Eric Hershberg

Citizenship, participation, and democracy : changing dynamics in Chile and Argentina

Preface Introduction Models of Citizenship Models of Citizenship in Context Rights and Sovereignty in Formal Politics Decline of Participation New Forms of Citizenship Conclusion: Contemporary Citizenship Bibliography Index

Latin America's Left Turns: an introduction

Abstract In the wake of a series of electoral victories, often dubbed a ‘pink tide’ by the media, there has seldom been a moment more propitious for the diverse parties, movements and leaders of the Latin American Left. Yet the Left faces daunting challenges, and the diversity of responses to these challenges suggests that there is not one but many left turns. This article, like the collection of essays that it introduces, critiques conventional distinctions between ‘populist’ and ‘social democratic’ currents of the Latin American Left, and argues that the left turns are best described as a multiplicity of disparate efforts to reopen or re-found the constitutional order or social pact. These efforts reveal deep-seated tensions between the Latin American Left and liberalism. The analysis reviews these tensions as well as some of the central policy challenges facing progressive governments and the relationships between social movements and political representation.

Voice And Consequence: Direct Participation And Democracy In Latin America

A remarkable transformation has swept Latin America. During the last three decades, in country after country, authoritarian governments have given way to democratically elected ones. Moreover, there are signs, especially in the last decade, that some democratic institutions are themselves being refashioned; institutions of direct, popular participation are emerging that are quite different from the elected, representative institutions normally associated with democracy in Western Europe and North America.’ These new forms of popular political participation are giving voice to groups that are often not heard in the elections, or through the parties that are at the heart of representative democracy. They are far more institutionalized than many of the traditional ways through which the excluded project their concerns and demands, such as public hearings, petitions, sit-ins, demonstrations, strikes, and land seizures. These new forms of voice allow for the inclusion of not only legitimate but also frequently marginalized perspectives. They also encourage more deliberation among the citizenry and between the citizenry and elected officials.

Globalization and Labor: Reflections on Contemporary Latin America

As the editors note in their introduction to this special issue of the journal, for more than 500 years, indeed since the conquest, Latin-American economies and societies have been profoundly affected by developments in the world system. Over the past century alone, watershed moments such as the Great Depression of the 1930s and the oil shocks and international debt crisis of the 1970s and 80s, have rocked Latin-American economies, transforming develop ment paradigms and with them the circumstances of the many millions who inhabit the region. Today, a quarter century has passed since Latin-American economies embarked, unevenly yet largely irreversibly, on the path of market oriented reform. Designed to stimulate growth through insertion into global markets, structural adjustment programs swept Latin America in the wake of the debt crisis and were followed by a panoply of measures that sought an endur ing restructuring of economies in the region. The pursuit of these so-called Washington Consensus policies did away with the inward-oriented strategies that had shaped development in the region throughout the postwar period. However reluctantly, Latin America staked its future on a renewed engagement with the world economy, and became a player in the highly contested processes of globalization that are reshaping societies and economies around much of the planet. The present generation of globally-driven processes, like those that came before, has altered the world of work for tens of millions of people. Cross-border flows of capital, goods, technologies, and even labor itself have accelerated, affecting poor and rich countries alike. There has been a spatial reconfiguration of the production of goods and services at the same time that financial liberalization brings heightened vulnerability to international capital markets and thus pressure on governments to sustain fiscal restraints. These developments influence the sectoral distribution of the work force, its compo sition, and its relationships with the state, as well as the modes through which it organizes as a collective actor. Of course, these variables have been affected by domestic dynamics as well as by the broader global context. Distinguishing the relative importance of global as opposed to regional, national, and subna tional forces is hardly straightforward, and is perhaps unnecessary: What is clear is that the two dimensions are intertwined: domestic conditions respond to the global context, while transnational phenomena are shaped by the national settings in which they operate. In Latin America as elsewhere in the developing world, the push toward market-driven models has entailed fundamental social

Latin America At The Crossroads An: An Introductory Essay

BY ERIC HERSHBERG 1 Not for the first time in its arduous history, Latin America stands poised at a crossroads. Continuing along the present path of deepening indebtedness, never-ending recession, plummeting employment and household impoverishment is simply unsustainable. It would be a mistake to conclude that the dominant economic policy paradigm in the region is exclusively responsible for this sorry performance. Nonetheless, the verdict is now in on the ability of the market-based economic policies associated with the Washington Consensus to generate positive results: The market-driven model has failed miserably, and alternatives need to be put in place sooner rather than later. Historians may look back on the utter collapse of the Argentine economy in 2001 as the critical moment that awakened the world to the extent of the region-wide crisis. The Argentine debacle carried with it the real possibility of analogous breakdowns in neighboring Uruguay and Brazil.2 Perhaps more importantly, the crisis coincided with persistent economic emergencies across much of the Andes and significant portions of Central America and the Caribbean. The full range of neoliberal reforms were not applied in all of the countries that teetered on the brink of social and economic catastrophe at one point or another from the mid-1990s through 2002. Yet even where popular resistance had managed to block domestic implementation of some market-oriented reforms, the crises and their social repercussions could be traced to the impact of a broadly neoliberal international regime on domestic economic stability. Argentina was crucial, not only for the extreme nature of its predicament and the breadth of its reverberations, spanning oceans beyond Latin America, but also because it had for so many years served as the model for the advocates of wholesale privatization, deregulation, trade liberalization and financial integration. Finally, Argentinas ordeal reflected the degree to which todays Latin American economic crisis is of even greater dimensions than that which accompanied the Great Depression or the debt crisis of 1982. Argentina may or may not represent the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. But there is little doubt that its crisis marked the end of the period during which power-holders in Latin America, and its de facto capital city for economic policymaking, Washington, D.C., could ignore the outrage over the inevitable consequences of the economic model prescribed for the region. However we allocate blame for the economic devastation that has brought ruin to millions of households across Latin America and the Caribbean, it is time to label the experience clearly. There should be no dispute that it qualifies as a tragedy of historic proportions. Protests from the direct victims of this region-wide tragedy have time and again elicited reactions of disinterest, dismissal or suppression from government officials and international financial institutions. Before the Argentine collapse, few were willing to listen to progressive intellectuals or advocacy groups outside the region who condemned, as consciously or inadvertently pernicious, the process of wholesale privatization, institutional dismantling and regressive redistribution that was being foisted upon Latin American countries for roughly two decades. But those raised voices can no longer be ignored. It is not only that the evidence of failure now exceeds the capacity for denial of even the most impervious economists. 3 Rather, what is most significant is that the political pendulum has now swung decidedly against the champions of the market as a one-sizefits-all solution to Latin Americas economic woes. In one Latin American country after another, progressive leaders have come to office and are confronting the established paradigm, as Cecilia L6pez Montafio notes in her contribution to this NACLA Report. At times, as in Brazil, they are doing so only

Washington e a ordem hemisférica: explicações para a continuidade em meio à mudança

O artigo analisa os principais fatores que moldam as politicas dos Estados Unidos para assuntos hemisfericos no seculo XXI, situando-os historicamente no contexto das relacoes entre esse pais e a America Latina. Enfatiza-se o papel dos Estados Unidos na lideranca regional, nos lacos com determinados paises e sub-regioes, e aborda-se a resposta de Washington a proliferacao de instituicoes regionais e a concorrencia que podem fazer a Organizacao dos Estados Americanos (OEA). O estudo baseia-se em abordagens sobre a politica externa dos processos decisorios, a fim de enquadrar e prever o futuro do entrosamento dos Estados Unidos com a America Latina.

Democracy in Latin America: A Review of Recent Literature

Jorge I. Dominguez and Anthony Jones, editors The Construction of Democracy: Lessons from Practice and Research Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007, viii + 253 pp. Paul W. Drake Between Tyranny and Anarchy: A History of Democracy in Latin America, 1800-2006 Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009, xiii + 330 pp. Frances Hagopian and Scott P. Mainwaring, editors The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America: Advances and Setbacks New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, xviii + 413 pp. Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006, viii + 351 pp. Peter H. Smith Democracy in Latin America: Political Change in Comparative Perspective New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, xiv + 380 pp.

Introduction: US-Cuba Diplomatic Rapprochement and Washington’s Relations with Latin America

For long-time observers of Cuban-US relations, and for anyone concerned with Cuban affairs, “17D” has become universally recognized as shorthand for the December morning in 2014 when Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro appeared on television simultaneously to announce their intentions to restore diplomatic ties and endeavor to normalize relations between their two countries. Catalyzed by 1.5 years of secret negotiations directed by senior confidants of the two presidents, bypassing normal diplomatic channels, the unexpected announcements provoked elation in some quarters and consternation in others. After 55 years of estrangement and hostility, the two presidents acknowledged that an alternative path for relations between the two governments, based on mutual respect and reciprocity, was both possible and desirable.

Conclusion: Keys to Assessing Progress Toward Establishing Normal Relations between the United States and Cuba

Events have moved quickly since President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro announced their agreement to normalize relations last December 17—quickly at least as compared to how little progress was made over the previous fifty-four years. The two presidents have met twice face-to-face for substantive talks—at the Seventh Summit of the Americas in Panama in April 2015 and at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in September. They have also spoken three times on the telephone—on the day before their historic announcement, before their face-to-face meeting in Panama, and just prior to the Pope’s visit to Cuba and the United States in September.

Violence and Community Capabilities: Insights for Building Safe and Inclusive Cities in Central America

This paper offers insights into dynamics of urban violence in two Central American countries that have evolved very differently historically. Costa Rica boasts the lowest overall levels of poverty and inequality of any country on the Isthmus, and has benefited from decades of stable and relatively inclusive governance highlighted by ambitious social policies. El Salvador, by contrast, exhibits severe levels of poverty and inequality typical of its neighbors, as well as a long history of exclusionary rule and corresponding inattention to social welfare. Yet our research reveals significant parallels between the two countries. This three-year, multi-method comparative study, carried out by teams at FLACSO-Costa Rica and FLACSO-El Salvador in collaboration with American University and with support from the IDRC/DFID Safe and Inclusive Cities program, focused on violence in two impoverished urban communities in Costa Rica and three in El Salvador. In all five settings, we analyzed neighborhood dynamics as well as community assessments of anti-violence interventions.We identified numerous lessons, some of which are counterintuitive, as well as concrete measures for consideration by regional, national, and local policymakers and community actors.