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There has been a change in international politics since the 2008 financial crisis, thanks to a greater spread of economic resources and military capabilities. For many, it is a radical transformation that could spell the end of US hegemony in Latin America. This paper examines the proposition, beginning with a review of the concept of hegemony, which rather than being viewed as a structural characteristic is conceived of here as a "nuanced hegemony", in other words a network of asymmetric and hierarchical relations. We can observe not just one transformation then, but the emergence of a hemispheric context that could be described as "differentiated hegemony". The United States still occupies a central position, but its foreign policy is marked by subregional fragmentation and the externalisation of electoral priorities. The paper explores the effects at subregional level, focusing on the opportunities and challenges it presents to Latin American countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world of growing international competition and rivalry between China and the United States, Latin America and the European Union (EU) are caught in the same thorny dilemma. Positioned between these global giants, both regions are facing a retorn to a Westphalian system of nation-states, which undermines their roles as emerging regional players. In view of these new global challenges in Latin America and the EU, this paper uses a qualitative and comparative approach to explore foreign policy discourses on autonomy in both regions. It examines their goals and priorities and assesses the potential regional and interregional consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent electoral successes of right-wing and far-right actors in different parts of the world have prompted discussion on various topics: the causes of their rise, their characteristics and strategies, the motivations of electorates and the depth of the right-wing shifts in a range of societies. This paper proposes key themes for systematising this debate and some clues to understanding the rise of the right in such diverse and heterogeneous national realities. It also suggests recovering a constructivist conceptualisation of "authoritarian traditions" in order to analyse the mobilisation strategies, behaviour and coordination of right-wing groups from a perspective that highlights their dynamic and innovative nature. This approach allows us to (re)think authoritarianism as the result of symbolic practices and discourses that are assembled, (re)invented and updated to serve various purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Medical iatrogenesis' was first defined by Illich as injuries 'done to patients by ineffective, unsafe, and erroneous treatments'. Following Lokumage's original usage of the term, this paper explores 'obstetric iatrogenesis' along a spectrum ranging from unintentional harm (UH) to overt disrespect, violence, and abuse (DVA), employing the acronym 'UHDVA' for this spectrum. This paper draws attention to the systemic maltreatment rooted in the technocratic model of birth, which includes UH normalized forms of mistreatment that childbearers and providers may not recognize as abusive. Equally, this paper assesses how obstetric iatrogenesis disproportionately impacts Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), contributing to worse perinatal outcomes for BIPOC childbearers. Much of the work on 'obstetric violence' that documents the most detrimental end of the UHDVA spectrum has focused on low-to-middle income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Based on a dataset of 62 interviews and on our personal observations, this paper shows that significant UHDVA also occurs in the high-income U.S., provide concrete examples, and suggest humanistic solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During his term in office, Donald Trump was consistently hostile toward Latin America and its people. Regardless of what they felt about him, Latin American leaders had no choice but to adapt to an era of confrontation and unpredictability. This paper uses the concept of autonomy to make a twofold argument. First, Trump accelerated an already existing trend whereby Latin American leaders increasingly looked to expand opportunities of all kinds with governments outside the hemisphere. Second, ideological and nationalist obstacles within Latin America slowed or even blocked autonomous action. Trump held open the autonomy door, so to speak, but many were hesitant to walk through it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though there is research regarding the political speech and rhetoric of minority politicians, activists, and other elites, there is little on the everyday, casual political discourse of minorities in the United States. More specifically, there is none on Latinx political dialog amongst social groups. In this paper, I ask whether Latinxs are more, or less, prone to political conversations in different social contexts than non-Latinx Whites. I find evidence that Latinxs are less likely to discuss politics with family, friends, and coworkers. These findings are important when considering explanations for various political behaviors and political affect amongst Latinxs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Indicators for quality of schooling are not only relatively new in the world but also unavailable for a sizable share of the world’s population. In their absence, some proxy measures have been devised. One simple but powerful idea has been to use the schooling premium for migrant workers in the USA (Bratsberg and Terrell, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to extend this idea and compute measures for the schooling premium of immigrant workers in the USA over a span of five decades.Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors focus on the schooling premia for the Latin American and the Caribbean region and compare them to those of migrants from other regions, particularly from East Asia and Pacific, India, Northern Europe and Southern Europe, all relative to immigrants from former Soviet Republics. The available data allow us to measure such premia for workers who graduated from school, either at the secondary or tertiary levels, in their home countries between 1940 and 2010.Findings The results show that the schooling premia in Latin America have been steadily low throughout the whole period of analysis. The results stand after controlling for selective migration in different ways. This contradicts the popular belief in policy circles that the education quality of the region has deteriorated in recent years. In contrast, schooling premium in India shows an impressive improvement in recent decades, especially at the tertiary level.Originality/value In this paper, the authors extend the idea of computing schooling premium for migrant workers in the USA (Bratsberg and Terrell, 2002) and present comparative estimates of the evolution of schooling premia in 17 Latin American countries for both secondary and tertiary schooling levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-trial detention is used extensively in Latin America as a systematic practice implemented by courts. Despite this fact, few empirical studies have analysed the role of defence attorneys in pre-trial incarceration. This paper attempts to describe the actions taken by lawyers in order to free their clients during the judicial process, using new empirical evidence collected from the incarcerated population in Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Chile, Mexico and Peru. Results suggest that public defenders request conditional release less frequently but do so more effectively than their private counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of who owns large companies and how they are organised is overdue in the study of Latin American elites, especially at transnational level. It is a limitation that has hampered debates on the emergence of transnational business elites in the region. This paper identifies the owners of the largest companies in Latin America and analyses the networks they form. The results reveal the formation of an interlocking ownership network between a small number of transnational owners, most of whom are financial corporations in the United States and Europe. These findings allow us to discuss regional integration and the dominance of economic models imported from those territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an empirical analysis of how US unconventional monetary policy has affected Latin American countries. First, we estimate the effects of US monetary policy announcements on sovereign bond interest rates, exchange rates, and stock market indices for a set of emerging countries, including five Latin American economies. We found that QE announcements in 2008/2009 and the tapering talk in 2013 generated sizable sovereign yield and exchange rate fluctuations. We further find, just in a few cases, some excessive response of asset prices in Latin American countries. In the second part of the paper, we estimate a simple model that measures the influence of country-specific macroeconomic fundamentals on the transmission of US financial disturbances. An estimated model including the inflation rate, the CDS spread, the ratio of official reserves and market capitalization explains some of the observed cross-country heterogeneity of spillovers from US monetary policy announcements. Under this model, a greater impact from the normalization of US monetary policy can be expected in Latin America relative to other emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a conceptual framework for analyzing the dynamics of tree cover transformations in the cattle pastures across the Neotropics. It proposes that tree cover variability across cattle pastures can be envisioned as a set of 'syndromes of production,' among which transformations may be linear, non-linear, or multivalued. Our framework is informed by a review of the literature from which we define the components that make up tree cover and the socioecological drivers of tree cover in cattle pastures. We propose that the drivers of tree cover are the continuum between two economies: the peasant and the capitalist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to offer a feminist, Latin-American reading on the gender representations that constitute the discourse on the US war on drugs in Latin America. Drawing upon the feminist literature on international security, this article explores some of the nuances of the US war-on-drugs discourse when it comes to gender. It argues that, although a gendered discourse has been constantly present in US official discourse, it has visibly changed in character as the USA's antidrug policies became increasingly internationalized, militarized, and oriented by a 'supply-side approach.' Once deployed through the feminization of drug consumption as a moral degradation of the nation's social body, US war-on-drugs discourse perceptibly changed to encompass a process of hyper-masculinization of the figure of the US drug warrior, supported by subordinate masculinities and femininities represented by the subaltern, feminized Latin American drug warriors, and the ruthless, hyper-aggressive drug lords. Ultimately, the gender(ed) cartographies of the USA's war-on-drugs discourse work as conditions of possibility for framing the war on drugs as the only 'solution' to the 'drug problem' and reaffirm the incessant search for sovereignty that has as its ultimate goal the total control, domination and vigilance of human interaction with psychoactive substances: attributes of a hegemonic state masculinity par excellence. Through gendered (in)security performances, the state defends not only its 'physical' borders from external threats, but also its own frontiers of possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do leftist governments in Latin America prefer building relationships with China rather than with the U.S., particularly in the twenty-first century? This paper examines the nature of the interrelationship between the U.S. and Latin America, and that between China and Latin America, and argues that the embedded political and ideological aspects are key factors to consider when answering the question, albeit in a prevailing capitalism-oriented world economy. This has been evident in the historical trajectory of China’s relationship with Latin America, which has evolved in a manner quite different from the way in which the U.S. has interacted with Latin America. While this paper acknowledges that economic factors are more important in shaping the nature of relationships among nation-states, this research explores the extent to which the elites' individual levels of perception and their embedded ideological orientation towards the third party plays a critical role in guiding the interaction which they carry out among themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares left-wing Latin American populism with Donald Trump. Despite their different social bases and economic policies, they use a similar logic to construct politics as an antagonistic struggle between two camps. Left-wing and right-wing populists aim to rupture existing political institutions to give power to the people, yet they differ in how they construct this category. Whereas Trump used ethnic criteria to differentiate the people from three out groups – Mexicans, Muslims, and African-American militant organisations – left-wing Latin American populists used political and socio-economic criteria. Despite their democratising promises, Latin American populists like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador undermined democracy from within. Even though stronger institutions might protect American democracy, Trump has disfigured democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reviews the principal concepts of social class, occupation, and social stratification, and their contribution to the analysis of the social determinants of health (SDH), and reviews empirical studies conducted in Latin America that use employment relations as an SDH. The review focuses on studies of the relationship between health and social class based on neo-Weberian or neo-Marxist perspectives. A search of the BIREME Virtual Health Library and the SciELO database found 28 articles meeting these characteristics. This relative dearth contrasts with the profusion of papers that use these approaches written in Europe and in the United States, with a long tradition in the analysis of SDH. In this regard, the political and programmatic implications of research on social class and employment relations are different from and complementary to studies of health gradients associated with income and education. Globalization of employment relations requires the development of new concepts to explain and measure the mechanisms of action of the SDH going beyond what is strictly labor related; in particular, the importance in the current Latin American reality of the impact of informal work on health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper subjects to critique the 'new institutionalism' in development policy literature. It highlights the way 'second generation' institutional reform processes in the Latin American region are to be engineered through a politics of global competitiveness while their success is to be gauged, first and foremost, in capital-functional terms. The paper culminates in the focused critique of an Inter-American Bank flagship report. The Politics of Policies, which demonstrates the new institutionalism's prejudice against any form of political leadership that does not seek to guarantee a competitive investment climate as well as an uncompromising commitment to a politics of global competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of an emerging effort to explore environmental justice in the forms in which it is appearing in Latin America, both as a discourse of popular mobilisation and as a set of principles for analysis and interpretation. It explores the promise and limits of environmental justice on the US-Mexico border, drawing its lessons from a study of trans-border energy politics. In the wake of the California energy regulatory crisis, energy companies set their sights on northern Baja California as an ideal production platform to meet US energy demand through the construction of new power plants and receiving terminals for liquefied natural gas. This paper explores the emergence of environmental justice as a banner of community resistance to Baja's energy boom, as well as its utility as an analytical framework that highlights underlying issues of distributional inequity and procedural injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Industrialization that Latin America has experienced during the past 50 years, the increase of population and the growth of chemical-related industries has generated a variety of environmental problems that must be addressed. After assessing these profound changes, greater emphasis should be placed on the study of environmental health and toxicology. Latin American countries face many problems that are common to other developing nations. Therefore, there is a demand for safety assessment and regulatory control of chemicals that create a need for increasing numbers of toxicologists. To meet this demand, educational programs in toxicology have to be designed. This paper utilizes a consultation