Piñera gets CEPped

The Centro de Estudio Públicos poll just came out, with lots of information on education.  Since students were out in force, as were the police in response, this was not a pleasant irony for Sebastián Piñera (check out some images here).  The CEP poll shows his presidential approval at 26 percent, with little confidence in how he is handling, well, most anything.

An interesting point to keep in mind, though, is that for years approval of handling the economy trends very closely to presidential approval.  Irrespective of the education protests, Piñera has a shot at recovery if he can turn around perceptions about how he is handling the economy.

But he's not in a happy place.

Update: Wow, how does Piñera respond?  By saying, "Remember the miners!!"

Read more...

Cuban immigration waves

I agree with this article in the Sun-Sentinal that when the Cuban government starts talking about easing emigration rules, then you need to pay close attention.  In the past, that was how Fidel Castro signalled that a) he wanted certain concessions from the United States; and b) if he didn't get them he would open the floodgates.  That happened in 1965, 1980, and 1994, so we are even slightly overdue.  There is no need for alarmism, but it has worked very well for Fidel Castro in the past.

Read more...

Cabinets in Chile

From Adimark: Sebastián Piñera's approval rating remains very low, at 30%.  Borrowing a long standing tradition from the Concertación, he has responded to his lack of popularity by changing his cabinet. At least in the Chilean case, presidents tend to think that shuffling the cabinet will be seen as a signal that he/she is acknowledging problems and taking positive action.  However, I have never seen any evidence that such signals function as intended.  Presidential approval is based largely on other issues, and cabinet changes tend just to generate gossip about who will be running for president in the future.

Read more...

Extradition from Colombia

Nazih Richani writes at NACLA that more Colombian narcotraffickers want to be extradited to the United States.

Between 2000 and 2010, 1,121 narcotraffickers were extradited to the United States. I suspect that through their negotiations with the U.S. judicial system, these narcotraffickers have found that they can obtain benefits outweighing the costs. Some of the perks include prison terms reductions, protections for themselves and their families, and securing part of their wealth. The new Citizen Security Law offers the added bonuses of an expedited extradition and possibly even better benefits.

This is a big change.  In the past, the Colombian judicial system was seen as so corrupt and porous that people fought to stay in the country, and for years the U.S. constantly pushed for extradition laws.  Alvaro Uribe opened the floodgates.

This is a glass half empty/half full issue.  Richani sees it as empty:

With all of the above we have to ask if extradition is truly an effective tool to fight crime. More and more evidence says it is not. Especially for those that have committed war crimes, extradition has become a safe haven since they will only be tried for “narcotrafficking” while their “crimes against humanity” are largely forgotten.

However, it is also worthwhile to ask whether the Colombian judicial system has improved to the point that it cannot be gamed as much as in the past.

Read more...

U.S. or Chile?

Picture this: A country with a growing gap between rich and poor, where the legislature and political parties are extremely unpopular, though individual politicians sometimes have solid approval ratings. People even protest in the streets at times, though as yet there is no coherent independent political movement. The two main political parties/coalitions point fingers at each other, but when push comes to shove they agree just to create commissions to avoid making difficult decisions.

The United States or Chile?

Read more...

Change of wardrobe in Venezuela

This is funny. Way back in 2007 I wrote a post about political fashions in general and Hugo Chavez's red shirts in particular, which generated a spirited discussion.

Now he says everyone should stop wearing red all the time.

The president, whose signature red shirts have long been a symbol of his socialist movement, also suggested his allies ought to be more moderate in their wardrobes.

"Why do we have to go around all the time wearing a red shirt?" he asked.

So what's the new color?

Read more...

Why we should be critical of Huntington

Patrick Porter at The Duck of Minerva argues that academic jealousy is the only reason Samuel Huntington gets criticized. We just wish we were more famous!

No, academics like to dismiss these works because the authors have appealed to a mass market, made meta-scale interpretations and predictions, and come as close to intellectual celebrity as possible for anyone who isn't Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein. In an academic world that cherishes specialism and hair-splitting, that largely devotes its energy to internalised dialogues in exclusionary language, and which looks on fame and glory with envious suspicion, its no wonder that the mention of all three causes respectable scholars to roll their eyes.

He goes on to defend Huntington specifically. Maybe I am just showing my own jealousy, but I have read Clash of Civilizations and Who Are We? and the reason I don't like them is because you cannot read them in tandem and come to any conclusion but that Huntington ignores a lot of empirical evidence and is convinced that people of Latin American descent are inferior and ruining the United States. It is pure xenophobia.

Read more...

Latinos and Southern Redistricting

The latest issue of PS has an article on Latinos in the South and redistricting.

J. Salvador Peralta and George R. Larkin, "Counting Those Who Count: The Impact of Latino Population Growth on Redistricting in Southern States." PS: Political Science and Politics 44, 3 (2011): 552-561.

The purpose of this article is to examine the potential impact of Hispanics on the electoral geography of the southern United States after the 2010 decennial census. Hispanics are the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States today. In addition to traditional Hispanic destinations such as Florida and Texas, many of the areas experiencing the most rapid growth in Hispanic population are southern states such as Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. Geographic information systems are used to determine where majority-minority and influential districts are likely to emerge in southern states. We argue that although the Latino population has increased significantly over the past decade, the proportion of Latinos living in southern states remains relatively low in comparison to the general population. Therefore, no new majority-minority or influence districts will emerge in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Tennessee. Majority-minority and influence districts are likely to emerge in Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia at the state and local levels, but not at the U.S. congressional level. Texas and Florida are the only southern states where new majority-minority and influence districts are likely to emerge at the U.S., state, and local levels after the 2010 decennial census

This goes along with other evidence that the Latino vote in new gateways (such as here in NC) will not be a decisive factor in the short term, though certainly will be in the long term. For 2012 we will hear a lot about that vote for both the presidential and congressional levels, but it is not likely to be critical in most states. Not only is the population currently too small, but too few Latinos are eligible to vote.

Read more...

Toothpaste and Latin America

This story about Colgate caught my eye. Basically, prices for toothpaste will rise in Latin America to make up for the fact that people in the United States would not be willing to accept price increases. Several points come to mind:

First, there has been a lot of talk of overheating and inflation in Latin America, and this is an example (albeit very small) of how the U.S. recession is contributing.

Second, it is quite amazing, and rare, for the Latin American market to be seen as stronger than the U.S. market.

Third, watch out for the person next to you, because in the U.S. we seem to be hesitant about buying toothpaste.

Read more...

Britain and Bolivia

A new twist in the fight against drug trafficking: as more Latin American cocaine ends up in Britain, the British start becoming involved. From the BBC, the example of Bolivia.

The British government has announced a new co-operation deal with Bolivia in the fight against drug trafficking.

During a two-day visit to Bolivia, Britain's Minister for Latin America, Jeremy Browne, said the Serious Organised Crime Agency in London will join forces with the counter-narcotics police in La Paz.

Along with assistance from Brazil, I see this as entirely positive. The U.S. has long been criticized for the "drug war" for many different reasons, not the least of which was a very condescending attitude that failed to take Latin American reactions into account. This is a global problem and deserves global solutions, so this development will hopefully inject fresh perspectives and produce a better outcome than what we've seen thus far.

Read more...

