Cuban Exceptionalism Revisited

The end of Cuban exceptionalism has been much announced since 1989, but a decade and a half later state socialism on the island is still enduring. Transition studies have been criti-cized for focusing on success stories. Exploring the deviant case of Cuba’s “non-transition” from a comparative social science perspective can shed light on the peculiarities of this case and, more importantly, test the general assumptions underlying post-1989 expecta-tions of regime change in Cuba. Theories of path dependence and cumulative causation are particularly helpful when attempting to link Cuban current political exceptionalism with a more long-term historic perspective. Moreover, they suggest that interpretations of Cuba as simply a “belated” case of “third wave” democratization may prove erroneous, even when the health of Fidel Castro finally falters.Cuba, comparative politics, exceptionalism, socialism, transition

Regionalismo, derechos humanos y democratización en América: La importancia del contexto

El presente artículo plantea cuatro cuestiones relativas a los derechos humanos en las Américas: examina la especificidad de Latinoamérica como región a escala mundial; la teoría de las relaciones entre democratización y derechos humanos; la dimensión re

VARIABILITY IN RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

The article looks at a partial selection of the many rights claimed by citizens in contemporary democracies in the context of the justice system, citizen security, gender, youths, and access to information – and presents the argument that that democratic “rights” are not a homogeneous reality as posited by liberal theory, but a complex, multilayered one. In new “low quality” democracies, rights volatility presents a special challenge to universality. Social mapping of the range and distribution of bankable rights is likely to uncover a reality that falls well short of the rhetoric of universalism. In highly fragmented and unequal societies, the rhetoric of universality is unlikely to translate easily into genuine evenness of application. And accompanying variability there may be instability or volatility over time. This combination in societies where the “duties” corresponding to rights are not securely internalised, is liable to produce patterns of political behaviour that deviate substantially from the interlocking mutuality of interest postulated by classical liberalism. “Contentious” political cycles of resistance and exclusion, and struggles to reshape the rules of the game (rather than merely to live within them) seem to be natural correlates of this climate of uncertainty. This is particularly so in new democracies, where sudden explosions of rights claims and multiplying rights claimants can easily generate an atmosphere of rights inflation can raise expectations well beyond what is reliably deliverable

The Impact of Inequality in Latin America

This paper examines the impact of inequality on poor people in Latin America. It is argued that development policies in Latin America and other developing regions should focus not only on eliminating poverty and deprivation but also on preventing and reducing inequality. By inequality we refer not only to differences in income or consumption between population groups but also to divergences in the access to social and political rights (education, health care, voting, and so on). Although conceptually related, poverty and inequality are two distinct phenomena and it is possible that falls in poverty may be accompanied by increases in inequality and vice-versa. In fact, many Latin America countries have experienced the former in recent years. In the long-term, however, persistent inequalities as those observed in the Latin America region will undermine efforts to reduce poverty and destitution due to the emergence of poverty traps caused by the impossibility of economic and social mobility of certain population groups. This will have important consequences for the challenge of achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty worldwide by 2015. In addition, persistently high inequalities will also impact negatively on crucial economic, social and political variables and will thus seriously undermine the success of any development strategies.Inequality, poverty, developing countries, Latin America

The Obama administration and Latin America: a disappointing first term?

On 6 November 2012, a new president will be elected in the United States. The voters will decide whether President Barack Obama gets a second term or whether his contender Mitt Romney will succeed him in the White House. The so-called Latino vote might be decisive in winning the election. While both candidates are courting Hispanic voters, the majority of these voters will choose Obama. Already in the 2008 election, Latino voters helped Obama to win key states. However, the strong Latino support for Obama in the previous election did not result in a special interest in Latin America on the part of the Obama administration. It was not until 2012 that Obama cautiously took up the immigration/legalization issue, which is important to both Latin Americans and Hispanics. Obama started with great hope and much goodwill in Latin America. Nevertheless, the balance of his Latin America policy is somewhat disappointing - although one has to mention that Congress has finally ratified the free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama. US-Latin America relations are routinely managed by multiple bureaucratic agencies, which can act quite autonomously and are often not coordinated via a common strategy. Obama’s Latin America policy has frequently been hampered by political polarization and partisan divisions in Congress. The intermestic dimension of US-Latin American relations has complicated foreign policy, because a more self-confident and autonomous majority in Latin America has sometimes sought a policy shift with regard to highly sensitive topics, such as drugs, immigration and Cuba. One issue area where some would criticize the Obama administration is its slowness in improving relations with Brazil or placing Brazil on par with, for example, India. It is unlikely that Latin America’s modest ranking in US foreign policy will increase or that Washington’s priorities will shift much after the November 2012 elections

