After the great ideological debates of the 1970s and 1980s and the domestic “war” (there is no better term) over Central America policy, a quite remarkable consensus had emerged in the 1990s regarding United States policy in Latin America. The new consensus was surprisingly bipartisan, having been largely continuous from the Bush to the Clinton administrations and actually having its origins in the even earlier Carter and Reagan administrations. For those who remember the rancorous, divisive battles, stretching back over two decades, over such issues as human rights, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, the emergence of a consensus on US foreign policy towards Latin America was nothing short of astounding. There are three basic elements in this new consensus, usually referred to as the "Washington Consensus," all interrelated:

1. (1) an emphasis on furthering democracy and human rights;

2. (2) an emphasis on free (or at least “fair”) trade and economic integration; and

3. (3) an emphasis on open markets, state downsizing, and privatization: i.e., on capitalism or neoliberalism.

Despite the Mexican regime's track record of adaptiveness, the 1980s seemingly altered the nature of political reform there. Secular, conjunctural, and policy trends attenuated traditional reformist mechanisms (i.e. the regime's capacity to co-opt, or corruption's “lubricating” potential), exposing a series of wrenching political dilemmas and potentially zero-sum equations. The watershed presidential election of July 1988 and the continuing challenge posed by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solórzano's PRD (Parttdo de la Revolutión Democrática) both reflected and crystallized these quandaries, magnifying the need and inherent dangers of reforming the one-party system. Yet during the ensuing years, and contrary to unwieldy predictions and scenarios, the regime neither unraveled (see Wiarda 1988/89), capitulated before a Cárdenas-led electoral or revolutionary front, nor stagnated. Instead it rebounded, raising new questions about Mexico's political future.

Contrary to the argument that evangelical Christianity is inherently apolitical or conservative, evangelicals in a new pueblo on Lima’s periphery extended political mobilization to negotiating with municipal authorities, Catholic neighbors, and even Sendero Luminoso to define political and ideological space in the new neighborhood. Yet differences within and among denominations kept them from permanently coordinating their political activism. This case highlights the nature of citizenship building and political participation for evangelicals in Peru.

What explains ideological congruence between citizens and political parties? Although the literature on congruence has recently provided some answers to this question, most of these works have focused on the effect of systemic and partisan factors. They have paid less attention to the effect of people’s characteristics on ideological congruence, which is built by the interaction between citizens’ positions on public issues and those of the political parties that represent them. Our general research hypothesis is that party-voter congruence is stronger when parties reduce the uncertainty about their ideological positions and citizens can understand these signals better. Analysis of Latin American data supports this hypothesis, showing that people’s cognitive ability, specifically education and political knowledge, has a positive effect on party-voter ideological congruence. Moreover, this relationship is moderated by parties’ attributes, such as ideological ambiguity and radicalism.

With these ringing words, Colonel Henry L. Kincaide, at the 1913 Convention of the American Manufacturers Export Association, urged his fellow manufacturers into battle. The adversaries were England and Germany; the prize, world trade (Faulkner, 1924; Beard, 1934; Williams, 1959; LaFeber, 1963).

The speech came at an opportune time, because just three months later Congress was to pass the Federal Reserve Act and thus sanction a trade aid for which exporters had been lobbying for many years-the legal establishment of American branch banks in foreign countries (Chandler, 1911; Holmes, 1912; Bankers Magazine, 1913; Ring, 1913).

In the late seventies and early eighties the Mexican economy was in a crisis situation. This crisis, however, did not manifest itself until August 1982 when the Mexican government sent shock waves through the international financial community by declaring a temporary moratorium on external debt payments. Six years earlier, during the waning months of the Echeverría administration, a similar financial and economic crisis had taken place amid rumors of an impending military coup. These adverse economic developments - and their challenge to the country's long-term political and social stability - stand in stark contrast to the so-called “miracle years” of the late fifties and sixties. During these years M éxico enjoyed high rates of economic growth coupled with annual rates of inflation (below 5%) which were the envy of the developing world.

This paper will argue that, on closer examination, the rapid economic growth of this period was achieved as a result of economic and financial policies which, by exacerbating existing structural weaknesses endemic to the Mexican economy, paved the way for the crises of 1976 and 1982.

