Latin American Policy Research Articles

Latin American and Caribbean countries' baseline clinical and policy guidelines for responding to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women.

BackgroundViolence against women is a global public health problem with negative effects on physical, mental, and reproductive health. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence (SV) as major targets for prevention and amelioration and recently developed clinical and policy guidelines to assist healthcare providers. This project was undertaken to determine the 2013 baseline national policies and clinical guidelines on IPV and SV within the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region to identify strengths and gaps requiring action.MethodsEach Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Regional Office for the Americas (PAHO/WHO) country focal point was contacted to request their current national policy and clinical guidelines (protocol) on IPV/SV. We augmented this by searching the internet and the United Nations Women website. Each country’s policy and clinical guideline (where available) was reviewed and entered into a scoring matrix based on WHO Clinical and Policy Guidelines. A total score for each heading and subheading was developed by adding positive responses to identify LAC regional strengths and gaps.ResultsWe obtained 15 national policies and 12 national clinical guidelines (protocols) from a total of 18 countries (“response” rate 66.7 %). National policies were comprehensive in terms of physical, emotional, and sexual violence and recommended good intersectoral collaboration. The greatest gap was in the training of health-care providers. National Guidelines for women-centered care for IPV/SV survivors were strong in the vital areas of privacy, confidentiality, danger assessment, safety planning, and supportive reactions to disclosure. The largest gaps noted were again in training healthcare professionals and strengthening monitoring and evaluation of services.ConclusionsBaseline measurement of policy and clinical guidelines for IPV/SV in LAC PAHO/WHO member countries at the time of issuing the 2013 WHO Clinical and Policy Guidelines reveals some important strengths, but also serious gaps that need to be addressed. The most pressing needs are for concerted training initiatives for healthcare providers and strengthening multisectoral monitoring and evaluation of services. A future evaluation of national policies, clinical guidelines, monitoring and evaluation will need to be conducted to measure the progress of the required scaling-up process.

Farewell to leadership? Ideas of hegemony and counter-hegemony in the Americas

Mainstream International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis have often concentrated on material factors and actors’ preferences, leaving out ideational dynamics. However, US–Latin American relations in general seem fraught with ideas, narratives and historical references re-articulated from time to time on both sides. In his campaign, Barack Obama announced a fresh start of US–Latin American relations, promising to “restore American leadership in Latin America”, at the same time creating “a new partnership for the Americas”, combining two narratives in US–Latin American policy. “Leadership”, enshrined in the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt corollary, which declared Latin America the “backyard” of the USA, and “Partnership”, related to the Good Neighbor Policy declared by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which aimed at establishing a more equal relation of partners. This discourse shows that inherited traditions and foreign policy narratives are subject to cycles of re-production, re-articulation and subtle change. In order to grasp the relevance of ideas in US–Latin American relations, we advocate a turn towards “ideational approaches” of discursive and constructivist providence. The article first situates “ideas” to key concepts of a more interpretive foreign policy analysis, which focuses on tradition and narratives. As a second step, US–Latin American relations are located within a specific, hegemony-oriented ideational account of foreign policy. Two analytical sketches of crucial cases of recent US–Latin American relations follow, the War on Drugs and the reactions towards the coup d’état in Honduras, showing how ideas were articulated on both the USA and the Latin American side and what role they played. The overall focus of the paper is thus on elucidating the ideational dynamics that underpin the political relations between the USA and Latin America.

