Latin America: Looking North or South?: The United States and Latin America at Century's Turn

This article is adapted from a longer essay prepared at the invitation of Politica Externa in Rio de Janeiro and draws on the Astor Lecture Dr. Lowenthal delivered at St. Anthony's College, Oxford.     

Is Corruption Really Bad for Inequality? Evidence from Latin America

This article presents new evidence on the relationship between corruption and income inequality. Using a panel data methodology, we find that lower corruption is associated with higher income inequality in Latin America. This result is in contrast to other empirical studies but it makes sense in Latin America for a number of reasons. The finding of an inverse relationship between inequality and corruption suggests that institutional reform policies by themselves may be misguided.     

Latin America: Looking North or South?: Globalization From Below

HugoChavez, the controversial president of Venezuela, has been called Fidel with oil. Before he ran for office and was elected in 1998, Chavez had been imprisoned for two years after leading an attempted coup in February 1992 when he was an army colonel.
In late September, OPEC held its first summit in 20 years in Caracas. NPQ editor Nathan Gardels spoke then with Chavez.     

(Neo-)extractivism – a new challenge for development theory from Latin America

This paper addresses new challenges and identifies starting points for development theory following recent debates in Latin America on ‘new or neo-extractivism’. It focuses on the concept of neo-extractivism and the context of its emergence, and on the changing role of the state. Looking at a number of social economic indicators, we find that, even after considering differences between countries, (neo-)extractivism is not merely a temporary economic strategy in the region. Instead, it exhibits features of a consolidated development project. Empirical evidence from the region shows the fundamental implications of resource-based development paths in politics, social relations and territorial orders. To grasp these implications conceptually, we argue for a shift in theoretical perspectives related to the link between development and resource extraction. Key elements for such a shift are to be found in recent studies in rentier theory and politics and new approaches in the field of political ecology.     

Latin America: Looking North or South?: Erasing the Border of Time

The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes' newest book is Laura Diaz. He spoke with NPQ is late November.     

The ‘tenure guidelines’ as a tool for democratising land and resource control in Latin America

Abstract

The current configuration of global land politics – who gets what land, how, how much, why and with what implications in urban and rural spaces in the Global South and North – brings disparate social groups, governments and social movements with different sectoral and class interests into the issue of natural resource politics. Governance instruments must be able to capture the ‘political moment’ marked by the increasing intersection of issues and state and social forces that mobilise around these. This paper looks at whether and how the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (also known as the TGs) passed in 2012 in the United Nations Committee for Food Security (CFS) can contribute to democratising resource politics today. This work puts forward some initial ideas about how systematic research into the TGs can be done more meaningfully.     

Promoting democracy in Latin America: foreign policy change and US democracy assistance, 1975–2010

Since the Cold War the USA has articulated and implemented explicit strategies of democracy promotion. One interesting target of such efforts is Latin America, in part because of the region’s geographic proximity to the USA and of the mixed record of US support for democracy there. This paper examines the impact of the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 episode on the nature, purposes, targets and consequences of US democracy assistance to Latin America. Examining democracy aid allocations, social and political factors and other variables, it traces changes in aid strategies, purposes and recipients generated by these paradigm shifts, and assesses the impact of such assistance on the politics of the region. It concludes with implications of these findings for US democracy promotion policies.     

Latin America: Looking North or South?: Mexico's Future—So Close to God,So Close to the United States

Vincente Fox, the new president of Mexico, was inaugurated on Dec. 1. He spoke with NPQ Editor Nathan Gardels in Mexico City     

Cash or In-kind Transfers? Evidence from a Randomised Controlled Trial in Delhi,India

Abstract

This article examines a randomised intervention in Delhi, India, that provided unconditional cash transfers to a group of households as a replacement for the food security offered by a below-poverty-level card. The experimental approach can differentiate beneficial effects due to either unconditional cash transfers or newly opened bank accounts. The unconditional cash transfer does not induce a decline in food security; rather, it provides opportunities for households to shift to other nutritious options in non-cereal product categories.     

