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Showing papers in "Journal of Latin American Studies in 2004"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that satisfaction with market policies and with the way democracy is working has decreased among all groups except the very wealthy, suggesting that respondents are increasingly distinguishing between democracy as a system of government, and the manner in which particular governments are performing.
Abstract: The severe economic crisis facing several countries in the region over the last couple of years has led many observers to predict a backlash against market policies and even against democracy in the region. An economic crisis of such proportions should also, in theory, have negative effects on subjective well being. Our analysis, based on the Latinobarometro surveys from 2000–2002, finds some unexpected positive trends, as well as notable differences between those countries that suffered from crises and those that did not. Satisfaction with market policies and with the way democracy is working has decreased among all groups except the very wealthy. In contrast, support for democracy as a system of government has increased, suggesting that respondents are increasingly distinguishing between democracy as a system of government, and the manner in which particular governments are performing. We also find evidence of changing attitudes towards redistributive taxation among the wealthy.JEL Codes. D63 (welfare economics, equity, justice, inequality); D84 (information and uncertainty, expectations); I31 (general welfare; basic needs; quality of life); J62 (mobility, unemployment, intergenerational mobility)

132 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article reported that tariffs in Latin America were the world's highest long before the Great Depression, which is a surprising fact given that Latin America is believed to have exploited globalisation forces better than most regions before the 1920s, and given that the 1930s have always been viewed as the critical decade when Latin American policy became so anti-global.
Abstract: This article reports a fact that has not been well appreciated: tariffs in Latin America were the world's highest long before the Great Depression. This is a surprising fact, given that Latin America is believed to have exploited globalisation forces better than most regions before the 1920s, and given that the 1930s have always been viewed as the critical decade when Latin American policy became so anti-global. The explanation does not lie with imagined output gains from protection in these young republics, but rather with state revenue needs, strategic responses to trading partner tariffs and a need to compensate globalisation's losers.

116 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the reasons for the spread of vigilante justice in contemporary Guatemala and suggest that the roots of such vigilante justice lie in a collapsing peasant economy, insecurity of all sorts, and an unravelling of the social fabric in rural communities through the militarisation of rural Guatemala.
Abstract: This article explores the reasons for the spread of vigilante justice (linchamientos) in contemporary Guatemala. It investigates three specific linchamientos and suggests that the roots of such vigilante justice lie in a collapsing peasant economy, insecurity of all sorts, and an unravelling of the social fabric in rural communities through the militarisation of rural Guatemala.The article also argues that linchamientos are caused partly by a conflict over the attempts by the Guatemalan state to impose a certain type of order in rural Guatemala. It discusses the literature on customary law, in Guatemala and in various other locales around the world, and suggests that attempts to impose a state sanctioned legal system without adequate provision for customary law has helped contribute to a perception that the legal system is illegitimate, not just incompetent.

56 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper used a diachronic study of Argentina to explain how the nascent democracies of Latin America build the rule of law, showing that the construction of the rule-of-law is not a linear process.
Abstract: This article uses a diachronic study of Argentina to explain how the nascent democracies of Latin America build the rule of law. The changing relationship between Argentina's executive and judicial branches demonstrates that the construction of the rule of law is not a linear process. There have been periods of regression away from, as well as progress towards, the rule of law. This article uses party competition to explain Argentina's varying levels of judicial inde- pendence. The rule of law results from a balance of power between at least two political parties, neither of which has monolithic control, meaning that no highly disciplined party sustains control of both the executive and legislative branches. Competitive politics creates a climate in which an autonomous judiciary can emerge.

47 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a nested logit regression was used to estimate the impact of distinct political strategies used by incumbents during their terms and their previous electoral campaigns in their choices of career.
Abstract: As Brazilian federal deputies approach the end of their legislative terms, they have four major political career options: to retire from electoral politics; to run for state legislative office (regressive ambition); to run for re-election (static ambition); or to run for higher offices (progressive ambition). We developed a model that focuses on the determinants of political career choices by incumbent federal deputies in the 1998 Brazilian election. We argue that it is not the nature of political ambition that determines the career choices of federal deputies, but the evaluation of the risks and costs. A nested logit regression was used to estimate the impact of the distinct political strategies used by incumbents during their terms and their previous electoral campaigns in their choices of career. The main findings suggest that an incumbent's career choice is decisively influenced by the strategies they adopt to effectively use their resources.