The Emergence of Regional ICT Regulatory Spaces

This paper examines the role that existing Latin American policy institutions and regulatory coordination mechanisms (otherwise referred to as "regional regulatory spaces") play in innovation and development of the ICT sector. In doing so, it recognizes that sector regulation does not currently match regional development, thereby limiting its potential progress. In order to shed light on the role that the "regional regulatory space" could potentially play, the author addresses three main questions:-- Is there a hierarchy of policies by which it is presumed easy to "coordinate within well-defined technical subjects" but extremely challenging to "agree in matters of public policy?"-- What would happen if policy divergence became more important than convergence? Is it reasonable to consider creating "regional regulatory spaces?" Or should we focus solely on technological coordination?-- Do institutions capable of serving as effective regional regulatory spaces already exist in Latin America or should we consider modifying existing institutions or creating new institutions?After analyzing these three overarching areas of concern, this paper then discusses the need to create a regional space in order to harmonize ICT regulatory frameworks and public policies.

Priorities in global media policy transfer: Audiovisual and digital policy mutations in the EU, MERCOSUR and US triangle

This article investigates the flow of communication policy principles across the supranational, international and national levels, through the lens of policy transfer. Policy transfer is a new concept for the field of media and communication studies. The article utilizes and expands on the concept to study the case of digital policy flows between leading regional powers, the EU and USA and MERCOSUR. The article argues that EU and US policy priorities are reflected in the Latin American policy framework, which shifts from a focus on audiovisual and culture-centred objectives to the digital economy paradigm. MERCOSUR then functions as a policy broker between ‘outside’ interests and those of its member states through the influence of international key players whose interests clash with those of regional goals.

LASA Resolution on Obama’s Latin American Policy

LASA Resolution on Obama’s Latin American Policy

Including climate change considerations in Latin American urban transport practices and policy agendas

In this research we sought to understand how actors in urban transportation adopt climate change considerations into their work, including the techniques they use to address it, such as planning, design, analysis and advocacy in project planning and implementation. Through interviews with transportation practitioners at the World Bank, working in Latin America, we found that efforts to include climate change mitigation in the urban transportation policy agenda encountered major challenges such as lack of support for interventions that slow motorisation. In response, these transportation practitioners used relationships, expertise, advocacy and analysis to modify their practices to climate change concerns.

Asymmetry and Agenda-Setting in U.S.-Latin American Relations: Rethinking the Origins of the Alliance for Progress

The Alliance for Progress anchored U.S. Cold War strategy in Latin America in the early 1960s, and policymakers nowadays still cite it as a model of success. Even so, the origins of the Alliance remain contested. Some scholars have attributed it mainly to the Kennedy administration, others to the Eisenhower administration, and still others to Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek, whose Operation Pan-America led to the 1960 Treaty of Bogotá. This article outlines the terms and stakes of the ongoing debate among scholars and U.S. decision-makers; it also emphasizes agenda-setting rather than regional power asymmetries to explain how Brazil influenced U.S. policy. Finally, drawing on archival research in the Brazilian and Argentine Foreign Ministries and the Organization of American States (OAS), as well as on published Latin American policy documents and U.S. congressional records, the article shows that Kubitschek created partnerships with Argentina and Colombia and built a Latin American consensus within the OAS, thereby establishing the range of U.S. foreign policy options and setting the inter-American agenda.

Drug policy in the Americas – a new set of Latin American policy proposals

PurposeThis article aims to give some background information about the debate around drug policies in Latin America and to provide a view on a possible future direction of the developing debate.Design/methodology/approachRecently increasing signs coming from the highest political level indicate that current strategies are perceived as failed, and incentives for a debate on alternatives to prohibition should be discussed. The article reflects on the origin and conditions in which this debate is taking place, and the ideas, options and projection into the political institutions that are designed for that purpose. The article describes the process using existing and new materials and insights produced by scholars and participants in the Latin American drug policy debate.FindingsThe article finds that the impetus given to the drug policy reform debate has now reached a level, that it can no longer be avoided to talk openly at the highest political level, about alternatives to current drug policy strategies, based mainly on prohibition.Originality/valueThe article connects recent drug policy debates into a historical perspective, and helps to underscore the need for these reforms, as a solution for the problems faced by Latin American countries, such as increased levels of violence related to the drugs market.

