JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. AbstractsSecuring Central America Against Communism: The United States and the Modernization of Surveillance in the Cold War The U.S.-sponsored programs of military and police collaboration with the Central American governments during the Cold War also contributed to the surveillance capacity of those states during the period when the Central American state formation process was being completed. Guatemala is used as a case study. Washington's contribution was framed by the conventional discourse of "security against communism" but also by an underlying technocratic ethos in which "modernization" and "security" were higher priorities than democratization. Recovering Political Dynamics: Teachers' Unions and the Decentralization of Education in Argentina and MexicoThis article compares union-government relations in Mexico and Argentina when education was decentralized in the early 1990s. The Mexican union accepted decentralization after obtaining concessions from the government that placated its opposition; but the Argentine teachers' unions militantly resisted the reforms, only to see government officials ignore their demands. These cases illustrate the significance of partisan identities, union fragmentation, and leadership competition in the interaction of public sector unions and government officials. Popular Representation and Political Dissatisfaction in Chile's New DemocracyThe constraints imposed on Chile's democratic transition by the military regime, plus the impact of structural reform and the political renovation of the dominant parties of the center and left, have made the traditional party allies of the popular sectors unable or unwilling to represent those constituents in the political arena. This argument is substantiated through an overview of pacted democratic transitions, an analysis of the evolution of party-base relations in Chile, and a consideration of the institutional impediments to further democratic reform. n December 11, 1993, presidential elections were held in Chile for only the second time since the 1973 military coup. To no one's surprise, Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei handily defeated his opponent on the right, Arturo Alessandri, winning 58 percent of the vote to Alessandri's 24 percent (Munck 1994, 4). Frei's victory, won with the greatest percentage of the popular vote since 1931, appeared to affirm positive appraisals of Chile's new democracy. The Concertacion, or coalition of center-left parties created to defeat General Augusto Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite, ha...
Structural reforms, institutional arrangements, and the dominant mode of political partybase linkage all militate against effective popular participation in Chilean local democracy. Structural reforms have constrained local leaders' resources as well as their policymaking prerogatives; institutional arrangements limit public officials' accountability to their constituents and citizens' opportunities for input in decisionmaking. The parties of the center-left Con-certaci6n have reinforced this vicious cycle by pursuing a mode of linkage with civil society designed to promote their electoral success with only minimal organization and participation by their grassroots constituents. Such conditions fit well with the desire of elites of the Concertaci6n and the right to depoliticize civil society in order to preserve macroeconomic and political stability. Yet they leave in doubt the efficacy of popular participation and the strength of local democracy in Chile. hree decades ago, Chile convulsed with grassroots political activity.
This article argues that housing reforms imposed by the military regime, and largely preserved by the center-left Concertación since the 1990 transition to democracy, represent substantial impediments to collective action and the development of social capital among Chile's urban poor. In particular, housing policy exacerbates social stratification, reinforces workers' vulnerability to market forces and undermines social trust. These dynamics and the institutional structures which perpetuate them constrain social cohesion and collective action among the urban poor. The broader implication which this research suggests is that social reforms structured in a manner similar to Chile's housing program vitiate the cohesion of disadvantaged communities, thus making it difficult for them to work together to improve their welfare and to hold public officials accountable. The World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and other development institutions would do well to consider these negative repercussions of targeted assistance programs (as typified by Chile's housing program) if they are indeed serious about addressing the social dislocations wrought by structural adjustment and strengthening democracy through the promotion of social capital.
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