Colombian Foreign Policy and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (Blakemore Prizewinner for 2020)

The Spanish civil war saw two different Liberal presidencies in Colombia. Contrary to common belief, they did not follow a unified policy towards Spain but instead faced different parameters for action which shaped their response. These policies, in turn, illuminate both the internal dynamics of the two administrations and how they conceived of Colombia's position on the world stage. By providing the national, international and wider structural contexts, this article will therefore use the Spanish conflict to shine a spotlight on the Santos and López governments and the development of Colombian foreign policy during the late 1930s.     

Government and Democracy in Mexico's Federal District, 1997–2001: Cárdenas, the PRD and the Curate's Egg

This paper analyses the challenges facing the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) administration when it became the first elected government of the Federal District in 1997. Through a daily review of press coverage between December 1997–December 2000, complemented by intensive interviewing during summer 1999, five areas of policy-making activity are analysed and evaluated. The policies entrained and their outcomes show significant advances in decentralization, devolution, and intergovernmental liaison, as well as modest improvements in environmental contamination and reduced crime, although they did not meet the high expectations generated during the Cárdenas campaign for election. However, the fresh image and invigorated confidence that his replacement Rosario Robles brought to the PRD was key in the PRD's success in the July 2nd 2000 DF elections won by López Obrador. The new administration will have to confront a more plural government structure, including five of the sixteen delegaciones and an evenly divided Legislative Assembly. López Obrador has a full six years in which to prove that a left-of-centre political party is capable of developing a 'Third Way' of governance in the DF.     

Adaptation and Appropriation on the Colonial Frontier: Indigenous Leadership in the Colombian Chocó, 1670–1808

This article explores the consequences for the native population of the Colombian Chocó of the emergence, over the course of the eighteenth century, of an elite of caciques and indios mandones or principales whose functions of powers far exceeded those of the warrior chiefs that had traditionally acted as leaders of their people. Appointed for the purpose of facilitating the collection of tribute and the supply of labour to European settlers, caciques and mandones were almost universally rejected by native communities during the early phases of Spanish colonisation (c. 1630–1690), and they disappear from the historical record after Independence. Eighteenth‐century sources, however, not only record the existence of a clearly defined elite of mandones or principales in villages across the region, but show these individuals engaging actively with the colonial authorities, on behalf of their communities, at local and audiencia levels. This article argues that, at a time of a much strengthened European presence in the region, caciques and mandones came to understand their roles in ways that were entirely different from those intended by the Spanish, and in so doing acquired the legitimacy that had eluded their seventeenth‐century predecessors. Far from serving merely as intermediaries between settlers and indigenous populations, indios mandones acted as negotiators on behalf of the indigenous population, whose task was to defend and/or advance the interests of the communities they had been appointed to control.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Campbell, Bruce B., and Arthur D. Brenner, eds. Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder with Deniability. Pollack, Marcelo. The New Right in Chile, 1973–97. Siavelis, Peter M. The President and Congress in Postauthoritarian Chile: Institutional Constraints to Democratic Consolidation. Díaz‐Briquets, Sergio, and Jorge Pérez‐López, Conquering Nature: The Environmental Legacy of Socialism in Cuba. Schwab, Peter. Cuba: Confronting the U.S. Embargo. Jiménez Polanco, Jacqueline. Los partidos políticos en la República Dominicana: actividad electoral y desarrollo organizativo. Cornelius, Wayne A., Todd A. Eisenstadt, and Jane Hindley, eds. Subnational Politics and Democratization in Mexico. Harvey, Neil. The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy. Ward, Peter M., and Victoria E. Rodríguez, with Enrique Cabrero Mendoza. New Federalism and State Government in Mexico: Bringing the States Back In.     