Political scientists have embarked upon the creation of “grand theories” of “political development” and “modernization” in the emerging nations of the world in an effort to explain the changing nature of various political systems. Applications of these theories to Latin America have been relatively recent. However, lack of sufficient scientifically verified data about Latin American social and political phenomena still exists, thus making generalized theories about political development inconclusive. This study is an attempt to provide an analysis of a national congressional election in a Latin American nation, Chile. A description of the legitimacy of Chile's changing election system and an examination of the issues and voting results of the 1965 congressional election serve as important points of entry into the complex subject of political development in one nation of Latin America.

While it is true that the Chinese Communists are making a late entry into Latin America, the degree of appeal of the Peking position is indicative of two significant trends within the hemispheric Marxist movement. First, the original orthodox Communist parties have not been as aggregative as they should have been to keep up with the growth of groups committed to radical change. Second, the Chinese have provided an important facade for a Marxist approach to revolution that is fresher and less tarnished than has been provided by the older party organizations.

Las Fuerzas Rurales de la Federación, commonly called the rurales, were a prominent institution of Porfirian Mexico and a significant instrument of the dictator's power. Contemporary travelers, journalists, and political propagandists either praised or condemned them and compared them to the Texas Rangers, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Spanish Guardia Civil, Rosas’ Mazorca, and even to Ivan the Terrible's Oprichniki. Almost all histories of Porfirian Mexico mention the rurales and indicate their significance to Diaz’ prolonged absolute control of the country. Without specific study and serious scholarship, however, the origin, nature, and exploits of the rurales have acquired legendary characteristics. Because of their relative success in curbing brigandage on the one hand and their alleged brutality on the other, they became symbolic of both the order and the ruthlessness of Porfirian Mexico. The popular accounts of the rurales are easily divided into two categories—viz., those of Diaz’ apologists and those of his detractors. The following observation by Ethel Brilliana Tweedie is typical of the former.

Once prey to government patrimonial practices, the Corporación de Fomento de la Producción (CORFO), Chile's economic development agency, overcame this problem in the early 1990s. In 2000 CORFO established a High Technology Investment Promotion Program to promote foreign direct investment in high technology and other nontraditional sectors. This article applies concepts of political survival and cooperation to explain how CORFO moved from patrimonialism to technocratic independence. Then it demonstrates that governments possessing technocratic independence but lacking other characteristics typically associated with successful investment promotion efforts can develop transnational strategic networks of individuals, business associations, and universities to facilitate their learning process in order to devise more effective strategies to promote nontraditional FDI.

Luna, Murillo, and Schrank (LMS) do our field a very valuable service by raising questions on the state of research on the political economy in Latin America and where it should be going. They cover a lot of ground in a short space, leaving a smorgasbord of issues to mull over, question, or endorse. To my mind, some of the most promising critiques in the memo are that there are gaps in the field and that those gaps are due in part to methodological fashion. Yet the discussion of gaps in LMS is somewhat ungrounded and underspecified. Closing the essay with a call for more research on democracy, development, state formation, inequality, and international linkages seems to miss the fact that most recent research is actually related to these five topics. Many readers probably would react by saying to themselves that they have been conducting some research in one or more of these areas.

The fundamental reality of Latin America during the 1970s will be the efforts of governments to reduce their countries' dependence on the developed world and thereby increase their autonomy within the international system. A salient aspect of this effort is and will be a redefinition of the role multinational corporations play in Latin American societies. Foreign investment will continue to play an important part in the economic life of the region, but the acceptable characteristics and behaviors of multinational corporations will differ substantially from those which were prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s.

The rationale for a restructuring of the relationship of Latin American economies with the system of international trade and investment is found in the writings of “dependence theorists” such as Theotonio Dos Santos (1970) and Osvaldo Sunkel (1972). In a sense, their approach can be seen as a development of the Prebisch thesis of the 1950s, which held that Latin American economies were being systematically diverted from attaining their true potential through the workings of the international trade mechanism.

Recent experience has made clear the importance of macroeconomic stability, and exchange rate stability in particular, in generating support for regional integration. The tensions created by exchange-rate and financial volatility are clearly evident in the recent history of Mercosur and may also hinder the development of a Free Trade Area of the Americas. This essay argues that ambitious schemes for a single regional currency are not a practical response to this problem. Nor would a system of currency pegs or bands be sufficiently durable to provide a lasting solution. Instead, countries must solve this problem at home. In practice, this means adopting sound and stable monetary policies backed by a clear and coherent operating strategy, such as inflation targeting. With such policies in place, exchange rate volatility can be reduced to levels compatible with regional integration.

