The world desperately seeks alternative fuels to eradicate its reliance upon unsustainable oil extraction; however, emerging biofuel technology is contingent on a more precious natural resource: water. Essential in all stages of biofuel production, including growing, processing, and refining oil feedstocks, water still represents a vital necessity for the surrounding population. This research assesses the immediate and long-term impacts of the expanding palm oil biodiesel industry on local water availability and privatized water management in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and the surrounding Sula Valley. Analyzing regional changes in water accessibility and quality caused by the palm oil commerce, the report also explores the reasons behind the impending water scarcity in San Pedo Sula. Finally, the study examines the potential consequences of these transforming water realities on future water provision as well as possible service adaptations required of the privatized company.

How do legislatures develop or institutionalize? Our knowledge about legislative development is mostly based on studies of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. state legislatures. However, we know next to nothing about legislative development in the emerging democracies of Latin America. Given the need to develop effective democratic institutions in that region, it is critical to understand how institutions change and how legislatures in particular develop. In this study, I develop a model of legislative development that complements rational choice and path dependent explanations of change. In particular, this model provides an answer to the question: how does a legislative organization change into a legislative institution?In particular, I hypothesize that legislative development varies depending on the extent to which electoral and constitutional reforms balance executive-legislative power asymmetries. To test this hypothesis, I compare legislative development in Nicaragua (1979-2005) and Costa Rica (1871-2005). Central to the process of legislative development are: (1) power asymmetries between presidents and assemblies, (2) the rules and organizations that are established to balance these asymmetries, (3) how rules and organizations affect the development of the legislatures from simple, subordinate organizations into complex and autonomous institutions, and (4) how the broader social, political, and economic environment contributes to legislative development.I find that political actors do not act or function within an historical or contextual vacuum, nor does history and context alone determine political choices and outcomes. Instead, political actors function within rational, institutional, and historical boundaries, so an approach that incorporates aspects of both rational choice and path dependent explanations is preferable to existing models of legislative change. Therefore, part of my contribution is (1) to clarify the conceptual confusion surrounding institutions, organizations, and rules, and reduce ambiguity relating to their incorrect use in current scholarship; (2) to conceptualize legislative development as a process - not an outcome - that unfolds in a causally related sequence; and (3) to develop a Bounded Rationality Model that complements rational choice with path dependent explanations of legislative development to explain how organizations become institutions.

Despite the wide range of publications about Julio Cortázar, there is no study that specifically addresses the question: what does Cortázar mean by 'el hombre nuevo'? Based on a careful reading of two of his novels, Rayuela / Hopscotch and Libro de Manuel / A Manual for Manuel, my thesis defines 'el hombre nuevo' as Cortázar's attempt to establish a dialogue with the reader in order to invent together a new understanding of the human being. 'El hombre nuevo' involves an extended ontological search which is continued outside of the text, and the relationship author-reader goes beyond a dyadic model into the construction of a new community of new men and new women.

I propose and test a new model determining the choice of the exchange rate regime in Latin America and the Caribbean. The key insight is that systemic level instability plays an important role in choosing the exchange rate regime. Using new data from Reinhart and Rogoff (2004), a second insight is that countries do not always follow the type of exchange rate regime they claim. Testing the determinants of regime choice against both the traditional, official de jure and new, market de facto data, I find that policymakers are strategically using the observed gap between the measures. The evidence reveals that systemic level variables, namely instability in the US interest rate and the bilateral USD:DEM/Euro exchange rate, significantly impact the choice of the exchange rate regime.

The influence of globalization over legal systems has resulted in, among other effects, the emergence of transnational law and new international players, such as multinational corporations (MNEs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and numerous international entities. The dynamics of the new players within the new transnational legal order have generated a need for a new supranational system of dispute resolution. / The analysis focuses on the Latin American experience in adapting to judicial reform programs (sponsored by international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Development Bank) which promote the integration of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods into domestic legal systems, in order to integrate such systems into a supranational system of dispute resolution for the entire continent. / This study aims to explore various alternatives for preventing a continental supranational system of dispute resolution from undermining domestic democracies, while integrating developing countries into the process of commercial globalization.

The Haitian Revolution (1 791-1804) reshaped the debates about slavery and freedom in Europe, accelerated the abolitionist movement, precipitated rebellions in neighbouring territories, and intensified both repression and antislavery sentiment. Its long-term effects remain visible in the many representations, recuperations, and invocations of the Revolution as an exemplar of black agency. At the same time, the violence of the conflict led to portrayals of Haiti as unregenerate and primitive, a prey to 'voodoo' and lawlessness. Hence the recuperation of Haiti's political and cultural history, in which the establishment of the first postcolonial nation must be accounted for as a momentous event despite its ostensible failure, contests the tradition of imperial denigration. The thesis addresses how the Haitian Revolution followed by the establishment of a Black Republic, provided inspiration for writers, artists and intellectuals throughout the Atlantic Diaspora in diverse cultural and intellectual locations from the 1920s onwards. If public knowledge about Haitian history has for some time now been limited in Europe and North America, the Revolution has been a potent factor in black memory and it remains an inspiration to Carib beans, Africans, African Americans, and Latin Americans, as well as to radical intellectuals and artists worldwide. The thesis studies the writings generated by the Revolution in the works of Aime Cesaire, C. L. R. James, Rene Depestre, Langston Hughes, Edouard Glissant, Alejo Carpentier, Derek Walcott, and Madison Smartt Bell, spanning French, English, and Spanish, and including poetry, drama, history, biography, fiction, and opera; while in the visual arts it considers the paintings of Kimathi Donkor and commemorative postage stamps. My discussion addresses both critical understandings and fictional reinventions of the Revolution's achievement and tragic reversals. I examine the ideologies informing the analyses, and the aesthetics of the imaginative writings, where a political stance in some cases served to promote innovation and experimental style and in others was a constraint.

