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902. El Salvador Stays the Course
- Author:
- Mark Falcoff
- Publication Date:
- 05-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
- Abstract:
- The March presidential election in El Salvador, in which the conservative ARENA (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista) Party won its fourth consecutive victory in fifteen years, invites serious consideration and analysis. At a time when many governments in Latin America are being voted out of office by anti-establishment (and sometimes, anti-party) candidates, and attacks on "neo-liberalism" and globalization are increasingly the order of the day, El Salvador seems to be swimming strongly against the tide. What lies behind this anomaly?
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Latin America, Central America, and El Salvador
903. Where Does Haiti Go from Here?
- Author:
- Mark Falcoff
- Publication Date:
- 04-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
- Abstract:
- The collapse of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government in Haiti and his unseemly flight out of the country may have come as a surprise to Americans and others who were not watching closely. It could not have been unexpected by those who were. Haitian history tends to repeat itself, and after a long detour, the circle closed once again. Even the sudden occupation of the country by a multinational force headed by the U.S. Marines is not without precedent. The big question is whether this time the cycle of failure will be broken.
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States and Latin America
904. Facing Up to the Conflict in Colombia
- Author:
- Mark Falcoff
- Publication Date:
- 03-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
- Abstract:
- Anyone who follows the Latin American news—even out of the corner of one eye—must be aware of the fact that Colombia, one of South America's largest and most strategically and economically important nations, has been bogged down for more than a decade in a seemingly intractable civil conflict. The term "civil war" is a misnomer in this case, to the extent that it suggests that roughly equal forces are confronting one another. The Colombian case is less dramatic than this but far more complex. On one hand there is the Colombian state and most ordinary citizens—some 40 million of them; on the other, two guerrilla groups, the most important of which, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), can count on roughly 17,000 armed militants. The failure of the Colombian state to provide basic security from the guerrillas, particularly in rural areas, led during the last two decades to the more or less spontaneous creation of the so-called Autonomous Defense Forces—paramilitary forces, or "paras," for short—whose ranks today number 13,000. While the FARC and other self-styled guerrilla formations claim to be fighting for a Marxist revolutionary project, their ideology is largely decorative. In fact they are thugs for whom violence is a way of life and has been for many years. They specialize in kidnappings and murders. The FARC alone has kidnapped more than a thousand people—politicians (including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt), soldiers, and police, presumably to win release of about five hundred militants captured by government forces. What makes the FARC an enduring phenomenon is not that it enjoys much popular support, but that, because it engages in drug trafficking on a monumental scale, it is perhaps the most economically self-sufficient insurgency in the history of Latin America.
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Colombia, South America, and Latin America
905. Argentina Has Seen the Past—And It Works (For Now)
- Author:
- Mark Falcoff
- Publication Date:
- 01-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
- Abstract:
- Probably more than any other Latin American country, the Argentine Republic is susceptible to abrupt changes of spirit and mood. Ten years ago it was apparently hurling itself, pell-mell, into the twenty-first century as South America's great example of economic liberalization and diplomatic alignment with the United States. Today both notions are distinctly out of fashion there, and no wonder—the advantages of both were drastically oversold to the public by the administration of President Carlos Menem (1989-1999). At the end of 2000 the economy virtually collapsed; for a time it appeared as if the country might actually dissolve as a coherent political community. Thanks to the strong hand of Senator Eduardo Duhalde, who took over at the end of 2000 from Fernando de la Rúa, Menem's successor, civic order was restored, though the last three years have been the worst in Argentina's modern history, more dismal even than the Great Depression of the 1930s.
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States, Argentina, South America, and Latin America
906. Do Structural Reforms always Succeed? Lessons from Brazil
- Author:
- Jorge Saba Arbache
- Publication Date:
- 09-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- In the last twenty years, Brazil has undergone several attempts of improving sustainable growth through stabilization programmes, and more recently, structural reforms in line with the Washington Consensus Agenda. The results, however, have been disappointing, as the per capita output growth has remained below its historic trend, and poverty and inequality remain at high levels. This paper investigates why marketoriented reforms such as trade and capital account liberalization, privatization, deregulation and stabilization failed to boost growth in Brazil. We conclude that structural reforms may contribute to growth if accompanied by microeconomic policies tailor-made to address the country's needs, and by appropriate macroeconomic, institutional and political environments.
- Topic:
- Development, Human Welfare, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Washington, Brazil, and Latin America
907. Well-being and the Complexity of Poverty: A Subjective Well-being Approach
- Author:
- Mariano Rojas
- Publication Date:
- 04-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- This investigation studies human well-being from a subjective well-being approach. On the basis of a Mexican database the investigation shows that there is a weak relationship between subjective well-being and indicators of well-being such as income and consumption. Therefore, subjective well-being provides additional useful information to study human well-being and, in consequence, poverty.
- Topic:
- Economics, Human Welfare, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Latin America, Central America, North America, and Mexico
908. Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: The Problem of Knowledge
- Author:
- Thomas Carothers
- Publication Date:
- 01-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Although the current rule-of-law promotion field is still expanding as it approaches the end of its second decade, it still faces a lack of knowledge at many levels of conception, operation, and evaluation. There is a surprising amount of uncertainty, for example, about the twin rationales of rule-of-law promotion—that promoting the rule of law will contribute to economic development and democratization. There is also uncertainty about what the essence of the rule of law actually is—whether it primarily resides in certain institutional configurations or in more diffuse normative structures. Rule-of-law promoters are also short of knowledge about how the rule of law develops in societies and how such development can be stimulated beyond simplistic efforts to copy institutional forms. And the question of what kinds of larger societal effects will result from specific changes in rule-of-law institutions is also still open. Although aid institutions engaged in rule-of-law assistance do attempt some—lessons learned—exercises, many of the lessons produced are superficial and even those are often not really learned. Several substantial obstacles to greater knowledge accumulation in this field persist, including the complexity of the task of promoting the rule of law, the particularity of legal systems, the unwillingness of aid organizations to invest sufficient resources in evaluations, and the tendency of both academics and lawyers not to pursue systematic empirical research on rule-of-law aid programs. Whether rule-of-law aid is on the path to becoming a well-grounded field of international assistance remains uncertain.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Democratization, Development, and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Latin America
909. Traditional and Non-Traditional Security Issues in Latin America: Evolution and Recent Developments
- Author:
- Richard Narich
- Publication Date:
- 01-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- In the second part of the 20th century, the world's attention focused twice on Latin America, first during the Cuban crisis in 1962 and then during the conflicts in Central America in the Eighties and Nineties. The situation there had a direct impact on the general balance of the planet. It was a hot spot. Today this region is not on the agenda anymore: it no longer represents a global threat in terms of security.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Central America
910. 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