On March 20, 1980, a small group of would-be Cuban exiles attempted to force a bus through the gates of the Peruvian embassy in Havana. In the process, they killed one Cuban military guard on duty and apparently touched off a chain of events that resulted in the “Freedom Flotilla“—the dramatic emigration of 125,266 Cubans (Bowen, 1980:9). This exodus, one of the most controversial episodes in recent U.S.-Cuban relations, also sparked a national and international ideological debate over its significance. Central to the ideological struggle and the theme of this article are the legitimacy problems facing the Cuban state.

The Policy of “Responsible Pragmatism,” initiated in 1974 by President Ernesto Geisel, ended Brazil's automatic alignment with the United States and sought out non-ideological ties with Third World and socialist countries instead. This change in policy led Brazil to recognize both the People's Republic of China (in 1974) and the Republic of Angola (in 1975) as well as to improve links with other socialist nations. Resumption of relations with Cuba, however, was rejected by the military regime on grounds that the socialist island did not offer either the energy resources or substantial markets needed by Brazil, two considerations which had gone far to ease the concern of military hardliners over ideological issues.

This paper analyzes the achievements and failures of the new democratic governments in Argentina (1983-), Uruguay (1985-), Brazil (1985-), and Chile (1990-). My comparisons focus on four fundamental issues: economic performance, the ability of governments to address the pressing problems of poverty and inequality, the quality of democratic practice, and the degree to which these governments and the democratic regimes have won popular support and legitimacy. Focusing on these questions is not to deny the significance of others, nor to suggest that citizens of these countries would see these four as the most pressing. The focus here will be on government; civil society will not be discussed in any detail.

This article develops four principal arguments. First, it argues that the performance of democracy has varied considerably in the four countries under discussion. Democracy in Chile, at least in its early phases, has been a success both politically and economically.

This research examines the data from private polls conducted during Vicente Fox's presidential campaign through the lenses of the “modernization” of campaigning, the creation of image in the modern Mexican presidency, and the survey tools used by the campaign to achieve a historic presidential victory in 2000. Fox's campaign team used polling to determine the potential of the Mexican public to be persuaded by an opposition candidate, to provide a continuous update on how the campaign strategy was working, to assist in solidifying Fox's image and message of change (rather than promoting his policy agenda), and to target demographic groups that were perceived to be important electoral partners. These findings suggest that public opinion polling is a useful tool in Mexico to combat longstanding corporatist structures used to favor the PRI. Presidential campaigns in Mexico are beginning to resemble modern campaigns in other mature democracies in their use of private polling data; future Mexican campaigns will become more image- and personality-based.

The theories and evidence about relationships between democracy and social spending in Latin America are highly contested. A recent study shows that collective protest by organized labor effectively increases social security and welfare spending, whereas mass protest does not have comparable effects on human capital spending in Latin American democracies. This article reexamines the analysis and demonstrates that organized labor alone cannot sway democratic governments. Labor strikes require the synchronizing effect of mass protest to obtain government concessions. Only through concurrent episodes of mass protest can organized labor overcome the numerical disadvantage of pressing democratic government for social welfare spending. In understanding the relationship between labor protests and social welfare spending through the lens of insider-outsider dichotomy, it is critical to consider the synchronizing effect of mass protests. The findings remain robust with alternative measures of democracy and various model specifications.

This study addresses a void in the literature on public attitudes toward police in Latin America. It integrates three theoretical models of the determinants of citizen satisfaction with police work in Chile: demographic, quality of life in the neighborhood, and experiential. The study tested the integrated model using a novel random sample of 996 individuals living in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago. The results underscore the importance of legitimacy centered on fair treatment, respect for human rights, and the perception that the police represent society. The findings are also significant for the Chilean institutional political process and for the Latin American police reform debate.

Import substitution industrialization was the postwar development policy of choice in Latin America, and the diagnosis of its weaknesses heavily influenced subsequent policy recommendations. Yet few attempts have been made to test the predominant sectorally based explanation of ISI's failings against alternatives. This article develops a model of direct (clientelistic) linkages between politicians and their supporters and tests it against the standard sectoral model based on indirect linkages. Examining three features of process (economic sector influence, legislative voting, and exchange rate policy) and analyzing the distributional implications of the overall policy in Brazil, this article demonstrates that a clientelist model provides a more complete and coherent account of the empirical record. By demonstrating that variation in linkage type alters the political constraints on policy choice, the analysis also provides new insight into enduring puzzles, including the better performance in East Asia.