questionnaire that includes toxicology-network members, scientists and educational institutions where toxicology is taught. An analysis of the information collected is made, with an emphasis on what we currently lack and on future challenges for toxicology professionals. Although the response from the study institutions was 65% (13 countries out of 20), the paper aims to assess the present situation of toxicology. The convenience for a certification/recognition for toxicologists is also evaluated. Action needs to be taken to promote scientific development based on regional specific needs that require increasing at the number of toxicology programs, and promoting of cooperation between academics and researchers. Among the limitations we have are the variability of curricula, objectives and priorities. The increasing globalization of markets and regulations requires the harmonization of graduate/postgraduate programs to ensure that risk assessment and management are dealt with uniformly. Cooperation among our countries and international assistance should play a more prominent role in the promotion of regional integration and the more efficient utilization of international experience in defining educational policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper compares the life satisfaction and working hours of Latin Americans and U.S. Americans using the AmericasBarometer and General Social Survey. While there are many common determinants of happiness, hours worked is not among them. Differences in cultural values, especially the distinction between collectivism (familism) and individualism that has long been a foundation of social development theory, may be why married Latin American males are less happy than married U.S. American males when working longer hours. The distinction is not apparent among females or the unmarried. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several countries in the Latin American and Caribbean Region are experiencing a spectacular economic growth. As a consequence, reliable statistics are increasingly needed. In order to ensure the credibility of official statistics governance has to be enhanced. This process has already started in the Region, and is being developed along several lines. First a Code of Good Practices in Statistics for the ECLAC Region, following the Fundamental Principles of United Nations and very much in the line of the European Code has been implemented and adopted and, in some countries, embodied into national Codes. As a consequence a number of countries in the Region are now in the process of updating their legislation on official statistics and adapting it to the principles of this Code. Another line of development is a plan for assessing the compliance of the current practices in the countries with the principles of the Code, and to that end a series of peer reviews, as well as some monitoring on the accomplishment of improvement actions, are being undertaken. This paper intends to present an overview of the current situation, outlining the improvements already achieved and the main difficulties encountered in the process, and commenting on some challenges still pending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is one of the first to document multigenerational educational mobility for a Latin American country. It complements a recent wave of articles that study mobility beyond two generations in developed countries. Specifically, we link data on educational attainment for three generations in Chile. Our main findings indicate that grandparental education influences grandchildren's schooling even after taking the parental factor into account. Accordingly, standard two-generation estimations over-predict intergenerational mobility over three generations. We investigate three potential avenues of transmission. First, we find that upward schooling mobility has moderately increased with younger cohorts, and that such changes may be attributable to institutional reforms. Second, there is important heterogeneity in educational mobility across regions in Chile, which sheds light on how parents' place of origin matters for upward mobility. Third, a gender-specific lineage analysis indicates that having more educated same-sex ancestors matters more for women and suggests that gender-related social roles may be passed along generations within families. All in all, our results suggest that family background effects can be longer lasting than previously believed, affecting the endowments and idiosyncratic capabilities of children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the effects of U.S. monetary policy on Latin America's production structure before two economic crises, specifically the effects of monetary policy on the real economy at the industrial level. Changes in the federal funds rate produce uneven effects on output trends across sectors and industries that are more capital-intensive and involved in relatively long-term projects are more sensitive to changes in the federal funds rate. Periods of loose monetary policy result in resource misallocation that is costly to correct during a bust if investment is irreversible, with a particular pattern of economic distortion during an unsustainable boom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Rosa Parks Prize was awarded to a conservative Argentine senator in 2009 for her outspoken opposition to contraception, sterilisation and abortion, it was clear that something odd was happening. This paper documents the appropriation of ‘human rights’ discourses by conservative Catholics in Latin America, where the recent success of reproductive and sexual rights social movements has generated a significant backlash. It specifically traces an effort by Catholic legal scholars to justify what they term ‘a distinctively Latin American approach to human rights’ while ignoring