Book Reviews

Book reviews in this article: Fisher, John R. (1997), The Economic Aspects of Spanish Imperialism in America, 1492–1810 Stinchcombe, Arthur L. (1995), Sugar Island Slavery in the Age of Enlightenment: The Political Economy of the Caribbean World Posada-Carbó, Eduardo (ed.) (1998), In Search of a New Order: Essays on the Politics and Society of Nineteenth-Century Latin America Richardson, Bonham, C. (1997), Economy and Environment in the Caribbean: Barbados and the Windwards in the late 1800's Hill, Jonathan D. (ed.) (1996), History, Power and Identity. Ethnogenesis in the Americas Paerregaard, Karsten (1997), Linking Separate Worlds. Urban Migrants and Rural Lives in Perti Rappaport, Joanne (1998), The Politics of Memory. Native Historical Interpretation in the Colombian Andes Coronil, Fernando (1997), The Magical State. Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela López Springfield, Consuelo (ed.) (1997), Daughters of Caliban. Caribbean Women in the Twentieth Century Dore, E. (ed.) (1997), Gender Politics in Latin America: Debates in Theory and Practice Tulchin, J. and Garland, A. (eds.) (1997), Argentina – The Challenges of Modernisation Brennan, James P. (ed.) (1988), Peronism and Argentina McGuire, James W. (1997), Peronism Without Perón. Unions, Parties and Democracy in Argentina Stotzky, Irwin (1997), Silencing the Guns in Haiti: The Promise of Deliberative Democracy Kay, C. (ed.) (1997), Globalisation, Competitiveness and Human Security Vaughan, Mary Kay (1977), Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930–1940 Moore, Robin D. (1997), Nationalizing Blackness; Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920–1940 Schwartz, Rosalie (1997), Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba Aching, G. (1998), The Politics of Spanish American Modernismo Smith, Verity (ed.) (1997), Encyclopaedia of Latin American Literature Salman, T. (1997), The Diffident Movement: Disintegration, Ingenuity and Resistance of the Chilean Pobladores, 1973–1990 French, John D. and James, Daniel (eds) (1997), The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers: From Household and Factory to the Union Hall and Ballot Box . Lavrin, Asunción (1998), Women, Feminism, & Social Change in Argentina, Chile, & Uruguay, 1890–1940 French, J., Cowie, J. and Littlehale, L. (1994), Labor and NAFTA: A Briefing Book Bergquist, C. (1996), Labor and the Course of American Democracy: US History in Latin American Perspective Review of Electronic Sources of Information     

Cuba Just Yesterday and Today: Negotiating Toward What,Exactly?

Elise Andaya, Conceiving Cuba: Reproduction, Women, and the State in the Post‐Soviet Era. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2014. Notes, bibliography, index, 169 pp.; hardcover $80, paperback $26.95, ebook. Carmelo Mesa‐Lago and Jorge Pérez‐López, Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms. Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2013. Notes, tables, bibliography, index, 310 pp.; hardcover $65, ebook $65. Archibald R. M. Ritter and Ted A. Henken, Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape. Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2015. Notes, tables, appendixes, bibliography, index, 384 pp.; hardcover $79.95, ebook $79.95. Paolo Spadoni, Cuba's Socialist Economy Today: Navigating Challenges and Change. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2014. Notes, tables, bibliography, index, 252 pp.; hardcover $65.     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed: Gauderman, Kimberly (2003) Women's Lives in Colonial Quito. Gender, Law and Economy in Spanish America Bauer, Brian (2004) Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca Chassen‐López, Francie R. (2004) From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca. The View from the South, Mexico 1867–1911 Saney Isaac (2004) Cuba: A Revolution in Motion Chomsky, Aviva, Carr, Barry and Smorkaloff, Pamela María (2004) The Cuba Reader. History, Culture, Politics Diacon, Todd A. (2004) Stringing Together a Nation: Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon and the Construction of a Modern Brazil, 1906–1930 Racine, Karen (2003) Francisco De Miranda: A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution Joseph, Gilbert M. and Henderson, Timothy J. (eds) (2002) The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics Guenther, Louise H. (2004) British Merchants in Nineteenth‐Century Brazil: Business, Culture, and Identity in Bahia, 1808–50 Deborah Pacini Hernandez; Fernández L'Hoeste, Héctor and Zolov, Eric (eds) (2004) Rockin' Las Americas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America Warren, Jonathan W. (2001)Racial Revolutions: Antiracism and Indigenous Resurgence in Brazil Diego, Armus (ed.) (2003) Disease in the History of Modern Latin America: From Malaria to AIDS Chasteen, John Charles (2004) National Rhythms, African Roots: The Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance Brass, Tom (ed.) (2003) Latin American Peasants Thoumi, Francisco (2003) Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes Ariel de Vidas, Anath (2004) Thunder Doesn't Live Here Any More. The Culture of Marginality Among the Teeneks of Tantoyuca Vellinga, Menno (ed.) (2004) The Political Economy of the Drug Industry Manz, Beatriz (2004) Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror and Hope Lauria‐Santiago, Aldo and Binford, Leigh (eds) (2004) Landscapes of Struggle: Politics, Society, and Community in El Salvador Tussie, Diana and Botto, Mercedes (eds) (2003) El alca y las Cumbres de las Américas: ¿una nueva relación público‐privada?     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. Craig Arceneaux and David Pion‐Berlin, Transforming Latin America: The International and Domestic Origins of Change. Steven Levitsky and María Victoria Murillo, eds., Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness. Benjamin Kohl and Linda Farthing, Impasse in Bolivia: Neoliberal Hegemony and Popular Resistance. Consuelo Cruz, Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua: World Making in the Tropics. Carmelo Mesa‐Lago and Jorge Pérez‐López, Cuba's Aborted Reform: Socioeconomic Effects, International Comparisons, and Transition Policies. Damián J. Fernández, ed., Cuba Transnational. Paul Lawrence Haber, Power from Experience: Urban Popular Movements in Late‐Twentieth‐Century Mexico. Leslie Anderson and Lawrence Dodd, Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua, 1990‐2001. Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence.     

