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This paper examines the consequences of the breakdown of talks on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the generalized shift from multilateralism to bilateralism in the Americas for the region's emerging foreign investment regime. The paper argues that multilateral processes have historically benefited Latin American countries when their interests have diverged from those of the US. In terms of investment, the foreign investment regime advanced by the United States (in bilateral investment treaties) differs significantly from that advanced by sub-regional powers such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, particularly regarding investment rules on national treatment and performance requirements. This suggests that, in the absence of multilateral negotiations, US norms on investment and development will progressively define the emerging hemispheric investment regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The level of economic development of a country affects the power that it has in the international global economy and political system as well as its ability to manage internal social and political crises. These dynamics have become particularly visible with regard to the dual track of economic and political restructuring that developing countries in Latin America have undertaken since in the late 1980s. This paper seeks to take a unique perspective by giving voice to the everyday lives of individuals from Mexico in their struggle to obtain social and economic rights while the country struggles to maintain economic development. By focusing on the individual level of analysis, this study shows how women are challenging the concepts of national development, citizenship, and importantly leadership. I use data derived from in-depth interviews with leaders and members of non-governmental organizations from Monterrey, Mexico. Monterrey is Mexico's leading city in the world of global capitalism and has an idiosyncratic socio-political context within which this study is situated. This paper demonstrates how women through their leadership in NGOs strive to change the distribution of resources not only at the community level, but the national level as well. These women played an instrumental role in the struggle for changes in the national banking system of Mexico that is lead by social actors outside the country, such as the IMF and the World Bank. I conclude by arguing that such a change in the distribution of resources within a country will influence that country's capacity to navigate the increasingly complex nature of international relations. Moreover, in light of my findings, I suggest that scholars need to rethink how we conceptualize leadership and citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of hegemonic governance on economic development, measured in terms of gross national income (GNI) per capita and exports as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). Specifically, we test two sets of competing hypotheses drawn from neo-liberal institutionalist ?Washington Consensus? and world systems scholarship to address the question: does hegemonic power increase ? or decrease ? economic development? We utilize King?s Amelia software to address the grievous missing data issues in the World Bank?s World Development Indicators 2002 data collection. We also use comprehensive, multidimensional indicators (from Sacko 2003) to conduct a cross-national, cross-time, empirical investigation of the effects of hegemonic power of the United States (1960-1992) on economic development in five (5) regions: Latin America, Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. We find that for the Latin American region, hegemonic power has a statistically significant negative effect on GNI per capita across all of our model specifications. Hegemonic power, however, has no statistically significant effect on GNI per capita in the Middle East and North Africa region, the South Asia region, or the sub-Saharan Africa region. For the Latin American region, hegemonic power also has a statistically significant negative effect on exports as a percentage of GDP. In contrast, hegemonic power has a statistically significant positive effect on exports as a percentage of GDP in the Middle East and North Africa region and the sub-Saharan Africa region. Thus, while, in Latin America, we find some support for Wallerstein?s world systems theory and the work of scholars focused on the deleterious effects of hegemony (neo-imperialism), we also find support for the neo-liberal institutionalist / Washington Consensus hypothesis that hegemony can serve to augment economic development ? at least in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reason for the rising up of populist leaders in Latin America like Chavez or Morales is the failure of the traditional political, economic and social system in Latin American states in the early 21st century. According to the Failed States Index 2006 of the Fund for Peace, Latin American countries suffer widespread violation of human rights, a security apparatus as ?state within a state?, an uneven economic development and a progressive deterioration of public services. The objective of this paper is to emphasize the context between the success of left wing nationalist leaders and the failure of transforming societies toward sustainable democracies with working state institutions.The perspective, on the one side civil or guerrilla wars and on the other side new authoritative rulers, may challenge international security. Finally, the paper examines policy options based on several examples from Latin America how civil society organizes non-state governance in order to re-construct local order and its services like security. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin American countries are the only Western countries that aren't gaining ground on United States and the EU. This paper explores the role of trade and institutional liberalization in promoting growth and development in Spain and Latin America. Can the Latin America's gap be explained by the existence of domestic and international trade barriers that impede the efficient reallocation of resources? To what extend non-economically-driven preferential arrangements difficult development? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the years since the so-called "Third Wave" democracies made their transitions, it has become increasingly obvious that it is somewhat naive to think that these democracies will last. What many of these new democracies experience are instead, periods of democratic erosion and the subsequent process of re-democratization. Therefore in order to avoid these vicious cycles of instability, we argue that determining when a democracy becomes consolidated; that is, it is able to succeed and thrive as a political system over a period of time, is of critical importance. This study analyzes the role of social capital in democratic consolidation. Using evidence from the third and fourth wave of the World Values Survey, we find that there is a positive relationship between positive social capital, or trust, and democratic consolidation. In contrast, we find that there is a negative relationship between negative social capital, or corruption, and democratic consolidation. We find also that positive attitudes toward democracy and the level of economic development are positively related to democratic consolidation. There are also significant region-specific characteristics that help explain the likelihood of democratic consolidation, such as the legacy of colonialism in Latin America and the importance of regionalism in Eastern Europe, as our case studies suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the politics of urban security in Latin American cities evolve in similar contexts: a difficult socioeconomic development, privatization of state services, rising crime rates, high levels of mistrust in police and justice institutions: in all secto ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have frequently studied the effect of democracy on economic and social development and, for the most part, have only found indirect and relatively weak positive effects between the two indicators. Yet, many studies fall short in highlighting t ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of pro-market reforms argued that the main difference between the development strategies of Spain and many countries in Latin America is the degree of involvement of the state in the economy: too much involvement in Latin America since the 1930s led to the crisis of the 1980s, while in Spain the liberalization of the Spanish economy after 1975 facilitated the expansion of the economy. Taking Argentina and Spain as case studies, the author argues that the difference is not one of states vs markets, but of the kind of partnership between the state and the market. Both the Spanish and the Argentinean developmental states picked a number of "winners" and liberalized their sectors gradually as the firms operating in these sectors became more competitive. However, they also sheltered some "losers", thus undermining the overall competitiveness of the firms in some of the main industries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-Washington Consensus or the Chimera of Inclusive Policymaking?Advocates of a post-Washington Consensus call for a new and improved development paradigm in which economic development policy is no longer divorced from governance and is more inclined to promote sustainable development. These scholars and development practitioners criticized the development policies of the 1980s for their failure to alleviate poverty in Latin America and recommended that recipients of Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) loans adopt a more transparent and inclusive policy making process, one which is less secretive and includes more opportunities for consultation with local interest groups and cooperation with the private sector. These policy prescriptions appear to promote more equitable development and have led MDBs to introduce new regulations and covenants. In practice, however, the new development paradigm may have become the justification for MDB financing of neoliberal megaprojects. A comparative case study of the Inter-American Development Bank?s recent financing of open-pit gold mining in Sipakapa, Guatemala and that of a 1980s era megadam in Rio Negro, Guatemala may help to determine whether the new development paradigm is more apt to promote inclusive policymaking and sustainable development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America's history, culture, politics and geography are unique to its global niche. Any understanding of Latin America's major issues - economic development, the drug trade, political authoritarianism cycling with democracy -- requires an interdisciplinary analysis. Today's Latin American realities must take into account elements of all the major social science disciplines, from pre-Columbian history to modern neoliberal economics. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]