This thesis entitled "Le discours francais sur l'Amerique latine revolutionnaire (1950--1985)" proposes to analyze about thirty texts published in France during the mentioned period in order to extract the primary axis around which the hexagonal representations and discourses which examine Latin America articulate themselves. The corpus gathers chiefly novels and political essays, but it also includes anthropological essays, journalistic commentaries and testimonies. This is a study that relies on the theory of social discourse and on imagology. / This investigation, which perceives itself as an overview of the images elaborated by the French social discourse on Latin America, examines closely the historical moments when there are determinant discursive mutations. Therefore, from 1950 to 1961, a first manner of apprehending the Latin American other is identified. This period was described as a moment of transition during which the French discourse goes from a discursive frame which emphasizes on the theme of nature to a discursive frame which privileges the power relations between social agents. From 1962 to 1974, Latin America becomes for the French writers a geographical region upon which one pours off revolutionary aspirations. The axioms of third worldism, primary discursive formation enhanced by this period, run through the whole of the texts at various degrees. Also, this thesis aims to reveal the figures and spaces which emerge from this whole of contradictory representations. From 1975 to 1985, one witnesses the decomposition of the discursive formations and representations established during the two previous decades. Indeed, several discursive formations during these ten years question not only third worldism and its revolutionary impulses, but also the function of the intellectual. / On a more general basis, this study examines the history of ideas in France from 1950 to 1985. One of its implicit goals is to describe the rules which diversify, give coherence, integrate, exclude, and legitimate a "new" idea in the French social discourse.

This thesis analyses the evolution of the representation of distinct political elements through Julio Cortázar’s writings, mainly with reference to the novels and the so-called collage books. I also allude to some short stories and refer to many of Cortázar’s nonliterary texts. Through this chosen corpus, I trace a thematic thread showing that politics was present in Cortázar’s fiction from his very first writings, and not – as he himself tended to claim – only following his conversion to socialism after a lifechanging trip to revolutionary Cuba. My analysis aims to show that in opposition to what many critics have argued, this crucial point in his life did not divide the writer into an irreconcilable before and after – the apolitical versus the political –, but rather, it simply shifted the emphasis of the representation of the political, which already existed in Cortázar’s writings. In order to trace this process, I carry out my analysis in chronological order, not of the publication of the works, but of the actual time when they were written. Therefore, in the first chapter, I look at some of the books written between 1948 and 1951, namely, Divertimento (1949), El examen (1950) and Diario de Andrés Fava (1951), focusing mainly on El examen; I then extend the analysis to Los premios (1960), written when Cortázar was already living in Paris. Chapter two focuses on Rayuela (1963) and the action/inaction dilemma as reflected in the novel’s protagonist. The third chapter considers a period of conflict for Cortázar, as he tries to come up with a way in which to write literature for the political revolution of Latin America, without compromising his belief in artistic freedom. To elucidate this phase, I analyse 62/modelo para armar (1968) on the one hand, and the collage books, La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos (1967) and Último Round (1969), on the other. My fourth and final chapter examines Libro de Manuel (1973), Cortázar’s explicit attempt to converge literature, politics and history, and assesses the results of this effort to merge art and politics, allegedly without making aesthetic concessions. Although there have been works analysing the political dimension of specific texts (particularly of his short stories), no study to date has analysed the evolution of the political element throughout Cortázar’s writings, from the first unpublished novels to his later more experimental works. The originality of my thesis lies in the tracing of this progression through an extensive analysis of these works. My examination is also original insofar as it refers to unpublished material – a selection of Cortázar’s manuscripts from Princeton University Library – to the most recent posthumous publications – such as Papeles inesperados (2009) – and to a series of personal interviews with Argentinian writers associated with Cortázar. This research therefore hopes to bring unique insight that will further the overall understanding of this major and influential writer of the twentieth century.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the leading international economic crisis manager, but the effects of its loans and conditionality reach far beyond overarching macroeconomic indicators. This paper will examine the consequences of IMF fiscal policy conditions on income inequality and poverty by examining cases in Latin America, and specifically Mexico during the 1980s. The role that internal politics within borrowing countries plays is also closely examined. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for the IMF to ensure the most equitable and effective means of overcoming balance of payments crises.

