The thesis develops a Central Americanised model of regional integration by building on neofunctionalist concepts through the use of a constructivist approach. Distortions, strategic modification and stagnation phases of integration in that region are conventionally attributed, often implicitly, to the “unwillingness” of the governments. The problem with this approach, however, is that it neglects the role of what I identify as Normative Elites in the process. In order to overcome this limitation, the thesis formulates the concept of Social Will, conceptualised as the interplay of the ideas, identity and interest of the Central American normative elites—and it refers to the predisposition or disinclination of these elites to support the integration process. The formulation of social will leads the analysis to re-conceptualise the interaction between the state and normative elites. This reconsideration necessitates the elaboration of modified models of socialisation and norm diffusion—which I label Ideational Drive and Circumscribed-Statist respectively—to reflect certain Central American specificities. Empirically, the thesis assesses the existence and role of both political will and social will in Central America by using discourse analysis of a series of interviews and detailed readings of published position documents. Regarding political will, it identifies a latent integrative strategy and a significant ideational convergence among the participants in the study. It concludes that indeed in that region there is a fair degree of political will. This conclusion is partially supported by the uncovering of Constitutional Regionalism, or the constitutional bestowals of special citizenship status on nationals of other Central American countries, and the inclusion of specific constitutional provisions conducive to integration. The thesis contemplates the existence of social will at two points: the reactivation of the Central American integration process during the 1990s, and in the 2005-08 period. In the first instance, the thesis identifies the leading role that normative elites, through economic groups, played in the reactivation of the process. In that sense, it argues that at that time there existed a degree of social will. In the second instance, the thesis identifies discursive differences among normative elites. One discourse conceives of the region from a Central Americanist view striving for the development of the region and crucially, its people. The other discourse is Instrumentalist aiming at improving the region’s competitive positioning in the global economy. This ideational incongruence signals a limited degree of social will. The thesis concludes by arguing that partial social will delimits and imposes meaning on the spaces wherein the political will could thrive. Hence the process experiences distortions, strategic modifications and stagnant phases.

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This research project investigates the sources of legitimacy in hegemonic Cuban discourse, understood to have supported the stability of the Cuban system during crises and challenging times, such as the end of the Cold War and the 1990s Special Period. Evidence was drawn from the Cuban press, namely Granma, Bohemia and Verde Olivo, in two critical periods: the 1980 Mariel episode and the 1994 Maleconazo disturbances as two examples before and after 1989 in order to compare the sources of legitimacy and identify continuities and shifts. The two periods represent recent examples of instability, which dominated the attention of the whole nation. The evidence is based on textual examination using discourse analysis as the method of investigation. The research is written in the discipline of political history, with elements taken from cultural studies and political communication. The project is based on the assumption that the sources of legitimacy represented a significant, but not exclusive factor which may have encouraged the population's loyalty by reflecting their attitudes and concerns and channelling them in a particular direction. The discourse also interpreted reality to support the legitimacy of the system. This might have contributed significantly to the stability of the whole system, and its ability to survive the post-1989 transitions experienced in other communist countries. The research examines the content and internal mechanics of the discourse, its assumptions and endogenous references, taking into account the specific context of the single-party communist state in control of the country's media and mass organisations. By suppressing alternative discourses, the system increased the impact of the hegemonic discourse, especially if compared to pluralist political systems. The discourse might have contributed to the continuing loyalty of the population by explicitly and implicitly stressing endogenous sources of legitimacy intelligible to the Cuban audience, reflecting its particular historical experience and political culture. The research investigates the sources of legitimacy traceable in the discourse, to demonstrate what made it tick internally and why some Cubans might have decided to remain loyal to a system that they perceived as legitimate and defending their interests, attitudes, concerns and identities. Collaterally, the research addresses the topic of migration, which was a main issue during both crises, and the way the perceptions of migration shifted over time in order to protect the legitimacy of the system confronting large outflows of discontented people. The research demonstrates how the system interpreted events in its favour, and how it prioritised different sources of legitimacy, such as independence, patriotism, socialism, material prosperity, social provision, culturalism and the US embargo in order to encourage loyalty. The research takes into account the regional Hispano-Caribbean context, reflecting the identities of the Cuban population in their perceived difference from Anglo-Saxon America and its socio-political model. The research looks in more detail at the key sources of legitimacy during the challenging 1990s when the system was near a possible collapse. The research enhances our understanding of how the sources of legitimacy shifted over time to reflect new realities and to support the system. The research sheds further light on the system and the structure of the system's endogenous ideology in a post-structuralist sense, stressing the role of language and the complex and extended definition of ideology. For this reason it takes into account Cuban semantics, linguistics and endogenous meaning of words and concepts. The existing academic literature focuses on explaining the stability of the system before and after 1989 by analysing Cuban history, institutions, culture, international relations and other aspects, but there is insufficient focus on legitimacy, politics and media addressed to the population as a possible factor in the system's stability. It does not investigate sources of legitimacy in relation to the content and internal mechanics of the discourse constructed to appeal to Cubans. This research answers these questions and thus enhances our understanding of the system. The research provides one possible answer to the question of how the system might have maintained stability, what sources of legitimacy it argued for, how it argued for them and how it interpreted current issues to encourage loyalty. It demonstrates how the system interpreted migration to cancel its potentially destabilising impact, and how it shifted the interpretations of the sources of legitimacy over time, especially in relation to the different global context before and after 1989.

