In contrast to other countries in Latin America, Chile emerged from the chaotic postindependence period with a strong state apparatus. Fashioned by the leadership of Diego Portales and institutionalized in the Constitution of 1833, the Chilean state became (and remains) the central focus for national development. Portales was able to marry the existing social and economic order, which was sharply hierarchical, to the institutional structures of a corporate state. In doing so, he shaped political conflict throughout Chilean history into a series of struggles for inclusion in the coalition in control of the state apparatus at any given time. Problems of violence and instability can be seen as the the natural by-products of these multiple attempts to define and redefine both the legitimate scope and orientation of the state and the composition of the dominant groups exercising power.

The following pages examine the relationship between the transactions that constitute systems of patronage and clientage and politics as it operated in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in the mid-1960s. The objective will be to show how the asymmetrical exchanges of patronage and the political-electoral system served to articulate local communities with the institutional systems of the larger society.

The data and analysis will be presented through an examination of the activities of individuals in two small municίpio communities in the Zona da Mata of the State of Minas Gerais during the critical election campaign for governor in the year 1965. By examining some of the activities of a local doctor and a lawyer involved in politics, we shall be able to make explicit the transactional process by means of which segments of local communities in the region were articulated, through the political-electoral process, to the state and national level institutions of Brazilian society.

In the past decade or so the international relations of Latin America—for many years the subject of legalistic, institutional, polemical, or purely descriptive analyses—has been investigated on a much more sophisticated basis. Dependencia has emerged as a major organizing concept in much of the literature, and “bureaucratic politics” has provided a focus for some of the work emanating from North American scholars on U.S. Latin American policies. There are a number of other frameworks as well. Welcome as the wealth of new studies is, they nevertheless present us for the first time with a problem of assessing the utility of various theoretical approaches or at least with the challenge of relating them to one another in a meaningful fashion.

Since the end of World War II, nations have been characterized according to membership in various international power blocs, the Western World being used for capitalist countries and the Iron Curtain for socialist ones. Within these categories countries are also characterized according to level of economic (and sometimes political) development. The capitalist world recognizes two types of nations, the developed and the underdeveloped. In contrast, the socialist world presents a single development model characterized by centralized planning and homogeneous development.

A crucial feature of political life in twentieth-century Brazil has been the growing role of the state as the central regulator of social, economic, and political life. One aspect of the expansion of the public sector in Brazil, as elsewhere, has been the accumulation by the state of a number of important social and economic functions previously exercised outside the public domain. One important function adopted by the state in Brazil is that of social protection, in the form of an elaborate and complex social insurance system. Presently some form of social protection reaches almost the entire rural population and some 78 percent of the urban population. The main social protection organization—Instituto Nacional da Previdência Social (INPS)— boasts the second largest budget in the nation (in 1975 CR $43 billion in contrast to the federal budget of Cr $113 billion) and a bureaucracy of over 102,700 employees.

The evolution of national universities in Latin America is closely related to major political and social changes. The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is no exception. As elsewhere in Latin America, we are witnessing in Mexico the transition from a preindustrial, agricultural society to an urbanized industrialized nation. The deep transformations are reflected in the transformation of the elitist universities of the turn of the century, strictly oriented toward the liberal professions, into a new type of university whose character remains as yet undefined (Trow, 1970).

On 1 January 1976, President Carlos Andrés Pérez formally proclaimed the nationalization of Venezuela's massive petroleum industry. Standing upon the site of Zumaque Number 1, in 1914 the first commercially drilled well in the nation, he thus observed a historic benchmark in the evolution of the relationship between the foreign corporations and the Venezuelan state (Pérez, 1976a). After six decades' concessional exploration and exploitation, an era had ended. From the outset it was apparent that the 1976 nationalization was moderate and nonradical. As will be seen, both compensation and association agreements with international oil interests were central elements in the action. The latter in particular had been the focus during months of acrimonious national debate, as symbolized by article 5 and the Ley de Nacionalización de la Industria Petrolera. Moreover, it was largely upon discussion of its implications that a determined effort to achieve nonpartisan agreement ultimately foundered and sank.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, three historians, Diego Barros Arana, Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna, and Miguel Luis Amunategui, came to epitomize a new sophistication which historical scholarship had attained in Chile. Taken together, the three men represent an important departure from previous romantic liberal historiography in that they were able to link Chile's past to its present without recourse to polemical rhetoric. More significantly, perhaps, these three scholars believed that history could serve socially useful functions. Much of their effort, consequently, was directed to making Clio a vital force for national development.

The human rights proclaimed and affirmed in the various international declarations, conventions, and covenants adopted since World War II fall into two broad categories: civil and political; and economic, social, and cultural. The former includes the traditional rights of man, such as the rights to life and liberty; the latter includes such rights as the right to work, to social security, and to the preservation of one's health and well-being.

International agreement in principle on most civil and political rights as human rights has been relatively easy to achieve; disagreement has occurred—and is likely to continue to occur-primarily over their precise meaning. Virtually everyone endorses, for example, a right to life; not everyone agrees, however, that capital punishment or abortion must therefore be prohibited by law.

There is no area of investigation in the field of Latin American studies which has attracted more research in recent years than has the dependency theory. Countless words have been written and much academic “blood” has been spilled in the debate over the strengths and weaknesses of interpreting Latin American society, polity, economy, and culture within the framework of the dependency theory. While there is still much heat generated by those who hold differing opinions on the dependency perspective, serious research is proceeding in a number of areas in an attempt to document the ways in which and the extent to which Latin American nations are dependent on forces beyond their control. This paper attempts to further that research by focusing on agrarian public policy in Costa Rica.

Negotiating a treaty between two sovereign nations is no simple matter. Even when there is consensus that a new accord is long overdue, a solution acceptable to both governments and their most vocal constituencies is most elusive and often difficult to conclude within a reasonable period of time. This is especially true when there is strong popular opinion aroused on both sides. Discussions usually drag on, and while diplomats publicly agree that “progress is being made,” there are significant political and economic benefits unrealized by either or both countries involved in the negotiation proceedings (Lopez Guevara, 1976).

The present treaty negotiations between the Republic of Panama and the United States of America is a case in point. That Panamanian public opinion is aroused on the Canal issue is indicated by the 1964 Canal Zone border incidents in which twenty-one Panamanians and three Americans died and by subsequent demonstrations.

The establishment of a republican form of government in Brazil in 1889—to replace the Empire—has long been considered an important turning point in Brazilian history. Historians once saw it as important in itself, for they thought of history as past-politics and were content to debate such issues as the relative importance of civilians and military officers within the republican movement. More recently, as scholars have turned their attention to social and economic aspects of the past, that event has been seen as a symptom of deeper change, a product of altering class relationships, a sign of shifting centers of economic power, or a reflection of tfre growth of new interest groups.

During the dictatorship of Dr. Francia, 1814-1840, few foreigners were permitted to enter Paraguay, and a small number of chiefly Brazilian merchants, restricted to the entrepôts of Ytapúa and Pilar, alone had an impact upon the nation and its development. The few foreigners who blundered into Paraguay uninvited were forced to remain.

The six-year presidency or sexenio of Luís Echeverría Alvarez was initiated in December of 1970. Six years later, significant changes had taken place in the public policies espoused by the Mexican regime. Most importantly, perhaps, the federal government shifted its public investment priorities away from an overriding preoccupation with industrial development toward greater concern for agricultural development. From 1971 to 1976, Echeverria's administration allocated more money to the agricultural sector than any sexenio since that of Miguel Alemán (1946 to 1952). The change occurred gradually, federal public investment in agriculture growing from 14.5% of the total in 1971 to 20% budgeted for 1975 and 1976. Increased attention to agriculture was achieved primarily through proportional reductions in investments for industrial and infrastructure development. Along with a revision in sectoral allocations went a change in policy concerning both the anticipated outcome and the target population for agricultural investment.

Venezuela has experienced significant economic development during recent decades, although rapid population growth has partially offset economic gains. During the five-year period 1969-1973, the gross national product increased at an annual rate of 5.0 percent, which, coupled with population growth, yielded real per capita increases of 2.6 percent annually. Relatively smooth transition in the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry in 1976 presents a favorable assessment for the economy during the next decade. Yet while there has been notable progress in conventional economic indicators, there have been less rapid improvements in education, nutrition, and health. This paper examines past trends in Venezuelan population growth within the context of general social and economic development. Because of the importance of fertility in affecting population growth, particular attention is paid to fertility trends.

The activities of the Liberal Union group in the election year of 1892, along with the subsequent appointment that next year of José Ives Limantour as Secretary of Treasury, marked the beginning of the rise of an influential clique of technocrats within the bureaucracy of Don Porfirio Díaz. In addition to Limantour, this group included, among others, Francisco Buhes, Justo Sierra, Rosendo Pineda, Pablo Macedo, and Miguel Macedo. The name the critics used to describe this clique was that of the “scientists” or the Científicos. This name was selected, among other reasons, to express the belief of the opposition that the members of the Científico group were imbued with the scientific and positivistic doctrines of the French philosopher and architect of positivism, Auguste Comte. With the coming of the Científicos to power the course of antipositivism was redirected, given an additional emphasis, and expanded to meet the needs of liberal and clerical critics of the regime.

Carlos Pereyra (as quoted in Herrarte, 1955: 187) has written that “the entire history of Central America has been a struggle between union and separatism.” While this may be somewhat overstated, it is undeniable that the unionist-separatist syndrome has provided a major theme for nineteenth- and twentieth-century isthmian interrelationships. Indeed, from the collapse of the original Central American Federation in 1838 to the recent failure of the Central American Common Market, isthmian leaders have made numerous attempts to achieve some form of Central American integration. At times the threat of a forceful imposition of union, posed by such men as Guatemala's Justo Rufino Barrios and Nicaragua's José Santos Zelaya, tended to discredit the unionist cause. Central American unionists, however, have been, if anything, resilient, and, despite temporary setbacks, the ideal of union has remained a constant in isthmian affairs.

A great many of the political initiatives of Mexico's President Echeverría were responses to stimuli generated directly by the university community's behavior during the 1968 student government crisis. Prior to this 1968 confrontation, student activism had a marginal “nuisance effect”; since then, however, it has risen to political prominence in Mexico.

The following discussion focuses on establishing a casual relationship between student protest and Echeverría's reformism. It will begin with a possible framework for the student protest movement within the national political context in terms of structural-functional concepts. To that part pertains also the section dealing with protagonists' tactics in the confrontation—i.e., principal student measures to organize, communicate demands and mobilize support, and the government countermeasures aimed at discrediting the students' protest and reducing the effectiveness of their dissent. Issues concerning the link between the 1968 events and the reform policies of the Echeverría administration will be noted.

In a setting as complex as the modern city we can expect that a number of diverse factors wil combine to influence the urban environment and the quality of life and well being of those who reside in it. In the major cities of the developing world, where change is typically rapid, economic and social relationships are diverse, and the patterns of development are often different and in some ways more complex than those of the cities of industrialized nations, and the forces which shape the character of urban life are particularly numerous and often confusing.

The present paper examines a single component of the total environment of the Latin American city of Bogotá, Colombia: the low-income housing market. We begin by looking at some of the more important environmental, socioeconomic, and political factors that have shaped the character of the low-income housing market of the city, with an emphasis on the impact of public policy.