In the field of modern political regimes, Spanish America holds a very special and, in some respects, paradoxical place. Indeed, even today, actual political life is very far from reflecting not only the constitutional clauses but even certain rules generally accepted in Western democracies. Political regimes are often ephemeral and dictatorships frequently interrupt institutional continuity. Pronunciamientos, coups d'état, rebellions and revolutions have been common means of coming to power, at least as common as elections. The political stage has often been occupied by particular human types: caudillos, caciques, charismatic leaders, guerrillas, revolutionaries…

Concern over the fate of the rain forest and peoples of Amazonia has inspired a renewed interest in the extraction of natural products from the region. Accounts of the Amazon Rubber Boom (1860–1910) are of particular interest in view of the dominance of the rubber industry during one of the most influential periods in the region's history as well as the continuing economic importance of wild rubber extraction to thousands of Amazonian households today. For many observers, the organisation and performance of the wild rubber industry – then and now – provides a good illustration of extractive industries in Amazonia.

Historians all agree that the Cárdenas presidency was a crucial period in the development of twentieth-century Mexico. They would not agree as to the reasons for its importance. The range of interpretations is so wide and, at times, so nuanced, that it is risky to try to summarise the underlying disagreements. However, there are certain key differences which can be emphasised; and I shall begin this article with a quick review of what I consider those key differences to be.

In Juchitán, Mexico, a poor people's movement has challenged the local and national authorities of the Mexican government, withstood violent repression and military occupation, and succeeded in winning municipal elections and becoming a permanent leftist force in regional politics. This movement, the Coalition of Workers, Peasants, and Students of the Isthmus (COCEI), is one of the strongest and most militant grassroots movements in Mexico, in large part because Zapotec Indians in Juchitán transformed their courtyards and fiestas into fora for intense political discussion, gathered in the streets in massive demonstrations, and, in the course of the past two decades, redefined the activites, meanings and alliancesof therie culture.

On 13 July 1992, the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) scored an important victory in the northern state of Chihuahua, winning not only the gubernatorial election, but also the most important cities of the state and a majority in the local Congress. As in the previous elections of 1986, one of the characteristics of this electoral process was the overt participation of entrepreneurs in the opposition, particularly small and medium-size entrepreneurs.

This paper analyses two efforts of the Mexican Federal Government to implement a tax reform. The first was made by the Echeverría administration (1970–6). The second is currently taking place under the Salinas government, in office since December 1988.

My aim is to understand what economic, ideological and political conditions give rise to a successful tax reform. I will focus on government relations with business, in particular with big business; and on the nature of the proposed tax reforms (each of which had different distributional costs). The question is how these factors affected the outcome of the two reforms. While Echeverría's progressive reform was subsequently replaced by an increase in tax rates, the second, that of Salinas, has, so far, been successful.

The objective of this article is to attempt to explain why free market open economy policies (FMOEP) have become so popular in Latin America in the 1990s. There are six possible major explanatory factors: (i) lessons learnt from the debt crisis and its immediate aftermath, (ii) more highly qualified technocrats, (iii) development of an entrepreneurial middle class, (iv) exhaustion of import substituting industrialisation, (v) a combination of tax reform, financial modernisation and export diversification, and (vi) a favourable public opinion. Yet none of these factors by itself was a sufficient condition for FMOEP; necessary factors were different from country to country, and the nature of the interaction between two or more factors was different in each country.

This paper will explore the problématique of human rights in processes of political democratisation, specifically in the case of transitions from military to democratic regimes, and mostly in the Southern Cone of Latin America. It is, therefore, a historically-bounded analysis, rather than a more general enquiry into issues of human rights in the contemporary era. The construction of a general theory cannot be undertaken without consideration of the diversity of human rights experiences; democratisation in these countries is but one such experience.