This thesis proposes a new paradigm for understanding the historical roots of the myth of racial democracy in Brazil. In order to better comprehend the co-existence of race discrimination and racial democracy in Brazil it is argued that the myth itself needs to be subjected to an analysis which foregrounds the historically unequal relations of both race and gender. This study demonstrates how the enigma that is Brazilian race relations is the result of two major oversights in the scholarly work to date. First, the lack of critical attention to the historical processes and practices which gave rise to the so-called unique version of race relations in Brazil: manumission and miscegenation. Second, the sidelining of the role of gender and sex, as well as the specific and central place of black women’s labour, in theoretical formulations about Brazilian race relations. The overarching intellectual aim of this thesis is to invert the way notions of familiarity and intimacy have been represented in the history of miscegenation and manumission in Brazilian slave society. The role of intimacy in the social history of race relations is instead shown to be firmly located within a hierarchy of race and gender inequalities predicated on the inferiority of blacks and women. In turn, this thesis explores how these race and gender inequalities intersected to inform and shape enslaved women’s versions of resistance and visions of freedom. In doing so this study unpicks some of the notions of advantage and privilege traditionally associated with women in general and light skin colour in particular in the processes of manumission and miscegenation; notions that are foundational to the myth of racial democracy. Through an examination and analysis of primary sources pertaining to the lives of enslaved and freedwomen and their descendants in nineteenth-century Bahia, this study brings together different areas of their lived experiences of enslavement, manumission, miscegenation and freedom as these women came into contact with the authorities at pivotal moments in their lives. Collectively, these sources and the analysis thereof expose the limitations of advantage or privilege that have been associated with being female, parda or mulatta in the historiography of Brazilian slave society in general and the literature on manumission in particular. By foregrounding and highlighting the ways in which overlapping inequalities of race, gender and status determined experiences of enslavement and expectations of freedom during slavery, this study produces a new approach to interpreting race and gender history in Brazil, and a more comprehensive understanding of Brazilian slave labour relations.

The Colombian conflict is one of the world’s longest running civil wars. The country is home to the highest number of internally displaced people in the world, estimated to be up to 5.5 million in 2012. Spanning almost seven decades, the undeclared war has cost the lives of millions. However, despite these alarming figures, Colombia remains one of the least studied of the major Latin American countries. The conceptualisation of the Colombian conflict has been overwhelmingly shaped by two theories of civil conflict, “New Wars” and “Greed vs. Grievance”. Whilst these studies have provided an insight into some of the dynamics of Colombian conflict, such as the drugs trade, the historical continuities of violence and internal drivers of insecurity have been largely ignored. This study re-interprets the long-standing Colombian conflict with an emphasis on a history ‘from below’. It addresses this lacuna in the current literature and offers an alternative historical analysis of the conflict by exploring government policies and local dynamics. This research contributes the existing literature by providing local nuances to the two parallel theories of civil war that have dominated the discourse of violence in Colombia. The “new” characteristics of modern civil war are not new to Colombia. For almost seven decades, Colombia has seen high levels of violence against a civilian population, paramilitary and criminal activity. The idea that “greed” fuels violent conflict fails to explain why thousands have joined various guerrilla movements and endure harsh living conditions in which they risk their lives for a political cause. Importantly, this theory neglects the internal socio-economic problems in countries with persistent levels of violence. Using an area studies approach and drawing upon recently declassified material from the US and UK governments, press clippings and fieldwork in Colombia, this study highlights the historical continuities of violence in Colombia, which are characterised by economic and security grievances. It examines the conflict from the ‘forgotten civil war’, known as la Violencia, and goes on to illustrate how persistent failures by the Colombian government to solve the rural and agrarian problem and the political exclusion of those claiming to represent the rural population have constituted the fundamental motor of violence over several decades.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / Increased focus on the TBA after Hizballah-linked bombings in Buenos Aires (1992) and the Argentine- Israeli Mutual Association (1994), and again after the September 11 attacks in the United States, produced an increased understanding of Hizballah's fundraising operations, but also led Hizballah to shift its fundraising operations to other Latin American locations- to which the location, nature, and extent are largely unknown. This thesis develops a framework to identify where and how Hizballah conducts fundraising operations in Latin America. The focus of analysis is how host-nation characteristics, geo-strategic variables, and diaspora characteristics influence the nature and significance of Hizballah's fundraising operations in Paraguay and Ecuador. Hizballah's fundraising operations in Paraguay are shaped by favorable geo-strategic variables, hostnation characteristics, and diaspora characteristics. Predictably then, Hizballah employs a wide range of fundraising operations in Paraguay producing substantial profits. In Ecuador as well, geo-strategic variables and host-nation characteristics facilitate fundraising operations. More interesting however, Hizballah has likely tailored its fundraising operations to mitigate the influence of unfavorable diaspora characteristics and maximize the potential of favorable host-nation characteristics and geo-strategic variables. This thesis finds that diasporas are valuable to fundraising operations and outlines policy implications for their treatment by governments combating terrorist fundraising operations. / Lieutenant, United States Navy