This dissertation is concerned with a road in the Colombian region of Putumayo. The history of this road spans from the mid nineteenth century up to the present, and encompasses a wide range of characters and events, from nineteenth and twentieth century statesmen and missionaries’ ambitious colonization projects to ongoing peasant land conflicts regarding the road’s future. Together, these characters and events could be conceived or read as many different fragments and voices, past and present, of the same story. My main aim, however, is not to assemble these voices and fragments into a single narrative of the road, as much as to place them in the broader historical geography of state and frontier. I focus primarily on the multiple dialectical entanglements, conflicts, and encounters through which the state and the frontier have been discursively and materially constructed in this specific region. In doing so, I will argue that this historical geography of state and frontier has been primarily shaped by a relation of “inclusive exclusion”, or a relation where the assimilation or incorporation of the frontier to the spatial and political order of the state has historically depended on its exclusion from the imaginary order of the nation. Through a historical and ethnographical approach to the road, I emphasize the rhetorical and physical violence embedded in this relation, as well as the everyday practices through which this relation has been challenged and subverted in time and through space.

This thesis explores the marketing of American capital goods in the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA).The Importance of capital goods to LAFTA development was discussed. Machinery used for the production of other products is Important since LAFTA must achieve self-sufficiency by providing products manufactured in LAFTA before a common market is established.The problems of regional Integration were analyzed. These problems must be resolved If the common market Is to be functional by 1985. This date was established at Punta del Este, Uruguay, In 1967 by the chief executives of all Latin American nations.'In order to determine how American firms are preparing for the Latin American common market a mailed questionnaire was sent to 100 manufacturers of seven categories of capital goods. The 42 responses were analyzed to determine if American manufacturers are preparing for regional integration.The conclusion is that American firms are not confident that there will be a Latin American Common Market and they are not actively assisting LAFTA nations to achieve self-sufficiency.

In the latest time, the US has had an easy Monetary Policy. Because of the increasing link among the countries through interconnections on international trade, financial, and labor markets, such policy has not only had effects in the US economy, but also in the rest of the world. So many countries, especially emerging and developing countries, have suggested that such a policy has been causing an excessive flow of funds out of the US which are disrupting the exchange rate and competitiveness of those countries. An innovation of the analysis is that capital flows are divided in "Firm related" (direct investment and equity flows) and "Debt" (debt instruments and private loans obtained from foreign financial institutions). Another innovation is related to the measure of the external factors considering the US alone and a compound of Advanced Countries (AC) that includes: the US, European Union, United Kingdom, and Japan. The performed analysis indicates that the US Monetary Policy has been having a role on the determination of the capital flows to the Latin America Countries (LAC). However, these external "push factors" have been less important than the "pull factors" from Latin America. In the model, the "push factors" reflected to have had influence on the total capital flows, especially through the global liquidity proxies measured by the growth of the monetary stock in the AC. Holding all other things constant, one percent increase in the monetary stock in the US will generate capital flows to the LAC for an amount between 0.47 to 1.71 percentages of GDP. This effect is bigger when using the proxy constructed with the US alone than when using the compound of AC. The long term interest rate registered significance only on the "Firm related" type of capital flows and only when using the compound of AC. The performed analysis also indicates that there is preeminence of the "pull" (domestic) over the "push" (external) factors. This means that the LAC have been pursuing actions such as political stability, sound and consistent economic policies, and more market oriented policies that are attracting capital flows by themselves.

This book is about inventing successes and good practices of governments that are "closer to the people". Numerous examples throughout Latin America indicate-often despite macroeconomic instability, high inflation, and strong top-down regulation-that subnational actors have repeatedly achieved what their central counterparts preached: sound policymaking, better administration, better services, more participation, and sustained economic development. But what makes some governments change course and move toward innovation? What triggers experimentation and, eventually, turns ordinary practice into good practice? The book answers some of these questions. It goes beyond a mere documentation of good and best practice, which is increasingly provided through international networks and Internet sites. Instead, it seeks a better understanding of the origins and fates of such successes at the micro level. The case studies and analytical chapters seek to explain: How good practice is born at the local level; Where innovative ideas come from; How such ideas are introduced in a new context, successfully implemented, and propagated locally and beyond; What donors can do to effectively assist processes of self-induced and bottom-up change.

