bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Elite Studies: the Case of the Mexican Presidency
Authors: Conklin John G.
Published: February 2009

Many studies of Latin American elites are compilations of biographical sketches. These increase understanding of various personalities, but tend to be unsystematic and unrelated. Frequently, no attempt is made to draw the data together into meaningful generalizations about elite background, recruitment, behavior, and the like. Many other studies that take a group approach also concern elites but often this is not explicitly recognized by the author. Much of the literature on the Latin American military falls into this category.2
Church and Politics in Brazil: The Genesis of Change
Authors: Bruneau Thomas C.
Published: February 2009

The Catholic Church in Brazil has undergone a fundamental transformation in its role in state and society during the past decade and a half, making it probably the most progressive Church in Latin America, if not the world. Based on theological innovations since the Second Vatican Council (1962–5) and the CELAM meeting in Medellín, Colombia (1968), the Church in Brazil has made a ‘preferential option for the poor’.
The Influence of Kinship in the Social Organization of North East Brazilian Fishermen: A Contrast in Case-Studies
Authors: Mitchell Simon
Published: February 2009

At a general level this paper is concerned with the problem of anthropological interpretation of kinship and its significance in peasant communities. In specific terms I describe and discusss a striking difference in interpretation by two observers, Forman and myself, with regard to the form and significance of kinship relations in two communities on the North East Brazilian littoral. The disparity between our conclusions brings up basic questions of a methodological and epistemological kind in much the same way as do Red- field and Lewis's findings in Tepoztlan.
World War II and the Frustrated Nationalizaion of the Argentine British-Owened Rail ways, 1939–1943
Authors: Heras Raul Garcia
Published: February 2009

The outbreak of World War II prompted repeated optimistic forecasts about the future of Argentina's economy in Britain. The South American Journal predicted higher prices for wheat, corn and linseed in world markets while The Times noted that after the 1937–8 crisis Argentina's balance of payments and exchange position were improving. Both publications hinted that this presaged better times ahead for the Argentine.
A Myth Rejected: The Nobel Savage in Dominican Dystopia
Authors: Kallendorf Hilaire
Published: February 2009

This interdisciplinary study approximates the Columbian interpretation of the Taí nos – filtered and re-interpreted by the Dominican people, through their museums. Cultural phenomena such as vomitic spatulas, ‘talking’ idols, hallucinogens, infant cranial deformation, dances, nudity, sexual customs, punishments, and live burial produced Columbus's tendency to denounce the Taínos in his writings. These texts are displayed in the Museo del Hombre Dominicano side-by-side with anthropological exhibitions. Together, these texts and artifacts become purveyors of an ideology, one which Dominicans use to challenge the Eurocentric, romanticising, Noble Savage approach propagated during the Quincentennial.
Neutral Vessels and Platine Slavers: Building a Viceregal Merchant Marine
Authors: Cooney Jerry W.
Published: February 2009

Creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776 and the subsequent Edict of Free Commerce in 1778 fostered a flourishing export trade from that region, mainly of hides and silver. Merchants of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, both criollos and recently arrived peninsulares, prospered during the 1780s and early 1790s, an era of international peace. While a few of these merchants owned and operated ships out of the Río de la Plata, most were content to export to the Peninsula in craft of metropolí registry. Indeed, given the traditional and strong ties of commercial obligations to the Peninsula and the enforcement of imperial trade laws, any other course of action, if not unthinkable, would have been difficult.
An Historical Critique of the Emergence and Evolution of Ernesto Che Guevara'sFocoTheory
Authors: Childs Matt D.
Published: February 2009

This article provides an analysis of Ernesto Che Guevara's theory of guerrilla warfare, thefoco. The numerous changes to the originalfocothesis, as presented inGuerrilla Warfare(1960), are examined in detail covering two dozen articles, speeches, essays, interviews and books authored by Guevara, Castro and Debray while stressing their relation to national and international politics. The author argues that there was an apparent discourse between Cuban politics and the numerous changes in Guevara's writings. Juxtaposing changes to thefocotheory from 1960 to 1967, to Cuban historical events, reflects the political expedience of the 1960s and the primary interests of thefidelistas, specifically Guevara.
Policy-Induced Disincentives to Financial Sector Development: Selected Examples from Latin America in the 1980s
Authors: Mas Ignacio
Published: February 2009

This commentary argues that heavy-handed regulation and onerous implicit taxation of financial intermediaries in Latin America in the 1980s was softened by governments' assumption of responsibility for bank failures. This in turn induced governments to avoid dealing with bank distress, with disastrous subsequent consequences. In effect, mismanaged bank regulations were propped up by mismanaged bank exit procedures. The disincentives induced by such financial policies on bankers, depositors, creditors and regulators were pervasive. Illustrations are drawn from the experiences of four Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela) in the 1980s.
Peasants and the Law: a History of Land Tenure and Conflict in the Huasteca
Authors: Schryer Frans J.
Published: February 2009