Understanding Alan García

It is nice to see the MSM in the U.S. start to explain why Alan García was so unpopular when he left office despite economic growth, and therefore also why Ollanta Humala won the election. More of these articles would break through all the clueless puzzlement about Peru. From the AP:

While the guerrilla war was largely over when Garcia returned to office, social conflicts in which authorities had to intervene nearly tripled on his watch. Critics claimed his pro-business policies often ignored Peru's native peoples and damaged the environment.

The resulting unrest has claimed 104 deaths and 1,398 injuries since 2008, according to Peru's national human rights ombudsman's office. And few of the underlying conflicts have been resolved.

Garcia leaves President-elect Ollanta Humala, an apparently moderate leftist who assumes office Thursday, with a ticking time bomb of disputes stemming in large part from objections by indigenous groups to the damage to water supplies, crops and hunting grounds wrought by mining, logging and oil and gas extraction.

"On the positive side, (Garcia) leaves a basically healthy economy," said historian and political analyst Nelson Manrique. "On the negative side, he has been authoritarian, hasn't been open to political dialogue and put off dealing with a series of demands that have generated a climate of social volatility."

We hear constantly that we have to wait and see whether Humala will govern responsibly. A better question is whether he can clean up Garcia's huge mess.

Read more...

Local elections and violence in Colombia

Any triumphalism about security in Colombia should take the following from Colombia Reports into account:

Twenty candidates in the local elections held in Colombia in October have been assassinated so far, the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) announced Sunday.

According to the NGO, another 32 candidates have received threats, four have been kidnapped and seven survived assassination attempts.

It sounds sadly like Guatemala, and the violence is occurring for very similar reasons. It is also the same type of situation staring Mexico in the face.

Read more...

Asylum for Mexicans

More and more Mexicans are seeking asylum in the US because of TCO violence. However, the "well-founded fear of persecution" argument is very difficult for people who are being threatened by gangs. I know from experience that such arguments are very difficult even for people who have minor children who are US citizens. Given the current climate, it is very hard to see that changing.

Read more...

Malcolm Beith's The Last Narco

I read Malcolm Beith's The Last Narco: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo, the World's Most Wanted Drug Lord and enjoyed it. The title, however, is not entirely accurate since most of the book is about the drug organizations in Mexico and the government fight against them rather an inside account of the search for Chapo.  The military and police won't talk, so it is virtually impossible to get inside the hunt.

It is both chilling and discouraging. The details of how deep the TCOs reach into every corner of Mexico are morbidly fascinating. They aren't really new to anyone who reads the news regularly, but Beith's book brings it to gory life.

One of the serious challenges for the Mexican government is the fact that the army is not welcomed in many parts of Mexico, either because people like what Chapo (and other similar leaders) give them and/or because they see all state institutions as fundamentally corrupt and violent. There is far too little trust, and even less trust between the military and the police.

Finally, the book shows how many years drug kingpins like Chapo were setting up their operations. It is convenient to blame Felipe Calderón with his strong militarized policies beginning in 2006, but there are many other contributing factors. The cartel infighting had already been growing, which brought with it new levels of brutality as they moved into each other's territories.  The balloon effect from Colombia and the end of the PRI's reign in the presidency also helped set the stage. The complex confluence of all those factors would be a great research project.

As a coincidental P.S., Beith recent wrote a post on his blog about how Chapo seems to be losing influence in Mexico, even as his global reach has expanded.

Read more...

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

The Georgia immigration law originally had a provision allowing for anyone to sue if they felt it was not being enforced. That was a terrible idea, and has been replaced by something that is both terrible and creepy.

Called the Immigration Enforcement Review Board, the seven-member panel will have the power to investigate complaints filed against city, county and state officials, hold hearings, subpoena documents, adopt regulations and hand out punishment. That punishment could include loss of state funding for government agencies and fines up to $5,000 for officials who "knowingly" violate the laws.

So the solution to immigration is an unaccountable and costly bureaucracy that can cripple anyone it wants.

Read more...

US Defense and Mexico

Richard Downie, Director of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, published a working paper entitled "Critical Strategic Decisions in Mexico: The Future of US-Mexican Defense Relations." After looking at various options, he comes to the unsurprising conclusion that the military-oriented strategy is the best one (he is, after all, a retired military officer in a Defense Department think tank).

Even if you disagree with the argument, it is an articulate vision of the basic military view of TCOs in Mexico. However, the issue of US politics is a confounding factor. He acknowledges that many Mexican officials believe the US needs to do more to reduce drug demand, but essentially says that is impossible because of domestic politics. Yet he does not explain how that fact affects his preferred policy option.

Those in Mexico who oppose a strategy to confront the TCOs assert that the US is not taking the actions  necessary to assist Mexico solve its problems. In many ways these critics are right. Achieving a US strategy that would truly support Mexico is difficult because it demands consensus from influential domestic interest groups. To accomplish their political agendas, these groups do not necessarily intend to scapegoat Mexico. But the collective result can be a US policy or program that does not demonstrate the appropriate urgency or solidarity with Mexico on challenges that affect the US. Such a plurality of views results in a lackluster effort in providing effective assistance. More importantly, it emphasizes to our Mexican neighbors that too few in the US recognize or even care that the stakes are high in Mexico. The US/Mexican defense relationship is a demonstrable, unifying element toward confronting our shared security challenges.

We want a better relationship even as we refuse to enact policies that would improve it. Unfortunately, that means the policies outlined in the paper won't work as planned.

Read more...

Allende's suicide

Salvador Allende's death has officially been ruled a suicide.  I think it is fair to say that very few people believed otherwise.  Nonetheless, there is evidence that the military (under the orders of Augusto Pinochet) would have murdered him if they found him alive.

I recently published a book chapter about the efforts by Concertación presidents, the Chilean military and others to proclaim the transition complete, which would then allow everyone to "move on."  This is yet another example of how traumatic the coup and military regime were, which makes "moving on" a difficult proposition (see Steve Stern's trilogy on memory in Chile for a great analysis).

Read more...

Deportation and immigration views

Gabriel Sanchez, a political scientist at the University of New Mexico and one of the bloggers at Latino Decisions, has an interesting hypothesis.  Individuals who know someone who has been deported are more likely to be critical of current immigration policy.  Since the Obama administration has deported more people than any administration in U.S. history, more Latinos now know someone who has been deported, and therefore have become more critical.

I am not entirely convinced that Latinos consider immigration the most important problem facing the country, because the poll asks them what is the most important issue "facing the Latino community" when in fact people vote based on what is most important period, and not what is most important for a more vague community identification.  Nonetheless, this is a new and intriguing argument about the effects of Obama's policies.

Read more...

Mexican public defenders

I've been critical of the Mérida Initiative, but the following is a more positive component.  There is actually a grant competition to bolster the Mexican public defender system, which was extensively reformed in 2008.  The idea is to get public defenders used to an accusatory system.

The goal of this project is to assist the IFDP make the administrative changes necessary for its altered responsibilities under an accusatory system, and to assist the IFDPs attorneys become effective in their roles in the reformed system. INLs support for IFDP and its responsibilities as an integral aspect of an accusatory criminal justice system will bolster accountability and public confidence in Mexico's federal criminal justice institutions. This program is intended as a three-year project with a funding ceiling of up to $6,000,000 (six million dollars) during the three-year period, pending funding availability. Up to $2,000,000 will be available for the first year, with the possibility of funding at similar levels on an annual basis for two more years. There is the possibility of continued funding beyond three years based upon performance and availability of funds.