Cuban Anti‐slavery Narrative through Postcolonial Eyes: Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab (1841) has come to be regarded as an iconic work in the canon of nineteenth‐century Cuban fiction, celebrated as much for its literary pedigree as for its radical combination of anti‐slavery and feminist ideas. Yet it has been the subject of very divergent critical appraisals. This essay sets out to breathe new life into Avellaneda’s novel by interpreting it through a postcolonial optic. Drawing on ideas from the scholarship of Edward Said and Frantz Fanon, as well as the ideas of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, these pages explore the implications of its nationalist, racial, sexual and feminist politics for Sab’s anti‐slavery meaning. This postcolonial reading provides a possible solution for the conflicts between its various interpretations.     

The Mining Industry and the State: The Politics of Tin Restriction in Bolivia, 1936–1939

In the aftermath of the Chaco War (1932–1935) a strong left nationalist political current emerged in Bolivia which defined the three large mining companies of Patiño, Hochschild and Aramayo as a superstate, controlling both the economy and the politics of the nation to their own advantage. This article challenges that characterisation by examining the way in which the state exercised control over the two largest producers. Unfortunately, the state lacked the technical capacity to use its powers responsibly, preventing the development of a coherent mining policy.     

Public–Private Partnershipping as a Tool of Government: Exploring its Determinants Across German States

Despite considerable public and scholarly interest in public–private partnerships (PPPs) as a tool of government in Germany, there is no quantitative empirical study exploring the motivations behind policymakers' decisions to (not) use this type of privatisation policy. This article contributes to filling this gap by investigating the extent and determinants of the PPP activities of the 16 German states' governments over the period 2002–09. For that purpose, a PPP Activity Index is constructed which not only includes official PPP project figures but also state governments' programmatic, institutional, and advisory activities regarding PPP. Using this index, we statistically analyse whether fiscal stress, government partisanship, and other factors can help to explain the considerable differences between Länder governments' PPP activities. Among other things, it turns out that partisanship only matters if Socialists are part of a coalition government, and that fiscal transfers have a negative impact on a state's PPP activity level.     

Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900–1941

Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900–1941. By John C.G. Röhl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp.1562, AU$97.95 (cloth).     

‘Schloss Neuwahnstein’? Why the Länder continue to strengthen their representations in Brussels

The establishment of representative offices in Brussels marked the start a qualitative new step in the engagement of the German Länder in European Union (EU) policy. Despite a contested birth, more than 20 years' operation in Brussels have seen these offices become full elements of the sponsoring Länder administrations. This article argues that in both functional and operational terms, the Brussels Länder offices have developed over time to approximate the role played by their federal level counterparts, the Länder representations in Berlin. Enhanced investment by the Länder in their EU presence underscores the increasing relevance of EU issues for the exercise of their domestic policy responsibilities. However, the Länder offices in Brussels remain disputed entities, as federal and Länder government views of their mission and appropriate engagement differ sharply. Thus, while direct engagement in Brussels has become the norm for the Länder administrations, tensions over access to the EU sphere continue to mark Bund-Länder relations in Brussels – more that ten years after a legal solution was established. The article concludes by considering the broader implications of this situation.     

Breaking the ‘Silence’ of the Military Regime: New Politics of Memory in Brazil

This article elucidates the latest developments in the ‘politics of memory’ regarding the military regime in Brazil. Only recently, I argue, has the Brazilian state abandoned its ‘politics of silence’ and started to actively champion the memory of the left‐wing ‘resistance’. This new strategy climaxed in a governmental crisis over a historic plan to establish a National Truth Commission to investigate human rights violations during the military regime. The article analyses key incidents and debates prior to the crisis, and contrasts the post‐dictatorial collective memory of Brazil with that of other Latin American countries.     

