Texas Papers on Latin America
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2152/7102
The purpose of the Texas Papers on Latin America (TPLA) is to provide pre-publication distribution of draft papers by UT-Austin Latin Americanists and visiting scholars to the UT-Austin campus in the interest of generating useful feedback and better comprehension of the breadth of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas.
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Item The Place of Social Democracy in the Argentine Political System(1987) Di Tella, Torcuato S.Item The Dilemma of Food Security in a Revolutionary Context: Nicaragua, 1979 - 1986(1987) Frenkel, María VerónicaIn recent years, many Central American nations have experienced recurring food deficits and have become importers of food, rather than exporters, as they once were (see Murdoch, 1980: 98-166~ Barry and Preusch, 1986: 144-162). Simultaneously, their economies have become increasingly dependent on exports of primary agricultural products. Such agro-export expansion not only increased the integration of these economies into the international market, but it also initially fueled high rates of growth and provided the necessary foreign exchange with which to import essential goods and pay off their debt. However, as a result of economic policies which have promoted the extension and elaboration of the commercial agricultural export sector, the land available for food production has decreased, and the food resources of Central America are being threatened (Super and Wright, 1985: xi).Item Linguistic and Cultural Geography of Contemporary Peru(1987) Knapp, GregoryItem Decline and Fall of the Spanish Merchants at Buenos Aires: Marcó del Pont in the Age of Independence(1987) Brown, Jonathan C.Item Elite Settlements(1987) Burton, Michael G.; Higley, JohnFollowing the classical elite theorists' injunction to study variations in elite structure, we examine the elite settlement as a major, yet largely overlooked, form of political change. Elite settlements consist of broad compromises among previously warring elite factions, resulting in political stability and thus providing a necessary precondition for representative democracy. To identify the common features of elite settlements, we draw upon four historie cases: England in 1688-1689, Sweden in 1809, Colombia in 1957-1958, and Venezuela in 1958. We conclude by arguing for the extraction of elite settlements from their current embeddedness in such concepts as "bourgeois revolutions" and "democratic transitions," and we advocate greater attention to the elite paradigm in efforts to explain macropolitical outcomes.Item Domestic Politics and Foreign Investment: British Development of Mexican Petroleum(1987) Brown, Jonathan C.How do host country politics affect foreign business interests? Tbis question is so complex that, while recognizing some influence, historians still concentrate on profit-making and market forces in order to analyze foreign investment, the growth of the firm, and the economic performance of less developed countries. Those concerned more with the reasons for business expansion at the source rather than at the destination seldom consider the relationsbip between host-country politics and foreign investment. Others who do ponder the relationship may emphasize either the domination of local elites by foreign interests or the role of the state in promoting development. Scholarly analysis of the 'politics of modernization' most often centers on economic policies. The tendency is to assume that economic forces in and of themselves elplain economic performance -whether one sees that performance in positive or pathological terms. The competition for domestic politicial power becomes a mere by-product of the profit-making (or capital accumulation) of the foreigners. In other words, economic policy is mistaken for politics. The first represents the government's priorities for the spending of scarce public capital and the other, potitics, is the struggle among power contenders to gain and maintain control of the government.Item The Masses and the Critical Mass: A Strategic Choice Model of the Transition to Democracy in Brazil(1987) Power, Timothy J.Item The Outlook for the Mexican Economy(1987) Urquidi, Victor L.To properly understand Mexico's present predicament with regard to its domestic and international economic policy, it is useful to review briefly some of the background from the 1960s and 1970s. From 1960 to 1970, the Mexican economy grew at a fairly steady rate of 7 percent per year, while population rose at 3.5 percent, thus allowing for an average annual increase in per capita GDP of almost 3.4 percent. By 1970, GDP per capita was already equivalent to some US$500, at 1960 prices. Inflation during this periad was minimal. Real wages in the formal employment sector rose steadily. External financing was modest; total public external debt by 1970 was only US$4.3 billion, interest