My dissertation, Making Imperial Futures: Concepts of Empire in the Anglo-Spanish Sphere, 1763-71, engages the grand narrative of exploration at the point at which that very concept was reaching the point of exhaustion and argues that the rough completion of European cartographical knowledge of the world had a profound impact on the evolution of the imperial experience. I examine the evolving concept of empire within a context of cross-imperial knowledge and rivalry, Enlightenment ideals and the changing ways in which Europeans related to the concept of a progressive future. Furthermore, I challenge the historiographically dominant notion that the British and Spanish experiences of empire are best categorized and isolated as distinct historical subjects. The first section shows that British successes in the Seven Years’ War energised the British imperial imagination, generating a broad-based debate on how best to exploit the situation and opening up the opportunity to put more than one approach into action when Britain and Spain went to war in 1762. But the Peace of Paris brought discord, and a perceived need for the government to discipline the imperial imagination and to establish an approved pathway for the future of empire in the Atlantic world. The second part looks at how the Spanish government applied state power in direct pursuit of the pan-Atlantic imperial project. In particular, it re-examines the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish empire in 1767 and makes the argument that the expulsion was a response to the perceived Jesuit threat to pan-Atlantic imperial norms. My third section suggests that the experimental burst of modern, state-centric imperialism that began in the wake of the Seven Years’ War suffered a reversal during the Falklands Crisis of 1770-1, during the general historical moment in which Europeans finished constructing their shared cartographical conception of the world. Although the growth of state power and impetus was temporarily reversed to some extent in the 1770s, this period helps prefigure the more extensive shift from empires primarily based on exploration and tenuous consolidation to empires that depended on dense, active exploitation to lend validity to their ontological claims.

My dissertation, Making Imperial Futures: Concepts of Empire in the Anglo-Spanish Sphere, 1763-71, engages the grand narrative of exploration at the point at which that very concept was reaching the point of exhaustion and argues that the rough completion of European cartographical knowledge of the world had a profound impact on the evolution of the imperial experience. I examine the evolving concept of empire within a context of cross-imperial knowledge and rivalry, Enlightenment ideals and the changing ways in which Europeans related to the concept of a progressive future. Furthermore, I challenge the historiographically dominant notion that the British and Spanish experiences of empire are best categorized and isolated as distinct historical subjects. The first section shows that British successes in the Seven Years’ War energised the British imperial imagination, generating a broad-based debate on how best to exploit the situation and opening up the opportunity to put more than one approach into action when Britain and Spain went to war in 1762. But the Peace of Paris brought discord, and a perceived need for the government to discipline the imperial imagination and to establish an approved pathway for the future of empire in the Atlantic world. The second part looks at how the Spanish government applied state power in direct pursuit of the pan-Atlantic imperial project. In particular, it re-examines the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish empire in 1767 and makes the argument that the expulsion was a response to the perceived Jesuit threat to pan-Atlantic imperial norms. My third section suggests that the experimental burst of modern, state-centric imperialism that began in the wake of the Seven Years’ War suffered a reversal during the Falklands Crisis of 1770-1, during the general historical moment in which Europeans finished constructing their shared cartographical conception of the world. Although the growth of state power and impetus was temporarily reversed to some extent in the 1770s, this period helps prefigure the more extensive shift from empires primarily based on exploration and tenuous consolidation to empires that depended on dense, active exploitation to lend validity to their ontological claims.

This thesis provides a comparative analysis of the gender-differentiated outcomes of three different types of development models implemented in Latin America: industrialization by import substitution, structural adjustment programs, and the agroexport model. In undertaking this thesis, I attempted to answer three related questions: first, were women affected differentially than men were by the implementation of these three models. Second, if women were differentially affected, was their experience also conditioned by other factors, like the sector in which they found employment, their location in rural or urban environments, and their level of education. Finally, given that both of the answer to the former two questions was yes, I attempted to answer the question of why this was happening. In answering this final question, I used the analytical framework provided by feminist economics. Ultimately, I posited that while women’s differential experience was determined in part by certain domestic and individual level factors, like cultural norms and laws preventing women from working in the formal economy, much of their experience has to do with the male bias that inheres in much of classical and neoclassical economic theory.