Showing papers by "Carlos M. Vilas published in 1992"

Family Affairs: Class, Lineage and Politics in Contemporary Nicaragua

Abstract: As I get older I give more importance to continuities, and try to discover them under the appearances of change and mutation. And I have reached the conclusion that there is only one great continuity: that of blood.Class structure never entirely displaces other criteria and forms of differentiation and hierarchy (e.g. ethnicity, gender, lineage) in the constitution of social identities and in prompting collective action. Class as a concept and as a point of reference is linked to these other criteria; often it is subsumed in them, thus contributing to the definition of the different groups' forms of expression and of their insertion into the social totality. But class does not eliminate these other criteria nor the identities deriving from them, nor can it preclude the relative autonomy derived from their specificity, as they define loyalties and oppositions which frequently cross over class boundaries. The relevance of these criteria in Latin America is even greater since the society's class profile is less sharply defined because of the lower level of development of market relations and urban industrial capitalism.Several studies have pointed to the importance of ruling families in shaping the socio-economic structure of Latin American countries, their political institutions and their cultural life. Prominent families have been considered the axis of Latin America's history from the last part of the colonial period until the beginnings of the present century – and until even more recently in some countries. Interestingly enough, these historical studies have contributed to a better understanding of one of the features most frequently discussed in today's sociological studies of Latin America: the weak or inchoate differentiation between public and private life and between collective and individual action.

Latin America: Socialist Perspectives in Times of Cholera (Preliminary Notes for a Necessary Debate)

Abstract: I would like to develop this article by picking up on some ideas I formulated several years ago regarding certain characteristics, achievements, and contents of the processes of popular political and social transformations in the underdeveloped world. These processes refer basically to three principal questions or dimensions: national independence, development, and democratization. The ways in which these dimensions meet and articulate reciprocally are ultimately a result of the social groups that lead each process in particular and of the insertion of each process in the international system.(1) I think that focussing on the topic from this perspective will help give us an idea of the conditions that must be taken into account by any socialist project in Latin America today. 1. National Independence Any reflection on socialism and its prospects in Latin America must obviously consider the impact of the disappearance of the "East" as even a hypothetical alternative to the international capitalist system. Independent of one's opinions about the former regimes of the East, it is undeniable that this variation of socialism -- or that of the Chinese experience -- was an explicit referent for the socialist projects of most political forces in the Latin American Left. Closely linked to the above, these regimes, particularly the economically most advanced such as the former USSR and the now-defunct German Democratic Republic, constituted an important source of economic and military aid for some Latin American countries -- such as Cuba -- which opted for socialism, or others -- such as Nicaragua during the decade of the 1980s -- which at least attempted profound, popular socioeconomic transformations. This aid helped these regimes to negotiate some of the rougher passages of underdevelopment and, above all, to defend their national sovereignty. Whatever the particularities of each case, there is no question that Latin American resistance to imperialist aggression received often-decisive support from the Eastern bloc. To establish counterpoints between how much national independence is due to the cooperation of the East and how much to the efforts of the peoples themselves is to pose the issue badly, or in bad faith. Popular efforts to maintain and consolidate national independence in the various Latin American and Third World countries that were engaged in processes of profound social transformations obtained decidedly significant support from the East before its collapse. Economic and technical cooperation assumed subsidy-like characteristics, given the proverbial limitations of the countries receiving the assistance. The effectiveness of such cooperation in helping the receiving countries down the road of development has been limited, to put it mildly. However, the availability of economic aid is only one of the aspects to be considered in this regard; equally important is the capacity of the receiving countries to convert the aid into development, and this is a question that depends above all on the strategies, policies, and actions, that is to say, the decisions, adopted by the respective governments. In the international arena, the possibilities for a socialist option were tied to the competition between the capitalist system and the socialist bloc and to the capacities of the popular and national regimes to receive aid from the latter so as to check the pressures of the former. Today, the socialist bloc no longer exists, and there is little sense in crying over spilled milk. The international order that is being formed in the aftermath of the debacle in the East and, above all, in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, is a politically unipolar and economically multipolar order, but in any case it is an indubitably capitalist order. The Soviet Union [until its recent demise -- Eds.] and China still hold socialism high on the official scale of values, but their relegation to secondary positions in international politics is beyond doubt. …

Después de la revolución: democratización y cambio social en Centroamérica

Abstract: Este articulo abre una reflexion sobre los procesos revolucionarios centroamericanos que se iniciaron en la decada de 1960 y culminaron, treinta anos despues, en elecciones democraticas. Desde una amplia perspectiva que abarca un analisis economico y social de las condiciones que determinaron tanto el estallido de los movimientos guerrilleros como su pacificacion y ulterior conversion en proyectos politicos y electorales, el autor plantea la paradoja de una situacion historica en que la via de las armas se presentaba como necesaria, pero sus resultados, despues de tanto tiempo de perdidas economicas, sociales y humanas, no parecen justificar los medios