decades of human rights activism by others. Opponents of reproductive and sexual rights are deploying rights-talk selectively and strategically, it is argued, using this as secular cover to advance pro-life and pro-family policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the legacies of the financial crisis in the United States and Europe is the adoption of macroprudential policies in an increasing number of countries, including in Latin America. These policies aim to prevent future financial crises through the adoption of far-reaching reforms that involve changing the institutional framework for monetary and financial policies, using models and indicators to monitor the buildup of systemic risks, and utilizing instruments designed to prevent the materialization of those risks. The objective of this paper is to examine the institutional aspects of macroprudential policy in Latin America. In particular, it assesses the strengths and weaknesses of existing institutional models and offers suggestions to improve the effectiveness of those models. The analysis focuses on the two main institutional arrangements that exist in this region, the "Pacific" model which includes countries like Chile, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico, and the "Atlantic" model, which includes countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the probability of sending remittances and the level of remittances sent are influenced by immigrants' desire to insure against uncertainty, as opposed to factors that result in remittances with altruistic motives. Using for the first time both 1) data from the Mexican Migration Project and the Latin American Migration Project and 2) the predicted probability of unemployment in the destination country as a measure of immigrants' economic uncertainty, we find that for Latin American Immigrants insurance motives play a more dominant role than altruistic motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prawns of the genus Macrobrachium with economic and fishing interest are well known and exploited in almost all coastal communities in Latin America. However they have not been properly studied and their conservation is at risk. The economic, social and cultural characteristics in most countries in the region have resulted in habitat degradation and overfishing, consequently, the populations of this genus of aquatic macro invertebrates are endangered. From this, it follows that all these are poorly studied, and their population status is not known, although in the case of M. amazonicum there are numerous studies. Culture techniques is the area in which more reasearch hs been done. This paper summarizes the knowledge we have on native species of Macrobrachium in Latin America and discusses their economic importance and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper offers a few notes on the impact of North-American films in Latin American society in the 1920's and 1930s, based on Latin- American stories produced during that period. The analysis will be guided mainly by the notions of mimetic desire (Girard) and cinema situation (Mauerhofer), as well as by the updated motif of the double (and its "realist" substitute, the doublé), in such a context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People of Latin American descent make up the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the USA. Rates of pregnancy, childbirth, and sexually transmitted infections among people of Latin American descent are higher than among other ethnic groups. This paper builds on research that suggests that among families of Latin American descent, mothers have a particularly strong influence on the sexual attitudes and behaviours of their children, yet that parents of Latin American descent communicate less with their children about sex than parents of other ethnic groups. It examines the messages about sex women received as children in their countries of origin, and how these messages and their views of the USA influence the sexual education women provide for their children. On the basis of data from focus groups, we suggest that, in spite of the persistence of sexual silence, some women's self-reflective analyses of their own sexual education as well as their views of the USA as a sexually more open society contribute to their views of silence as dangerous and trigger more open communication with sons and daughters. Mothers hope to break the cycle of unwanted pregnancy by speaking with daughters about the consequences of menstruation and with sons about contraception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unquestioned patriarchal beliefs prescribed by religion often place women and racial and sexual minorities in positions of victimization. In the therapeutic framework, 'God' represents unquestioned values that must be challenged and evaluated in order to have a transformative effect. As a result of the increase in the number of Latino immigrants to the United States, it is inevitable for therapists to work with Latino families, a highly religious population. The purpose of this paper is to explore, through a feminist perspective, the role of Christianity and the feminist movement in Latin America and the impact of Christianity on therapists' work with Latino families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of several policy distortions, including import-substitution industrialization, widespread government intervention, and both domestic and international competitive barriers, there has been a general presumption that Latin America has been much less productive than the leading economies in the last decades. In this paper we show, however, that until the late 1970s Latin American countries had high productivity levels relative to the United States. It is only after the late 1970s that we observe a fast decrease of relative