Lan American Coups: Have They Vanished or Taken New Shapes?

In the following pages, three well-known Latinoamericanists share their views on the current prospects for coups in Latin America. They are: Rut Diamint of the University Torcuatto de Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Pablo Policzer of the University of Calgary in Canada; and Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, DC. Each looks at the potential for coups from different perspectives but, all three come to similar conclusions. That is, that despite substantial gains in democracy, the threat of coups in Latin America remains latent. The authors agree that democracy is growing in the region. Opinion surveys such as the Americas Barometer consistently show that citizens in Latin America have gradually incorporated democracy as part of their core value system. Yet, the authors argue convincingly that Latin America faces new types of interruptions to its democratic process that should be considered coups, even if not following the traditional style of military coup that predominated in the past. Situations that have taken place in Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras and other countries serve to illustrate the new trends. More specifically, Professor Diamint argues that in Latin America a culture of intolerance, demonization of the opposition, and the utilization of any method to achieve power prevails. In a region with a very high threshold of violence, governments fail to set an example of establishing a culture of debate, consensus, and transparency. This culture is inclined to uncontrollable political expressions, preferring confrontational means to resolve conflict. Within this scenario, “messianic” solutions are promoted and coups cannot be discarded as an option that would never transpire. Professor Policzer looks more closely to the constitutional loopholes that allow for a transformation of limited into absolute power. He argues that coups can be constitutional or unconstitutional, and that a constitutional coup can occur when violations to democracy actually stem from the constitutions themselves. In Honduras, for example specific provisions in the Constitution itself created conditions for a constitutional crisis; similar provisions have also led to constitutional authoritarianism in Venezuela and other countries. Dr. Policzer stresses that when a head of state or the military take absolute power, even temporarily, based on provisions in their constitutions; they are in essence staging a constitutional coup. These blind spots in constitutions, he argues, may be more serious threat to democracy than that of traditional coups. Lastly, Dr. Shifter argues that some kind of coup should be expected in Latin America in coming years, not only because fundamental institutions remain weak in some countries, but because the regional political environment is less prepared to respond effectively to transgressions than it was a few years ago. The good news, however, is that only a handful of countries, show no interest in governing. The bad news is that in those few countries where situations are indeed shaky, they are also in some cases aggravated by rising food and fuel prices, and spreading criminality, which pose serious risks to the rule of law and democratic governance

One future or many? November 14, 15, and 16, 2002

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Conference Series, a publication series that began publishing in 2006 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. This was the Center's 2nd annual Conference that took place during November 14, 15, and 16, 2002.The conference brought together some 30 experts from various disciplines to discuss whether the trajectories of the future will be ‘global’ or ‘regional’ in nature. Different panels looks at the future trajectories for Europe, the Western Hemisphere, Central Asia and the Former Soviet Union, and on Asia and in each case the discussion looked at the relative importance of the regional and of global dynamics on teh forces shaping the future of these regions.Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affair

Los Estados Unidos y Colombia: Una sociedad ambigua.

The complexity of the political relationship between the U.S. and Colombia, the diverse variables intertwined in the bilateral relations and the sensitivity of the issues arising in the U.S. whenever a decision involving Colombian affairs is made are some of the topics discussed in this paper. The evolution of the various American positions towards Colombia over the last year and the analysis of the current situation constitute the muddle that the author disentangles in this open-ended article

Development, acceptability, appropriateness and appeal of a cancer clinical trials implementation intervention for rural- and minority-serving urology practices

