The article attempts to identify the principal processes and patterns, divergences and contrasts that operated during the Independence period in Latin America. These are frequently lost among the detail involved in discussing this period either in monographic or general textual form. The method is to take Spanish and Portuguese America together. Comparison takes place here at a number of levels, not just between Spanish and Portuguese America. The article gives prominence to the regional and social dimensions, rather than to the economic, since this would require separate treatment in view of the issues that emerge.

The argument is that: (1) Independence formed part of a broader historical process that covered the readjustments of the period from c. 1770–c. 1870 not just between metropoles and dominions but also within colonial territories; (2) there was not always a clear-cut dichotomy between Empire or Independence, but many different positions between the two polarities; (3) cross-class and multi-ethnic coalitions emerged in several instances; considerable evidence exists of popular participation; essentially, though, the process of Independence was elite-directed and led frequently to elite-dominated ‘national states’, within which pre-existing social issues remained unresolved; (4) nationalism did not make independent states; nation and national identity would have to be created after Independence.

This article explores the effects of changing exposure to world trade and relative factor abundance on the institutional and economic development of a paradigmatic Spanish-American frontier colony, Paraguay. The problem is conceptualized within a neoinstitutionalist staples model in which – during the long sixteenth-century trade expansion – the colonial state delegated the provision of defence onto individuals who financed it by restricting indigenous labour mobility and extracting the resulting monopsony rents. Despite the encomienda's stated intentions, its inefficient incentive system actually contributed to the decline in indigenous population and provincial security shortcomings. As trade contracted and defence needs rose during the seventeenth-century crisis the crown commuted the labour services of Jesuit mission Indians for contributions to defence and payments in kind and money. The mestizo peasantry remained free, but was increasingly burdened with military obligations as well.

This article discusses the 1857 African porters' strike in Salvador, Brazil. Mobilisation for this unique movement was organised through work groups, based on ethnic affiliation, within which Africans developed a street culture with its own rules, rituals and symbols, all of which were essential to the creation of the group's identity and to pursue resistance in the urban slavery environment. The movement lasted for a week and it may have been the first of its nature in the history of urban Brazil.

The main argument of this article is that in order to assess accurately the impact of a market liberalisation programme such as the one Argentina has undergone, one must look beneath the aggregate statistics and analyse underlying changes in critical market structure and organisational variables. While aggregate trade figures imply that the country has been successful at reintegrating itself into the world economy, two underlying trends reveal potential threats to the country's long-term development. These trends relate to the level of value added being created in the country, particularly with regard to its exports, and to changes in the composition of its trading partners.

For nearly a decade, Mexico has embraced a neoliberal development model based on liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation. Yet, contrary to longstanding claims in the economic development literature, this strategy has yet to produce the high levels of growth and income gains that policy-makers had projected at the outset of the reforms. This article suggests that the lacklustre response of the Mexican economy represents more than a longer-than-expected adjustment lag. Rather, through an analysis of state policy in the urban–industrial and rural–agricultural sectors of the economy, the authors locate the sources of slow growth and wage compression in: (1) the particular mix of policies that have been implemented under the banner of neoliberalism in Mexico; and (2) the failure to properly coordinate macroeconomic stabilisation with longer-term goals of market restructuring.

This paper argues that the construction of two opposing ideal types of sustainable development – market-friendly and grassroots development – serves as a useful analytical tool for understanding political conflict over environmentally sensitive policy for the native, or autochthonous, forest sector. Explaining the degree to which a country has mostly market-oriented forest policy or whether it also includes significant elements of the grassroots approach requires an examination of when and how four broad factors affect outcomes: ideas, state institutions, social groups and international conditions. Paired comparisons show that cohesive teams of experts in lead ministries may define legislation and decrees proposed by the executive branch, but whether they become law depends on other factors. These are, in the first instance, the capacity of social groups to forge larger socio-political alliances, and secondly, the presence or absence of direct external intervention in the policy process. Such political dynamics also affect the degrees to which future policy begins to resolve the tension between the two approaches to the sustainable development of forests in Latin America.