This type of effort will likely pay greater benefits--and certainly more bang for the buck--than guns and helicopters.

Read more...

Underemployment in Chile

Gonzalo Durán at CIPER Chile has a great post on underemployment in Chile.  The upshot is that there are 42.3% more people underemployed now than in 2009, and 20.5% more than when Sebastiá Piñera took office. A major problem is that the Chilean government does not bother to publish anything on underemployment, preferring instead to make grand statements about creating a million new jobs.

The spread of underemployment provides more insight into the discontent currently evident in Chile at a time when its economic model is held up as a model for the region and the rest of the world.

For more on the tenuous nature of employment in Chile, check out Kirsten Sehnbruch's book The Chilean Labor Market.

Read more...

Hispanic births

The Wall Street Journal has an article on how the majority of the growth of the Hispanic population is due to births in the United States rather than new immigrants.  My esteemed colleague has a quote in the article that neatly sums it up:

"We just have to get through this transition time," says John R. Weeks, a demographer at San Diego State University. Ultimately, he says, "the children of immigrants are going to buoy up the economy. They are going to pay for Medicare and Social Security for the aging white population."

Read more...

Latin American growth

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean says the region will grow by 4.7% this year.  The interesting part of the estimate is that it is based in large part on access to credit for consumption.  I had just written about concerns that consumerism could create the same type of economic crisis that hit the United States.  I don't consider myself a pessimist by nature, but I keep finding warning signs in all the rosy growth pictures.  To be fair, ECLAC does mention it:

The region could become more vulnerable to speculative capital movements that may create bubbles in financial and real estate markets.

As always, let's hope that economic growth is more equitable in the past.  The Peruvian presidential election is a stark reminder that it is dangerous to focus on GDP growth alone.

Read more...

Latin America links to read

I haven't had a linkfest in a while.

• Adam Isacson on Bolivian democracy

• Robert Funk on Chilean student protests

• Patrick Corcoran on the ATF and Mexico

• Setty on the anniversary of Chile nationalizing copper

• Anya Landau French on home sales in Cuba

• Aguachile on Narcopolitics in Michoacán

• Latina Lista on Obama and the 2012 Latino vote

Read more...

Adrian Gonzalez is a coward

I had been writing about the hubbub over whether Adrian Gonzalez might boycott the All Star Game because of Arizona immigration law.  Turns out he did a 180 and not only will he play but he claims he didn't even say what everyone knows he said.

"What I said was misinterpreted," Gonzalez told USA Today. "Especially the way the question was asked. At the time, I didn't know much about the law. I still don't. It's not something I'm even going to get into."

Sad and cowardly.

Read more...

Future glass half empty or full

Mauricio Cárdenas at the Brookings Institution has a short opinion piece on how Latin America has a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to achieve prosperity.  When it comes to Latin America, someone always seems to be saying there is a once in a lifetime opportunity, which reminds me of the joke about Brazil always being the country of the future.

What he is really arguing, however, is that Latin America is on the brink of a very difficult period.  Within about a decade, there will be a larger old population with a smaller working-age population to support it, the commodity boom will end, and foreign investment will fall from current high levels.

Ultimately, the argument is nothing new.  When commodity prices are high, then tackle tax reform, judicial reform, and education.  If you don't, then we will just a new iteration of the same old boom and bust cycles.

Read more...

Recall in Arizona

Russell Pearce, the Arizona state senator who authored S.B. 1070, will face a recall election, the first of a state legislator in Arizona's history.

Here are the 2010 results:

Russell Pearce (R) 17,552 (56.6%)
Andrew Sherwood (D) 10,663 (34.4%)
Andrew Garcia (L) 2,808 (9%)

Obviously, a relatively small number of votes can mean a lot, but Pearce has never lost an election and won handily in 2010.  It will be very difficult to find a candidate who is sufficiently conservative for the district yet also opposed to Pearce's position on immigration.  In addition, more than one person can run against him if they get a small handful of signatures, and multiple candidates will almost guarantee a Pearce victory.

Therefore, it will likely be a symbolic measure, and one that cannot be copied everywhere.  Only nine states have broad recall provisions, while 29 others have some type of more restrictive laws for different state-level officials (more info here specifically on state legislators).

Read more...

Politics of free trade

Kezia McKeague at Americas Quarterly takes a good look at the politics of passing FTAs with Colombia and Panama.  It is sausage making at its worst.  Further, after reading about this issue for several years, I have to wonder whether many legislators care much whether an FTA passes.  Democrats want to make a point about human rights, while Republicans want to make a point about Obama's failures in Latin America.  The economics of the agreement often seem tangential to the debate.

In fact, there is obvious concern that an FTA with Colombia would actually mean a net loss for the United States.  We are even contemplating punishing Mexicans and Canadians as a result!

Canadian exporters warned Friday of a possible deterioration in North American trade relations due to a push in Congress to slap U.S.-bound Canadian and Mexican travelers with a surcharge.

The surcharge, estimated at $5.50 per passenger and proposed by the House Ways and Means Committee, is designed to offset lost revenue resulting from a free-trade pact with Colombia.

Not exactly a good neighbor policy.

Read more...

Now I'm free, free fallin'

The latest Adimark poll for Sebastián Piñera is abysmal, with 31% approval and 60% disapproval.  Only 39% consider him credible.  In my last post I compared him to Alan García, but a look at the detailed numbers brought Richard Nixon to mind because Chileans only think he is doing a good job with foreign affairs.

This is embarrassing for a president who came to office proclaiming that as a businessman he was well positioned to achieve growth and prosperity, and that the Concertación had squandered economic opportunities.  Approval of his handling of the economy has also been plummeting (it was 64% in October 2010).

Finally, the percentage of people who identify neither with the government nor with the opposition has increased to 30%.  These ni-nis are not a new phenomenon, and have yet to coalesce into a viable third party, but show how disconnected many Chileans feel from government.

Read more...

Dynamics of illegal immigration

Damien Cave (@damiencave) at the New York Times has an article very much worth reading about the decrease of illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States.  He comes up with many different possibilities, including Mexican demography, economic growth, consular help, broader access to education, and enforcement in the United States.  There are, however, two points that need mentioning.

First, this covers only Mexico, which is not the only source of undocumented immigration.  It is just over half, but that leaves many people out of this equation.

Second, even leaving aside my first point, the article does not mention demography in the United States, which must be viewed in conjunction with Mexican demographic change.  As my esteemed co-author and I argue in our book, we are slowly leaving the "demographic fit" that served both as a push and a pull for migration.  Demographic change in Mexico alone is insufficient.  There are many more young people in the United States today compared to five or ten years ago, in large part because of the migration that has already occurred, both legal and illegal.

Read more...

Piñera's freefall

Sebastián Piñera got hammered in the latest CERC poll (their site seems to be under construction so I can't find the original report).  His approval is down to an Alan García-ish 35 percent, with 53 percent disapproval.  That is consistent with the 36 percent that Adimark reported in June.  Mirroring the Concertación years, however, this does not mean a boon for the opposition, which is also viewed with distaste.