45 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Fredrik Uggla1
Abstract: During the last 20 years ombudsmen have been established in most Latin American countries. This article provides an overview of the how these institutions have evolved in six countries, particularly with regard to their political independence and strength. In spite of the potentially important role that such institutions may have in promoting public accountability, respect for human rights and the rule of law in new democracies, some ombudsmen have been more successful than others in these tasks. This article reflects on possible factors accounting for the relative effectiveness of the ombudsman, and discusses the role that this institution plays in contemporary Latin America.

34 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an overview of the factors that lie behind this positive view of Mexico and conclude that Mexico is no longer an emerging market economy due to the positive change in the export structure, a healthier financing of the external sector deficit and the change in production structure.
Abstract: Since zoo0, financial agents, country-risk analysts and credit rating agencies have considered Mexico to be a solvent or low-risk country. This article seeks to answer the question of whether Mexico has ceased to be an emerging market economy. Therefore, the aim of the article is to provide an overview of the factors that lie behind this positive view of Mexico. We believe the answer to this question is affirmative. The positive change in the export structure, a healthier financing of the external sector deficit and the change in the production structure support the hypothesis that Mexico is no longer a risky economy. And, therefore, Mexico is not subjected to the severe macroeconomic crises proper to traditional emerging market economies. Other elements, however, also mean Mexico cannot yet be described as an economy exempt from macroeconomic risks.

26 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, an ethnographic focus on the Afro-Cuban cult of Ifa is presented to account for the recent effervescence of Afro Cuban cult worship in urban Cuba.
Abstract: With an ethnographic focus on the prestigious cult of Ifa, this article seeks to account for the recent effervescence of Afro-Cuban cult worship in urban Cuba. It is argued that, since worship involves a marked emphasis on ritual consumption, the cult's rise can be related to wider transformations that have taken place in the field of everyday consumption in Havana during the economic crisis that has followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc. In particular, Ifa has provided an arena for what habaneros call ‘especulacion’, a style of conspicuous consumption that has become prevalent among so-called ‘marginal’ groups in recent years.

26 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines the impact of judicial reform, judicial access and judicial independence on economic policy making in Costa Rica and argues that there is a potentially significant disjuncture between the sponsors' expectations of the judicial reforms' economic impact and the observed outcomes.
Abstract: ‘Judicial independence is a means to a strong judicial institution, which is a means to personal liberty and prosperity.’ United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer.Starting in the 1980s, and accelerating through the 1990s, international financial institutions (IFIs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and development agencies funnelled considerable resources into judicial reform and rule of law programmes in virtually every Latin American and Caribbean country. The assumption was that reformed court systems would foster free market economic development strategies. This article examines the impact of two frequently advocated aspects of judicial reform, judicial access and judicial independence, on economic policy making in Costa Rica. We argue that there is a potentially significant disjuncture between the sponsors' expectations of the judicial reforms' economic impact and the observed outcomes.

24 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the impact of Spanish and British Court rulings on the Pinochet case on human rights progress in Chilean courts and conclude that no progress at all would have occurred were it not for the dramatic verdicts handed down in British courts.
Abstract: This article assesses the impact, if any, of Spanish and British Court rulings on the Pinochet case on human rights progress in Chilean courts. Chilean judges chafe at the notion that foreign courts exerted any influence on them, arguing that, based solely on Chilean law and the evidence already before them, they were empowered to strip Pinochet of his immunity, and proceeded to do so. Human rights critics allege that the courts had been thoroughly immobilised by the authoritarian legacy to which they were enjoined. No progress at all would have occurred were it not for the dramatic verdicts handed down in British courts. The author contends that change was underfoot in Chile prior to Pinochet's arrest in London, but that Europe set Chile on a faster and steeper trajectory toward justice than would have been possible otherwise. It did so by shaming the Chilean Government into pressuring its own high courts to deliver a modicum of justice to the victims of Pinochet.