What Is Human Trafficking? A Review Essay

Previous articleNext article No AccessWhat Is Human Trafficking? A Review EssayRhacel Salazar Parreñas, Maria Cecilia Hwang, and Heather Ruth LeeRhacel Salazar ParreñasDepartment of SociologyUniversity of Southern California (Parreñas) Search for more articles by this author , Maria Cecilia HwangDepartment of American StudiesBrown University (Hwang) Search for more articles by this author , and Heather Ruth LeeDepartment of American StudiesBrown University (Lee) Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 37, Number 4Summer 2012Sex: A Thematic Issue Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/664472 Views: 2935Total views on this site Citations: 14Citations are reported from Crossref © 2012 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Carol Chan, Natalie Gomez Challenges to addressing trafficking into forced labor in Chile: a legal culture perspective, Crime, Law and Social Change 79, no.44 (Oct 2022): 395–416.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-022-10059-6Debra A. Love, Annie I. Fukushima, Tiana N. Rogers, Ethan Petersen, Ellen Brooks, Charles R. Rogers Challenges to Reintegration: A Qualitative Intrinsic Case-Study of Convicted Female Sex Traffickers, Feminist Criminology 18, no.11 (Oct 2021): 24–44.https://doi.org/10.1177/15570851211045042Kate Perry, Courtney Burns Remembering the “Human” in Human Trafficking: An Analysis of Female Leadership and Anti-Trafficking Policy Choices, International Studies Perspectives 31 (Oct 2022).https://doi.org/10.1093/isp/ekac014One Pusumane, Ivy M. Fofie Bodies, Illicit Mobilities, and Citizenry, (Mar 2022): 168–185.https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-8771-3.ch010Erinn C. Cameron, Samantha L. Hemingway, Sherri L. Tschida, Rupinder Kaur Heer, Kristine M. Jacquin Gender Inequality in National Laws Predicts Estimated Prevalence of Modern Slavery Victims across Countries, Journal of Human Trafficking 7 (Jun 2021): 1–17.https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2021.1938896Nicksoni Filbert Kahimba International Legal Regime, (Mar 2021): 89–180.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-435-8_3Dilara Yarbrough “Nothing About Us Without Us”: Reading Protests against Oppressive Knowledge Production as Guidelines for Solidarity Research, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 49, no.11 (Jun 2019): 58–85.https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241619857134Christine B. Costa, Kathleen T. McCoy, Gayle J. Early, Cathleen M. Deckers Evidence-based Care of the Human Trafficking Patient, Nursing Clinics of North America 54, no.44 (Dec 2019): 569–584.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnur.2019.08.007Rebecca Walker, Treasa Galvin Labels, victims, and insecurity: an exploration of the lived realities of migrant women who sell sex in South Africa, Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal 3, no.22 (May 2018): 277–292.https://doi.org/10.1080/23802014.2018.1477526Tobias Schulze-Cleven, Gary Herrigel, Nelson Lichtenstein, Gay Seidman Beyond disciplinary boundaries: Leveraging complementary perspectives on global labour, Journal of Industrial Relations 59, no.44 (Jul 2017): 510–537.https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185617713042Kamala Kempadoo, Revitalizando o imperialismo: campanhas contemporâneas contra o tráfico sexual e escravidão moderna, Cadernos Pagu , no.4747 (Jan 2016).https://doi.org/10.1590/18094449201600470008Ruth Goldstein Semiophors and sexual systems, Pragmatics and Society 6, no.22 (Jul 2015): 217–239.https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.6.2.04golKamala Kempadoo The Modern-Day White (Wo)Man’s Burden: Trends in Anti-Trafficking and Anti-Slavery Campaigns, Journal of Human Trafficking 1, no.11 (Apr 2015): 8–20.https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2015.1006120Ruth Goldstein Consent and Its Discontents: On the Traffic in Words and Women, Latin American Policy 5, no.22 (Nov 2014): 236–250.https://doi.org/10.1111/lamp.12045