The Huasteca, a region with a semi-tropical climate and abundant vegetation, has become one of the most violent and conflict-ridden parts of rural Mexico. Starting in the mid-1970s, a series of land invasions involving mainly Nahuatl-speaking Indian peasants broke out in the district of Huejutla in the northeastern portion of the state of Hidalgo (also known as the Huasteca Hidalguense). Militant agrarian peasants, who cut fences, confiscated coffee orchards and ripped out cultivated grasses, justified their use of direct action both in terms of Mexico's agrarian code and Nahuatl notions of village boundaries; similarly, local landowners appealed to their rights as property owners and the legal system in general in order to persuade law enforcement agents to evict peasant intruders and have them arrested. Many poor peasants, who live in usually cohesive communities, also became bitterly divided over whether or not they should join in land invasions, and some people on both sides took the law into their own hands and meted out their own version of justice through abductions, corporal punishment and even executions. The resulting violence and political turmoil culminated in the expropriation, by the Mexican government, of 18,000 hectares of privately owned land and the implementation of a programme of social reform.
The Institutional Foundations of Democratic Cooperation in Costa Rica
Authors: Lehoucq Fabrice Edouard
Published: February 2009

Costa Rica's long-term standing as one of the few countries in Latin America with a stable democracy has prompted many to view its polity as an inevitable outcome of a racially homogeneous and relatively egalitarian society. Without ignoring the importance of sociological factors, this article contends that institutional arrangements played an equally important – if not more central – role in the development of a stable democratic regime in this country. The structure of Costa Rican presidentialism encouraged incumbents to maintain control of the state while it, as a consequence, incited the opposition to rebel against central state authorities. Political competition became more peaceful as parties that failed to hold or to capture the presidency were nevertheless compensated by being allowed to occupy legislative seats.
The Social and Economic Integration of Portuguese Immigrants in Brazil in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Authors: Klein Herbert S.
Published: February 2009

Like most of the peripheral countries of Europe in the nineteenth century, Portugal experienced population growth, agricultural expansion and even serious industrial development. By mid-century, in fact, it compared reasonably well in basic economic indices with most comparable late industrialising European countries. Although Portugal continued to develop in the second half of the century, its economy did not grow as rapidly as the rest of Europe and by the end of the century it had fallen seriously behind, becoming one of the poorest societies on the continent. This relative backwardness had several causes. Severe problems of land distribution affected the ability of national agriculture to modernise rapidly, especially in the densely populated north where minifundia land holdings predominated. Portugal's important wine industry was modernised but in only one sector and this sector could not expand its international markets.
Peru and the Soviet Union (1969–1989): Distant Partners
Authors: Berrios Ruben , Blasier Cole
Published: February 2009

For twenty years the Soviet Union has had closer relations with Peru than with any other Latin American country apart from Cuba or Nicaragua. In fact, Peru was the first post-Cuban revolution centre of Soviet operations in South America, and perhaps still plays that role today. Now that the Cold War is over the balance sheet of Soviet relations with Peru can be evaluated with more detachment than ever.
Technocrats and Politics in Chile: from the Chicago Boys to the CIEPLAN Monks
Authors: Silva Patricio
Published: February 2009

During the last 25 years Chilean society has experienced profound socioeconomic, political and even cultural changes. From 1964 to 1970 there was a ‘revolution in liberty’ under Eduardo Frei, from 1970 a ‘Chilean road to socialism’ under Salvador Allende, and from 1973 to 1989 a ‘silent revolution’ under Augusto Pinochet.
The Sounds of Silence: Organised Labour's Response to Economic Crisis in Mexico
Authors: Middlebrook Kevin J.
Published: February 2009

Mexico's post-1982 economic crisis has produced particularly serious challenges for the organised labour movement. Government austerity measures and economic contraction in the private sector resulted in an estimated unemployment rate of 17.6% in 1987.1At least another 25–35% of the working-age population was employed in only marginally productive activities. Real minimum wages fell by 41.9% between 1982 and mid-1987 under the pressure of record inflation rates2and government subsidies for basic commodities, mass transportation, electricity, natural gas and gasoline were also drastically reduced or eliminated. These economic conditions and tight government control over wage increases placed incumbent labour leaders under increasing pressure from the rank and file. The prospect of continued economic stagnation and government efforts to redefine the country's model of economic development raise important questions regarding organised labour's long-term position in Mexico's governing ‘revolutionary coalition’.
The 1893bogotazo:Artisans and Public Violence in Late Nineteenth–Century Bogotá
Authors: Sowell David
Published: February 2009