24 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the rise of the sugar industry from 1800 to world dominance in the 1920s is briefly portrayed, together with its collapse, recovery and subsequent stagnation between the 1930s and the Revolution of 1959.
Abstract: The rise of Cuban sugar production from 1800 to world dominance in the 1920s is briefly portrayed, together with its collapse, recovery and subsequent stagnation between the 1930s and the Revolution of 1959. The renewed and further growth of the sugar economy from 1959–89 is considered in the context of the uniquely favourable terms of trade then developed with the USSR and COMECON. These provided expanding markets and financed the technical transformation of the cultivation, harvesting, transhipment and processing of the sugar cane. From 1993 to 2002, following the implosion of the USSR and the dissolution of COMECON, Cuba could produce little more than one half of the average annual sugar output of the 1980s. This collapse and the inability of the island's planners to reverse it are discussed with particularly emphasis on post-1997 efforts to stabilise production and lower costs to meet persistently unfavourable world market sugar prices. A critical appraisal of the drastic ‘restructuring’ programme announced in 2002 is illustrated by primary data collected in fieldwork in 1994, 1996 and 2002 and Cuba's dramatic post-1991 decline from dominance in the international sugar trade is stressed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In a context in which the central state is severely constrained by fiscal weakness and corporatist traditions, it is questionable whether in fact the organs of civil society do in fact possess the organisational capacity to generate the structural reforms necessary for the advancement of children's rights at community levels.
Abstract: Since Nicaragua's endorsement of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the legislative passage of its own Code of Childhood and Adolescence, improvements in the welfare of marginalised youth have depended largely on community-based actions that are sponsored by NGOs and civic groups, many of which function in tangent with municipal government authorities and international aid agencies. In this article we review three community initiatives that have aimed at resolving problems associated with youth alienation and violence in a poor, heavily populated district of Managua. While some modest successes have been achieved, these relatively isolated initiatives have had no evident effect on either the magnitude or the systemic nature of youth marginalisation in Managua. In a context in which the central state is severely constrained by fiscal weakness and corporatist traditions, it is questionable whether in fact the organs of civil society do in fact possess the organisational capacity to generate the structural reforms necessary for the advancement of children's rights at community levels. Nevertheless, despite the amorphous nature of much of civil society in Nicaragua, in the long run children's rights legislation may help to foster growing solidarity among disparate civic forces working to improve the bleak livelihoods of many children.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A detailed analysis of the economy and slavery practised in the two major provinces of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo in the late 1820s and early 1830s is presented in this paper.
Abstract: The current analysis of slave society in Brazil has involved a rethinking of the traditional plantation-dominated model, with a new stress on the wide dispersion of slaves among whites and non-whites and their involvement in a lively internal economy as well as in extractive industries. This general picture is confirmed in a detailed analysis of the economy and slavery practised in the two major provinces of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Slaves were held in small units and they could be found in every region and occupied in every major economic activity. Some regions even had positive growth rates of the resident slave population despite the massive arrival of Africans. Finally we find women and free coloured as significant slave-owners, with the latter especially concentrated in the trades.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an empirical overview of the development of relations between Latin America and East Asia with special emphasis on Chile, demonstrating how domestic transformation has affected the Asia-Pacific policies of Latin American countries.
Abstract: Latin American countries have a long tradition of attempting to diversify their external relations. In this context, since the end of the Cold War East Asia has gained increasing importance. However, despite the rising interest in improved political and economic links, these attempts at diversification showed only modest results, Chile being a noteworthy exception within this overall trend. The following analysis presents an empirical overview of the development of relations between Latin America and East Asia with special emphasis on Chile, demonstrating how domestic transformation has affected the Asia-Pacific policies of Latin American countries. The main conclusion is that while in most countries domestic conflicts over the future course of political and economic development have hampered the creation of a consistent Asia-Pacific policy, the elite settlement in Chile has enabled strategic actors to create a policy network which provides the institutional basis for successfully diversifying external relations to East Asia.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the politics of literacy during the administration of Chilean President Eduardo Frei and show that literacy training was an essential part of Christian Democratic efforts to promote agrarian reform and rural unionisation and incorporate the peasantry into the Chilean political system.
Abstract: This article examines the politics of literacy during the administration of Chilean President Eduardo Frei. Literacy training was an essential part of Christian Democratic efforts to promote agrarian reform and rural unionisation and incorporate the peasantry into the Chilean political system. Paulo Freire, working for the ministries of agriculture and education, was able to employ his innovative ‘consciousness raising’ techniques throughout Chile. In practice, the campaign often blurred the line between creating a critical consciousness and creating a Christian Democratic consciousness, while Freire himself became caught up in political struggles within the administration over the extent and pace of reform.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the hidden politics around so-called "Merchandise No. 5", a secret formula extract of Peruvian coca-leaf used in the American beverage Coca-Cola since the early twentieth century.
Abstract: This article explores the hidden politics around so-called ‘Merchandise No. 5’, a secret formula extract of Peruvian coca-leaf used in the American beverage Coca-Cola since the early twentieth century. It analyses the peculiar early political economy of US cocaine control which by the 1920s lent the Coca-Cola Company (and its associate, Maywood Chemical Co. of New Jersey) special roles in drug diplomacy with Peru. It then follows the paradoxical transnational politics of this coca flow during the era of emerging world restrictions on cocaine and coca (1915–65). Coca-Cola was deeply engaged in drug politics with Peru.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the function of the principle of consent in Latin and Anglo-American history, and reflect on some of the presuppositions that can limit historical research.
Abstract: This commentary aimed originally to compare the function of the principle of consent in Latin and Anglo-American history. Yet, as it developed, I could no longer ignore the reasons behind the neglect of the close links between the principle of consent and the law of nature and nations. I grew increasingly interested in a comparison between this and another equally interesting anomaly emerging from it: the limitations nationalism has imposed on historians in studying their national histories. The end result has been to use my original subject as a means to reflect on some of the presuppositions that can limit historical research.