‘We Will Revive’: addiction,spiritual warfare,and recovery in Latin America’s cocaine production zone

Abstract

Once a key site in the War on Drugs against cocaine, the Upper Amazon in northeastern Peru has lately seen an increase in addiction to coca paste, a toxic by-product of the cocaine manufacturing process. Unregulated and coercive Pentecostal ministries, founded and administered by recovered pastors, constitute the main form of addiction treatment in the Upper Amazon today. Based on ethnographic research in nine ministries and using the example of the ministry ‘We Will Revive,’ this article suggests that Pentecostal ministries re-articulate addiction as demonic possession. Accordingly, ministries treat addiction through spiritual warfare against the Devil. In so doing, Pentecostal ministries change the locus of the War on Drugs from trade networks to sinful bodies.     

Do Governments in Developing Countries Pursue Sustainable Debt Policies? Empirical Evidence for Selected Countries in Africa and Latin America

In this paper we test for sustainability of public debt in selected low- and middle-income developing countries of Africa and Latin-America. We do this by analysing how the primary surplus to GDP reacts to variations in the debt to GDP ratio where we allow for a time-varying reaction coefficient. Moreover, we test for stationarity of the overall budget deficit of the selected countries. The results show that, despite rising debt ratios, there is empirical evidence for some of the countries that public debt is sustainable, independent of whether they belong to the low-income or middle-income group of countries.     

Bureaucracy,Post-Bureaucracy,or Anarchy? Evidence from the Italian Public Administration

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the features characterizing the modern public administrations, their organizational models, and the activities carried out, are still rooted in the old bureaucratic approach. The research gathered data from a questionnaire administered to 156 Italian public officers, employees, and managers. The analysis consists of a correlation test and a regression test to verify the hypotheses related to the aim of the study. The research shows that, despite the changes driven by NPM reforms, the Italian Public Administration is still linked to a bureaucratic model. Findings also show that Italian public servants are highly motivated despite the activities they carry out are strongly standardized. Additionally, it clearly emerges that in some cases Italian public administrations are perceived by their employees as pervaded by anarchy. The article has both interesting academic and practical implications for the management of public administrations.     

Decolonising online development studies? Emancipatory aspirations and critical reflections – a case study

Academics in high-income countries are increasingly launching development studies programmes through online distance learning to engage practitioner-students in low-income countries. Are such initiatives providing opportunities to critically tackle social injustice, or merely ‘mirroring’ relations of global inequality and re-entrenching imperial practices? Building on recent scholarship addressing efforts to ‘decolonise development studies’ and the complex power dynamics they encounter, we reflect on this question by analysing experiences of faculty and students in a United Kingdom-based online development studies programme, focusing particularly on perspectives of development practitioner-students working from Africa. We discuss barriers to social inclusivity – including the politics of language – that shaped participation dynamics in the programme as well as debates regarding critical development course content, rethinking possibilities for bridging counter-hegemonic development scholarship with practice-oriented approaches in a range of social contexts. Our analysis unpacks key tensions in addressing intertwined institutional and pedagogic dilemmas for an agenda towards decolonising online development studies, positioning decolonisation as a necessarily unsettling and contested process that calls for greater self-reflexivity.     

Health and human security: a wrinkle in time or a new paradigm?

Since it was first advanced in the 1994 Human development report of the United Nations Development Programme [United Nations Development Project. (1994). Human development report. New York: UN], the concept of ‘human security’ has evolved as a holistic development-oriented acuity [Nef, J. (1999). Human security and mutual vulnerability: The global political economy of development and underdevelopment (2nd ed.). Ottawa: International Development Research Centre]. The human security concept reinforces the right to health, drawing on both the role of states and the global community's commitment to human rights. Yet, health and human security, long the purview of state power and responsibility, increasingly include alliances of state and non-state actors. This paper proceeds in three parts. The first looks at health and human security linkages, charting the trajectory of the health and human security relationship. The second deals with policy and operational implications. It explores the health–human security link, paying particular attention to the allocation of responsibility and accountability, including through private–public partnerships and rising powers such as China. The third provides a theoretical and technical analysis of the status of health and human security since 1994, taking into account its evolution vis-à-vis human rights’ development and development more broadly, also asking whether it represents but a wrinkle in time or a new sustainable development paradigm.