Could an individual’s perception of the possibility of a future ecological crisis be linked to their level of political trust? Studies of environmental attitudes have identified political trust as an important predictor of support for environmental taxation or risk perceptions surrounding specific local environmental hazards, but less is known about its role when environmental risks are perceived as diffuse and distant. Using original survey data from Ecuador, this article finds that political distrust predicts heightened ecological crisis perceptions and that higher educational attainment intensifies this relationship. A follow-up analysis of the AmericasBarometer’s Ecuador survey shows that political distrust also predicts higher concern about climate change. These findings suggest that when evaluations of political institutions reflect perceptions of environmental risks, individuals blame the government for environmental failures. The implications of this study are particularly relevant for political institutions in developing economies, where the public sector often spearheads development efforts.

In contemporary Latin America, deep-seated social discontent with political elites and institutions has been, paradoxically, the counterpart of democratic stability and resilience. This paradox suggests that scholarly assessments of democracy are, at least partially, at odds with citizens’ own views of democracy. This article thus develops a framework to describe citizens’ everyday experience with civil, political, and social entitlements associated with democracy. It introduces the framework by analyzing the structural underpinnings of democratic discontent in Chile and then applying it to the analysis of perceived citizenship entitlements in 18 countries, using the AmericasBarometer data. Significant variance is observed across time and both across and within countries. The descriptive findings also imply that only a (declining) minority of Latin American citizens feel fully entitled to civil, political, and social citizenship rights. We advocate the need to bring the demand side of democracy back to the analysis of democratic shortcomings and crises.

When students in Latin America break into international headlines, it is usually as the result of some mass demonstration or riot. The image the public forms is that of hordes of wild-eyed and threadbare fanatics who alternate fitful class attendance with assaults on the palaces of dictators, insults to visiting dignitaries, and the practice of arson on municipal transport. Even in Latin America the press is likely to give student activities only passing notice except in periods of unusual agitation. The student is painted alternately as hero, criminal, petulant malcontent, or the docile tool of subversives—often depending entirely on the political viewpoint of the newspaper concerned.

In an Effort to extend and accelerate regional cooperation and coordination in the “War on Drugs” in the Western Hemisphere, President George Bush hosted a widelypublicized, regional, anti-drug presidential summit in San Antonio (Texas) on 26-27 February 1992. This cumbre was conceived as an expanded sequel to the first “Andean” drug summit held in Cartagena (Colombia) on 15 February 1990. In addition to the original four-country participants in Cartagena I — the United States, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia — Ecuador, Venezuela, and Mexico attended Cartagena II as well.

This article will serve as a commentary on the future of Latin America and on some possible alternatives for the problems facing it while taking worldwide issues and problems into account. It does not claim to formulate or reformulate existing theories on the management and dynamics of the global crisis that threaten the world today. It will, however, go into the premises on which our thinking is based and the various levels of distinction used in approaching these global problems.

The basic premise is that the relationship of man in society with nature has progressively deteriorated. Man is an integral part of nature, a fact that is increasingly being ignored. As society has increased in complexity and extent, there has been a growing alienation between man and the natural system of which he is a part. This has resulted in a series of crises between man and nature in areas such as the environment, food, energy, population, and so on, which are only different facets of the global crisis.

Canada, Long-Oriented toward Europe and the Commonwealth, seeks to expand its involvement in Latin America. The development of a coherent Canadian policy for Latin America will depend on a variety of domestic and external factors, among them the Canada-United States relationship, rapid global change, and North American economic integration. Such a policy must reflect Canadian values and concerns — the importance of the collective welfare as well as individual good, the peaceful negotiation of disputes, and the acceptance of cultural, political, and ideological diversity.

By Latin-American standards, Chile has enjoyed a remarkably stable government. Yet, there have been significant intervals of political unrest marked by violence and internal disorder. At both the beginning and the end of the nineteenth century, Liberals and Conservatives clashed in bloody battles, opening wounds that festered for many years. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the military revolted three times in the space of eight years (1924-1932) in order to promote social reform. Marmaduke Grove Vallejo figured prominently in these events, first as a participant in the January uprising of 1925, later as an opponent of the dictatorship of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, and finally as a leader of the military forces that overthrew the government of Juan Esteban Montero Rodríguez and established the Socialist Republic of Chile.

The modern US defense role in the Western Hemisphere is framed by the terms of the 1947 Rio Treaty, the 1948 Charter of the Organization of America States (OAS), and subsequent bilateral and multilateral protocols like that creating the 1982 Regional Security System (RSS) in the Eastern Caribbean. As components of a collective security system that was explicitly anti-communist in design and intention, the Rio Treaty and its successor documents were established to combat threats posed either by direct aggression on the part of the Soviet Union and/or of Soviet-sponsored, Marxist-Leninist infiltration in the region. These represented the mainstay of the US-Latin American strategic alliance for over 40 years. Most importantly, the orientation of the Inter-American Defense System (IADS) fostered the notion that, within the embrace of the US strategic nuclear and conventional umbrella, military threats to the Western Hemisphere would originate primarily from within, aided and abetted from abroad by the communist alliance. This belief in, and fear of, internal enemies became an enduring theme in modern Latin American geopolitical thought, even when sharing space with traditional external defense concerns (Child, 1985).

Carlos Vaz Ferreira, born at Montevideo, Uruguay in 1872, a graduate of the School of Law, and at twenty-five appointed to the Chair of Philosophy there, was a prolific writer who for more than thirty years presented special lectures open to the general public. As a result he was one of the most influential men of this century in his homeland. Frank and honest and intensely stimulating, Aníbal Sánchez Reulet has termed Vaz Ferreira an “intellectual pontiff.”

