What is responsible for the persistance of underdevelopment in rural Latin America? Merilee S. Grindle analyzes the role of public policies in stimulating agrarian change in Latin America from 1940 to 1980. Assessing the cases of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil, she concludes that state policies aimed at promoting development or reform have played critical and multifaceted roles in shaping current conditions. In focusing specifically on the motivations and actions of state planners and policy makes, Grindle provides an alternative to traditional class analysis. Since 1940, Latin American countries have inervened extensively in rural areas to encourage agricultural modernization and rural development. Attempts to "stimulate economic growth, engender social peace, and expand the influence of the state apparatus," Grindle writes, "are closely linked to efforts by state elites to enhance the sustainability of the regime in power." The state does not automatically reflect and reinforce class relationships, but have "a variable capacity for autonomous decision making and have specific interests to achieve that may bring it into conflict or bargaining relationships with dominant class interests in society." State prescriptions for agricultural modernization have been more concerned with productivity than with equity. Moreover, the task of shaping policy is complicated by the fact that previous development policies supported the emergence of a small class of agrarian entrepreneurs who acquired the economic and political power to demand continued favorable treatment from the state. When policies such as agrarian reform and rural development are promoted, Grindle indicates, they are utilized primarily to increase social control and manage political protest rather than to redistribute land or improve living standards among the rural poor.

The 1980s and 1990s posed great challenges to governments in Latin America and Africa. Deep economic crises and significantly heightened pressure for political reform severely taxed their capacity to manage economic and political tasks. These crises pointed to an intense need to reform the state and redefine its relationship to the market and civic society. This book examines the paradox of states that have been weakened by crisis just as their capacity to encourage economic development and provide for effective governance most needs to be strengthened. Case studies of Mexico and Kenya allow the author to analyse the opportunities available for political leadership in moments of crisis, and the constraints on action provided by leadership goals and existing political and economic structures. She argues that while leaders and political structures are often part of the problem, they can also be part of the solution in building more efficient, effective, and responsive states.

What is the role of history in the life of new democracies? In this volume, twelve reflections-the work of journalists, writers and poets, literary critics, political scientists, historians, philosophers, economists, and linguists-explore legacies of authoritarian political regimes noted for repression and injustice, questioning how collective experiences of violence shape memory and its relevance for contemporary social and political life in Latin America. The past matters deeply, the essayists agree, but the past itself is debatable and ambiguous. Avoiding its repetition introduces elusive and contested terrain; there are, indeed, many histories, many memories, and many ways they can be reflected in democratic contexts. In much of contemporary Latin America, this difficult past has not yet been fully confronted, and much remains to be done in reconciling memory and democracy throughout the region. As this is done, the lessons of the past must contribute not only to the construction of democratic institutions, but also to the engagement of democratic citizens in the collective work of governance and participation.

The fiftieth anniversary of the 1952 Revolution in Bolivia offered an opportunity to explore contrasting visions about change in this often overlooked country from a comparative perspective. Blending the approaches of history and the social sciences, the chapters in this volume examine both implicitly and explicitly the extent to which the process opened by the uprising of April 1952 is comparable to the great radical transformations that occurred elsewhere during the twentieth century. The question of historical memory, the origins of the revolution in the political economy and culture of the towns, mines and countryside, and the extent to which the political process after 1952 shaped new interpretations of the country's place in the world are all analysed by leading scholars from Bolivia, the USA and the UK. Full and critical attention is given to the consequences of the revolution over fifty years, with assessments of the parties, structures and policies shaping economic, political and social conditions at the start of the twenty-first century.

The 1980s and 1990s posed great challenges to governments in Latin America and Africa. Deep economic crises and significantly heightened pressure for political reform severely taxed their capacity to manage economic and political tasks. These crises pointed to an intense need to reform the state and redefine its relationship to the market and civic society. This book examines the paradox of states that have been weakened by crisis just as their capacity to encourage economic development and provide for effective governance most needs to be strengthened. Case studies of Mexico and Kenya allow the author to analyse the opportunities available for political leadership in moments of crisis, and the constraints on action provided by leadership goals and existing political and economic structures. She argues that while leaders and political structures are often part of the problem, they can also be part of the solution in building more efficient, effective, and responsive states.