So despite all the vaunted Chilean political and economic successes, Chileans are not all that happy with their elected leaders.  If you want to understand the big picture of why, then read my co-edited book on the Bachelet government.  As for the more immediate causes, read Robert Funk's post on the topic (you can also read his chapter in that book):

So with thousands participating in street demonstrations in favour of better public education, the president responded tonight with a televised announcement: The plan includes a new education fund, improving access and accreditation of universities (he didn't say how), creating a new bureaucracy for universities (he didn't say what) which would, amongst other things, seek greater transparency in order to determine which universities are for-profit, something which is currently illegal in Chile.

Read more...

Helen Marrow's New Destination Dreaming

I read and really enjoyed Helen Marrow’s New Destination Dreaming. An anthropologist, Marrow conducted comparative research with a “context of reception” approach.  To that end she examines the specific characteristics of two counties in eastern North Carolina, selected for variation.  One exhibits characteristics of the new rural South (with rapidly growing immigrant populations) while the other is the old rural South (with relatively little migration and a majority of African Americans).  She labels them pseudonymously as Bedford and Wilcox.

Her conclusions are more optimistic than most of the literature, and focus on assimilation, race relations, and the political and institutional responsiveness to immigrants.  Her argument about rural assimilation is particularly interesting.  Unlike their urban counterparts, rural areas are more working class, and so recent migrants find it easier to achieve some measure of satisfaction about upward mobility.  In other words, their low wage employment is stable and not too far beneath the rest of the population.  Plus, jobs like poultry processing are stigmatized by many, so there are more opportunities for internal upward mobility.  Still, she tempers this relatively rosy picture with a nuanced analysis of the cross-cutting differences between different Hispanic populations, which include citizenship status, country of origin, affluence, and even gender.  All of these strongly affect who can move up more easily and rapidly.  Further, there is more upward mobility in poultry processing than in textiles (an industry that has been shrinking for well over a decade) so the structure of the receiving community can lead to significant variation.

She also does a nice job of contextualizing the rural experience of migrants, which vary not only by the receiving context, but also by the background of the migrants themselves.  In particular, migrant perceptions are colored by their own urban or rural origins.  More specifically, people from Latin American cities tend not to like rural North Carolina, while those from rural Latin America have a much more positive view.  For me, it raised a question about whether such a response would be common for much of the urban South as well.  Some interviewees compared rural North Carolina unfavorably to Chicago or Miami, but most southern cities (such as Charlotte or Raleigh) are smaller and more sprawling than those larger counterparts.

Her conclusions about race relations are more sobering, but reveal less hostility than is commonly assumed.  Marrow notes a larger gap between Hispanics and Blacks than between Hispanics and Whites, with a growing sense of a black-nonblack color line.  This is particularly pronounced in the minority African American county she studied versus the majority counterpart.  When in the minority, African Americans perceived a political and economic threat more acutely.

With regard to political representation, newly arrived migrants—especially those who do not speak English well—face daunting challenges.  Marrow argues that elected officials have shown relatively little interest in reaching out to the Hispanic population or addressing it needs, but that public bureaucracies have done so.  Since relatively few Latinos are eligible to vote, they are of less interest to politicians, but many individuals in bureaucracies view their own role as service-giving, and so often reach out to the immigrant population, even to the point of bending rules (it should come as no surprise to anyone that DMV officials were the least likely to be helpful!).  This contradicts political science literature, which would expect bureaucracies to follow political dictates.  That highlights the usefulness of a multi-disciplinary approach for understanding Latino immigration to the United States.  Nonetheless, as more restrictive laws were passed, state and local employees found it increasingly risky to do so, thus negating some of the more positive effects.

Notwithstanding the shrill media attention to restrictionist legislation being pursued at the state level in the South (as well as elsewhere, most famously Arizona) research like Marrow’s is pointing to more positive outcomes.  There is more work to be done to better understand why, but also to determine whether it is something that changes much—for better or worse—over time.  In sum, the book provides much food for thought as we try to understand the “Nuevo New South.”  As such, this and other works can provide a foundation for more comparative research on the political, economic, geographic, racial, and cultural impacts of Latino immigration to the South.

Read more...

Chomsky on Venezuela

Interesting transcript of an interview with Noam Chomsky about Venezuela and Latin American democracy in general. The upshot: he hates to criticize Chavez but is concerned about concentration of executive power. Even Chomsky thinks it undermines democracy.

RC: Finally professor, the concerns about the concentration of executive power in Venezuela: to what extent might that be undermining democracy in Venezuela?

NC: Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy.

RC: And so in the case of Venezuela is that what's happening or at risk of happening?

NC: As I said you can debate whether circumstances require it – both internal circumstances and the external threat of attack and so on, so that's a legitimate debate – but my own judgment in that debate is that it does not.

Read more...

Where's the love for consumerism?

We constantly hear about what the U.S. needs to do to regain a stronger leadership role in Latin America. A quote from Brazil is a reminder that the U.S. is losing ground when it comes to economic policy. Has there ever been a time when U.S. style consumerism has been mocked by governments that are not so far away ideologically?

That concern was repeated by former central bank President Arminio Fraga, who said on the Charlie Rose television program that Brazil is focusing too much on consumption and not enough on saving and investing. That "American" style of consumerism could lead to a credit crisis within the decade, Fraga said.

Of course, this comes on the heels of the U.S. employing bailout strategies that it pressured Latin American governments not to employ in the 1980s.

Read more...

Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy

I've long had a fascination with North Korea, dating back to when I first taught an Intro to Comparative Politics course and used the country as an example of an ongoing totalitarian dictatorship.  There are a lot of great books about it, most notably Bradley Martin's Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader, which I heartily recommend.  I also recommend the blog North Korean Economy Watch.  I just read Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and it is excellent. Demick uses interviews with six North Koreans who left the country, and really effectively shows their gradual disillusionment.

At times the book made me angry, even though I am well aware of the political history--the personal histories pack a punch.  The regime's callous attitude toward famine in the mid-late 1990s is maddening, such as the rousing slogan "Let's Eat Two Meals a Day."  One of the defectors was a doctor, and she recalls the many people she saw die, the telltale signs of protruding stomachs and lethargy.  When she snuck into China it was a revelation: "But now she couldn't deny what was staring her plainly in the face: dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea" (p. 220).  Another defector soon realized after reaching South Korea that his head and body were out of proportion because of severe malnutrition during his growing years.

The "ordinary lives" of the title is true. These people had no political positions and were not opposing the regime as such. They just didn't want to die of starvation and in different ways had caught a glimpse of the outside world.  And only a glimpse was necessary to let them know that virtually everything they heard from the government was a lie.

For one of the North Koreans, Kim Il-Sung's death was the turning point, and her response as it became clear that no change would occur really sums the situation up nicely:

As she sat alone in the apartment, the enormity of it all started to sink in. Any hope that the North Korean regime might change with the death of Kim Il-sung was quickly dashed. The power had passed to his son. Things weren't going to get any better. She heard her father's words replaying in her ears. "The son is even worse than the father."

"Now we're really fucked," she said to herself.