on external debt was a mere $200 million and meant allocating to it less than 1 percent of total exports of goods and services. Aggregate exports in 1970 were $1.3 billion, and exports per capita, $25. Food and agricultural products were the main source of foreign exchange (48 percent), followed by a rising amount of manufactured exports (34 percent). Mexican exports were barely 0.4 percent of world exports. Crude oil was hardly in the picture, except for domestic consumption.Item Literature of the Sao Paulo Week of Modern Art(1987) Jackson, K. DavidThe Brazilian modernist movement, from its early development circa 1917 through its ftrst creative phase ending in 1929, encompassed the fine arts as well as literature in a broad attempt to renovate artistic and intellectuallife. The Week of Modern Art celebrated in the Municipal Theater of Sáo Paulo from 11 to 18 February 1922 was a focal point for the critical spirit seeking to redefine artistic values and stood as a symbol of a new expressive and interpretive tradition that would profoundly alter Brazilian writing.Item The Nicaraguan Experiment: Characteristics of a New Economic Model(1987) Conroy, Michael E.; Pastor, ManuelItem Rent Seeking, Rent Avoidance, and Informality: An Analysis of Third World Urban Housing(1987) Dietz, Henry A.Any number of concepts and ideas have been set forth over the past two or three decades to describe and explain the various problems common to urban development in Third World countries. Perhaps foremost among these has been the notion of the urban informal economy, a topic that has generated an enormous literature and that has, despite (or even because of) considerable debate and argument, provided considerable analytic leverage when brought to bear on the topic of Third World urban development and underdevelopment. Yet while this concept has been indeed useful, it may become even more so if linked with two notions from applied economics, namely, the ideas of rent seeking (hereinafter sometimes referred to simply as R-S) and rent avoidance (R-A).Item Intermittent Use and Agricultural Change on Marginal Lands: The Case of Smallholders in Eastern Sonora, Mexico(1987) Doolittle, William E.Most studies of agricultural land use tend to treat change as though it is essentially permanent. This paper argues that in some cases marginal lands are used intermittently, being brought into and taken out of cultivation frequently, rapidly, and repeatedly. Improvements to the land are made each time a parcel is brought back into use so that over extended periods permanent cultivation becomes feasible. A model of intermittent use is first outlined and demonstrated with data from northwest Mexico. The way in which permanent improvements are made is then described. Last, the theoretical implications are discussed.Item Mexican Speech Play: History and the Psychological Discourses of Power(1987) Limón, José E.If one spends time among Mexican descent working-class men of the lower socioeconomic level either in Mexico or the United States, it is quite llkely that, subject to the cultural constraints of time and social context, one may eventually witness the display of expressive performances of speech play. These displays may general1y be characterized as metaphorical, often sexual1y and scatological1y charged, exchanges of ritualized insult. They carry various names, for example, albur, chingaderas, or puntadas.1 For all its marked recurrence among Mexican working-class men, such expressive discourse has received almost no closely analytical ethnographic attention, and no one, as far as I know, has critical1y discussed these speech forms in relation to the class position of these men in the larger political economy. In another paper I offer an ethnographic discussion in these terms based on my fieldwork in southern Texas (Limón 1985).Item Sails in Aboriginal Mesoamerica: Reevaluating Thompson's Argument(1988) Epstein, Jeremiah F.This study reviews the archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence for aboriginal sail in the Maya area. Most of the paper concentrates on Thompson's (1951) argument, which relied on eyewitness reports of sails as well as on the appearance of words for sail in the Motul Dictionary. Thompson's evidence is found to be either equivocal or based on mistranslation of the original Spanish. Furthermore, his linguistic argument fails to support his case. There is no reason to believe that sails were used in any part of Mesoamerica at the time of the Conquest or earlier.Item Ethnic Emergence and Expansion in Central America(1988) Adams, Richard N.Item Strategies of Ethnic Survival in Central America(1988) Adams, Richard N.Item Interpreting the Mexican Revolution(1988) Knight, AlanItem Spanish American Creole Society in Cuba (1750-1840) and the Rise of American Nationalism(1988) Knight, Franklin W.Item The Political Formula of Costa Rica(1988) Dabene, Olivier
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