Imagined Races: From Environmental Determinism to Geographical Authenticity in Twentieth‐Century Argentina

This article explores how Argentine intellectuals incorporated the natural environment into their accounts of the racial, cultural and political features of the nation. In the late nineteenth century environmental determinism, based on the assumption of a cause–effect relationship between geographical and racial factors, entered Argentina through three main routes: Lamarckism, Darwinism and Spencerianism. By the mid twentieth century, however, anti‐positivist philosophies had been fully incorporated into a body of work that analysed Argentina's socio‐historical foundations. This article examines the shift that occurred during the first half of the twentieth century in how those seeking to define race incorporated the environment into their arguments. The raza was commonly taken to be synonymous with nation. Selected works by sociologist and legal scholar Carlos Octavio Bunge (1875‐1918) and by writer and ensayista Bernardo Canal Feijóo (1897‐1982) will be analysed as influential yet overlooked examples of how ‘the problem of Argentine culture’ could not be separated from the question of nature understood in terms of both physical and human geography. The goal will be to reveal, firstly, the extent to which the notion of the interior as geographical and anthropological desert deeply informed the political vision of the early national period in relation to race and nation and, secondly, how later interpretations of the nation recast American nature as a foundational element of cultural authenticity based on a sentiment of geographical belonging.     

Courting the Voters? Policy Implications of Party Competition for the Reform Output of the Second Merkel Government

Understanding party competition as a ‘political market’, we explore its characteristics during the second Merkel government, 2009–13. On the demand side, analysing opinion polls and the Länder election results, we find that the outcome of the next Bundestag election was uncertain. Thus, electoral competition was likely to be intense. On the supply side, opposition parties presented credible alternatives to government policies with regard to social as well as environmental policy. Regarding the Euro crisis, however, a consensus across the established parties existed. Studying three of the most salient policy issues, we identify party competition as a crucial determinant of decision-making. While the debate on minimum wages was substantially shaped by party competition, resulting in ‘anticipatory obedience’, nuclear energy only became affected by electoral considerations after the ‘Fukushima shock’ which resulted in a major policy shift. Regarding the response to the Euro crisis, however, party competition was essentially suspended.     

The Second AIF and the End of Empires: Soldiers' Attitudes Toward a “Free Asia”

Largely neglected within studies of Australian attitudes — and changing Australian attitudes — toward Asia throughout the twentieth century are the diverse views expressed by the single major group of Australians to encounter the region, namely the servicemen and women of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) who served the nation during the Pacific War 1941–1945. Within forums offered by soldier publications such as Salt, Australian troops were engaged in discussions about why the war had been fought (often with reference to the merits and ideals outlined within the Atlantic Charter, Declaration by United Nations and United Nations Charter). Central to such discussions were attitudes toward race, colonialism and Australia's role and future role in regional and world affairs. Importantly, well‐informed understandings of Asian affairs were crucial to discussions.     

The Concertación's Defeat in Chile's 2009–2010 Presidential Elections

The Concertación lost the recent presidential elections in Chile after 20 years in office. This article proposes three explanations for this result. First, the Concertación's candidate selection process through primaries was exclusionary, without opening up participation to all potential applicants. This combined with a deep erosion of the coalition, reflected in the resignation of deputies and senators from parties that compose it. The process was accelerated with the emergence of an independent candidate, formerly from the Concertación. Second, the candidate from the right increased his vote in the poorest sectors and expanded the right's constituency to middle‐class segments, traditional Concertación electoral strongholds. Third, the right achieved greater electoral consistency than the Concertación by reducing the number of voters who split their tickets. Its presidential candidate obtained almost the same percentage as its list of deputies.     

Power in Transition in Marcelo Cohen's ‘La ilusión monarca’

This article examines the changing nature of power relations engendered by the Argentine transition to democracy, as reflected in Marcelo Cohen's short story ‘La ilusión monarca’ (1992). By examining contextual markers dispersed throughout the story, Cohen is shown to problematise Foucault's conception of ‘disciplinary society’ as a means to criticise the legacy of corruption bequeathed by the military dictatorship of 1976–1983. Subsequently, the work of Gilles Deleuze is deployed to demonstrate that Cohen's story philosophically examines the change in power and resistance concomitant with the transition from ‘disciplinary’ to ‘control society’ precipitated by the adoption of neoliberal economics in Argentina.