Bogotá suffered its most severe outbreak of public violence of the nineteenth century on 15 and 16 January 1893. Indeed apart from thebogotazoof 9 April 1948, it was perhaps the worst violence that the Colombian capital has ever experienced.1For twenty-four hours the city experienced serious social disorder, which was brought under control only by the use of regular army troops at a cost of an unknown number of casualties. Surprisingly, the January 1893bogotazohas not been subjected to serious historical examination. The role of craftsmen in the outbreak of violence offers a window in the largely unknown course of artisan political activity in Bogotá after the decline of the Democratic Society of Artisans in the mid-century reform period. More broadly, whereas the relationship between wage labourers and violence has attracted many scholars, the propensity of the artisan class to engage in violent activities in nineteenth-century Colombia (and in Latin America as a whole) deserves more scholarly investigation. What were the causes and the nature of the 1893 riot? Were they typical of nineteenth-century urban violence? Finally, how does the 1893 riot fit within the broad sweep of Colombian collective violence?2Before attempting to answer these questions it is necessary to look briefly, by way of background, at Bogotá in the late nineteenth century, its economy and society, at the nature of Colombian politics and, in particular, at the role of artisans inbogotanopolitics and in earlier episodes of urban disorder.
US Marines, Miskitos and the Hunt for Sandino: the Río Coco Patrol in 1928
Authors: Brooks David C.
Published: February 2009

Among historians of the US Marine Corps, Major-General Merritt A. (‘Red Mike’) Edson's Río Coco Patrol is well known.1His expedition up Nicaragua's Coco River in 1928 represented a significant step forward in what the US military would later call ‘riverine’ operations. The mission also made the career of a young officer who would lead one of the Raider Battalions in the Second World War and receive the Medal of Honor for his participation in the campaign to capture Guadalcanal.
Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfredo Stroessner
Authors: Sondrol Paul C.
Published: February 2009

Personal dictators remain a key feature of contemporary regimes termed ‘authoritarian’ or ‘totalitarian’, particularly in their early consolidating phases. But there is still disagreement over the seemingly ideological, polemical and indiscriminate use of the term totalitarian dictatorship as an analytic concept and tool to guide foreign policy formulation. Jeane Kirkpatrick elevated the taxonomy to a vociferous level of debate with a 1979 Commentary article. Entitled ‘Dictatorships and Double Standards’, the work raised anew semantic hairsplitting concerning the qualitative differences between all previous tyrannies and those bearing organisational similarities with the Nazi, Fascist or Stalinist prototypes.
State-led Industrialisation: The Evidence on Paraguay, 1852–1870
Authors: Pastore Mario
Published: February 2009

In the last three decades, the economic history of Paraguay has been subject to an intense reexamination. It has been claimed that the state in Paraguay led a ‘spectacular industrialisation effort’ in the second half of the nineteenth century and that this effort was prematurely truncated by war. One author, for example, has stated that

From 1852 on, free circulation on the river Paraná permitted a rapid increase of exports, mostly under state control. The resources thus freed were devoted to the development of the modern manufacture of industrial goods and plant: iron and steel, engineering, shipbuilding, brickmaking, etc. A railway and a telegraph were installed without incurring an external debt. The experiment was nevertheless spoiled by the war with the ‘Triple Alliance’ (1864–1870), which opposed Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to Paraguay, and resulted in the demographic and economic collapse of the country.
Public Policy, Peasants, and Rural Development in Honduras
Authors: Brockett Charles D.
Published: February 2009

For approximately the last two-and-a-half decades it has been a stated goal of both Honduran and U.S. policy to improve the welfare of the Honduran people, both directly through the provision of services and indirectly through the promotion of economic development. The need is great; Honduras has the lowest per capita GNP in Central America ($660 in 1984) and the highest population growth rate (3.4%). It also has the second highest percentage of its population living in rural areas (61%). Consequently, rural development has been a primary concern of development programs.
Current account balances in Central America 1974–1984: external and domestic influences
Authors: Loehr William
Published: February 2009

This paper examines the sensitivity of current account balances to several important variables. Variables are classified as external and domestic. External variables are those over which Central American countries have little or no control. In this study external variables are real interest rates in world capital markets, the terms of trade, and growth in the developed countries. Low real interest rates, improved terms of trade and rapid growth in the developed countries would be expected to improve current account balances. Domestic variables include budget deficits and real exchange rates. These are factors over which Central American countries do have control. Budget deficits and appreciations of real exchange rates can be expected to cause deteriorations in current account balances.
National Unity and Popular Hegemony: the Dialectics of Sandinista Agrarian Reform Policies, 1979–1986.
Authors: Luciak Ilja
Published: February 2009

