Forrest D. Colburn

City University of New York City - Lehman College | CUNY · Department of Latin American, Latino, and Puerto Rican Studies

The small Central American country of Costa Rica has been celebrated for its vigorous democracy. Elections have been long dominated by two political parties: the National Liberation Party (PLN) and the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC). On 4 February 2018, however, an election was held with a surprising outcome. The winner of the first round was...

Salvadorans went to the polls on 2 February 2014 to select a new president. With current president Mauricio Funes of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) ineligible to run (El Salvador’s constitution prohibits consecutive presidential terms), voters were left to choose among Vice-President Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the FMLN and form...

Scholarship on populism has focused on the ways in which charismatic leaders trade economic benefits for political support and their ability to smother political institutions. But the Nicaraguan case suggests that attention should also be given to the other end of the polity—namely, the absence in the general population of a democratic culture th...

Words should be chosen and used carefully so that they convey the meaning or meanings that you intend—and do not convey any unintended or double meanings. Writing should leave little ambiguity or uncertainty about what you are referring to—unless some purposeful ambiguity is desired. Sometimes words that are abstract or superficial may be chosen to...

Although democracy is being questioned and even battered throughout Latin America, what is happening in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia is qualitatively different. It is more than a "ratcheting up" of the assault on democracy; it is a deliberate, well-designed project to deconstruct democracy and substitute something else in its place, poorly defin...

:We are surprised by Mark Engler's criticism of our essay, "Democracy Undermined," in the Summer 2010 issue of Dissent, in which we lament the heavy-handed use of the law to dismantle democracy in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia, purportedly to build more progressive regimes. We join Engler in condemning the recent coup d'état in Honduras. And we...

The countries of Latin America remain highly susceptible to international political and economic trends. Since 2002, the region has prospered: growth has been close to 6 percent per year—the highest since the 1970s, and far above the lackluster, long-run average of 3 percent. This growth spurt is traced in large part to a bonanza: high internationa...

On 15 March 2009, Mauricio Funes, the candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN)–a former guerrilla movement that laid down its arms in 1992 and reconstituted itself as a political party–won the presidential election in El Salvador, marking the country's first peaceful turnover of power since the nation-state became inde...

:An anecdote from business circles in Latin America tells of a textile manufacturer in El Salvador, who, reeling from Chinese competition, travels to China and visits the sprawling plant of one of his competitors. He knows that Chinese labor costs are only a third of his costs. And he knows, too, that the undervaluation of the Chinese currency give...

This work seeks to contribute to the scholarship on contemporary revolutionary regimes with six propositions that suggest why efforts to construct socialism are so problematic. They serve the larger purpose of focusing attention on how the obstacles of implementing radical change in poor, developing countries must be incorporated into conceptions o...

Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi has a distinguished history in the politics of what has long been known as the “Third World,” most of which were once beleaguered colonies of Europe. After the Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955—the first coming together of the non-aligned movement—Lakhdar was sent to Indonesia by the National...

Lackluster economic growth in Latin America has undermined faith in the economic reforms undertaken throughout the region in the 1980s. These reforms opened Latin American countries to the play of market forces. Among many, though, initial faith in the market has given way to cynicism. Much criticism of economic liberalism in Latin America, however...

"Emerging countries" is a hopeful expression, but it is far from an accurate description of what is going on in every poor country of the world. Another upbeat, optimistic term is "developing countries." The most evocative term, though, is "Third World." It is used to refer collectively to all the poorer countries of the world. While it suggests po...

This case discusses a serious environmental problem in Ecuador: the death of shrimp cultivated in the Bay of Guayaquil from fungicides used in the banana industry. The problem is notable because, unlike many instances of environmental degradation, the adverse effects appear immediately, not at some distant time in the future. Also, the effects are...

In the aftermath of World War II, a surprisingly large number of poor countries were upset by revolution: Vietnam, China, Cuba, Algeria, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Afghanistan, Iran, and Nicaragua. Revolutionaries in these geographically and culturally disparate countries came to power through different routes, but once in power they h...

This essay speculates on the structural conditions under which the peasantry in Latin America is able to prosper. Contemporary Latin American states invariably meddle in agricultural markets. Despite government affirmations to the contrary, peasants ordinarily do not benefit from state intervention in the agricultural sector. However, there are two...

Recent scholarship on Ethiopia describes the central oudine of events in the aftermath of the country's 1974 revolution. But the books that should be the most insightful, because of the theoretical ambitions of the authors, often disappoint because they obfuscate politics with abstract discussions of the "state." Three shortcomings of state theorie...

During the past 10 years Ethiopia has established an elaborate system of trade restrictions, producer quotas and fixed producer prices for purchasing a substantial proportion of peasants' marketable surplus. Recent evidence suggests that the quotas are inequitably allocated among areas and that low fixed prices reduce farmer incomes, incentives to...

The Central American countries are divided by profound political differences. Yet surprising similarities exist in the changing relations between the public and private sectors. Throughout the region, public and private sectors lock into a vicious circle. The inability of the state to provide order and social harmony creates disincentives for the p...

Much of the recent writing on peasants and rural development is based on a litical economy model. This approach, best exemplified by Samuel Popkin's The adtional Peasant, sees the peasant as a self-interested rational actor, and develops a unchaning investment logic to explain economic and political decisions. It is a more sophiticated approach tha...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, 1983. Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-311). Photocopy.

Incluye bibliografía