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1421. 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

1422. 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

1423. Mexico: The Artist Is A Woman

Author:
Lucreita Giese, Carmen Boullosa, Marjorie Agosín, Sandra Berler, Elena Gascón-Vera, Laura Riesco, and Margo Glantz
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
The present volume includes essays presented March 4, 1994 at the symposium “Mexico: The Artist Is a Woman” at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The event commemorated the work of Latin American women in film, photography, and literature. The contributions of these artists in their respective fields reveal the originality and diversity of contemporary Mexican art. Each of the participants has an outstanding artistic career.
Political Geography:
Latin America and Mexico

1424. 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

1425. 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

1426. 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

1427. 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

1428. 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

1429. 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

1430. 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

1431. The Carter Administration and Latin America: A Test of Principle

Author:
Robert Pastor
Publication Date:
07-1992
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
Within a single year, two events unprecedented in the history of the United States shook the nation's confidence in itself as the moral leader of the Free World. In August 1974, the president resigned under a pall of scandal, and eight months later, the United States suffered the humiliation of military defeat as it watched the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam fold the American flag under his arm and flee his post by helicopter.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States, Vietnam, South America, Latin America, Central America, Caribbean, and North America

1432. Observing Nicaragua's Elections, 1989-1990

Publication Date:
05-1990
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
During the entire electoral process, the political system in Nicaragua gradually opened so that by election day, the major political parties acknowledged that they had an adequate opportunity to explain their positions to the Nicaraguan people. The Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government shared the conclusion of the parties: the Nicaraguan people were free to vote their preferences in a fair election, and the official results reflected the collective will of the nation.
Topic:
Security, Democratization, Government, Peace Studies, and Politics
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America