On 11 January 1986, the Sandinista government announced the modification of the 1981 Agrarian Reform Law. The new law institutionalizes significant changes in Sandinista agrarian policy which have yet to be analyzed. The changes introduced suggest that the Nicaraguan agrarian reform was reaching its limits during 1985, after successfully distributing 2,523,388 manzanas of land to 83,322 families. Further, six years into the institutionalization of the Nicaraguan revolution the balance of forces which had emerged required a re-evaluation of policies designed to achieve one of the central goals of the revolution – to radically change the socio-economic conditions of the Nicaraguan peasantry through the implementation of an agrarian reform.
Ethnic Violence and Indigenous Protest the Tzeltal (Maya) Rebellion of 1712
Authors: Wassertrom Robert
Published: February 2009

Among students of Latin America, the existence of sizable Indian communities within the region has provoked a lively debate about the relationship between ethnicity and social class. Such communities have failed to become part of class society, it is often said, because they retain those customs and traditions which arose under colonialism, because in some sense they remain encapsulated to this day within the feudal social order. A few experts even claim that these customs have themselves become the primary agent of economic and political exploitation in various rural areas.1According to this view, native people have accepted more or less passively a culture which was designed for them by Spanish missionaries and administrators, a culture which emphasized ethnic difference at the expense of class solidarity.2In contrast to these ideas, contemporary events provide us with many indications that such people did not simply resign themselves to the fate which colonial authorities elected for them, Of primary importance, native uprisings and rebellions, messianic movements and religious heresies occurred in Latin America with astonishing frequency throughout the centuries which preceded Independence. By analyzing these movements, then, and particularly the convictions which moved their participants to action, we may formulate a more coherent view of Spanish colonialism — a view which also helps us to understand the question of ethnicity among Indians today.
Mexico's Royalist Coalition: the Response to Revolution 1808–1821
Authors: Hamnett Brian R.
Published: February 2009

Consensus politics delayed the achievement of Mexican independence. The numerically small, but variegated elites, regrouped in a common stand against Hidalgo's revolutionary movement in 1810. Themselves fragmented, mutually antagonistic on central issues, they sank their differencesfor the duration of the counter-revolutionary struggle. This re-forged unity proved, needless to say, temporary. A tactical alliance concealed far-reaching divisions: ultimately, the removal of the revolutionary challenge created a new set of circumstances.
Evita and the Crisis of 17 October 1945: A Case Study of Peronist and Anti-Peronist Mythology
Authors: Navarro Marysa
Published: February 2009

By the time Evita* died on 26 July 1952, she had become the source of two widely contradictory myths coexisting side by side as if their subject were two different persons. In one, she was the beloved saint who had sacrificed her life for the poor; in the other, the ambitiousparvenuewho used her power to satisfy her insatiable thirst for revenge.
Latin American Women
Authors: Cubitt Tessa
Published: February 2009

The initial interest in womens studies arose in the sixties from a desire to rectify the fact that women, whether as actors or subjects, had been ignored in the evolution of knowledge. It soon became clear, however, that this had been more than a fault of omission for, because of lack of information, women had often been misunderstood and misrepresented. Several modernisation studies, for example, have concentrated on interviewing men and yet produced generalisations about levels of modernisation for the population as a whole. Joseph Kahi in TheMeasurement of Modernismmade numerous statements about modernisation in Brazil and Mexico and its relationship to institutions in society, but his 1,300 interviews were all with men.1The few studies which do include women show that they lag behind men in educational achievement and social mobility.2This suggests that had Kahi included women in his samples his results might have been rather different.
The Military and Society in Bahia, 1800–1821
Authors: Morton F. W. O.
Published: February 2009

In recent years, the military institutions of societies both past and present have become an increasingly active field of study and research. Brazil, where the professional military play so commanding a role in the national life today, has received a substantial share of attention. But studies on the Brazilian, military have hitherto been principally concerned with the period since the fall of the Empire (1889). This is understandable.
Observations on the Relationship between Intra–rural Migration and Achievement Motivation in Mérida State, Venezuela
Authors: Eastwood D. A.
Published: February 2009

The past two decades have seen considerable research on migratory problems in Latin America, particularly those problems arising from rural to urban migration and the government role in containing, regulating or directing such migration. Much less research has been directed at the less pressing, but nevertheless important, area of intra-rural migration, especially that of spontaneous migration leading to the development of new areas of colonization, and of the government role in either assisting or regulating this.
The Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua: Development and Autonomy
Authors: Sollis Peter
Published: February 2009

This article discusses the distinct historical phases in the development of the Nicaraguan Atlantic Coast region as the essential background to an analysis of the process of autonomy currently unfolding there. It identifies three main periods: English colonial rule; enclave economy when US companies were involved in a number of extractive enterprises; and, finally, control by the Sandinistas who came to power in 1979 after the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship.