The Democratic Charter: The State of the Debate

This special issue of LatinAmerican Policy is intended as a contribution to the institutional and official efforts by the member states and General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS), academia, and civil society to mark the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter (IADC) and to capture some of the elements of the debate over the efficacy and future directions of the IADC. Accordingly, it draws together the authors of eleven original articles, all of whom, in addition to being practitioners or academics, are stakeholders in and students of the Inter-American System and the IADC. Despite its noble character and intentions and the agreement of all that the past decade has shown clearly that the Democratic Charter continues to be of immense relevance to the Inter-American System, it is in need of strengthening. Many also share a common belief that the IADC itself need not be reopened, but rather that a variety of complementary measures must be found to improve its application in the defense and promotion of representative democracy in the Americas. Here the consensus among them ends. In this introduction, we the invited editors establish the state of the debate on the IADC. We identify seven key issues that appear in the articles of this collection: the evolving regional context in which the IADC has operated; establishing benchmarks for collective action; monitoring and peer review mechanisms; reinforcing the OAS Secretary General’s authority; democratizing access to the IADC; development, human rights, citizenship, and security; and better use of existing resources. The authors engage in lively discussions and differential emphasis within and across these categories.

Allende's Chile and the Inter-American Cold War

Fidel Castro described Salvador Allende's democratic election as president of Chile in 1970 as the most important revolutionary triumph in Latin America after the Cuban revolution. Yet celebrations were short lived. In Washington, the Nixon administration vowed to destroy Allende's left-wing government while Chilean opposition forces mobilized against him. The result was a battle for Chile that ended in 1973 with a right-wing military coup and a brutal dictatorship lasting nearly twenty years. Tanya Harmer argues that this battle was part of a dynamic inter-American Cold War struggle to determine Latin America's future, shaped more by the contest between Cuba, Chile, the United States, and Brazil than by a conflict between Moscow and Washington. Drawing on firsthand interviews and recently declassified documents from archives in North America, Europe, and South America--including Chile's Foreign Ministry Archive--Harmer provides the most comprehensive account to date of Cuban involvement in Latin America in the early 1970s, Chilean foreign relations during Allende's presidency, Brazil's support for counterrevolution in the Southern Cone, and the Nixon administration's Latin American policies. The Cold War in the Americas, Harmer reveals, is best understood as a multidimensional struggle, involving peoples and ideas from across the hemisphere.

Southern Exposure: Diefenbaker, Latin America, and the Organization of American States

Abstract: For the first four years of his premiership, Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker took an immense interest in Canada's relations with Latin America. Diefenbaker and his two foreign ministers, Sidney Smith and Howard Green, actively expanded Canadian links to the region and flirted with joining the Organization of American States. In turn, many Latin American political leaders welcomed Ottawa's focus on their region. However, us President John F. Kennedy's own interest in an expanded role for Canada in the Western hemisphere alarmed many Canadians, including the prime minister. This article examines the Canadian government's formulation of Latin American policy and analyzes the interplay between foreign and domestic policy on this question.

Southern Exposure: Diefenbaker, Latin America, and the Organization of American States

For the first four years of his premiership, Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker took an immense interest in Canada’s relations with Latin America. Diefenbaker and his two foreign ministers, Sidney Smith and Howard Green, actively expanded Canadian links to the region and flirted with joining the Organization of American States. In turn, many Latin American political leaders welcomed Ottawa’s focus on their region. However, us President John F. Kennedy’s own interest in an expanded role for Canada in the Western hemisphere alarmed many Canadians, including the prime minister. This article examines the Canadian government’s formulation of Latin American policy and analyzes the interplay between foreign and domestic policy on this question. Pendant ses quatre premières années de pouvoir, le Premier ministre John Diefenbaker s’intéressa vivement aux relations du Canada avec l’Amérique latine. Diefenbaker et ses deux secrétaires d’État aux Affaires étrangères, Sidney Smith et Howard Green, ne ménagèrent pas les efforts pour développer les relations entre le Canada et cette région, songeant même à joindre l’Organisation des États américains. À leur tour, plusieurs dirigeants politiques latino-américains se réjouirent de l’attention qu’Ottawa accordait à leur région. L’intérêt de John F. Kennedy lui-même, le président des É.-U., pour un accroissement du rôle du Canada dans l’hémisphère occidental préoccupa bien des Canadiens, dont le Premier ministre. Cet article retrace l’élaboration de la politique latino-américaine du gouvernement canadien et analyse l’interaction des politiques étrangères et intérieures sur cette question.