Unfortunately, yes.  And yet defecting didn't solve things either, because they found they had few skills, jobs were not easy to find, people took advantage of them, and some had siblings back in North Korea who were sent to prison camps as punishment for their defection. With North Korea, it is hard to find happy endings.

Read more...

British view of US and Latin America

Refreshing to see a British citizen testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.  Michael Reid is the Americas editor for The Economist.  It is good for members of Congress to hear things like the following:

This problem is in part externally generated, by the failure of prohibition to reduce substantially demand for illegal drugs in the United States and Europe, and by the failure of the United States to prevent the export of small arms or take more effective action against money-laundering. The committee should not underestimate the extent to which the United States is seen as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, of violent crime in Latin America.

It is also good for them to hear a reminder that even if you do not like Hugo Chávez, employing provocative measures backfires.

Read more...

HB 87 in Georgia

Effects of Georgia's immigration law:

• Legal workers are staying away from farms, which cannot fill needed positions

• Business in other states are mobilizing to try and prevent similar laws from being passed

• We are finding out that convicts don't particularly like farm work (and a former mayor compares the strategy to slavery)

• The state is paying a lot to lawyers (here is the 79 page legal challenge to the law)

• We are seeing a split--though small--among Republicans, and questions about whether these state laws violate conservative principles

• Local law enforcement officials are saying they won't immediately enforce the law

I am guessing these were not the desired outcomes for the law's supporters.

Read more...

Human trafficking and ideology

The State Department's 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report is a disturbing read.  Beyond the horrific details, however, I was amused to see how ideology colors the Latin America entries.  Many countries are portrayed as not combating human trafficking enough, but making strides in that regard.  But it comes as no surprise that the countries viewed as neither combating nor making strides are the U.S. government usual suspects: Cuba, Ecuador, and Venezuela (though this time around Bolivia gets a pass).

It doesn't really matter what any particular State Department report is about.  They could issue one focused on the number of clowns per capita, or which countries have the best beaches: Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela will be found to be noncompliant.

Read more...

MLB and immigration

The Associated Press' sports columnist has a scathing critique of Bud Selig, MLB and also the players union for their silence on the Arizona immigration law.  See my last post (and link to another scathing critique) here.  He argues that MLB is hoping the courts will take action so that it doesn't have to bother.  The MLB spokesman backs that theory up:

"Our position on the law hasn't changed. We oppose it as written and that won't change until the courts decide what the law is," he said. "But we think the All-Star game is a chance to celebrate the contribution of all baseball players - including our international players."

That's pretty weak.  Once the courts rule, then they will support it regardless of the ruling?

And the question remains--will Adrian Gonzalez boycott the All-Star game or not?

Read more...

The Hugo Chávez saga

Hugo Chávez has now been absent from Venezuela (and he hasn't been seen since June 10) long enough to generate rumors of his death, then angry counter-responses that such rumors are coup-mongering.  Or was it prostate cancer? No, not cancer, and he'll be back by July 5!  And did he violate the constitution? No, he didn't, and stop dreaming!  There's nothing like a good presidential rumor, but these are just distractions from the more important issue, which is leadership.

Chávez's movement, and the PSUV more specifically, can actually become stronger if there is a collective effort to foster new leadership in response to this episode.  Chávez is not immortal [note: as a commenter noted, my original post incorrectly stated "mortal." I will go on the record that I do not believe Hugo Chávez is a zombie or vampire.] and should not be viewed as indispensable.  As Steven Levitsky has written, Peronism has remained strong because of its flexibility--it has long outlived Perón because there was a structure that went beyond him as an individual and encouraged the cultivation of new leaders.  I am not saying that the PSUV copy Peronism exactly, but rather that there is an opportunity to a) strengthen the party; and b) become an effective loyal opposition at a future point in time when the party loses the presidency.

Hopefully there is not any broad support for Adán Chávez's call for guerrilla warfare.

Read more...

Juan Gabriel Vásquez's The Informers

Juan Gabriel Vásquez's The Informers annoyed me at times.  It sagged in the middle, but is beautifully written and engaging enough to continue on.  The plot centers on Colombia during and just after World War II, as Germans (both Jews and Nazis) arrived and sought refuge.  The main character Gabriel Santoro published a book on the topic, based on the story of a family friend.  His father, a famous professor of rhetoric, trashed the book publicly, and the novel is about Gabriel gradually understanding why.

Colombia had U.S.-provided blacklists for Nazi sympathizers, which is critical to the story.  One family in particular was informed on, and the father's career--and life--destroyed.  The overarching theme is that we choose to say some things and keep other things hidden, and that words (or the absence of them) have tremendous and sometimes terrible consequences--imprisonment, murder, suicide.  That sounds banal, but Vásquez is very good at avoiding cliches, and weaving it into the extreme violence of Colombian political history (Jorge Eliécer Gaitán is a recurring reference).  Gabriel constantly has to face a question from many different people: "You oblige people to know what they might not want to know.  Why?" (p. 275).  He has no good answer.

The last part of the book is worth getting to, as the characters try to make sense of why some people choose to say some things and refuse to say others.

Read more...

Ethanol

It's been a few years since U.S. ethanol subsidies have generated chatter (remember all of those Fidel Castro op-eds?).  In the wake of the vote in the U.S. Senate to remove subsidies for corn-based ethanol, the New York Times has a very good op-ed.  The upshot is that it is costly, drives up food prices, and serves no good economic purpose.

Eating up just a tenth of the corn crop as recently as 2004, ethanol was turbocharged by legislation in 2005 and 2007 that set specific requirements for its use in gasoline, mandating steep rises from year to year. Yet another government bureaucracy was born to enforce the quotas.

To ease the pain, Congress threw in a 45-cents-a-gallon subsidy ($6 billion a year); to add another layer of protection, it imposed a tariff on imported ethanol of 54 cents a gallon. That successfully shut off cheap imports, produced more efficiently from sugar cane, principally from Brazil

Here is perhaps the most incredible part: Because of the subsidy, ethanol became cheaper than gasoline, and so we sent 397 million gallons of ethanol overseas last year. America is simultaneously importing costly foreign oil and subsidizing the export of its equivalent.

That’s not all. Ethanol packs less punch than gasoline and uses considerable energy in its production process. All told, each gallon of gasoline that is displaced costs the Treasury $1.78 in subsidies and lost tax revenue.

Meanwhile, the Latin Business Chronicle notes that Brazil has a friend in the Tea Party.  For the first time ever, there are congressional interests potentially strong enough to overcome the longtime obeisance to farm states like Iowa.  This is also a reminder of how screwy our system of presidential primaries is.

Read more...

Journalism and Haiti

Spend about 7 minutes to watch Franco Ordoñez from the Charlotte Observer talk about the importance of journalism and how it relates to his experiences in Haiti.  He came and talked to my U.S.-Latin American relations class during the spring semester and students really responded.

Read more...

E-Verify in North Carolina

North Carolina doesn't get the attention of Al-Jazeera very often, but Governor Bev Perdue signed a law requiring counties, cities, and employers to use E-Verify.  Here is the text of the bill.

I've written about E-Verify many times--here are some basic facts; here and here are some of its problems.  It is guaranteed that citizens or legal residents will get falsely flagged and employers will be burdened.