The Atlantic Coast has been a forgotten area of study. Only recently, because of the Miskito Indian question, has the academic world and the public at large taken more interest. The tendency nevertheless has been to focus on the treatment of the Miskito population (and especially its temporary relocation from its traditional lands) not only as the most important issue, but as the only issue. While the Miskitos have been a proper cause for concern the Miskito question is only a small aspect of a complex set of social, political, economic and ethnic relations existing on the Atlantic Coast. The Miskitos are but one of six ethnic groups living on the Atlantic Coast.
The Spanish-American Tradition of Representation and its European Roots
Authors: Guerra François-Xavier
Published: February 2009

In the field of modern political regimes, Spanish America holds a very special and, in some respects, paradoxical place. Indeed, even today, actual political life is very far from reflecting not only the constitutional clauses but even certain rules generally accepted in Western democracies. Political regimes are often ephemeral and dictatorships frequently interrupt institutional continuity. Pronunciamientos, coups d'état, rebellions and revolutions have been common means of coming to power, at least as common as elections. The political stage has often been occupied by particular human types: caudillos, caciques, charismatic leaders, guerrillas, revolutionaries…
COCEI in Juchitán: Grassroots Radicalism and Regional History
Authors: Rubin Jeffrey W.
Published: February 2009

In Juchitán, Mexico, a poor people's movement has challenged the local and national authorities of the Mexican government, withstood violent repression and military occupation, and succeeded in winning municipal elections and becoming a permanent leftist force in regional politics. This movement, the Coalition of Workers, Peasants, and Students of the Isthmus (COCEI), is one of the strongest and most militant grassroots movements in Mexico, in large part because Zapotec Indians in Juchitán transformed their courtyards and fiestas into fora for intense political discussion, gathered in the streets in massive demonstrations, and, in the course of the past two decades, redefined the activites, meanings and alliancesof therie culture.
Human Rights in Processes of Democratisation
Authors: Garreton M. Manuel Antonio
Published: February 2009

This paper will explore the problématique of human rights in processes of political democratisation, specifically in the case of transitions from military to democratic regimes, and mostly in the Southern Cone of Latin America. It is, therefore, a historically-bounded analysis, rather than a more general enquiry into issues of human rights in the contemporary era. The construction of a general theory cannot be undertaken without consideration of the diversity of human rights experiences; democratisation in these countries is but one such experience.
Women and Society in Colonial Brazil
Authors: Russell-Wood A. J. R.
Published: February 2009

No aspect of Brazilian history has received so stereotyped a treatment as the position of the female and her contribution to the society and economy of the colony. The white donzela and the lady of the ‘big house’ have been depicted as leading a secluded existence, be it in the innermost recesses of their homes or in conventual cells, immune to harsh realities and safe from brash overtures by pretenders. Of the white woman, it was said, during her lifetime she left her home on only three occasions: to be baptized, to be married, and to be buried. The role of the white woman was seen as essentially passive, victim of the demands of an over-bearing and frequently unfaithful older husband to whom she would bear children, or of a martinet of a father. As for the Amerindian woman, whose beauty led the discoverers to initial raptures of platonic appreciation and then sexual overindulgence, she has rarely been depicted in any role other than that of concubine or lover. The black and mulatto woman, slave or free, became a symbol of sensual arousal and sexual fulfillment.
A Primitive Export Sector: Guano Production in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Peru
Authors: Mathew W. M.
Published: February 2009

This paper sets out to examine the way in which guano was dug and removed from the Chincha islands in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Peruvian trade was in its most buoyant phase. We shall, in fact, be looking at the physical operation of an entire export sector, up to the point at which the commodity left the shores of Peru for the farms of Western Europe and North America.
Brazil after the Paraguayan War: Six Years of Conflict, 1870–6
Authors: Strauss Norman T.
Published: February 2009

Early in 1869, when the flags of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay were unfurled from the turrets of Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, an end to the horrors of the Paraguayan War was at last in sight. The conflict between Paraguay on the one hand, and Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay on the other, had raged for five years, since 1865, destroying human lives and material wealth. The fighting came to an official end with the death of Francisco Solano López, dictator of Paraguay, on 1 March 1870.
Corporatism and Functionalism in Modern Chilean Politics
Authors: Drake Paul W.
Published: February 2009

After the Chilean junta abolished party democracy in September 1973, it announced plans for a new constitution modeled on corporatist lines. Although, to date, few concrete expressions of these proposals have emerged, there is enough evidence since 1973 to suggest the lines along which the junta is thinking, and this indicates that not only international factors but also two sources of native historical inspiration are at work. First, and most important, Chile's military dictators were considering elevating an existing infrastructure of government-certified functional interest groups to replace the outlawed parties as intermediaries between the State and the individual. These gremios (private economic sctoral organizations, such as the National Society of Agriculture) had traditionally shaped public decisions both as representatives of their occupational fields and as permanent, often official, participants in state agencies concerned with their production sectors.
The Limited Role of Rural Small-scale Manufacturing for Late-comers: Some Hypotheses on the Colombian Experience
Authors: Berry Albert
Published: February 2009