Journal ArticleDOI
Paul H. Lewis1
TL;DR: Men and women in Chile register and vote at separate polling booths, and the results are tabulated separately for each sex by the Ministry of Interior, down to commune level.
Abstract: Men and women in Chile register and vote at separate polling booths. Election results are also tabulated separately for each sex by the Ministry of Interior, down to commune level. A survey of national elections from 1952 to 1970 shows that women and men have different voting preferences. Moreover, results from the four congressional elections held since democracy was restored in 1989 demonstrate that those preferences persist to the present. By focusing on elections in the capital city of Santiago, which is divided into 52 communes (barrios) whose residents differ in their economic and educational levels, it is possible to see to what extent class and gender affect voting preferences. On the basis of an analysis of this data, this article concludes that women are consistently more likely than men to vote for conservative parties, and that this is true in every social class. Support for the left does rise among both sexes in the lower middle class, proletarian and peasant communes – but less among women than among men. The ‘gender gap’ is not usually very large (although it increases at both ends of the political spectrum), but it is persistent.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the performance of Mexico's exports in the early twentieth century, and particularly the so-called export boom that took place during the Mexican Revolution (1910−17).
Abstract: This article explores the performance of Mexico's exports in the early twentieth century, and particularly the so-called ‘export boom’ that took place during the Mexican Revolution (1910–17). By compiling the official trade figures from major trading partners, the article overcomes the deficiency of Mexican statistics that previously limited detailed analysis. Armed with more reliable data, this article defines the extent of the export boom and identifies its main contributing factors in terms of price, quantity and structure.

Journal ArticleDOI
Justin Wolfe1
TL;DR: The relationship between labour and nation in nineteenth-century Nicaragua by exploring how the state's institutional efforts to control labour coincided with a prevailing discourse of nation that idealised farmers (agricultores) and wage labourers (jornaleros and operarios) at opposite ends of the spectrum of national citizenship.
Abstract: This study examines the relationship between labour and nation in nineteenth-century Nicaragua by exploring how the state’s institutional efforts to control labour coincided with a prevailing discourse of nation that idealised farmers (agricultores) and wage labourers ( jornaleros and operarios) at opposite ends of the spectrum of national citizenship. The article focuses on the towns of the ethnically diverse region of the Prefecture of Granada, an area that included the present-day departments of Granada, Carazo and Masaya, and where coffee production first boomed in Nicaragua. It is argued that labour coercion rested not simply on the building of national, regional and municipal institutions of labour control, but also on defining the political and social role of labourers within the national community. At the same time, subaltern communities, especially indigenous ones, contested these efforts not merely through evasion and subterfuge, but by engaging the discourse of nation-state to claim citizenship as farmers and assert independence from landlords. ‘Vagrancy is more a danger to society than a suffering, ’ wrote Liberato Dubon, the prefect of Leon, in a characteristic display of nineteenth-century Liberal warmth and charity.1 Although Nicaraguan elites had lamented the scarcity of cheap labour since the earliest days of the colonial period, relatively easy access to land, the state’s inability to control its extensive agricultural frontier and the post-independence end of the repartimiento compounded the problem.2 But what at first blush appears simply to be the Justin Wolfe is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Tulane University. * The author is grateful to Aldo Lauria-Santiago and Lowell Gudmundson for comments on an earlier draft of this article. Research for this study was supported by grants from IIE-Fulbright and the UCLA Latin American Center. 1 Liberato Dubon, Gaceta de Nicaragua (Managua), 5 March 1864. 2 See, e.g., German Romero Vargas, Las estructuras sociales de Nicaragua en el siglo XVIII (Managua, 1988), p. 158 ; Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America : A Socioeconomic History, 1520–1720 (Berkeley, 1973), pp. 204–31, 288–309 ; E. Bradford Burns, Patriarch and Folk : The Emergence of Nicaragua, 1798–1858 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 8–9, 31 ; Linda A. Newson, Indian Survival in Colonial Nicaragua (Norman, 1987), pp. 277–8. J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 36, 57–83 f 2004 Cambridge University Press 57 DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X03007077 Printed in the United Kingdom

