Latin American Policy最新文献

This article explores the lobbying strategies conducted by the network of 53 Mexican consulates in the United States for the acceptance of the Consular Identification Card, matricula consular in Spanish, as a valid identification. The central objective of this strategy has been to provide a valid form of identification for Mexican nationals abroad, especially undocumented migrants, to facilitate their social and economic inclusion in the communities where they live, thus improving their quality of life. It analyzes how these strategies have been adapted and implemented to the different local contexts to maximize the probability of success. It seeks to answer two questions. What are the most important lobbying strategies used by Mexican consulates to promote the acceptance by US state and local governments of this identification card? Which of these strategies have been successful and why? The article analyzes the consular negotiation strategies with 3 groups of relevant actors in the United States, (1) local, state, and federal authorities; (2) the private sector, such as financial institutions; and (3) the Mexican diaspora. We argue that the success in the acceptance of this form of identification depends on the effective enactment of these 3 main consular lobbying strategies.

In 2018, Mexico's new government set the ambitious goal of recovering the energy sector's role as an economic engine within the framework of the development strategy known as the fourth transformation. The government defined the objective to achieve energy self-sufficiency for the sector and redesigned mechanisms such as energy and fiscal policy. Yet, the structural difficulties the industry faces generate uncertainty about the possibilities of achieving the objective defined by the government. Findings reveal some structural issues in the sector show slight improvements, such as gasoline production levels, whereas others, such as the energy transition process of the Mexican economy, have been delayed. This article aims to analyze the effects of the measures adopted by the current Mexican government regarding national energy security in the context of a resurgence of natural resource nationalism.

The resurgence of left-wing governments in Latin America since 2018 has prompted comparisons to the early 2000s Pink Tide movement. However, this study argues that the current left-wing administrations diverge significantly in their foreign policy approaches from the original Pink Tide. Utilizing a mixed-methods framework that combines foreign policy analysis with latent Dirichlet allocation topic modelling of presidential speeches, the research examines how domestic factors influence foreign policy decisions. The findings reveal that economic difficulties, escalating crime rates, political polarization, and fluctuating public approval are primary drivers compelling these governments toward more pragmatic and nationally focused foreign policies. This shift underscores a prioritization of domestic imperatives over regional ideological alignment, signaling a transformation from the Pink Tide's collective aspirations to individualized national strategies.

The article posits that the concept of technology policy maneuver helps to understand the different ways in which peripheral states may respond to the inducements and pressures of hegemonic powers to pursue a particular technology policy choice. Technology policy maneuver may or may not have a direction of alignment with the hegemon's preferences, depending on the state's foreign policy orientation and the existence of countervailing inducements and pressures by foreign states and related interest groups that offset those imposed by the hegemon. Moreover, the intensity of the policy state maneuver depends on the presence of a link between the country's foreign and national technology policies. This article illustrates technology policy maneuver by undertaking a comparative examination of three telecommunications policy choices made by different Argentine administrations—a digital TV standard, 5G, and Wi-Fi 6. These examples shed light on the kind of agency Argentine policymakers had amid hegemonic inducements and pressures.

This article explores how medicinal cannabis policy reforms in Colombia and Argentina evolved not through radical legislative overhaul but through incremental and contested adjustments during implementation. Drawing on the policy paradigms framework, we offer a Latin American application of recent conceptualizations that view paradigms not as fully formed at the time of adoption but as gradually constructed through actor responses to implementation anomalies—mismatches between policy expectations and real-world effects. Using comparative process tracing, we show how mid-level bureaucrats, civil society actors, and cannabis entrepreneurs reinterpreted these anomalies to revise instruments, redefine goals, and reshape ideas of legitimate medical cannabis use. In Colombia, a pharmaceutical, export-oriented paradigm was adjusted in response to market and bureaucratic bottlenecks by authorizing flower exports and tolerating informal access arrangements. In Argentina, civil society pressure led to reforms recognizing home and associative cultivation, culminating in an inclusive industrial legislation. These cases illustrate that implementation is not a neutral delivery phase but a key arena for paradigm construction and political contestation. The article contributes to scholarship on policy change, moral regulation, and cannabis governance by showing how post-decision reforms can recalibrate the content and direction of emerging policy paradigms.