This paper focuses on the question of whether and how rural industry contributed to the advance of modern industrialization in Colombia. The question is of considerable interest to students of developing countries, since rural industry remains quite important (especially when assessed by the level of employment created) in many such countries, and there is evidence that it may be relatively efficient under the prevailing conditions of labour abundance and capital shortage.
Interest Groups and Development: the Case of Brazil in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Ridings Eugene W.
Published: February 2009

The problem of how institutions have affected economic and social development has occupied much of the attention of social scientists. An area now beginning to attract the attention of students of development is the role of interest groups. However, little work has been done on the influence of interest groups during the nineteenth century, a period in which the developmental progress of nations now considered to be economically and socially ‘mature’ began to differ markedly from those still struggling to achieve such maturity. This paper will examine the ways in which interest groups, principally business interest groups, affected the development of Brazil during the nineteenth century.
The Extradition of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, 1959–63: Practical Precedent for Enforcement of Administrative Honesty?
Authors: Ewell Judith
Published: February 2009

Honesty in high public office has always been difficult to enforce. Arguments of executive privilege often block prosecution of presidents who have illicitly enriched themselves; likewise, the divisiveness which accompanies judicial action against a head of state contributes to the reluctance of politicians to initiate such action. When the public official in question is living in exile, the task of the courts is compounded. Prosecution then may depend upon the existence of an extradition treaty in which the alleged crimes are specified and upon the good will of the country where the politician enjoys asylum.
Marking the Boundaries between the Community, the State and History in the Andes
Authors: Radcliffe Sarah A.
Published: February 2009

This paper attempts to draw out the significance and meaning of the recorreo [sic] (recorrido) de los linderos (going around the boundaries), also called linderaje ritual in an Andean peasant community. In villages such as Kallarayan which lie in the crop and pastureland regions of Cuzco department, Peru, the recorreo is a regular point in the ritual calendar, occurring as part of the lead-up to Lent.1 The event, which occurs on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, contains multiple references to the Peruvian nation, to surrounding haciendas, to local apus (spiritual powers embodied in mountain peaks), and to the community: as such it is a ‘polyvalent’ ritual,2 juxtaposing and inter-mingling symbols and meanings which otherwise are kept separate.
The Venezuelan Left in the Era of the Popular Front, 1936–45
Authors: Ellner Steven
Published: February 2009

The Comintern's adoption of the popular front strategy in August 1935 marked a new stage in the history of world Communism which lasted until the end of World War II. Communist leaders embarked on this course in the hope of isolating the fascist movement which was then in the ascendant throughout the world. Their strategy was to create coalitions (‘popular fronts’) of progressive groupings on the basis of a reformist program and anti-fascist rhetoric. This conciliatory position towards the rest of the left represented a sharp departure from the policy of previous years when Communists frequently denounced their leftist rivals as ‘ social fascists’.
The Peruvian Public Investment Programme 1968–78
Authors: M Felipe Portocarrero
Published: February 2009

At the end of the 1960s a number of clouds overshadowed the Peruvian economy. Among the factors which we can list as limiting and endangering economic expansion in the medium term, are: stagnation in the export sector and in agriculture, growing heterogeneity in the productive structure, a loss of dynamism in private investment, and the trend to denationalization in ownership and concentration of income.
Capitalist Agriculture and Labour Contracting in Northern Peru, 1880–1905
Authors: Gonzales Michael J.
Published: February 2009

Latin Americanists have become increasingly intrigued with questions concerning rural labour and oppression. In recent publications, traditional interpretations of peonage, labour contracting, wage labour and other topics have been questioned by historians with access to new documentary materials. Peru has been the setting for much of this discussion because of the important changes which occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the unusual opportunity to understand them since the creation of theArchivo del Fuero Agrario.1
Rethinking Race in Brazil
Authors: Winant Howard
Published: February 2009

Introduction: the Repudiation of theCentenário

13 May 1988 was the 100th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil. In honour of that date, various official celebrations and commemorations of thecentenário, organised by the Brazilian government, church groups and cultural organisations, took place throughout the country, even including a speech by President José Sarney.

