In a Nationally televised speech on 5 September 1989, President Bush outlined a comprehensive anti-drug program with both domestic and international dimensions. The objectives of this strategy, which was refined and submitted to the Congress on 25 January 1990, are to reduce the amount of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, and other dangerous drugs estimated to be entering the United States (a) by 15% within 2 years and (b) by 60% within 10 years.

The strategy includes a number of international components which differ greatly from policies of previous years. New to the strategy are provisions which: (1) provide — for the first time — support for limited economic assistance to major cocaineproducing countries; (2) concentrate more on disrupting the activities of the trafficking organizations [i.e. on seizing processing labs, chemicals and assets] and less on disrupting the activities of farmers [i.e., crop eradication]; (3) encourage increased levels of Andean nation military involvement in counter-narcotics operations; and (4) provide for enhanced US military support to host nation counter-narcotics forces.

In the vast maze of official United States programs for technical cooperation with Latin America, one of those that have attracted least attention is the support of Latin American scientific research by the United States Air Force. The program is a small one, not only as compared with the total research effort supported by the Air Force at home and abroad but also as compared with the total array of United States scientific and technical assistance to Latin America. It is not, in fact, an “assistance” program at all in the usual sense: it is, rather, a program in which Latin Americans assist the United States and simply receive payment for services rendered.

The assistance in question is not in any way directly related to the development of new weapons or to actual military activities; it operates on the level of basic and applied research, and is concerned only with increasing the general store of scientific knowledge on which future advances in non-military as well as military technology must ultimately rest.

Governments, Like People, Function in ways that enhance their perceived self-interest. Effective narcotics control is in the best interest of the United States for at least three reasons.

First, reducing the available supply of illicit narcotics (potentially) can reduce the incidence and prevalence of abuse by US citizens. For example, by making drugs relatively hard to find and expensive to use, supply-reduction efforts might successfully discourage potential users from experimenting with drugs and risking future chronic, intensive involvement. Moreover, it can be argued that control measures may be an important deterrent in motivating current drug users to seek treatment and find gainful employment (Moore, 1988).

Second, reducing the supply of illicit narcotics may reduce the level of organized crime and lawlessness in the United States. An effective supply reduction program presumably can bring success in stopping trafficking organizations from supplying illegal goods and services; seizing their ill-gotten wealth; punishing their acts; prosecuting them for corrupt practices; and weakening or eliminating these groups as threatening criminal enterprises.

In the last issue of the Journal, this writer published an article challenging the conventional wisdom concerning the future of the Castro regime. To the question “can Castro survive?,” I answered that yes, unfortunately, the prospects for his political demise in the near future were not all that good. A golpe de estado, while possible, was not probable. Nor was it likely that the Cuban masses would rise up and overthrow the dictatorship. And, while Fidel could become the victim of assassination, suicide, or natural death (or, for that matter, could even resign, as he has hinted on more than one occasion), these kinds of endings cannot be counted upon in the short run. For a variety of reasons, Castro's “final hour” seems likely to last for several years and, perhaps, much longer (see Schulz, 1993a).

What are the medium-term prospects for the Nicaraguan economy where, by medium term, we refer to the year 2000? The difficult task of fortune telling is made enormously more complicated by the political economy that was established in the country by the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) after the 1979 revolution in which they, with the aid of diverse social factions, overthrew the government of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. After more than a decade, the FSLN then handed over power, in mid-1990, to a coalition of opposition parties (the Union Nacional Opositora or UNO) headed by Violeta Chamorro. The 1990 election brought the first peaceful transfer of power in Nicaraguan history but, perhaps, represented more an abdication by the beleaguered Sandinistas than it did a sea change in the balance of class conflict.

Since the end of World War II, nations have been characterized according to membership in various international power blocs, the Western World being used for capitalist countries and the Iron Curtain for socialist ones. Within these categories countries are also characterized according to level of economic (and sometimes political) development. The capitalist world recognizes two types of nations, the developed and the underdeveloped. In contrast, the socialist world presents a single development model characterized by centralized planning and homogeneous development.

Historically, for the now economically developed countries, a strong positive correlation has normally existed between rising real output and employment levels. Among today's lessdeveloped countries (LDC's) even high growth rates can, and frequently do, fail to generate a concomitant rapid rate of employment expansion. Indeed, so acute is the failure of labor absorption to grow in step with rising incomes that a recent International Labour Organization (I.L.O.) report on Colombia (1970: 47) maintains “development strategy will become very largely employment strategy.”

The unemployment problem is in part due to the rapid population growth rates and even more rapid urban growth rates experienced by most LDC's in the postwar period, and in part it stems from the nature of their development processes (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1972: 35).

This article presents an overall view of the performance of the Argentine economy under the policies inaugurated in April 1976. Section I describes the conditions prevailing at the beginning of 1976, the main goals and arguments of the new economic authorities. Section II explores the implementation of the economic program and how the government insisted on its basic goals under rapidly changing conditions. Finally, Section III summarizes the author's views on the consequences of the present economic program and provides suggestions on an alternative development strategy. A brief Statistical Appendix with basic data on the Argentine economy and relevant economic variables of the period under analysis is also included.

