change somewhat in the 1950s as the institution made new efforts to reach the popular sectors.

In mid-1985, the US Embassy in Caracas stated that “Venezuela appears to have successfully coped with its financial crisis” (US Embassy, 1985). In January 1986, the Wall Street Journal announced that

There has been little systematic research of any kind on political leadership in Latin America (Welsh, 1970). This omission is regrettable because a study of political leadership indicates what types of men govern the political system, which institutions are most important in the recruitment process, and what careers are demanded of those leaders. In the Mexican political system, where local and national leadership is dependent upon the same organizations for power, studies of local politicians indicate what qualities characterize national elites.

The only monograph which is devoted in detail to a study of the backgrounds, origins, and recruitment of political leaders of a single Latin American country is the work of José Luis de Imáz (1970) on Argentina. However, even Imáz's (1970: 13) work makes only passing references to provincial governors, and his conclusions are based on the surprisingly small sample of eighteen governors from three states.

One of the striking facts about the social and political history of Haiti from independence in 1804 to the present is the deep gulf separating the largely mulatto elite groups from the predominantly black masses. The war of the South in 1799 between Toussaint and Rigaud, and the conflicts between Christophe and Pétion, while not primarily caused by color factors, were reinforced by suspicions and hostilities between black and mulatto, with each group accusing the other of prejudice and discrimination. Politics in the rest of the nineteenth century can generally be seen as a tussle between a mulatto elite centered in the capital and in the cities of the South, on the one hand, and a small black elite often in alliance with army leaders and peasant irregulars, on the other. In the years following 1867 these groups formalized themselves into a largely mulatto Liberal Party, and a preponderantly black National Party.

Political or ideological obstacles have proved of paramount importance in Brazil's ability to adopt sound, consistent economic policies — the kind of policies the country needs if it is to overcome economic crisis and consolidate modern capitalism and democracy. Brazil's recent democratization was based on solid economic and social reality, representing the victory of civil society rather than a gift from the military regime. Nevertheless, it failed to tackle some of the basic ideologies and political practices which are typical of middle-income, industrialized, yet underdeveloped countries like Brazil: such as economic populism, developmentalism, anachronistic nationalist beliefs, political clientelism, unrealistic worker demands, conservatism, the orthodoxy of neoliberal monetarism, and the inability of short-sighted business elites to define the national interest.

Definition of categories is an age-old scholastic and often sterile pastime. But in discussing the Caribbean, definitions are essential, particularly in these days when there is growing fuzziness as to what constitutes the Caribbean.

The fact is that there are three separate but overlapping definitions of the Caribbean in widespread use today.

First, there is the English-speaking Caribbean or the Commonwealth Caribbean or West Indies. Nearly all of these countries and territories are member states of the Caribbean community which comprises the four relatively “more developed countries” of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, and the generally smaller eight relatively “less developed” countries of Antigua, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent.

Paraguay has a relatively open (for Latin America) class structure, a strong national consciousness, a two-party political system, and mass involvement in national politics, all of which are features that some writers believe should be associated with representative democracy of the North American type. In Paraguay, however, these features are associated with, and in fact reinforce, a political system which for most of the past century has consisted of a series of conservative and unstable dictatorships.

It will be suggested in this paper that this association is made possible by the development of certain kinds of interpersonal relationships which have been called “dyadic contracts” since they bind two individuals in either patron-client relationships or colleague relationships. They take various institutionalized forms in many peasant societies that lack corporate descent groups, having been described for Italy, Spain, and the Philippines, as well as Latin America.

The proliferation of nongovernmental organizations across the developing world has sparked discussions of the “NGOization” of civil society and concern that NGOs have become increasingly uniform and internally homogenous. This article explores the evolution of NGOs in Guatemala since the 1960s and finds that NGOs historically and currently respond in diverse ways to external pressures—adjusting their strategies and actively attempting to shape their environment. Comparing two microcredit NGOs, it finds in addition that old and new models combine in unique organizational contexts in distinct ways. These two findings suggest that diversity is likely to persist among NGOs.

A new generation of social policies in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America are being read by scholars as first and foremost the result of top-down initiatives by state elites and technocrats. This article explores what role, if any, middle-class professionals have played and how this role might be framed in analytical terms. The article examines the trajectory of two of the most important new social programs that target the poor in the city of São Paulo, Brazil: the family health program PSF and Renda Mínima. It compares the city-level reform dynamics that have shaped the trajectory of the programs over 18 years. It finds that networks of reformist middle-class professionals that traverse public and private institutions played a substantial role in the creation and evolution of the new programs.

Between 1945 and 1947, Argentina posed a complex and exasperating problem for the United States as it endeavored to develop policy to guide its relations with Latin America. Among the questions involved were how to deal with an alleged neofascist dictator in Argentina, how to preserve the aura of the so-called Good Neighbor policy, whether to provide arms and economic aid to Latin America, and whether to enter into a collective security agreement for the western hemisphere.

The subject of this article is the Peronist union leadership in the period from the fall of Perón in 1955 until the elections of March 1973, which heralded the return of Peronism to power. The first section examines this leadership mainly in terms of its internal power base, especially vis-á-vis its membership. This involves primarily an examination of internal union government, union elections, and potential limitations of leadership power by the rank and file. The second part looks at the union leadership in terms of its power as a political force bargaining on behalf of the Peronist movement. This will also involve a brief look at the union leadership's relationship with Perón himself. Finally, the third section attempts to suggest an explanatory framework within which to situate the development of this union leadership's power.