If there is one thing we've learned from the Immigration Reform and Control Act, it is that immigration laws--indeed, like any other laws--create certain unintended incentives for immigrants and employers alike.  In this particular bill, there are two important caveats that may well reduce the impact of the law.  In fact, one of the bill's sponsors believes that in its final form the law will only cover about 20% of the state's businesses.

First, the requirement does not apply to seasonal workers who are hired for 90 days or less during a 12 month consecutive period.  That could ease pressure on farms, and could create an incentive for workers to bounce around farms in a particular part of the state, leaving at the 90 day mark.

Second, it also does not apply to businesses with less than 25 employees.  That will exclude quite a few service industries--landscaping and house cleaning, for example--and could further encourage subcontracting, which is already happening.  If you go to a large company like Home Depot to purchase some service, like flooring, they will hire a <25 employee firm to do the actual work.

However, one concern about the bill is that it does not require employers to check current employees.  Thus, if an employee is in the country illegally, he or she has a strong incentive to remain in that position indefinitely, which means the employer can treat him or her very poorly with no accountability.

Stay tuned.

Read more...

Juxtaposition: Immigration

An immigration reform bill was introduced in the Senate, and I found it interesting that Fox News Latino ran a story that spun it in a very favorable light:

Top Senate Democrats launched on Wednesday another bid to pass a comprehensive immigration reform they say will enhance U.S. economic productivity and national security even as it provides a path to legalization for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

That made me wonder how the regular Fox News website framed the story, so I went to check.  In fact, they chose not to mention the bill at all.  Instead, the top story today under immigration began with the following:

For the first time, minorities make up a majority of babies in the U.S., part of a sweeping race change and growing age divide between mostly white, older Americans and predominantly minority youths that could reshape government policies.

Very telling.

Read more...

Guns in Mexico

The State Department announced new initiatives to combat arms trafficking in Latin America.  The key part of that is to trace firearms, including the use of eTrace in Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico.

This is all to the good, though it is hampered by national-level realities.

First, the General Accounting Office has already noted that working with Mexico on tracing is difficult because a) U.S. agencies do not work together well; and b) corruption within Mexican institutions makes it harder to develop effective relationships.

Second, gun laws in the United States are extraordinarily permissive, whereas in Mexico they are extremely restrictive.  So you can trace weapons all you like, but there will still be strong pressure for their southward movement.  Hopefully e-Trace could provide better information about precisely where guns are coming from, but that will be useful primarily as a way to crack down on the sources of those guns.  [On the other hand, see Sylvia Longmire's post about a report from the U.S. Senate, as she disagrees that it would make any difference anyway.]

In any case, it looks like pressure is building in the U.S. Congress to do something.  However, the controversy over Fast and Furious, where ATF allowed high-powered weapons to go to Mexico as a way to track them, shows how bad policy is worse than no policy.

Read more...

Ecuador and China

Is your debt increasing? Your bills piling up?  Are you getting turned down for loans because you could not pay up?

Don't let it get you down.  Turn that frown upside down and call China!  They'll help, no questions asked.  Dozens of happy less developed countries agree.  Just open up access a bit to your natural resources, and the cash starts flowing in!

Ecuador's total foreign debt in April was $14.07 billion, up 3% from $13.67 billion in the same month of 2010, the central bank said.

The amount is equivalent to 23% of Ecuador's $62 billion gross domestic product forecast for 2011.

According to the bank, the country's public debt totaled $8.78 billion in April, up 15% from $7.65 billion a year earlier.

The April public debt figure is equal to about 14% of GDP.

Private-sector debt, meanwhile, stood at $5.29 billion, down 12% from the $6.02 billion posted in April 2010.

Ecuador has lacked access to financial markets since President Rafael Correa defaulted on $3.2 billion in foreign loans in 2008, but the Andean country has opened the door to China as Ecuador's leading lender.

Recently, Finance Minister Patricio Rivera said Ecuador is negotiating a $2 billion loan with China to finance several projects.

Read more...

The Past and Future of the OAS

From The Guardian:

Diplomats from the United States and the whole of Latin America (except Cuba) will be meeting in Lima today to discuss the future of the Organisation of American States. The OAS is a vast, cumbersome, bureaucratic concern, generally recognised to be a child of the cold war. It is staffed by those who prefer the sumptuous salaries of an international organisation to the less regular rewards of a career in Latin American politics.

...

Now, after a decade of insignificance, the whole future of the OAS is coming up for discussion. An impressively named "Special Committee for the Reorganisation of the Inter-American System" will be debating what can be done. It has been clear for some years that the American-inspired attempt to isolate and blockade Cuba from the rest of the continent could not be continued indefinitely.

...

The construction of a new international organisation of the States to the south of the Rio Grande, excluding the US, is a logical development of the prodigious growth of Latin American nationalism in the past few years.

Actually, that was a Guardian archive from exactly 38 years ago: June 20, 1973.  It is quite remarkable that the same concerns are present today.  It is testament to how difficult it is to a) reform large international bureaucracies; and b) create new institutions (like UNASUR) that can realistically replace old ones.

Read more...

MLB and Latinos

The New York Times has an article discussing the silence of Major League Baseball with regard to a) the anti-Latino legislation in Arizona when the All Star Game is going to be held there; and b) the general trend toward taking advantage of players from Latin America, especially those in "baseball plantations" (what a great phrase).

The upshot is that MLB rightfully lionizes Jackie Robinson, but sees him as an historical figure rather than a symbol of an ongoing struggle.

Adrian Gonzalez, the former Padre who is one of my favorite players, has said he is considering boycotting the All Star Game.  He is now (unfortunately for the Padres) on the high-profile Red Sox and is currently first in the AL in batting average, and second in OBP, slugging, and WAR.  He is also highly respected so if he boycotted and others followed suit, it would make a big statement.  It would not be a statement from MLB, but a statement nonetheless.

Read more...

War on the war on drugs

The "War on Drugs" began 40 years ago today, and there are a slew of op-eds and articles criticizing it (including an NYT op-ed by Jimmy Carter).  It is telling that there are no such examples praising it.

In fact, the vast majority of Americans believe this "war" has failed.  From an April 2011 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll:

"We are losing the drug war" (74% Agree, 20% Disagree, 6% Unsure)

"We will never be able to stop drugs from coming into this country because the demand for drugs is so high in the U.S." (74% Agree, 24% Disagree, 2% Unsure)

This is consistent with many past polls.  There is no consensus about precisely what we should do, but there is broad agreement that what we're currently doing has not worked.

The more vocal opposition to drug policy has coincided with the increase of violence in Mexico.  There may well be a correlation.  A high level of violence in, say, Colombia, does not get the attention of the U.S. public, whereas in Mexico it does.

Read more...

Military intervention in Latin America

I have to disagree partially with RAJ about her assessment of this CSIS report on Latin American civil-military relations, authored by Howard Wiarda, a political scientist who has worked for many years on political culture in Latin America.  His essential argument in this report is that in many Latin American countries military intervention is constitutional.  That actually should not be particularly controversial, as it has been analyzed in countless studies (Wiarda, for example, cites Brian Loveman, who has written a ton on this).  Among many others, Wiarda should have cited Alfred Stepan, who I quoted here not long after the Honduras coup.

