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Begin New Search Publishing Institution The North-South Center, University of Miami

1. The Caribbean Security Scenario at the Dawn of the 21st Century: Continuity, Change, Challenge

Author:
Ivelaw L. Griffith
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
The two epigraphs — one by a noted scholar and erstwhile policyactor and the other by a respected policymaker with intellectual acumen — capture core elements of the twin realities of continuity and change that define the security scenario of the contemporary Caribbean. Proximity, vulnerability, and instability are not new features of the Caribbean or of Caribbean-United States dynamics; they represent some of the continuity from times past. However, they assume special character because of the terrorism tragedy that has “cast a pall across the whole hemisphere,” to quote Barbados Prime Minister Arthur.
Topic:
Security and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, Caribbean, and North America

2. NAFTA and Small Business Competitiveness in Mexico: The Impacts of Free Trade, Macroeconomic Policy, and Firm Management

Author:
Jerry Haar, Catherine Leroy-Beltrán, and Oscar Beltrán
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Despite compelling evidence that, for the most part , benefits from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have exceeded its costs in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the policy debate continues in all three countries as to whether the accord has produced more “winners” or “losers.” In the case of Mexico, the focus country of this research project, both the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional — PRI) and the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional — PAN) have been supportive of NAFTA.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, North America, and Mexico

3. A Resurgent MERCOSUR: Confronting Economic Crises and Negotiating Trade Agreements

Author:
Thomas Andrew O'Keefe
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Almost from the day it was launched on March 26, 1991, skeptics have predicted the imminent collapse of the Common Market of the South (Mercado Común del Sur — MERCOSUR), while some economists have fretted about the project's supposed protectionist designs to create a trade fortress. The most memorable example of the latter was a 1996 report written by a World Bank economist that relied on out-of-date trade statistics and attributed to MERCOSUR policies that were actually pre-existing national automotive regimes. More recent tirades have tried to blame Argentina's economic meltdown on its MERCOSUR membership. A well-known economist from a New York City investment bank has even gone as far as to proclaim MERCOSUR dead. Given all the invective directed against efforts to integrate South America's Southern Cone economically over the past decade, it is not surprising that MERCOSUR is misunderstood by many in North America.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and North America

4. The Changing Landscape of Financial Services in Latin America's Large Emerging Markets

Author:
Jerry Haar
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
The Latin American financial services sector has been profoundly affected by the sweeping economic, legal, and regulatory reforms of the 1990s. Conversely, the sector has extensively impacted the economic liberalization process that has been the hallmark of Latin American development from the late 1980s through the present. This paper highlights trends in the financial services sector; discusses the key drivers of change, both globally and regionally; illustrates how three of those drivers — mergers and acquisitions (M), technology, and customer demand — are revolutionizing this sector; and reviews the organizational and strategic responses by financial firms to an increasingly competitive environment.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and Globalization
Political Geography:
Latin America

5. Was Failure Avoidable? Learning From Colombia's 1998-2002 Peace Process

Author:
Adam Isacson
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Colombians had never seen President Andrés Pastrana as angry or as dejected as he appeared on television the night of Wednesday, February 20, 2002. His effort to end nearly 40 years of violence — a conflict with leftist guerrillas and paramilitary vigilantes that claimed over 3,500 lives in 2001 — had just received a fatal blow. More than three years of frustrating negotiations had come to nothing.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Colombia

6. The United States and Colombia: The Journey from Ambiguity to Strategic Clarity

Author:
Gabriel Marcella
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
President Bush's sweeping support for Colombia underlines a remarkable turnaround in U.S. policy. Driven for years by the ambiguity of a counternarcotics-only approach, the United States has now adopted a more comprehensive recognition of Colombia's deeply rooted and complex security problem. Indeed, Colombia is a revealing paradigm for twenty-first century conflict. It is a surprisingly weak state under assault by a powerful combination of ungoverned national territory, insurgent terrorism of the left and right, international crime organized around drug trafficking, a deeply rooted counterculture of violence and impunity, ecological damage, and institutional corruption. Unlike the Cold War military and ideological confrontation between two superpowers, a country's debilities, rather than its strengths, breed the viruses that threaten the international community and the United State.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and Colombia