The purpose of this study was to identify pieces by Twentieth-Century Latin-American composers suitable for performance by Youth Orchestras in the United States. Scores available at the Indiana University Latin-American Music Center were primarily used. This allowed a more comprehensive search while limiting the scope of the study.Orchestral pieces were selected and examined for the study in order to provide insight into particulars of their individual styles and offer them together with pertinent information on the various composers.FindingsThe study identified five Latin-American composers who have written pieces suitable for performance by youth orchestras. The advantages of including Latin-American music in the repertoire of youth orchestras was demonstrated. Social, cultural and political as well as musical reasons for this inclusion were stated.Characteristics of the music of those countries that make it very attractive to young players were taken into consideration in the study, as well as the influence that hispanic traditions have exerted upon the culture of the United States for more than two centuries.It was demonstrated that this cultural interaction, stronger in certain regions of the country, offers added justification for the inclusion of Latin-American repertoire.The analysis of the works selected demonstrated the availability of works of quality that are suitable for performance by youth orchestras, even though they may not have been originally conceived with that in mind.Ancillary identification of information The nature and the author's knowledge of States.Theto the findings listed above was the of substantial omissions in primary sources and reference works consulted for the study. location of these omissions helped to confirm contention that there is very little general art music of Latin-America in the United study also revealed the need for updating current sources of information in order to include more references. The necessary might be to Latin-American composers and their music. project revealed that adjustments in some institutions, both in the United States and the neighboring countries, in order to promote better the music of Latin-American composers in this country. Also, in some cases, the standards of publication and/or copying of materials in the country of origin needs to be upgraded. / School of Music

More than thirty years after the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979, the women’s and feminist movement has developed into one of the country’s foremost social movements. However, some observers of Nicaraguan civil society claim that young people today are disengaged from political and social mobilization, unlike previous decades where they were a key demographic in the revolutionary cause. If true, the women’s and feminist movement may fail to attract new members and may cease to be a strong leader of women’s rights and democratic principles. This study seeks to further previous analyses of the movement by considering the perspective of its younger participants. As such, qualitative interviews were conducted with twenty young women members of the movement in the spring of 2011 to understand two questions: why do young women participate in the women’s and feminist movement in Nicaragua, and how do they view their role within the movement? The interviews suggest that 1) moral shock and framing, which were important in the recruitment of members to the revolutionary movement, are not as prevalent today; 2) feminist activism is still relevant for the younger generation though the term ‘feminism’ is ever changing; 3) the young participants in the women’s and feminist movement in Nicaragua are ensuring its continuity during a period which is largely unfavourable to its demands. The study is guided by two bodies of literature: the recruitment of individuals to social movements, and trends of generational change within women’s and feminists movements in English-speaking democracies. Additionally, it is framed by the history of social mobilization of women and youth throughout Nicaragua in the 20th century.

This is a study of government and governance in the Audiencia of Santa Fe during the last two decades of Habsburg rule and the first two decades of Bourbon rule, a period largely neglected by historians of New Granada and of Spanish America in general. However, it is not simply an administrative history. Rather than focus primarily on the structure of government and formal mechanisms of power and authority, this study aims, as the title indicates, to examine the political activity contained within the formal structure of institutions and laws. It looks at the ways in which institutions of government actually functioned within the society they were designed to govern and control, in other words the workings of government. These are themes which have been little studied by historians of the region, despite the importance which has been attached to the colonial state as a force which played a primary role in shaping New Granada's history. Studies of the colonial state have tended to portray it as a hierarchy of institutions, closely controlled from the centre, which developed as Spain's monarchs sought to legitimise their dominion and impose their control over the vast territories of the Americas. They have presented royal institutions of government in the Indies, the audiencia and provincial governors in the case of New Granada as the tools of an absolutist monarchy, employed by the Spanish crown to expand royal power over Spanish American subjects. The present study thus aims to challenge this picture by making detailed reference to contemporary documentation and taking into account recent research on early modern government and governance in areas outside New Granada. We will attempt to show that government in the Audiencia of Santa Fe was not a rigid structure but very political in nature.

In 1924 stevedores and other categories of dock workers in Georgetown, British Guiana, went on strike in response to a call by the British Guiana Labour Union (BGLU). In a demonstration of solidarity, estate workers from several sugar plantations along the East Bank of Demerara embarked upon a march to Georgetown. At Plantation Ruimveldt, the workers confronted a detachment of police officers and members of the military forces. As a result of an order to shoot into the crowd thirteen workers were killed and twenty-four wounded. The dissertation has been able to establish the '1924 Workers' Incident at Ruimveldt' as a watershed in Guianese working people's struggle by highlighting its prominence among other moments of overt resistance through its impact upon workers' organisation. The significance of the Incident is also brought out in the new relationship which developed between the British government, the Colonial Office and the British TUC, on the one hand, and the Guianese labour leaders on the other. In pursuit of this task, the dissertation addresses the following: the organisational structures of the working people at the formal and non-formal or 'street corner' levels; the leadership which emerged from the ranks of the working people and the middle class; the impact of 'grassroots' organisation in fostering working peoples' consciousness and co-operation among members of the major racial sections in the country; and their attempts to establish links with progressive individuals and organisations within Guiana and throughout the international community.