Where she is exactly right, however, is on Wiarda's interpretation of the Honduras coup of 2009, as he reiterates false arguments that continue to float around despite many refutations.  Clearly the thrust of Wiarda's argument is that Mel Zelaya's removal was completely justified.

What I would also add is that he makes a leap from "constitutional" to "legitimate."  There are two problems:

First, this does not differentiate between elites feeling intervention is legitimate versus the country as a whole.  For example, Honduran elites clearly loved the coup but polls showed the larger population did not.

Second, it suggests that the U.S. and OAS should do nothing.  The fact that Latin American constitutions still have anti-democratic articles should be alarming rather than a source of apathy in the face of violence.  The fact that he cites Ronald Reagan as the first president to promote democracy in Latin America gives you a sense of the policy implications of the argument.

Read more...

Oil in Colombia

The International Energy Agency says the world will be turning more to Latin America for oil:

Saudi Arabia and a handful of other mostly Middle Eastern countries with excess production capacity will have to supply more oil, but global markets will need to rely increasingly on producers outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. With production declining in Mexico and the North Sea, the energy agency suggested that Canada, Brazil, the United States and Colombia would need to take up the slack.

Coincidentally, I was just discussing Colombia in my summer Latin American politics course and showed this graph.  Colombia is in a very good position to take advantage of this development.

Read more...

Tom Gjelten's Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

There are really two parts to Tom Gjelten's Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba (2008).  The first is a history of Cuba from the 1860s to the 1960s, centered on Bacardi and the city of Santiago.  The second is a narrative of how Bacardi became global and also obsessed with fighting Fidel Castro.  The Bacardi company went from being an icon of Cuba to a conglomerate struggling to maintain a Cuban identity.

The first part is excellent.  Bacardi was in the middle of fighting against Spain and then later against Fulgencio Batista (who did everything he could to either entice or compel the company to support his government).  Gjelten's describes a company that took tremendous pride in Cuba, and was even grudgingly admired by Marxist union leaders for its positive relations with labor (p. 125).  Pepín Bosch, the president at the time of the revolution, even supported Fidel Castro until it became clear that there would be no autonomous political and economic space in the country.  Bacardi was so enmeshed in Cuba that Raúl Castro married the daughter of a Bacardi executive (Velma Espín).

Bacardi was a living example of how a homegrown Cuba industry could become global to the point that the word "Bacardi" immediately brings up the image of rum.  Ironically, it took the revolution to really launch that global brand.  Bacardi already had plants in Puerto Rico and Mexico, in large part as a result of concern about unstable political conditions before Fidel even became prominent, but it grew exponentially only after leaving Cuba entirely.

The second part of the book is interesting, but not as convincing.  Gjelten gives the company a pass when it comes to its association with terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles.  Despite Bosch's support for the Bay of Pigs and other endeavors, and even helping to launch Jorge Mas Canosa's political career, Gjelten somehow comes to the conclusion that "Bacardi as a corporate entity had largely steered clear of Washington politics around the Cuba cause" (p. 331) until the 1990s.  That is a stretch.

At times Gjelten acknowledges a dilemma of focusing on the Bacardis as a way to understand Cuban political development: "The Bacardis were white, upper-class Cubans, and it is impossible to generalize from their lives to the experiences of the whole Cuban people, a great many of whom were poor (p. 350).  But "they did love their country and were generous citizens."  Yet over time Bacardi shifted from a nationalism independent of (and even skeptical of) the United States toward one that depends largely on U.S. legislation and legal decisions to defend its claims.  Since 1959 both Cuba and Bacardi have changed a lot.

Read more...

Cuban defection

This is certainly not a Charlotte story you read every day.  A Cuban soccer player, Yosniel Mesa, defected after a Gold Cup game downtown (or, as it is called here, uptown).  He said he was defecting for economic reasons (i.e. the ability to play professionally) rather than political.  There is also a very sad side to the story:

Mesa left his young daughter and her mother behind in Cuba, he said. He didn't tell them he hoped not to return. "She's five years old. She wouldn't have understood," Mesa said of his daughter.

In all, it is unfortunate that in the 21st century there is still such a thing as defection.

Read more...

Alabama law

An article in Salon about the Alabama immigration law.  As I noted last week, its main beneficiary will be lawyers.  But also very apparent is how it seeks to target and even criminalize citizens.  If you are a landlord, you can be charged with a crime if you screw up.  If you are an elected official, you can be sued.  If you are a citizen of the United States, you can be dragged to jail if you happen to be outside without your ID.

As much as people try to deny race is involved, check out this Allstate/NationalJournal Heartland Monitor Poll.  When asked about demographic change that has increased the Hispanic population, people were given two different statements to assess.  50% of all respondents, 53% of whites, and 51% of African Americans, and in fact even 34% of Hispanics agreed with the following:

These trends are troubling because the population change in this country is happening too quickly and causing fundamental changes to the character and values of the United States at a time when the country is already faced with high unemployment and many Americans are living at or below the poverty line.

Read more...

North Carolina immigration legislation

The News & Observer has a rundown on pending legislation in North Carolina.  It is "crossover," which means a deadline by which legislation (or at least legislation not based on taxation and spending) must pass at least one house in order to become law this year or to be considered next year.  Here are the relevant bills related to immigration:

SB205: Lists documents people must use in applying for public benefits and makes it a misdemeanor for public employees who administer public benefits to fail to report immigration violations. Passed the Senate

HB33: Prohibits governments from accepting the matricula consular as ID. Passed the House.

HB36: Businesses in North Carolina with more than 25 employees would have to use the E-Verify federal database to determine that new hires are legal citizens of the United States. Passed the House.

Under education, there is another one intended to target children of undocumented parents:

HB744: Requires a birth certificate and immunization record before a child is enrolled in kindergarten. Passed the House.

Given Republican majorities, I have to think these will pass.  Governor Bev Perdue, a Democrat, has vetoed other bills but her views on immigration are fairly restrictionist.

This may get ugly.

Read more...

Venezuelan debt

Despite high oil prices, Venezuelan debt has been increasing, and now Hugo Chávez wants to raise the debt ceiling to issue bonds over $20 billion rather than $12 billion.  It is interesting to note that in 2007 he wanted decree powers in part so that he could decrease the debt. Regardless, Venezuela has a lot of reserves but still its debt is viewed as risky.

One irony is that despite his rhetorical attacks on capitalism, with high interest rates Hugo Chávez has been making a lot of people rich.

Read more...

Immigrants and skills

A new study will show that higher skilled immigrants outnumber lower-skilled.  Rather breathlessly, the Washington Post article asserts that the finding "could have profound political and economic implications in the national debate over immigration."

This is an interesting finding but I don't see how it will have any implication except at the margins.  The debate over immigration is focused squarely on undocumented immigrants, who have less education and fewer skills.  The debate will remain there regardless of the skilled/unskilled ratio.

Read more...

A peach of an immigration law

This is yet another sign of how ill-conceived many state immigration policies are.  Georgia already just passed a restrictionist law and the governor was quite proud of it.  Just one hitch: Georgia farmers are certain it will hurt them because it will drive away their only source of labor.  So after signing the bill into law and saying how great it is, the governor now says he needs an expedited study of its impact on farmers and said "he wants to get beyond anecdotal evidence and look at actual numbers."