7. A Review of European Perceptions of Cuba

Author:
Joaquín Roy
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
The commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Cuban Republic on May 20, 2002, provided an opportunity to review not only the survival of the Cuban regime, but also the whole history of the Cuban nation. 2 This event coincided with the historic visit of former President Jimmy Carter to Havana 3 and the reiteration of the unwillingness of the United States to terminate its embargo of Cuba, as expressed by President George W. Bush in an unprecedented speech in Washington and on a trip to Miami. 4 At the same time, friction has increased between Cuba and some influential Latin American countries, as in the special case of Mexico. The tension generated in the aftermath of the vote taken by the United Nations Commission for Human Rights in Geneva in April 2002, which criticized Cuba's human rights practices, revealed a definite crack in the comfortable linkage previously enjoyed by Castro with most countries of the hemisphere (with the notable exception of the United States). On October 23, 2002, when the European Parliament (EP) approved the award of the Sakharov Prize to Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá for his record in the defense of human rights and especially for his leadership in the “Varela Project,” the overall panorama of the relations of the European Union (EU) with Cuba acquired a new look, signifying the confirmation of a long pattern of the EU's perceptions of and policy toward Cuba. 5 Cuba's decision to allow Payá to travel to Strasbourg to receive the award was taken simultaneously with the EU's announcement of the opening of a delegation in Cuba, while Castro surprisingly declared that Cuba would reapply to become a member of the Africa, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) Cotonou Convention. It is time, therefore, for a historical review and a consideration of the most salient aspects of European-Cuban relations and some of the pending issues.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, Cuba, and Caribbean

8. Europe: Neither Plan Colombia, nor Peace Process - From Good Intentions to High Frustration

Author:
Joaquin Roy
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
With the public announcement of a reshaped Plan Colombia in mid-2000, European attitudes toward involvement in attempting to solve the crisis of Colombia's endemic violence has oscillated from alarm to hope and, finally, to frustration. The overall scene has been dominated by a sense of powerlessness, mixed with realism and internal contradictions between member states and institutions of the European Union (EU).
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Colombia

9. The Argentine Implosion

Author:
Luigi Manzetti
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
In December 2001, Argentina recorded the world's largest default ever, as it failed to honor payments on its US$132 billion foreign debt. Since then, five presidents have been in power, the Argentine peso has been devalued by 120 percent, and the banking system has virtually collapsed, dragging the economy into a depression. The gross domestic product (GDP) contracted 16.3 percent in the first quarter of 2002. Argentina's per capita income has become one of the worst in Latin America, and, as a result, more than one-third of its people live under the poverty line. 1 Argentines' confidence in their elected officials has disappeared. By most accounts, the country has literally imploded to a degree that has no precedent in Latin America's contemporary history. This is particularly bewildering, considering that only 10 years ago Argentina was hailed around the world as a model of successful economic reforms, with standards of living that were not only the highest in the region but comparable to those of some southern European countries. How could Argentina go from role model to international outcast so quickly? Some place the blame on external shocks created by the financial crises in Mexico (1995), Indonesia (1997), Thailand (1998), and Russia (1998). Others say the cause of the problem was misguided policy advice from the International Monetary Fund (Stiglitz 2002). Yet, most analyses ascribe much of the trouble to the Convertibility Law's fixed exchange rate policy adopted in 1991.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, Indonesia, Argentina, South America, Latin America, Mexico, and Thailand

10. The New Cuban Immigration in Context

Author:
Max J Castro
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
Cuban migration to the United States predates Fidel Castro's revolution by more than a century. As historian Félix Masud-Piloto writes, “The Cuban presence in Florida dates back to the 1830s when Cuban cigar manufacturers, trying to avoid high U.S. tariffs, relocated their operations in Key West.” 1 The wars of independence brought a substantial cohort of exiles. In the 1880s, the Cuban community of Key West would spawn a second Cuban immigrant community based on tobacco manufacture: Ybor City in Tampa, Florida. New York City, Philadelphia, and New Orleans also had significant Cuban emigré populations in the late nineteenth century.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Migration
Political Geography:
United States, New York, Cuba, Latin America, Caribbean, and Florida