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The author was born in Belgium in 1930 and has lived in Brazil since 1960. He has been a professor of church history at various theological institutions and now lives in Salvador, where he is a visiting professor at the Universidade Federal da Bahia. In his books, he is particularly sensitive to those sectors of the people who are marginalized and disempowered. On 24 October 1994, he visited the UNISA Centre for Latin American Studies where he gave this interview. (UNISA Lat Am Rep/DÜI)

A major question confronting analysts of Latin American labor concerns the relationships among unions, the state, and foreign powers. Many recent studies have focused on Central America and Mexico, while only a few have emphasized South America. This article offers the first case study of the early history of US involvement in Brazilian unions. Motivated by a rising tide of strikes in Brazil, early cold war worries about communist advances in Latin America, and the frankly imperial objective of exporting political values and institutional styles, US policymakers decided to teach Brazilians how to manage labor relations in order to maintain productivity, promote stability, and keep out communist agitators. (Lat Am Res Rev/DÜI)

In December 1990, after decades of dictatorship, the Haitian people overwhelmingly elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide as President. Every aspect of the election was monitored by international organizations and confirmed as "free and fair." Within months, the army, an ill-trained force of some five thousand men, seized power, expelled Aristide, and brutally suppressed popular protest. The Organization of American States and the United Nations Security Council condemned the coup and its aftermath and ordered economic sanctions to dislodge the military. The sanctions failed. On July 31, 1994, the Security Council, acknowledging the gravity of the situation and recognizing that an "exceptional response" was required, passed Resolution 940, authorizing military action. The legality and wisdom of Resolution 940 has been criticized on the following grounds.

In the early hours of 1994, a few hundred men and women of the Ejército Zapatista Liberación Nacional (EZLN) blocked the Pan American Highway between Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital of Chiapas, and San Cristóbal de las Casas and the road to Ocosingo, declaring war on Mexico's ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). This move signaled to the world that indigenous populations intended to make themselves heard at home and abroad as Mexico restructures its economy according to the neoliberal model promoted by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. The rebels captured and briefly held the municipal buildings in San Cristóbal, Altamirano, Las Margaritas, and Ocosingo. Speaking for the rebels, Subcomandante Marcos declared that their war was "a final but justified measure": "We have nothing, absolutely nothing. Not a decent roof, nor work, nor land, nor health care, nor education."

Inequality in the distribution of land has long been viewed as the social dynamite that has set off many peasant uprisings in the twentieth century. The most extensive study to date of modern guerrilla wars in Latin America, by Timothy Wickham-Crowley, found land tenure and the overall agrarian structure to be a common element in upheaval in Cuba, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua, and El Salvador (Wickham-Crowley 1992, 306–7). Samuel Huntington's classic book on development and stability articulated the explanation for these agrarian insurrections: "Where the conditions of landownership are equitable and provide a viable living for the peasant, revolution is unlikely. Where they are inequitable and where the peasant lives in poverty and suffering, revolution is likely, if not inevitable, unless the government takes prompt measures to remedy these conditions" (Huntington 1968, 375).

There is widespread concern for ethics in government, and news reports justify that concern. The public's emphasis, fueled by both accurate and inaccurate reporting, appears to center upon the conduct of elected officials. Some of that reporting is significant, and some is trivial. Professional literature tends to concentrate upon the bureaucracy. This article traces the history in general of ethical thought regarding public service in America and sketches attempts to require adherence to ethical standards. It concludes that—with notable exceptions and despite considerable insightful work from ethicists—the strongest reactions have often come in response to relatively trivial infractions and that prescriptions tend to be entirely negative. Such negative approaches are unlikely to result in significant improvement of ethics in public service, whether judged by standards of personal conduct or the even more important standard of institutional performance and integrity.

Not so long ago, nearly all African-Americans living in the United States were subject to a multitude of racial restrictions officially prescribed and enforced by state governments and their local subsidiaries. Most of the Jim Crow system dated from 1890–1910. By the middle of the twentieth century, this system was well established, so much so that many people assumed that it had always existed and that it expressed the timeless folkways of the South. However, in what strikes the historian as an astonishingly brief period during the 1950s and 1960s, the edifice was largely torn down. The puzzle is this: How could any institutional apparatus so deeply embedded, long-standing, and apparently strong be toppled so quickly? Although many scholars have discussed aspects of the puzzle, no one has offered a simple, clear, and compelling explanation. We aim to do so in this essay.

A central paradox of the modern American presidency is that citizens regularly call for strong presidential leadership while at the same time their political culture predisposes them to be reluctant followers.1 One of the ways contemporary presidents resolve this paradox is by invoking an electoral mandate. By persuading others that he possesses a mandate from the voters to pursue a particular policy agenda, a president can disguise his leadership under the pretense of simply carrying out "the will of the people." The presidential mandate thus enables presidents to lead while seeming to follow, to exercise power over people under the guise of empowering the people.

In what sense were the 1940s a turning point for the postwar development of the American state? This is an odd question since the decade is not usually considered a moment of lasting political transformation, as were the New Deal and the Great Society. Rather, it is more characteristically rendered as a period of political stalemate, memorably captured by Samuel Lubell's description of Harry Truman as "The Man Who Bought Time." Yet the choices of the 1940s have been recently characterized by Ira Katznelson and Bruce Pietrykowski as far more significant than hitherto understood. Out of the conflict and debate over the New Deal emerge, they argue, a rather "crisp choice … about the character of the national state," one that decided between alternative models of state-economy relationships.

TO THE INCREDULITY OF THE WORLD, PROSPEROUS CANADA STANDS YET AGAIN AT THE BRINK OF CONSTITUTIONAL COLLAPSE. TO RESOLVE THIS CRISIS ONCE AND FOR ALL, CANADA MUST DECIDE WHAT IT STANDS FOR. TRADITIONALLY, THE COUNTRY DISTINGUISHED ITSELF FROM ITS AMERICAN NEIGHBOR BY ITS KINDER, GENTLER SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAMS, NOW DISMAL FAILURES, AND BY ITS BILINGUAL NATIONAL CHARACTER, NOW THREATENED BY QUEBEC'S NEW SEPARATIST GOVERNMENT. BICULTURALISM SHOULD BE CANADA'S RAISON D'ETRE. IF QUEBEC SECEDES, ENGLISH CANADA SHOULD CONSIDER JOINING THE UNITED STATES. EITHER WAY, CANADA WILL BECOME A MORE PERFECT UNION.

Looks at changes in American perceptions of human rights abuses in China, up to and including the suppression of the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

Shows that fear of crime, especially, appears to be a relatively stable-if all too prevalent-phenomenon in American society. The data also demonstrate how difficult it is to characterize public opinion on crime in any simple way.

Examines ignorance about the Holocaust and denial of the Holocaust. Draws on all available American survey data dealing with Holocaust ignorance and denial.

Examines public concerns, political and media depictions of the nature of crime and of its solution, and community and individual actions to prevent crime; US and Great Britain; 12 articles. Topics include women, fear, community organizations, the racial fears of White Americans, crime and fear on campus, firearms, and self-defense.

The French language is identified as both the distinguishing characteristic of ethnic identity & the primary vehicle of ethnic assertiveness in Quebec nationalism. After surveying its origins, Quebec ethnonationalism is discussed in its current context -- a highly modern & democratic society. The modernization of Quebec identity linked it firmly with the French language. Because French-speaking Quebec includes only 2% of the North American population, many Quebecers feel linguistically insecure, which threatens their positive social identity; 70% know only French, although the % is lower in Montreal, which depends on its international connections. It remains unclear whether or not Quebec will become a sovereign state. Adapted from the source document.