Yes, you heard that right.  Neither the governor nor anyone else in the Georgia legislature ever looked at "actual numbers" when making a sweeping immigration law.

h/t Bender's Immigration Bulletin

Read more...

Aftermath of Peru election aftermath

--The stock market recovers

--Sebastián Piñera calls Ollanta Humala even before the results were official

--The Obama administration says it is ready to work with Humala

--Juan Manuel Santos calls Humala and calls his victory a step more toward consolidating democracy

Now of course we wait to see how he governs (he takes office on July 28).  But after all the excitement and crazy conspiracy theories, all this calm reaction is downright boring.

Read more...

Peru election aftermath

Given all the uncertainty, I was surprised when the presidential race in Peru was called rather quickly and overnight has changed very little.

The current results, with 88.4% counted, is Ollanta Humala with 51.28% and Keiko Fujimori with 48.72%.

Initial thoughts:

--The number of spoiled or blank ballots is 5.8%, which is lower than predicted.  When push came to shove, Peruvians did want to choose.

--There are plenty of news stories about jittery market but interestingly, JP Morgan says "buy Peruvian."

--There are no accusations of fraud and Keiko is telling her supporters to remain calm, so could this election turn out to be...normal?

Read more...

Peer reviewing & two solutions

A discussion at Crooked Timber (started here) made me think of a recent editor's note in the American Political Science Review.  First, a snippet of the blog post:

All the editors who took part in the roundtable observe that it is increasingly difficult to find referees. This confirms my experience as an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics, and also reflects the crazy number of requests I get to review papers from all sorts of journals, and also on papers where I strongly doubt I have special expertise. So I’ve been wondering for a long time: is this system sustainable? Is there a way to reward referees, or another way to create positive incentives for refereeing (whether material or immaterial)? Or is there no need to ‘fix the system’?

This has various parts to it, but as a journal editor for the past five years I actually disagree with the first part.  It has always been difficult to get reviewers, and I read plenty on Twitter, Facebook, Political Science Job Rumors, etc. from people complaining about how many review requests they receive.

That brings me to the APSR.  I was really struck by, and very much identify with this note from the editors in the February 2011 issue.

On a less happy note, we continue to experience some very late or ultimately non-responsive referees. We urge those referees who are not sure they can complete the review in time to decline, rather than accept and then run far over deadline-or, if unforeseen circumstances arise, to let us know so that we may assign another referee. And we welcome authors' inquiries about delay, which often spur us (and dilatory referees) into action.

People who cannot be bothered to finish reviews should never accept them in the first place.  Authors complain about the length of time the review process takes, but very often this is the result of waiting (while also bugging the authors) for late reviews or simply waiting for potential reviewers to respond in the first place.  The fact that the flagship journal in political science suffers from this shows how pervasive this is (whether it is more pervasive than in the past is open to debate).

In short, we want journals to complete the review process quickly and publish our scholarship but at the same time we screw up that process for everyone else.  I can easily imagine someone missing a deadline for a review while simultaneously emailing an editor to ask what is taking so long.

This brings me to the question of incentives mentioned in the Crooked Timber post.  Unfortunately, I cannot think of any.  It would be nice if reviewers could be paid, as they are for reviewing full-length book manuscripts, but that is obviously impossible.  Ideally, quality reviews could be submitted with other materials as part of the merit process in individual departments.  Even that, though, could only go so far.

Is the process sustainable?  Yes, there is no doubt in my mind that it is.  If two things happened, the process could be improved considerably, and neither is difficult.

First, editors need to search harder for reviewers.  Yes, it is easiest to either do a quick Google Scholar search or take a look at the TOCs of recent top journals but these tend to generate the same names over and over.  There are lots of very qualified reviewers that are not burned out and some, in fact, even email me and ask that I keep their name in mind when an article on X topic is submitted.

Second, if you are asked to do a review and cannot, then always make it a point to suggest at least one other name to the editor.  Further, for those reviewers with Ph.D. programs, suggest your advanced graduate students.  Almost without fail, those reviewers are deeply immersed in the literature and conscientious, which leads to high quality reviews.  Even just one name to the editor speeds up the process a lot.

Read more...

Alabama immigration bill

The Alabama legislature passed a law that goes even further than Arizona.  For example, if you act nervously in front of police then that is reasonable suspicion that you are in the country illegally.  The ACLU has already announced it will challenge it in court.

The chief sponsor of the bill said that it is a "jobs-creation bill for Americans."  That is not true.  Instead, it will be a "jobs-creation bill for American lawyers."

Read more...

Noriega on Humala

Thanks to one of my students for pointing out this video on Univision about Roger Noriega.  In an effort to derail Ollanta Humala's candidacy at the last minute, Noriega decided to accuse Ollanta Humala of receving money from Hugo Chávez.  He says he has a report with credible sources, but of course refuses to allow anyone to see it.

Remember that it was only a few days ago that Noriega claimed there was a plot to make Honduras a base for Hezbollah.

Read more...

Piñera needs more miners

Sebastián Piñera really needs some more trapped miners because they brought his approval ratings to a high, but they are now down to 36% with 56% negative.  Instead, he has the HidroAysén controversy and protests.  The big question now is whether that, like the miners, will only have a short term effect.  Check out his roller coaster, which is speeding downhill.

Read more...

Thoughts on the Peru election

A few general thoughts on the Peru election:

First, we need to be careful about claiming a tightening race means much more than that close races tend to tighten as election day nears (presidential races in the United States, for example, often tighten).  On this point, see Otto's post about a risk group's (Eurasia) take on the tightening, which I would argue is little better than flipping a coin.

Second, much has been made of undecideds, as if they could really go either way.  This is debatable.  In the U.S., for example, there is ample evidence that most undecideds or self-proclaimed independents lean very definitely Republican or Democrat.  In the Peruvian case, these candidates are very far apart ideologically, and Peru is a very unequal country, so it is difficult to see too many people feeling genuinely undecided.  It is more likely that they are leaning, but choosing not to say which way.

Third, there is a broad assumption that poorer people will vote for Humala and those with more money will vote for Fujimori, but it is hard to predict who might simply spoil their ballot (in Peru, voting is compulsory so it is more likely to see spoiled ballots than abstention).  Jo-Marie Burt and Coletta Youngers argue that the current number is 7-12%.  That is a significant percentage, but it is hard to tell whether it favors one side or the other (or neither).

What does all this mean?  The unremarkable conclusion that it is a toss-up.

Read more...

Israeli lobbying in Latin America

There was a flurry of analyses last year when Brazil recognized a Palestinian state and other Latin American governments followed suit.  The Jerusalem Post has a very detailed (and seriously realpolitik) discussion of Israel's current lobbying strategy to ensure that Latin American governments don't vote that way at the UN.  The idea is to ensure that 60 countries vote against statehood or abstain, and that if a bunch of tin-pot dictatorships vote in favor, it doesn't really matter too much.

Israel might also float an alternative plan that could siphon off votes.  The articles makes no pretense that such a plan would be serious--indeed, it uses the word "wink"!  It would just need to get enough votes to thwart the Palestinians.

Regardless, Israel will pay particular attention to Chile, Peru, and Uruguay, which recognized a Palestinian state but were vague on the borders, and convince them not to vote in favor.  It is hoping that Mexico will be able to influence Central America as well.

Read more...