This book addresses the broader questions of how both the content and the context of public policy affect its implementation. Through a series of case studies from Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Zambia, Kenya, and India, ten scholars here demonstrate that numerous factors intervene between the statement of policy goals and their actual achievement in society. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Many developing countries have a history of highly centralized governments. Since the late 1980s, a large number of these governments have introduced decentralization to increase democracy and improve services, especially in small communities far from capital cities. In "Going Local," an unprecedented study of the effects of decentralization on thirty Mexican municipalities, Merilee Grindle describes how local governments respond when they are assigned new responsibilities and resources under decentralization policies. She explains why decentralization leads to better local governments in some cases--and why it fails to in others.

Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, Grindle examines data based on a random sample of Mexican municipalities--and ventures into town halls to follow public officials as they seek to manage a variety of tasks amid conflicting pressures and new expectations. Decentralization, she discovers, is a double-edged sword. While it allows public leaders to make significant reforms quickly, institutional weaknesses undermine the durability of change, and legacies of the past continue to affect how public problems are addressed. Citizens participate, but they are more successful at extracting resources from government than in holding local officials and agencies accountable for their actions. The benefits of decentralization regularly predicted by economists, political scientists, and management specialists are not inevitable, she argues. Rather, they are strongly influenced by the quality of local leadership and politics.

This book addresses the broader questions of how both the content and the context of public policy affect its implementation. Through a series of case studies from Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Zambia, Kenya, and India, ten scholars here demonstrate that numerous factors intervene between the statement of policy goals and their actual achievement in society. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"Despite the Odds" poses an important question: How can we account for successful policy reform initiatives when the political cards are stacked against change? Theories of politics usually predict that reform initiatives will be unsuccessful when powerful groups are opposed to change and institutions are biased against it. This book, however, shows how the strategic choices of reform proponents alter the destinies of policy reforms by reshaping power equations and undermining institutional biases that impede change.

In many countries, the political path to reform can be daunting. Antireform interests are powerful and support for change is, at best, lukewarm. Centrally important institutions strongly defend the policy status quo. Despite these political odds, reformers have seized the initiative in promoting reform, weakening and marginalizing opposition groups, and marshaling political patrons and networks to advance their initiatives.

"Despite the Odds" opens the "black box" of decision making in five initiatives designed to enhance the quality of education services in Latin America. The book addresses the strategies used by reformers to manage the political process of change and those adopted by opposition groups and institutions resisting their efforts. Individual chapters consider how leaders set national policy agendas for education, how policy design teams created the content of reform initiatives, how they dealt with the messy and public confrontations that greeted reform proposals when they were announced, and the carryover of political conflict when they were implemented.

"Audacious Reforms" examines the creation of new political institutions in three Latin American countries: direct elections for governors and mayors in Venezuela, radical municipalization in Bolivia, and direct election of the mayor of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Diverging from the usual incremental processes of political change, these cases marked a significant departure from traditional centralized governments. Such "audacious reforms," explains Merilee S. Grindle, reinvent the ways in which public problems are manifested and resolved, the ways in which political actors calculate the costs and benefits of their activities, and the ways in which social groups relate to the political process.

Grindle considers three central questions: Why would rational politicians choose to give up power? What accounts for the selection of some institutions rather than others? And how does the introduction of new institutions alter the nature of political actions? The case studies of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Argentina demonstrate that institutional invention must be understood from theoretical perspectives that stretch beyond immediate concerns about electoral gains and political support building. Broader theoretical perspectives on the definition of nation and state, the nature of political contests, the legitimacy of political systems, and the role of elites all must be considered. While past conflicts are not erased by reforms, in the new order there is often greater potential for more responsible, accountable, and democratic government.

Patronage systems in the public service are universally reviled as undemocratic and corrupt. Yet patronage was the prevailing method of staffing government for centuries, and in some countries it still is. In Jobs for the Boys, Merilee Grindle considers why patronage has been so ubiquitous in history and explores the political processes through which it is replaced by merit-based civil service systems. Such reforms are consistently resisted, she finds, because patronage systems, though capricious, offer political executives flexibility to achieve a wide variety of objectives. Grindle looks at the histories of public sector reform in six developed countries and compares them with contemporary struggles for reform in four Latin American countries. A historical, case-based approach allows her to take into account contextual differences between countries as well as to identify cycles that govern reform across the board. As a rule, she finds, transition to merit-based systems involves years and sometimes decades of conflict and compromise with supporters of patronage, as new systems of public service are politically constructed. Becoming aware of the limitations of public sector reform, Grindle hopes, will temper expectations for institutional change now being undertaken.