In both Ecuador and Bolivia, the rhetoric of political inclusion is crashing into the politics of identity and collective rights. Both Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and Bolivian President Evo Morales and their broad, heterogeneous movements rode to power by tapping popular frustration over social and political exclusion and discrimination. Their...

Picture this: in a brief moment of reform, the veil of isolation is lifted over an autocratic island. Cubans are allowed to travel freely to visit relatives, breaking a half-century of lockdown to get a taste of the world outside. Realizing the risks that this whiff of exchange and travel...

The election guessing game in Peru has ended and now the Humala guessing game has begun. Will Ollanta Humala be the Peruvian equivalent of Venezuela's Chávez or Brazil's Lula? The answer, on which may hang Peru's torrid rates of economic growth--among the highest in the region--and web of...

Conservative critics have had a field day criticizing President Barack Obama's trip to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador this week. Former speaker of the House and now presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich implied the President was abdicating his leadership by taking the long-anticipated trip to Brazil,...

The people-power revolutions that ousted the decades-old autocratic governments of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and continue to rock the rest of the Middle East have prompted Cuba-watchers yet again -- to wonder when the last redoubt of Cold War dictatorship in the...

In contrast to the looming political fights over spending, healthcare repeal, and immigration, free trade could be a rare case where President Barack Obama can benefit from Republican control of the House of Representatives. After all, the pending Colombia and Panama free-trade agreements (FTAs) were originally negotiated by George W....

Latin America is changing. Do we have the intellectual tools and framework to deal with it?

From Brazil to Mexico, Latin America has found a new diplomatic muscle, asserting itself into international issues and all the while deepening ties with new trade partners from China to Russia....

I've never been one of those people who, in lamenting policy and politics in the U.S., builds up another country to disparage my own. Yet I must admit, this week I felt pangs of envy in hearing Québec officials talk with cool rationale about the economic calculations...

We hear it often: the rule of law is essential for investment. For over a decade, a legion of organizations and scholars--from the World Bank to Douglass North--have argued that if countries really want to develop they need to develop an independent, impartial, pro-market system for...

This week, from June 6 to 8, the Organization of American States (OAS) will hold its General Assembly with all the region's foreign ministers and secretaries gathering in Lima to discuss affairs in the hemisphere... well, almost. Last year the theme of the General Assembly, held in...

Asserting the democratic rule of law and recovering social peace is a difficult task, especially in places like Rio de Janeiro's favelas and Colombia's one-time, crime-ridden cities and war-torn countryside. Democratic and sustainable crime control means establishing state control in places where it has never been...

When it comes to Latin America, the Obama administration's change in tone from the early days of the last administration has been tremendously important. The emphasis on multilateralism has helped to salve long-standing wounds. The emphasis on broader social goals and the willingness to listen...

The occasional explosion of violence between native born-French and Northern African immigrants or the recent riots between African immigrants and Italian citizens in Calabria, Italy remind us that immigration is not just a U.S. phenomenon.  (The violence also reminds us that for all the ugliness of...

According to the UN Commission on Trade and Development over 60 percent of the population south of the Rio Grande is under 35 years old. Latin America's young people will have an impact on political stability and the economy not just in their home countries but also in the U.S.,...

Two recent crises have overtaken the U.S.'s broader policy framework and agenda for the region. First, there was the coup in Honduras, now the tragedy in Haiti. The first was a potentially avoidable political train wreck that ended up dividing the hemisphere, the latter, one of the worst humanitarian disasters...

With the 11th anniversary this week of President Hugo Chávez's ascension to power, I started reflecting on what I had learned from the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution. President Chávez's behavior and profile, internationally and nationally, provide a powerful lesson on how to challenge and defy traditional wisdom--and...

As Hondurans go to the polls this Sunday, months of negotiations and years of diplomatic precedent hang in the balance. The Obama administration hopes that the presidential elections will end the political crisis in Honduras. The deep divisions in Honduran society and the firmness with which most Latin American leaders...