Political Communication and Economic Reform: The Use of Consumerist Frames in Brazil, 1985-2005

An enduring puzzle for scholars of Latin American policy reform asks how policy makers push through reforms with short term costs but long term benefits in mass democracies. Many answers have been given, including international pressures, cultural and ideational factors, the nature of political institutions, deceptive policy switches, and the power of concentrated interests. These explanations and others disregard the question of how policy elites attempt to build mass legitimacy for reforms through political communication strategies such as framing and agenda setting. In the case of Brazil, I argue, policy elites and media messages framed arguments about reform policies in terms of the consumer interest in competitive economic markets. I present an analysis of newspaper coverage of consumer issues in Brazil to show that attention to the critical competition frame increased during the first reform attempts under President Fernando Collor de Melo and, more clearly, during the main period of reforms under Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Macroeconomic Determinants of the Stock Market Index for a Major Latin American Country and Policy Implications

Applying the exponential GARCH model and based on a quarterly sample during 1998.Q1-2011.Q2, we find that the Argentine stock market index is positively associated with real GDP, the ratio of M2 money supply to GDP, the peso/USD exchange rate and the U.S. stock market index. It is negatively influenced by the money market rate, government spending as a percent of GDP and the inflation rate. Hence, a strong domestic economy, a lower interest rate, an increased money supply as a percent of GDP, lower government spending as a percent of GDP, depreciation of the Argentine peso, a lower inflation rate, or a robust U.S. stock market would help the Argentine stock market.

Editorial: A Focus on Policy Issues in Key Areas

Our fourth issue of Latin American Policy (LAP) contains important research articles focusing on fiscal, security, legislative, mass media, environmental, border, and energy policies. The articles all reflect the amazing policy challenges witnessed by key Latin American countries in these areas. Articles by Omar Sanchez and Salvador Espinosa look at fiscal policies and the institutional constraints to improving their efficiency and transparency. Sanchez's article offers a qualitative, historical analysis on fiscal reforms that took place in Argentina during the 1990s, whereas Espinosa's study proposes a mathematical model for explaining the asymmetric effect of revenue-sharing transfers on spending by state governments in Mexico. The two papers shed light on the challenges to be overcome or considered if more efficient fiscal policies are to be implemented in Latin America. Two articles in this issue focus on the analysis of security policies in the region. Figueroa and Hagadorn's article provides geopolitical insight into how Puerto Rico could become a major partner in strengthening U.S.-led policies against drug trafficking, and Bronk and González-Aréchiga's study proposes a list of institutional changes to be accomplished to improve safety and security at the Mexico–U.S. border. These are two major contributions in the security arena, which has become a contentious topic in Latin America in general. Valeria Valle's research examines current energy policies and encourages the production of biofuels in Mexico and the United States. Her work explores the economic, social, political, and environmental implications of producing these types of fuels in the two countries. Eugenia Ibarrarán and her colleagues explore the economic, social, and environmental implications of implementing a package of policies aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions according to current commitments undertaken by the Mexican government. They present a mathematical model exploring the effect of policy through 2050 and conclude that the Mexican government must be careful regarding voluntary commitments acquired in the international context, given their economic and political costs. Gabriela Palavicini's contribution explores the effect of mass media in shaping current Mexican society, and Brenda García's article assesses the role that Mexican legislative institutions play in the politics of fiscal policy making in Mexico. This issue also includes two essays in the Perspectives section, the first one written by Felipe Ohana that focuses on the past Brazilian elections and the second written by Murillo de Aragão and Cristiano Noronha that surveys the partisan support during the first six months of Dilma Rousseff's presidency in Brazil. Two book reviews are also included, the first by Marianne Marchand, and the second by Itzel Barrera. We appreciate the effort and endurance of all contributors in finalizing their respective articles, essays, and reviews and thank them for being patient about the procedures involved in ensuring a high-quality final product, of which all of LAP's staff is proud.

