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1311. Report on a Property Issues Conference

Author:
Jimmy Carter, Jennifer McCoy, George Price, and Robert Pastor
Publication Date:
07-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The Carter Center and UNDP co-sponsored a Conference in Nicaragua on July 4-5, 1995 to accelerate resolution of the property problem that has entangled the country's politics and impeded its economic development and democratic consolidation. The culmination of more than one year of intensive analysis and numerous expert missions to Nicaragua by the Carter Center, in collaboration with the UNDP Property Project, the Conference brought together for the first time a group of Nicaraguan leaders representing the entire spectrum of affected interests. With Sandinista leaders sitting next to persons whose property was confiscated in the revolution, the meeting was a visible reminder of the remarkable transformation of Nicaragua from a society torn by war in the 1980s to one committed to the search for solutions to national problems through peaceful, legal means. Hosted by the UNDP and chaired by Jimmy Carter and George Price, the meeting provided an important boost to the Nicaraguan leaders to formulate a definitive solution to the property issue. The conference identified the elements of a package solution and the next steps needed to resolve the complex property problem. During the course of the day and a half meeting, significant consensus emerged on a number of general principles: including that small beneficiaries of urban and agrarian reforms should be protected, that former owners should be compensated with improved bonds, and that recipients of larger properties should either pay for or return those properties (see Appendices 1 and 2). In conversations on the issue of U.S. property claims, Nicaraguan officials explained the progress that has been made on resolving the claims of U.S. citizens, of which one-third to one-half were Nicaraguans who were alleged to have been associates of the former Somoza government and are now U.S. citizens. Former president Carter proposed a Follow-up Commission of representatives of the groups at the Conference to meet immediately to translate the consensus and the general proposals into specific decisions and laws. The 18-person Commission was selected and met on July 14 under the auspices of the UNDP. All parties attended, and the Commission moved expeditiously to develop concrete proposals in two subcommittees: (a) to provide security for small property holders and (b) to increase the value of the bonds. The entire group also discussed large property issues, expanding the privatization program, and ways to address abuses. The Commission set a deadline to complete all their work in three months.
Topic:
International Cooperation and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, Central America, North America, and Nagasaki

1312. Mission to Haiti #3

Author:
Robert A. Pastor
Publication Date:
03-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
Independent candidates and representatives from 27 political parties contested more than 2,000 municipal and Parliamentary postions in elections in Haiti on June 25, 1995. In the pre-election period, the Provisional Election Council (CEP) judged the qualifications of nearly 12,000 candidates, and disqualified about one thousand without explanations. The process was so prolonged and contentious that the ballots had to be changed up to the last days, and there were numerous mistakes. The CEP's erratic performance led three parties to boycott the election, and virtually all to question the CEP's judgment and independence. The unresponsiveness of the CEP to legitimate complaints raised by the political parties sowed seeds of distrust in the electoral process.
Topic:
Government and Politics
Political Geography:
United Nations, Latin America, and Caribbean

1313. Nicaraguan Property Disputes

Publication Date:
04-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
With the first peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another in Nicaraguan history in 1990, Nicaraguans ended a decade-long civil war and began a process of reconciliation. Within the space of a year, the army was shrunk from 96,000 to less than 15,000 troops, the Nicaraguan Resistance was demobilized, and new forms of dialogue between previously hostile groups emerged. Nevertheless, economic recovery remained elusive in the face of hyperinflation, high expectations and competing demands among organized groups, and a lack of confidence among investors and producers. Disputes over property have played a significant role in Nicaragua's recent political and economic experience, and are a fundamental factor in its future economic recovery and political reconciliation.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Economics, International Law, and Politics
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America

1314. Elections in Mexico: Third Report

Publication Date:
08-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The national elections on August 21, 1994 will be an important milestone in Mexico's political opening. During the last four years, the Mexican Congress approved a number of important reforms to the electoral process. Yet the Mexican population remains highly skeptical about the integrity of the elections. Opinion polls show that nearly one-half of respondents expect fraud, and more than one half expect post-electoral violence.
Topic:
Democratization and Government
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico

1315. Asian Economic Success and Latin American Failure in the 1980s: New Analyses and Future Policy Implications

Author:
Ajit Singh
Publication Date:
03-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
A striking feature of the world economy during the last decade has been the collapse of economic growth in Latin America whilst industrialization and development have proceeded apace in the Asian countries. This paper first assesses alternative explanations of the Asian economic success and the Latin American failure during the 1980s. Secondly, it examines the related question of the long-term development strategies followed by the outstandingly successful East Asian economies. The paper arrives at rather different analyses and policy conclusions on these issues from those of the international financial institutions and the mainstream economists.
Topic:
Economic Growth, Economic Development, and Financial Institutions
Political Geography:
Asia and Latin America

1316. Religious Change and Women's Status in Latin America: A Comparison of Catholic Base Communities and Pentecostal Churches

Author:
Carol Ann Drogus
Publication Date:
03-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The last 20 years have seen the emergence in Latin America of two religious trends that challenge the traditional Catholic culture. These are the Catholic comunidades eclesiales de base (base communities or CEBs) and Protestant pentecostal religious groups. The author examines the ways in which women's experiences in CEBs and pentecostal groups may change their gender attitudes and roles and describes the new forms of symbolic and participatory opportunities for women within each group. Do women respond to these opportunities by demanding greater access to traditionally male roles in the religious and public spheres? On the other hand, do women tend to gain greater stature and authority in their more traditional roles within the family as a result of their participation in religious groups? The author finds that while both CEB and pentecostal women reconceptualize gender roles, the two religious settings produce different outcomes. Due to the heterogeneity of available sources and methods, the analysis offers necessarily tentative conclusions. It does yield interesting and suggestive contrasts between the two religious groups, however, which can inform both theory and future empirical research.
Topic:
Religion, Women, Catholic Church, Society, and Gender
Political Geography:
Latin America

1317. The Politics of Economic Liberalization: Argentina and Brazil in Comparative Perspective

Author:
Robert A. Packenham
Publication Date:
04-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The recent trends toward economic liberalization in Latin America provide an unusual opportunity to analyze a number of important questions in the political economy of development and underdevelopment. Why has virtually every Latin American country suddenly reversed the direction of the economic policies that had been in place for a full half-century or more? Why is the pace of such change rapid in some countries and slow in others? What are the already discernible and likely future consequences of such changes for development? What are their implications for theories of development and underdevelopment? What conceptual, theoretical, and methodological tools are available and fruitful for analyzing these topics? This paper examines these questions with particular reference to the difference in the pace of change toward economic liberalization between Argentina under Menem and Brazil under Collor.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Political Economy, Economic Growth, and Liberalization
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, and Latin America

1318. On the State, Democratization, and Some Conceptual Problems (A Latin American View with Glances at Some Post-Communist Countries)

Author:
Guillermo O'Donnell
Publication Date:
04-1993
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The article argues that for proper understanding of many processes of democratization, current conceptions of the state must be revised, especially with reference to its legal dimension. On this basis several contrasts are drawn between representative, consolidated democracies and the democratic (i.e., polyarchical) forms that are emerging in most newly democratized countries, East and South. From this perspective, various phenomena not presently theorized (except as deviations from a presumed modal pattern of democratization) are discussed. Concepts such as delegative democracy, low intensity citizenship, and a state that combines strong democratic and authoritarian features are introduced for the purpose of that discussion.
Topic:
Democratization, Authoritarianism, State, and Post-Communism
Political Geography:
Latin America

1319. Contesting Authenticity: Battles over the Representation of History in Morelos, Mexico

Author:
JoAnn Martin
Publication Date:
06-1993
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The Mexican state's use of revolutionary history to invoke nationalistic sentiments nurtures a lively tradition of storytelling. Ironically, Buena Vista's storytellers criticize the inauthenticity of official representations of the past even as they draw on the images and ideals of 'official' history to weave their own tales. This paper explores the power of storytelling to create an aura of authenticity in a setting where the boundary between true and false, pure and impure, is contested.
Topic:
Development, History, Representation, and Storytelling
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico

1320. The International Observation of the U.S. Elections

Publication Date:
11-1992
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
Robert Pastor, Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Program at The Carter Center and Executive Secretary of the Council, opened the conference with a reference to Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz who once said, "A nation without free elections is a nation without a voice, without eyes, and without ears." Pastor noted that the right to free and fair elections is a universal right enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Charter of the Organization of American States. In the spirit of honoring that right, the Council was formed in 1986 to lend support and assistance to the democratization movement in the Americas.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, United Nations, and Latin America