Democratización y desigualdades en América Latina y el Caribe

El tema central de este artículo es una paradoja. La paradoja de que América Latina y el Caribe son, tal vez, unas de las zonas del mundo de mayor progreso en el campo de la democratización, entendido éste de manera clásica y formal. Si la comparamos con África, con Asia, con los países ex-soviéticos, o con Oriente Medio, podemos comprobar que su desarrollo democrático ha sido estelar en los últimos 20 años. Sin embargo, en el terreno de la lucha contra la pobreza y las desigualdades agudas, esta región está en franco estancamiento e, incluso, en pleno retroceso. América es una región grande, un subcontinente, donde la pobreza y la injusticia social están tan (o más) arraigadas que la democracia y la libertad política. Y aquí radica la paradoja: en la contradicción entre estas dos realidades.The central subject of this article is a paradox: Latin America and the Caribbean are, perhaps, one of the zones of the world of greater progress in the field of the democratization, understood it in a classic and formal way. If we compared it with Africa, Asia, the ex-Soviet countries, or Middle East countries, we can verify that the Latin American democratic development has been stellar in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, in the land of the struggle against the poverty and the severe inequalities, this region is in a process of stagnation and, even, in a backward movement. America is a great region, a sub-continent, where the poverty and the social injustice are more rooted than the democracy and the political freedom. And here is the paradox: the contradiction between these two realities

Democratización y desigualdades en América Latina y el Caribe

El tema central de este artículo es una paradoja. La paradoja de que América Latina y el Caribe son, tal vez, unas de las zonas del mundo de mayor progreso en el campo de la democratización, entendido éste de manera clásica y formal. Si la comparamos con África, con Asia, con los países ex-soviéticos, o con Oriente Medio, podemos comprobar que su desarrollo democrático ha sido estelar en los últimos 20 años. Sin embargo, en el terreno de la lucha contra la pobreza y las desigualdades agudas, esta región está en franco estancamiento e, incluso, en pleno retroceso. América es una región grande, un subcontinente, donde la pobreza y la injusticia social están tan (o más) arraigadas que la democracia y la libertad política. Y aquí radica la paradoja: en la contradicción entre estas dos realidades.The central subject of this article is a paradox: Latin America and the Caribbean are, perhaps, one of the zones of the world of greater progress in the field of the democratization, understood it in a classic and formal way. If we compared it with Africa, Asia, the ex-Soviet countries, or Middle East countries, we can verify that the Latin American democratic development has been stellar in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, in the land of the struggle against the poverty and the severe inequalities, this region is in a process of stagnation and, even, in a backward movement. America is a great region, a sub-continent, where the poverty and the social injustice are more rooted than the democracy and the political freedom. And here is the paradox: the contradiction between these two realities

Transition metal-free, visible-light mediated synthesis of 1,10-phenanthroline derived ligand systems

A broad range of 1,10-phenanthroline substrates was efficiently C-H functionalised, providing rapid, gram-scale access to substituted heteroaromatic cores of broad utility. Furthermore, this C-H functionalisation pathway was extended to the synthesis of previously inaccessible, ultra-soluble, 2,9-bis-triazinyl-1,10-phenanthroline (BTPhen) ligands for advanced nuclear fuel cycles

Climate and land-use change impact on faecal indicator bacteria in a temperate maritime catchment (the River Conwy, Wales)

Water-borne pathogen contamination from untreated sewage effluent and runoff from farms is a serious threat to the use of river water for drinking and commercial purposes, such as downstream estuarine shellfish industries. In this study, the impact of climate change and land-use change on the presence of faecal indicator bacteria in freshwater was evaluated, through the use of a recently-developed catchment-scale pathogen model. The River Conwy in Wales has been used as a case-study, because of the large presence of livestock in the catchment and the importance of the shellfish harvesting activities in its estuary. The INCA-Pathogens catchment model has been calibrated through the use of a Monte-Carlo-based technique, based on faecal indicator bacteria measurements, and then driven by an ensemble of climate projections obtained from the HadRM3-PPE model (Future Flow Climate) plus four land-use scenarios (current land use, managed ecosystem, abandonment and agricultural intensification). The results show that climate change is not expected to have a very large impact on average river flow, although it might alter its seasonality. The abundance of faecal indicator bacteria is expected to decrease in response to climate change, especially during the summer months, due to reduced precipitation, causing reduced runoff, and increased temperature, which enhances the bacterial die-off processes. Land-use change can also have a potentially large impact on pathogens. The “managed ecosystems” scenario proposed in this study can cause a reduction of 15% in average water faecal indicator bacteria and up to 30% in the 90th percentile of water faecal indicator bacteria, mainly due to the conversion of pasture land into grassland and the expansion of forest land. This study provides an example of how to assess the impacts of human interventions on the landscape, and what may be the extent of their effects, for other catchments where the human use of the natural resources in the uplands can jeopardise the use of natural resources downstream