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Background Few community urologists offer cancer patients the opportunity to participate in cancer clinical trials, despite national guidelines that recommend it, depriving an estimated 260,000 urological cancer patients of guideline-concordant care each year. Existing strategies to increase urologists’ offer of clinical trials are designed for resource-rich environments and are not feasible for many community urologists. We sought to design an implementation intervention for dissemination in under-resourced community urology practices and to compare its acceptability, appropriateness and adoption appeal among trial-naïve and trial-experienced urologists. Methods We used a design-for-dissemination approach, informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework and Behavior Change Wheel, to match determinants of the clinical trial offer to theoretically informed implementation strategies. We described the implementation intervention in evaluation workshops offered at urology professional society meetings. We surveyed participants to assess the implementation intervention’s acceptability and appropriateness using validated instruments. We also measured adoption appeal, intention to adopt and previous trial offer. Results Our design process resulted in a multi-modal implementation intervention, comprised of multiple implementation strategies designed to address six domains from the Theoretical Domains Framework. Evaluation workshops delivered at four meetings, convened five separate professional societies. Sixty-one percent of those offered an opportunity to participate in the implementation intervention indicated intention to adopt. Average implementation intervention acceptability and appropriateness ratings were 4.4 and 4.4 (out of 5), respectively. Acceptability scores were statistically significantly higher among those offering trials compared to those not (p = 0.03). Appropriateness scores did not differ between those offering trials and those not (p = 0.24). After urologists ranked their top three innovation attributes, 43% of urologists included practice reputation in their top three reasons for offering clinical trials; 30% listed practice differentiation among their top three reasons. No statistically significant differences were found between those who offered trials and those who did not among any of the innovation attributes. Conclusions LEARN|INFORM|RECRUIT is a promising implementation intervention to address low accrual to clinical trials, poised for implementation and effectiveness testing. The implementation intervention is appealing to its target audience and may have equal uptake among trial-naïve and trial-experienced practices

State incapacity by design : understanding the Bihar story

governed particularly badly between 1990 and 2005, and has since experienced something of a ‘governance miracle’. How can we account for the 1990–2005 deterioration? The answer lies in the interaction of three factors. The first was the type of leadership exercised by Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was Chief Minister throughout most of this period – even when his wife formally occupied the post. The second lies in electoral politics: the need to maintain the enthusiasm and morale of an electoral coalition that Yadav had constructed from a number of poorer and historically oppressed groups. Such was the scale of poverty among this core electoral coalition that Yadav had limited prospects of maintaining its cohesion and allegiance through the normal processes of promising ‘development’ and using networks of political patronage to distribute material resources to supporters. More important, that strategy would have involved a high level of dependence on the government apparatus, that was dominated by people from a number of historically-dominant upper castes. That is our third factor. Yadav preferred to mobilise his supporters on the basis of continual confrontation with this historically oppressive elite. He kept public sector jobs vacant rather than appoint qualified people – who were mainly from the upper cases. He tried to micro-manage the state apparatus from the Chief Minister’s office. He denuded the public service of staff. He was then unable to use it to deliver ‘development’. We show that, among other things, the Bihar state government sacrificed large potential fiscal transfers from the Government of India designed for anti-poverty programmes because it was unable to complete the relevant bureaucratic procedures. Yadav knowingly undermined the capacity of the state apparatus. There are parallels in many other parts of the world. Low state capacity is often a political choice. Keywords: India; Bihar; politics; capacity building; state capacity; governance

Plan Colombia: illegal drugs, economic development and counterinsurgency - a political economy analysis of Colombia's failed war

This article examines the socioeconomic effects of the illegal drug industry on economic and social development in Colombia. It shows that illegal drugs have fostered violence and have had a negative effect on economic development. This article also shows that the Plan Colombia anti‐drug policy has been an ineffective strategy in terms of decreasing drug production, generating economic development and reducing violence. Since this study includes both a statistical analysis of the effects that violence and illegal drugs have on the economic growth of Colombia, along with an evaluation of the Plan Colombia policy programme, it fills the gap between existing empirical studies of the Colombian illegal drug industry and specific analyses of Plan Colombia

Obama and Latin America: New Beginnings, Old Frictions

Signs of frustration are unmistakable in Washington and in many Latin American capitals, despite Obama's immense personal appeal and the continued promise of a more productive partnership.</jats:p