From 1929 to 1941 he was, off and on, the Rector of the University and in 1945 he became Director of the School of Humanities in Montevideo, which position he held until his death in 1959.

There are a number of reasons why Mexico attracts students of economic development. Boasting an impressive rate of economic growth that has been sustained for four decades, yet plagued with discouraging and mounting problems of surplus labor and maldistribution of income, Mexico is one of the prime cases that has sparked the discussion over the distinctions between “economic growth” and “economic development.” Furthermore, Mexico affords a classic test of the validity of some dependency writers’ claim that periphery countries’ subjugation to external control varies directly with the length and intensity of contact with center nations (Frank, 1972: 10). The sudden revelation of Mexico's potential as an energy supplier, the growing concern with the magnitude and consequences of illegal Mexican migration to the United States, and the increasing recognition of the uniqueness and importance of the Mexico-U.S. border economy add further appeal for economists, political scientists, and sociologists.

The Central American Economic Integration Program, commonly called the Central American Common Market, was initiated in 1951 by the Central American governments and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), The stated objective of the movement is “to overcome the limitations and obstacles to Central American development arising from the limited resources and market expansion opportunities which characterize the economy of every Central American State.” The hope is that these ends can be promoted through liberalization of intra-regional trade and other forms of economic co-operation.

Colombia provides a particularly instructive case of auto industry development. An intermediate-level country in terms of market size and stage of industrialization, its potential for dealing or bargaining effectively with transnational automobile firms is considerably less than that of Brazil, Mexico, or Argentina, but far more comparable to that of most Third World countries. It would be wrong, however, to lump all intermediate countries together. They vary enormously in terms of the size of their carbuying publics, their economic and natural resources, and their commitments to and progress toward industrial development. Moreover, these factors themselves are conditioned by past and present policy decisions and are subject to the politico-economic priorities and strategies of individual governments.

After decades of neglect, interest in the political significance of Latin American Catholicism increased sharply in the late 1960s when it began to appear that the Church might have unimagined potential for promoting social change, particularly in a continent plagued by social upheaval and political instability (Drekonja, 1971: 59-65). In both word and deed, the postconciliar Church manifested a changing social orientation which entailed open involvement in political issues on behalf of the poor. In fact, by August 1968 and the convening of the Council of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) in Medellín, Colombia, the Church seemed to be changing its social and political attitudes so profoundly that reports of a revolutionary Church began to accompany discussions of the political situation in Latin America. Since Medellín, an important literature has evolved from efforts to understand this change in Latin American Catholicism.

Using survey data and interviews, this study examines Panamanian attitudes toward the United States and toward the central issues in US.- Panama relations. It also compares Panamanian attitudes with opinions toward the United States in the rest of Central America. The study finds that nationalism, system support, anticommunism, and, for the mass public, ideology are the most important variables in determining support for the United States. Elites are more nationalistic and less accommodationist toward the United States than the mass public. Concern about the politicization and misuse of the Panama Canal and adjacent lands has led many in the general public to support a continued US. military presence on the Isthmus of Panama.

The decade of the 1960s could well be termed the First Economic Integration Decade in Latin America. During this period the republics of Latin America experienced a “collective awakening,” inspiring an environment in which superficial and exclusivist values gave way to pragmatic and cooperative attitudes. Economic alliances were formed among neighbors, predicated on the rationale that, by joining forces in the spirit of cooperation and applying an ecumenical approach to common problems, each of the participating countries would be better off than pursuing a strictly autarkic course (see Figure 1).

The initial effort at integration was the Central American Common Market (CACM), formed in late 1960 and including all the countries of Central America except Panama.1 That same year, the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) was created and, measured in terms of territory and population, represented the most significant economic cooperative. A third grouping was the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA), established in 1968 as an agreement among eleven British Commonwealth nations and territories.

El acontecimiento político más importante en América Latina durante el período entre las dos guerras mundiales fue el desarrollo de partidos indígeno-reformistas. Dedicados a la reconstrucción de la sociedad en Latinoamérica sobre una base más equitativa de lo que había sido la regla general en el pasado, estos partidos cambiaron considerablemente el complejo de la vida política latinoamericana. Los partidos populares que han logrado mayor estabilidad son aquellos que tratan de crear fórmulas políticas y formas de organización adaptables a las condiciones de América Latina. Prácticamente todos los partidos populares han llevado una existencia precaria, perseguidos por las tiranías militares que durante años han desgobernado a las naciones latinoamericanas. Sin embargo, los partidos populares han logrado estimular a nuevos elementos para que participen en la actividad política y muchos de estos partidos han asumido el poder en sus países durante períodos más o menos largos.

Reform agendas are no novelty in Brazilian politics. Perhaps the first “reform agenda” was foisted on Brazil by the Marquis de Pombal during the colonial period (Maxwell 1995). In the independence period during the Second Empire (1840–89), reforms were frequent, especially after the Triple Alliance War in the 1870s and 1880s, as successive cabinets labored under strong pressures for change.

At the end of 1986, when Contadora and its Support Group reduced their presence in Central America, their member countries decided to create a permanent organism for consultation and agreement, thus re-orienting and extending their working agenda, which had originally been limited to the issues of Central American policy and, in the economic area (through the Cartagena Group), to the problem of external debt. Several factors prompted them to take this course. First, all had found the experiment in concertación policymaking to be valuable and were reluctant to lose the experience and momentum acquired over the years. Second, it was apparent that changing circumstances had altered their position in resolving the Central America crisis, so that the Contadora and Support Groups found themselves playing only a secondary role in the negotiations and becoming increasingly marginalized. Furthermore, some countries felt that the excessive emphasis on the Central American problem had circumscribed the ability of the Group to focus on other issues which, as tensions eased in Central America, were gaining priority on the foreign policy agendas of their respective governments.