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the 19th-century travel accounts, the authors were enlightened nomads whose duty was to incorporate new and astonishing facts as objects of knowledge into their writing, which created a mise en scene of mysterious plots as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Nineteenth-century travel accounts contributed to the existing body of knowledge about the world at the time they were written, and today they serve as witness to the merging of expansionist progress with the scientific state. The primary function of these accounts was to circumscribe the world of rationality. Their authors were enlightened nomads whose duty was to incorporate new and astonishing facts as objects of knowledge into their writing, which created a mise en scene of mysterious plots; this process was in fact the first globalisation. Romanticism organised this narrative into a powerful textual montage on alterity, which combined scientific discourse, aesthetic response, and humanistic concern. Such a multifaceted set of characteristics posed serious challenges for the traveller-writer of that era, and Latin Americans had their own grand tour.1 Domingo Faustino Sarmiento represents the Latin American tradition of statesmen-writers and personifies the historical articulation between

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of the Ministry of Foreign Relations (Itamaraty) was systematically used by the Brazilian government as a means to monitor and counteract presumed overseas connections of a'revolutionary' nature.
Abstract: In the 1920s oligarchic rule in Brazil was perceived to be constantly under threat from ‘revolution’. Domestic developments and the impact of the First World War had brought about major changes in the political arena. In this context, the resources of the Ministry of Foreign Relations (Itamaraty) were systematically used by the Brazilian government as a means to monitor and counteract presumed overseas connections of a ‘revolutionary’ nature. Actions against tenentismo in the Rio de la Plata region and diplomatic efforts to oppose the 1930 Revolution, among other issues, are examined in this article in order to provide further understanding of the role played by Brazilian diplomacy in the final years of the Old Republic.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: O'Gorman was a teacher and scholar at the popular Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), not at the more elitist El Colegio de Mexico as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Over a period of half a century, from the 1940s to the 1990s, Edmundo O'Gorman came to occupy a unique place in Mexican historiography. Though he might be considered as quasi-aristocratic in his thought and in his bearing, he spent his entire career as teacher and scholar at the popular Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), not at the more elitist El Colegio de Mexico. Unlike Daniel Cosio Villegas, with whom he is often paired as the leading Mexican historians of their generation, he was not politically engaged, nor was he a ‘cultural caudillo’; he appeared to shun the attractions of academic administration and power. He was, however, an avid intellectual organiser and provocateur, who relished debate and welcomed polemical interchanges with colleagues at home and abroad.



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The British Vice Consul in Veracruz at the time of the uprising of 1832 by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna against the government of Anastasio Bustamante as mentioned in this paper found himself supporting Santa Anna and the rebels.
Abstract: Joseph Welsh was the British Vice Consul in the port of Veracruz at the time of the uprising of 1832 by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna against the government of Anastasio Bustamante. Contravening the orders of his superiors, who reiterated the view that it was his obligation to observe the strictest neutrality in the conflict and not interfere in Mexican politics, Welsh found himself supporting Santa Anna and the rebels. As a result, at the end of March, Bustamante's administration demanded that he be removed from office. The British Minister Plenipotentiary, Richard Pakenham, acquiesced. This article provides a narrative of the events that led to Welsh's forced resignation and explores what they tell us about British diplomacy in Mexico during the early national period. It also analyses Welsh's understanding of the revolt and his views on Santa Anna, providing some insights, from a generally ignored British perspective, into Santa Anna's notorious appeal and politico-military measures.