This celebration of the emancipation was not, however, universal. Many Afro—Brazilian groups staged actions and marches, issued denunciations and organised cultural events repudiating the ‘farce of abolition’. These were unprecedented efforts to draw national and international attention to the extensive racial inequality and discrimination which Brazilian blacks – by far the largest concentration of people of African descent in any country in the western hemisphere – continue to confront. Particular interventions had such titles as ‘100 Years of Lies’, ‘One Hundred Years Without Abolition’, ‘March for the Real Liberation of the Race’, ‘Symbolic Burial of the 13th of May’, ‘March in Protest of the Farce of Abolition’, and ‘Discommemoration (Descomemoraçāo) of the Centenary of Abolition’.1The repudiation of thecentenáriosuggests that Brazilian racial dynamics, traditionally quiescent, are emerging with the rest of society from the extended twilight of military dictatorship. Racial conflict and mobilisation, long almost entirely absent from the Brazilian scene, are reappearing. New racial patterns and processes – political, cultural, economic, social and psychological – are emerging, while racial inequalities of course continue as well. How much do we know about race in contemporary Brazil? How effectively does the extensive literature explain the present situation?
The Baring Crisis Revisited
Authors: Ferns H. S.
Published: February 2009

Several accounts of the Baring crisis, 1890–7, are available.1Among these is my own, chapter xiv ofBritain and Argentina in the Nineteenth Century(Oxford, 1960), based upon the Foreign Office papers in the Public Record Office, contemporary periodical literature and secondary works such as the now little-noticed classic, J. H. Williams,Argentine International Trade under Inconvertible Paper Money, 1880–1900(Cambridge, Mass., 1920). My first purpose in exploring beyond the sources used forty years ago, in the archives of the Bank of England, Baring Brothers & Co., N. M. Rothschild, W. H. Smith and the Marquis of Salisbury, is to correct at least one error in my original work, and this unfortunately repeated by others. My second is to discover whether or not further study of archival material confirms, modifies or denies any of my first conclusions about the role of the Argentine government in the solution of the Baring crisis.

The principal error corrected concerns the form of Barings' involvement in Argentine affairs in the late 1880s. They did not get into difficulties because they underwrote a large loan to the Argentine government for the purpose of expanding the water supply and sewage system of Buenos Aires. The fact is that they promoted a private enterprise which took over the water and sewage system of Buenos Aires, and this failed for a number of reasons set out below.

As to my original conclusions about the Baring crisis, they have been confirmed by the archival material considered. The solution of the Baring crisis was made possible by the policies devised and enforced by the Argentine government.
The Institutional Framework of Colonial Spanish America
Authors: Lynch John
Published: February 2009

The colonial state

Spain asserted its presence in America through an array of institutions. Traditional historiography studied these in detail, describing colonial policy and American responses in terms of officials, tribunals, and laws. The agencies of empire were tangible achievements and evidence of the high quality of Spanish administration. They were even impressive numerically. Between crown and subject there were some twenty major institutions, while colonial officials were numbered in their thousands. The Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias (1681) was compiled from 400,000 royal cedulas, which it managed to reduce to a mere 6,400 laws.1 Thus the institutions were described, classified, and interpreted from evidence which lay in profusion in law codes, chronicles, and archives. Perhaps there was a tendency to confuse law with reality, but the standard of research was high and derecho indiano, as it was sometimes called, was the discipline which first established the professional study of Latin American history.

This stage of research was brought to an end by new interests and changing fashions in history, and by a growing concentration on social and economic aspects of colonial Spanish America. Institutional history lost prestige, as historians turned to the study of Indians, rural societies, regional markets, and various aspects of colonial production and exchange, forgetting perhaps that the creation of institutions was an integral part of social activity and their presence or absence a measure of political and economic priorities. More recently, institutional history has returned to favour, though it is now presented as a study of the colonial state.
Export-Led Growth in Latin America: 1870–1930
Authors: Conde Roberto Cortés
Published: February 2009

In 1949 Raúl Prebisch, an Argentine economist, published a study for the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), in which he attributed the failure to reach sustained economic growth in Latin America to the international division of labour. Based on research carried out by ECLA on the terms of trade between manufactures and primary goods, he concluded that – contrary to expectations – they moved against primary products. If prices decline as productivity increases (in competitive markets), industrial goods, where the technological improvements had been more significant, should have declined in price more than agricultural goods. The empirical results of the study showed the opposite.1If the Latin American countries therefore wanted to benefit from technological progress, they should move towards industrialisation. Almost at the same time, based on the same empirical study, Hans Singer not only argued that the gains from trade had not been distributed equally, but also that foreign investments in the export sector were not part of the domestic economy, but represented an enclave belonging to the countries of the centre which received its benefits.2Singer advanced an argument that became popular later on; he noted the existence in the underdeveloped countries of a dual economy with two sectors each with different productivity and segmented markets: a modern sector linked to the central countries and a traditional sector linked to the rest of the economy. Also, from the critics of the classical theory of trade, another argument was put forward: the different income elasticities of demand for manufactures and agricultural goods (Engels’ law) suggested that expenditure on agricultural goods would decline in relative terms as incomes rose, hurting the terms of trade for primary products.3
The Limits of Sympathy: The United States and the Independence of Spanish America
Authors: Gleijeses Piero
Published: February 2009