Latin American Politics and Development, 7th ed. - Howard j. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline (eds.)

The scholarly literature on the government and politics of Latin America continues to flourish, offering interesting research questions and cross-national comparisons touching on a variety of themes that continue trends from the past. Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey Kline’s (eds) Latin American Politics and Development is the most recent edition of the popular text on the government and politics in Latin America, revised and updated on recent developments since 2000. Leading specialists on the region provide an overview of Latin American development, policy processes, and key actors (the military, the Catholic Church, the landed oligarchy, bureaucracies, political parties and elections, etc.). Of particular import are the many chapters that illustrate the vitality and complexity of women’s movements. By analyzing women’s roles in very diverse democratic transitions, goals and strategies in consolidating democracies that help bring women to power, the various chapters demonstrate the distance women’s movements in Latin America have travelled, and that much terrain remains to be covered against resistant patriarchal societies in the region.

Obama and the Bolivarian Agenda for the Americas

President Barack Obama’s campaign rhetoric suggested a significant shift away from the militarist intervention practiced by U.S. administrations since the Reagan presidency, and his emphasis on multilateral diplomacy was endorsed by some key foreign policy elites. Focusing on home-grown obstacles to the hoped-for change in Latin American policy, such as domestic ideologies and narrow corporate interests, may underestimate the role of Latin American resistance and of the global shifts that have presented alternatives to the multilateral diplomacy of the OAS and the regional economic integration of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. The Bolivarian agenda offers a direct challenge to neoliberal globalization as promoted by the United States under presidents of both parties. While for a number of reasons it is unlikely to bring U.S. hegemony in Latin America to an end, it has facilitated alternative forms of cooperation for economic integration and security, and this poses a significant dilemma for the Obama administration.

Forward into History

The 2008 presidential campaign in the United States raised expectations that the election of the Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama would lead to substantive change in the direction and execution of U.S. foreign policy. This has proved not to be the case. In relation to Obama’s Latin American policy, it is possible to speak of an entrenchment rather than a revision of George W. Bush’s strategy and assumptions. Examination of the complex of historical and institutional factors that constrain changes in modes and mechanisms of U.S. engagement suggests that the sclerosis that has characterized Obama’s conduct of hemispheric relations will compound the challenges faced by the United States on issues such as drugs, poverty, and immigration while deepening U.S. isolation and ideological distance from Latin American countries. At a theoretical level, Obama’s policy linearity with Bush calls into question assumed distinctions between Democratic and Republican Party approaches while highlighting the limited space for policy reform in the U.S. political system.

Obama’s “Smart Strategies” against Latin America and the Caribbean

A critical appraisal of the “smart strategies” (a new combination of “hard” and “soft” power) of Barack Obama reveals that, despite his criticism of the policies of his predecessor, his Latin American policy has been similarly characterized by interventionist “defense” and “security” strategies and the more or less compulsory expansion of “free-market democracies” with the objective of reestablishing U.S. domination of the region. The future of the agreements for political coordination, cooperation, and multinational integration currently being developed in Latin America will depend on the ability of the governments of the Alianza Bolivariana de los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA) and the social and political forces that support them to defeat these strategies and gather around them the most dedicated platoons of the “old” and “new” left and other reformist or simply progressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean.