Frank O. Mora

Explaining Latin American economic integration: the case of Mercosur

This paper develops and tests explanations of the motivations that drove the process of economic integration known as Mercosur (Southern Cone Common Market). The hypotheses tested are those that focus on elite considerations of geo-political, political economic and domestic politics factors when deciding to participate in international economic integration. We find that policy elite in Mercosur member states have been primarily driven by domestic political considerations when they have furthered the integration process. This leads to the conclusion that Mercosur is not likely to develop the kinds of supranational governance institutions present in the European Union, as policy elites in Mercosur member states desire to maintain a great deal of domestic policy autonomy.

Economic Reform and the Military: China, Cuba, and Syria in Comparative Perspective

This article examines the involvement of the military in the economy during processes of economic reform and liberalization in non-democratic systems. The hypothesis is that the nature of this involvement is guided by regime survival strategies. Specifically, under dire economic conditions that necessitate liberalization measures, regimes will attempt to promote military loyalty and political survival by minimizing or offsetting the negative effects of economic reform while maximizing positive dividends. The article examines military economic involvement in China, Cuba, and Syria, and emphasizes the need for more cross-regional studies.

A Comparative Study of Civil-Military Relations in Cuba and China: The Effects of Bingshang

This article attempts to fill a methodological and analytical void in the study of civil-military relations in Cuba. Specifically, it examines the impact of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR)s growing role in the economy on civilian/party control. The case of China and the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) offers an interesting comparison because of the breadth and depth of economic reforms and military participation in the economy. The PLAs involvement in profit-making activities has had an eroding effect on professionalism, preparedness, and civilian/party control. Cuba has so far contained the dangers of bingshang (soldiers in business) by limiting and closely monitoring the militarys role in the countrys vacillating economic reforms. The comparison also demonstrates the importance of the generation of leadership attempting to readjust patterns of civil-military relations.

Military Business : Explaining Support for Policy Change in China, Cuba, and Vietnam

(2004). Military Business : Explaining Support for Policy Change in China, Cuba, and Vietnam. Problems of Post-Communism: Vol. 51, No. 6, pp. 44-63.

From Fidelismo to Raulismo:Civilian Control of the Military in Cuba

Raul Castro’s dominant role in restructuring and reorganizing Cuba’s military and economy demonstrates his growing indispensability for the survival of his brother’s revolution.

Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide. By Peter Andreas. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. 176p.

The difficulty of policing a complex border like that between the United States and Mexico, specifically stemming the flow of illegal drugs and immigration, demonstrates, according to Peter Andreass insightful and pathbreaking analysis, the challenges associated with globalization, diminished sovereignty, and economic integration between developed and developing economies. In fact, as he notes, intensifying law enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border has had several unintended consequences, including enhancing the incentive and thus the flow of illegal drugs and migrants, which, in turn, create obstacles to the expansion of legal flows. Throughout the book an implicit question emerges: How do you balance the positive gains from globalization with the negative or dark side effects of free trade, that is, drug trafficking and illegal immigration? Taking the dilemma further, how can states in a global, borderless economy promote two contradictory policies simultaneously: strong prohibitionist, law-enforcement policies to enforce state sovereignty and economic neoliberalism and integration?

39.95 cloth,

Nothing short of a sea change has occurred in the political economies of Latin-America since the 1980s. Almost every Latin-American state has engaged in a profound process of political-economic liberalisation and reform. Some have compared this dual transition process to the transformation that occurred in the 1930s, when most states replaced the oligarchic and self-regulating political economy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with an authoritarian-populist model.1 By and large, Latin America’s political economy has come full circle. The 1980s witnessed a paradigm shift where the goals of democratisation and profound economic reform were pursued simultaneously. Politically, in the early 1980s, the region began its transition from bureaucratic-authoritarianism toward a more open and competitive form of representative democracy. In the economic realm, neo-liberal macroeconomic policies have replaced populism and demand-management policies and import-substitution with a new economic logic that emphasises the market, domestic decentralisation, deregulation, privatisation, trade liberalisation and, generally speaking, the removal of the state from the ownership of production. Latin-American states have embarked on a bold path of reform to achieve the political stability and economic growth and development that has eluded them for so long.