From the Sierra Macarena in the north to the Sierra Divisor east of the Río Ucayali, the eastern ranges of the Andes form an amphitheater along the western border of the Upper Amazon Basin. This Andean arc was for centuries a combined physical and cultural boundary. The noman's land of the Ceja and the hostility of the Montaña with its rough relief, short lateral valleys, turbulent rivers, and with the “conservatism of the forest” represented a rigid and formidable physical barrier.

The eastern region of the Inca Empire, Anti-Suyo, certainly never reached far beyond the forest line along the eastern ranges. The deepest penetration into the Selva took place probably under Inca Túpac Yupanqui, during the wars against the Shiris, who settled around “Chachapuyas and Muyupampas.”

Fifty years after the creation of the OAS, political power is not centralized in that organization but variously diffused throughout the interamerican system. Meanwhile, the Summit of the Americas process has slowly acquired its own institutionality outside the OAS, and is sometimes perceived as challenging the primacy of the ideal of the OAS as the principal institution of interamerican relations. Even with its own weaknesses, the Summit of the Americas has become the most important force for reform of the OAS. As the hemisphere prepares for the third full summit in Quebec, this essay assesses the relationship of these two institutions and their future prospects.

The Church in Chile, in its efforts to reach and evangelize the poor, crippled by a gradually diminishing clergy, has over more than a decade come to place extraordinary emphasis on the presence of religious personnel in marginal urban and rural areas. This pastoral priority has induced considerable numbers of religious women to leave their original works (especially education) to take part in the direct apostolate in marginal areas, while the majority of foreign religious women who have recently arrived have opted to follow their example.

This article argues that growing civilian direction of the defense sector should generate three consequences: greater interoperability of the armed forces, a stronger emphasis on operations outside the national territory (here called externalism), and better defense-diplomacy coordination. An original investigation of the makeup of the drafting committees of three of Brazil’s national security strategy documents since the mid-1990s shows that varying rates of civilian participation in defense policymaking generate an impact on defense policy directives commensurate with theoretical expectations. Defense policy implementation, however, has found varying degrees of success. Using new and systematic quantitative data, this study demonstrates that interoperability has made progress, defense-diplomacy coordination is at an intermediate stage, and externalism, albeit not a failure, is still far from a success. Externalism’s performance is a consequence of rising crime, deficient police forces, the pragmatism of civilian elites, and public support for law-and-order military missions.

In The Face Of The Unsuccessful Efforts of law enforcement agencies (including the Coast Guard) to staunch the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States, Congress and the public have been demanding that the military increase its role in the nation's anti-drug campaign. These demands vary in scope. The minimum demand is that the military provide more logistical support and intelligence data. Another, which was approved by Congress in 1988, is also to give military personnel powers of search, seizure, and arrest outside the land area of the United States. Some also advocate giving civilian police powers to the military to patrol the national borders, including ports of entry. In May 1988, the US House of Representatives voted to demand that the military “seal the borders” to drug traffic within 45 days, an effort which would require both naval and border interdiction, and the Senate voted overwhelmingly to expand the role of the military in the anti-drug campaign. The most extreme demand has come from Representative Arthur Ravenel, Jr. (R-SC) who has called for the military shoot-down, on sight, of any aircraft suspected of smuggling drugs.

According to conventional wisdom, closed-list proportional representation (CLPR) electoral systems create incentives for legislators to favor the party line over their voters’ positions. However, electoral incentives may induce party leaders to tolerate “shirking” by some legislators, even under CLPR. This study argues that in considering whose deviations from the party line should be tolerated, party leaders exploit differences in voters’ relative electoral influence resulting from malapportionment. We expect defections in roll call votes to be more likely among legislators elected from overrepresented districts than among those from other districts. We empirically test this claim using data on Argentine legislators’ voting records and a unique dataset of estimates of voters’ and legislators’ placements in a common ideological space. Our findings suggest that even under electoral rules known for promoting unified parties, we should expect strategic defections to please voters, which can be advantageous for the party’s electoral fortunes.

The Congress of The United States exerts greater influence over foreign policy than do its counterparts in other nations. This influence extends to formulation of US policy regarding control of the international narcotics trade, a subject on which the Congress has chosen to assume a leading role. The formal policymaking role of the Congress in this area is embodied in legislation on international narcotics (including appropriation of funds) and in oversight. The Congress also exercises its influence in an informal way through consultation, unofficial advice, public education, and legislative prodding in the drafting and conduct of that policy.

The congressional role in narcotics policymaking is notably affected by its committee structure, in which numerous committees may exercise some degree of jurisdiction over narcotics-related issues. As a result, not only has there been widespread involvement of the Congress in formulating narcotics policy, but there has also been considerable fragmentation of that policy as congressional initiatives have been compartmentalized within the jurisdictional domains of various committees.

Using an innovative survey of six major street demonstrations in Mexico City between 2011 and 2013, this study compares political attitudes of protest participants and nonparticipants. The analysis offers three relevant findings. The results suggest that in comparison to protest nonparticipants, demonstrators tend to be more politically involved and experienced individuals, mobilized through their personal and organizational networks. The intensity of these factors’ effects as protest participation predictors varied across demonstrations, showing that protest participation is triggered by different factors. And the diversity of mobilizing factors shows that protest participation in Mexico City is complex, and is a common form of political participation for the plural, mobilized civil society.