The present dissertation reconstructs the notion of legitimacy in Ecuador between 1996 and 2007 in order to re-think our measurements and understanding of Latin American democracies. Empirically, the analysis is centered on the country`s puzzling tendency to survive institutional volatility, bad economic performance and social unrest, while the theoretical section underlines the importance of the vertical and horizontal participatory components of legitimacy. After exploring different plausible explanations of Ecuador`s puzzling mixture of political turmoil and regime endurance, this dissertation concludes that legitimacy helped democracy to endure in Ecuador. The main conclusion is that the horizontal components of political participation and the enactment of democratic values by social movements as well as new political parties played a key role in the survival of democracy. The dissertation contributes to the democratization literature by encompassing the normative elements of democracy, while at the same time contributes to democratic theory by pushing further the boundaries of a notion and a case that requires further attention.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Western Hemisphere))--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Jaskoski, Maiah. Second Reader: Berger, Mark T. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 27, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Economic crisis, Bailout, Latin America, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Geopolitical significance. Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-60). Also available in print.

In the years that immediately followed the victory of the rebel forces in 1959, the new leaders of the Cuban Revolution seemed to approach the task of revolutionary governance as a continuation of the guerrilla campaign in the sierra. The leadership's empirical management of the Revolution in power betrayed its guerrilla roots, and resulted in an inchoate political system headed by charismatic guerrilleros. By the end of the first decade, however, it seemed that the Revolution's guerrilla past had been all but forgotten, as it established closer ties with the Soviet Union and subsequently underwent a process of 'institutionalisation'. Since that time, many Western scholars of Cuba have commented on the increased role of the military in the revolutionary leadership, and in other aspects of the Revolution which would normally be considered to be beyond the remit of most armed forces. These scholars have concluded that the pervasive presence of the military is evidence of the 'militarisation' of the Cuban Revolution. This thesis calls into question this notion of a 'militarised' Revolution by arguing that such a perspective overlooks the guerrilla origins of both the Cuban armed forces and the Revolution more broadly, in addition to the signs and symbols that point to an on-going legacy of these origins in revolutionary Cuba. Using evidence derived from an analysis of the hegemonic discourse of the Revolution at different stages in its trajectory, this study demonstrates that the lived experience of guerrilla warfare has shaped the beliefs and values that have underpinned the Revolution since 1959. Together, these beliefs and values comprise a unique political culture in which the figure of the guerrillero is revered, and in which the guerrilla campaigns of the Cuban historical narrative are presented as unfinished struggles. The thesis argues that the active cultivation of this political culture has contributed to legitimising the long-standing presence of former guerrilleros in the revolutionary leadership, and has helped to gamer the support of civilians for the revolutionary project. In addition to challenging the idea of a 'militarised' Revolution, this study also undermines the widely accepted notion that the Revolution was thoroughly 'Sovietised' during its second decade. An examination of the hegemonic discourse of the 1970s reveals that, while the Revolution transformed structurally during those years, the guerrilla ethos which had buttressed the revolutionary project in the 1960s remained unchanged.

This thesis examines the consequences of tourism in Bocas del Toro, Panamá and how tourism impacts residents, both those who prosper more from tourism and also those who benefit less. Utilizing qualitative research methods, residents were interviewed about how they think about and understand tourism development and its impact on the island. These findings are then put into conversation with critical development and planning literature, specifically focusing on people’s understandings of tourism in Bocas del Toro and how this affects the social relationships between foreigners and locals. These relationships are then discussed within the broader social and economic context that shapes tourism development in Latin America. / text