Sir, is there to be no limit to our benevolence for these People? There is a point, beyond which, even parental bounty and natural affection cease to impose an obligation. That point has been attained with the States of Spanish America.1

Of course there was sympathy for the Spanish American rebels in the United States. How could it have been otherwise? The rebels were fighting Spain, long an object of hatred and contempt. This alone justified goodwill, as did the hope for increased trade and the prospect of a significant loss of European influence in the hemisphere.2But how deep did this sympathy run?

In the Congressional debates of the period there was much more enthusiasm for the cause of the Greeks than that of the Spanish Americans.3Similarly, the press referred frequently to private collections of funds (‘liberal donations’) for the Greek fighters – not for the Spanish Americans. This is not surprising. The US public could feel a bond with the Greeks – ‘it will become even quitefashionableto assist the descendants of those who were the bulwark of light and knowledge in old times, in rescuing themselves from the dominion of a barbarian race'.4Unlike the Greeks, however, the Spanish Americans were of dubious whiteness. Unlike the Greeks, they hailed not from a race of giants, but – when they were white – from degraded Spanish stock.5Some US citizens felt for them the kinship of a common struggle against European colonial rule; others agreed with John Quincy Adams: ‘So far as they were contending for independence, I wished well to their cause; but I had seen and yet see no prospect that they would establish free or liberal institutions of government.
A Scots diphthong and the feature “continuant”
Authors: Wells J. C.
Published: February 2009

As Chomsky and Halle point out (1968: 318), the specification of [1] in terms of the continuant-noncontinuant scale is problematic. At first sight one would consider it [+ continuant], since there is no total blockage of air flow through the mouth. It can, however, be taken as [— continuant] if the defining criterion of “stop” (= “noncontinuant”) is stated as the blockage of air flow past the primary stricture, i.e. a complete closure in the sagittal plane of the oral cavity. Evidence exists in support of both points of view; Chomsky and Halle adduce data from Chippewyan in favour of treating [1] as continuant and data from “certain dialects of English spoken in Scotland” in favour of taking it as noncontinuant. For the latter they refer to Lloyd, 1908, as attesting the use of “lax diphthongs” before noncontinuants and [1], but “tense diphthongs” before continuants and [r].
Roger Kingdon
Authors: J. W. L.
Published: February 2009

One of the most distinguished members of our Association has, since our last issue, celebrated his eightieth birthday. Roger Kingdon's earliest connections were with the West Country and London. He was born in the borough of Greenwich and went to the City of London School. His working career began at Plymouth on the Western Morning News in 1908, but by 1912 he had begun at Barcelona his long series of stays abroad. During the first world war he enlisted in the Artists' Riflės and was later commissioned in the Royal Engineers. Between 1920 and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War he spent much of his time teaching English in Barcelona. In the session of 1936–37 he was a student at University College, London, Phonetics Department, staying on two further years to teach in the Department.
The Western Pennsylvania dialect of American English
Authors: Johnson Bruce Lee
Published: February 2009

The dialect of Western Pennsylvania is one of the chief varieties of American English and may be considered a subdialect of the so-called General American speech. The dialect has Pittsburgh for its focal point and extends for a radius of probably no more than 200 miles around that city.
Some views on speech perception
Authors: Waterson Natalie
Published: February 2009

Speech perception is of interest to linguists and psychologists alike. Psychologists seek for linguistic units to enable them to explain processes involved in speech; linguists try to establish what these units may be, whether distinctive features, phonemes, syllables, words or even larger units. Although the phoneme was for some time considered to be the most likely candidate, experimental evidence is increasingly pointing to some larger unit, particularly in view of the fact that no one-to-one acoustic correlation with the phoneme nor with distinctive features can be found (cf. Reddy, 1967: 336, Ladefoged, 1967: 146, Denes, 1963: 892). Furthermore, if the phoneme were to be the unit of perception, in any sort of processing involving matching a perceived pattern with one already stored, far too many operations would be involved because of the large size of vocabularies and large number of sentence types in a language; such processing would have to be too rapid to be feasible, bearing in mind the constraints of memory span. There is now more sympathy for the syllable or larger stretch as the unit of perception (e.g. Laver, 1970: 68, Maclay and Osgood, 1959, Ladefoged, 1959: 402), and there seems to be good evidence for the planning of speech to be in stretches longer than a word, e.g. Ladefoged's experiments with placing ‘dot’ at different parts of a sentence (Ladefoged, 1959).