total factor productivity (TFP) in Latin America. We also show that the inclusion of human capital in the production function makes a crucial difference in the TFP calculations for Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a general analysis of the relations among United States and Latin America considering issues such as the questioning of the US centrality globally and in the hemisphere, Brazil's policies to the region and the impact of the growing relations with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an expanded, more thorough version of a paper presented at the Seminar on Development Theory about the international crisis, hosted by the UNAM Institute for Economic Research. It includes a historical and theoretical introduction, followed by three parts and a. brief conclusion. The three parts are a) relations between the world crisis and the U.S. economy; b) the current course of the crisis, its localization in Western Europe, and probable international consequences, and c) the consequences for Mexico in the more general framework of Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over two days in May 2011, a symposium on the topic of ‘Latino Urbanism’ was convened at the Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory at Arizona State University to discuss how Latino-American culture is shaping urban form in the US. This paper reviews the primary themes and debates surrounding the idea of Latino Urbanism, many of which emerged during that event. All presentations from this conference were videotaped and can be viewed from the Phoenix Urban Research Lab website: http://purl.asu.edu/resources/initiatives-latino-urbanism-multimedia/latino-urbanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the determinants of bank performance between Latin American and U.S. institutional environment. For a sample of 111 banks of six Latin American countries and the United States over the period 1997-2010, our results show the existence of significant differences in bank performance between the two institutional settings. Specifically, U.S. banks show higher performance levels compared to Latin America, which may be explained by the greater administrative efficiency associated with total assets. On the other hand, our results show that the predominant Latin American diversification through non-traditional banking activities has a positive effect on the performance of banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a of the results of a survey conducted by the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) in 2000 on the development of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) in Latin America and other developed by the Center for Integrated Surveys of Natural Resources by Remote Sensing (CLIRSEN) with the joint support of the Pan-American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH), section Ecuador and the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) 2008. Besides a comparative analysis of fifteen countries that participated in both surveys for which we used the values of high, medium and low to locate the levels of development of the NSDI in 2000, compared with the development of geospatial information in 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the Second World War a central component of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration's post-war planning was an attempt to win the support of Great Britain for a multilateral economic system, based on the internationalist principles of free and equal access to the world's markets and resources. This paper explores the impact on Anglo-American economic diplomacy of a faction within the Roosevelt administration, defined as 'Hemisphere isolationists'. United by a preoccupation with Latin American affairs, alongside an instinctive disdain for the European powers, this group pursued policies which had the effect of excluding British interests from Latin America for the post-war era. As such, they represented a regionalist challenge to broader internationalist conceptions of the post-war world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Obama administration has an historic opportunity to reform the US 'War on Drugs' (WOD) policies in the strategically important Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. This paper examines the impact of the WOD policies and concludes they have seriously exacerbated crime and corruption rates in LAC. The result is weakened governance structures and economic capacities in LAC. The WOD has emphasized supply curtailment in source and transit countries, rather than demand reduction in the US This offshoring of attacks on drug organizations has resulted in the acceleration of violence and corruption as drug traffickers develop new strategies to maintain their profits. The LAC region has the highest murder rate in the world, even higher than regions with armed conflict. We recommend that the US abandon drug prohibition. Decriminalization would allow governments to control the trans-shipment, production and distribution of these drugs. This would immediately allow resources devoted to law enforcement activities to be redirected to assist addicts and to provide financial support to strategically important neighboring LAC states. Controlling the marketplace would also provide the US and LAC with new sources of taxes. We also recommend that LAC governments act together to overcome their small sizes or weak institutional capacities by deepening cooperation as between MERCOSUR and CARICOM. This would enable joint initiatives such as policing of territorial water, thus reducing the need for US incursions into the region. Finally, any solution in the region must be supported by the creation of economic opportunities, both intra-regionally and through fairer access to the US markets, particularly for agricultural goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The RELAP/SCDAPSIM code, designed to predict the behaviour of reactor systems during normal and accident conditions, is being developed as part of the international SCDAP Development and Training Program (SDTP). SDTP consists of nearly 60 organizations in 28 countries supporting the development of technology, software, and training materials for the nuclear industry. The program members and licensed software users include universities, research organizations, regulatory organizations, vendors, and utilities located in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. Innovative Systems Software (ISS) is the administrator for the program. RELAP/SCDAPSIM is used by program members and licensed users to support a variety of activities. The paper provides a brief review of some of the more important activities including the analysis of research reactors and Nuclear Power Plants, design and analysis of experiments, and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is based on a large-scale project examining mobile phone use among young Latinos in six different countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, the United States, and Uruguay. Following the uses and gratifications tradition as a theoretical framework, researchers used a two-stage research design involving both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to analyze how young adult Latinos use their mobile phones, and the perceived gratifications obtained from their use and comparisons to other forms of technology. A total of 1,320 subjects were surveyed across the six countries, yielding a rich data set that is only partially examined in this particular paper. The results indicate similarities and differences among the six counties and offers both theoretical and practical findings, as well as suggestions for future research and investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests whether financial leverage fluctuates in a way which is consistent with the existence of a target leverage or, on the contrary, it freely fluctuates with the observed changes on stock returns. Using a sample of non-financial publicly-traded firms of 5 Latin-American countries and the US in the period 2000-2007, we find that firms allow their leverages fluctuate almost one to one with stock returns variations. This evidence does not mean at all that firms are not involve in corporate debt issuing activity but they do not care too much about hit a particular target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2004, I have used various document sets from the National Security Archive (NSA) to teach students about modern Latin American history at Georgia College and State University, a medium-sized public liberal arts university in central Georgia. The NSA has the largest non-governmental online collection of US national security government documents in the world. Its research staff compiles, introduces, contextualizes, analyzes, and sifts through thousands of declassified materials. These include inter-agency memos, embassy communications, executive directives, confidential correspondence, and other once-classified materials. This essay will critically examine the NSA as a way of teaching the histories of US imperialism and intervention, state suppression of popular dissent, militarism, human rights abuses, and counterinsurgency tactics and training in Latin America from the beginning of the Cold War until today. First, I will provide an explanation of the assignments that I use. These consist mostly of document analysis exercises and larger research papers. I will also share which topics students tend to explore, while noting several potential methodological pitfalls in using the NSA documents. Secondly, I will share testimony on how students' views on US foreign policy have changed. The general consensus at the beginning of the semester is that one of the principal aims of US foreign policy is to promote democracy above all other values. After examining the NSA documents, however, students seriously re-examine this idea. Indeed, introducing students to the 'raw material' provided by the NSA is a powerful pedagogical tool for delivering and teaching radical history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of exchange rate levels and exchange rate uncertainty on US foreign direct investment into Latin America. By decomposing exchange rate uncertainty into temporary (short-run) and permanent (long-run) components, we further explore whether the nature of uncertainty matters. Our empirical findings support the view that exchange rate uncertainty has a negative impact on US investment flows into Latin America. Moreover, it is the persistency in uncertainty rather than transitory uncertainty that mostly deters foreign investment. In contrast, investors do not appear to be affected by discrete movements in exchange rate levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the nationalization of electoral change in multiparty settings. We present a method to measure the relative magnitude of national and sub-national shifts in electoral support across parties and elections that is appropriate for the compositional structure of multiparty electoral data. We apply this new method to the analysis of legislative elections in six Latin American countries and the United States. Our findings indicate the widespread influence of local (i.e., state-specific) factors in electoral change, but highlight the drastic impact that intermittent nationalized shifts have on partisan support. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The first meeting of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers was held in Monde in 1970, a time of change and discontent in the United States and also in the discipline of geography. This was reflected in the papers and discussions at the meeting and in the published Proceedings in 1971. The older more traditional geographers were confronted by younger geographers who pushed for new directions - spatial theory, statistical analysis, applied geography, and social relevance. The meeting was contentious; change did take place thereafter; and traditional and new approaches to Latin Americanist geography now share respect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The building of the network of submarine telegraph cables in Latin America changed the ways in which diplomats, politicians, business leaders and journalists conducted their affairs. This new network played a part in the resolution of several international crises. Cable communications alerted a British gunboat that brought an end to the summary executions in Cuba (ordered by a Spanish general) of sailors and passengers from a captured ship, the Virginius, that carried a United States flag. International telegraphy made possible the quick settlement of the consequent dispute between Spain and the United States. International cables enabled British businesses, the London press, and the Foreign Office to monitor the Argentine political crisis of 1880 and agree that direct intervention was not advisable. U.S. diplomats helped Chile and Argentina resolve their long standing boundary dispute in 1881. The main point of this paper, however, is that the solutions to these crises obscured early signs of significant problems that became more pronounced in the use of cables in later events: sensationalist coverage of international crises in the U.S. press, an uneven and often misunderstood intimacy between Argentina and Britain, and the intrusiveness of the United States in Chilean politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the national security issues resulting from environmental transformation and demographic change in Latin America. We note a lack of consensus in the literature as to what constitutes environmental change, security, and its corresponding impact on national security. If environmental degradation and the national security of Latin American countries are linked, then policy makers must take these linkages into account when formulating economic and social policy. Omitting these factors from national security strategy discussions may overstate the risks associated with other threats and lead to a biased allocation of public resources. On the other hand, if these threats are overstated (or non-existent), then incorporating them into national security discussions may divert attention and resources from issues of importance. Given the relatively fragile nature of many of the Latin American economies, accurately addressing these threats is imperative for economic and social stability and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tested cultivation approach in Monterrey, Mexico. Specifically, the research question asks for the relationship between television exposure in the Monterrey metropolitan area and the social constructions about the women social distribution, vulnerability and stereotypes. The independents variables are quantity, type of program and origin of program on television exposure. Cultivation studies have been consistently supported in the USA, but they lack of evidence in Latin America. Data from a phone survey showed that television exposure impact is weak, suggesting that cultivation principles are hardly to extrapolate to audiences abroad from the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper addresses why neoliberal policies of the United States have failed to spur broad-based economic development, and why they have not consolidated stable liberal democracy in Latin America. The author argues that the United States must reevaluate its foreign policy in order to accomplish its goals and maintain its influence in the region. This will mean engaging more moderate leftist leaders in Latin America and adopting changes to its trade policy. Above all, the United States should not revert back to its unilateral interventionist policies of the past. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The dramatic growth of Pentecostalism internationally has been attributed to spiritual, economic, and social influences of changing religious participation and economic globalization. Dominated by women, Pentecostalism affects numerous dimensions of gender and social identity. This paper explores women's individual and collective experiences in Pentecostal groups. Ethnographic studies from the U.S., Zimbabwe, and Latin America are presented to demonstrate cultural differences and their social work implications. Apparent paradoxes of submission and power in the lives of Pentecostal women are focused upon in order to expand social work understanding of the complexity of women's religious participation and its personal and social consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze Latino and American identities as perceived by first and second generation immigrants to the United States. Disposable cameras were handed out to a small set of subjects, who were asked to take pictures of whatever, to them, seemed American and Latino as they went through their daily lives. The resulting set of 115 American images and 134 Latino images suggest that Latin American immigrants see a great contrast in the content of the two identities. Subjects viewed American identity as having to do with bigness and power and they saw Americans as being in constant motion and in a hurry, competitive and commercial, and cold, distant, and impersonal. In contrast, subjects viewed Latino identity as focused on people and composed of intimate social relationships. The building blocks of Latino identity, according to our respondents, appear to be work, home, and Latin American cultural symbols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]