Peril And Promise: The New Democracy in Latin America
UnpublishedSeptember/October
1993
Volume:
27
Number:
2
Article
Shelley McConnell
A good indicator of the independence and effective- ness of the Supreme Court is the nature of its judi- cial review rulings, and the degree of compliance with them. Although on one important occasion, the UNO- led legislature refused to submit to a Court ruling [see "Who Controls the National Assembly?"], the Court has passed a crucial test of its authority over the Execu- tive.
Alison Gardy
The Jews of Venta Prieta say their ancestors accomplished the impossible-they remained Jews throughout the Inquisition, even though they had no synagogue and no rabbi to instruct them during the long centuries of hiding. It is easy to miss Venta Prieta.
Jan Knippers Black
How much legitimacy should we attribute to a game that takes place on a playing field with a 60 degree tilt? And how much congratulation is due to a regime that demonstrates its willingness to accept victory-but not defeat-in an election? Some 300 official observers and a swarm of media people descended on the scene of Paraguay's presidential elections this May. The intensity of international interest derived from the prospect that after almost a half century of military dictatorship, Paraguayans might at last be able to par- ticipate in open and honest elections.
Steven Volk
It is probably inevitable that historical watersheds are transformed into slo- gans of tremendous symbolic power. Nixon encoun- tered his "Waterloo" at the Watergate.
Stephanie Rosenfeld
For the comuneros, socialism was not an abstract utopia, but a set of ideas that resonated with the way they already organized their economic production. We agree, allot the land!" shout impatient comuneros from the back of the packed "V hall.
Raúl Benítez Manaut
Latin America was overly optimistic as the cur- tain fell on the 1980s. In almost every country, military and civilian leaders arrived at a gentle- men's agreement: the military would go back to the barracks, the governing political parties would be moderate or right-of-center, and the privileges which the military elite had grown accustomed to during their years of rule would be respected.
Deidre McFadyen
In Mulalillo in the heart of the Ecuadorian Andes, Indians from surrounding villages drop by the Radio Latacunga recording booth each week to give local announcer Miguel Tipanguano news and gossip from their communities. 1 The tapes recorded in small outposts like Mulalillo are then sent to the regional capital of Latacunga to be played on the air.
Bikes in Cuba Gather from the opening of her article ["Can Biotechnology Save the Cuban Revolution?" May, 1993] that Julie Feinsilver drives a car to work. That scientists in Cuba ride bicycles instead is by no means "ironic," "arduous," or sym- bolic of "rapid deindustrialization" or "primitive work processes.
Over the past decade and a half, more than a dozen Latin American and Caribbean countries have replaced dictator- ships with elected governments. The process began when Ecuador's relatively benign military agreed to return to the barracks in early 1979, and continues through the current struggles of Haiti's democrats to return their elected president to power.
Shelley McConnell
The Constitution has become a battleground for political actors seeking to shape state institutions in ways which will promote their own political agenda. When the Sandinista Revolution triumphed in 1979, Nicaragua had already gone through 10 constitutions, generated and discarded by a succession of dictators and generals according to their political needs.
PL
Havana Hosts the Sco Paulo Forum he crisis confronting the Cuban Revolution is nowhere more apparent than in the policy changes announced by Fidel Castro in his speech marking the fortieth anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Bar- racks. Cubans will now be allowed to legally hold and spend U.
Carlos M. Vilas
The concept of civil society refers to a sphere of collective action distinct from both the market and "political society." When people identify themselves as "civil society," they are seeking to carve out a relatively autonomous sphere for organization and action.
Paul Lenti
Latin American cinema is undergoing a renaissance. But while Latin American literature crosses international borders, films are seldom seen outside of their respective countries.
Paul Lenti
If seeing Latin American films is difficult in Latin Amer- lica, it is even more difficult in the United States. Each year, fewer and fewer foreign films are shown in U.
Shelley McConnell
Instead of the expected bipolar division between the UNO and the FSLN, a more complicated and fluid set of alignments emerged from the elections of 1990. The UNO won 51 of the 92 seats in the National Assembly, a simple majority; the Sandinistas won 39 seats, enabling them to block constitutional reforms, which require a 60% vote in the legislature.