Americans have been so transfixed by the fall of the Berlin Wall — and subsequently riveted to the Persian Gulf crisis — that they have failed to notice the crumbling of the walls that have segmented Mexico and separated it from the United States. Yet Mexico's opening may be more significant for the United States because of its potential for infusing both economies and reshaping the two societies. Challenging a long tradition of state control and anti—Americanism, Carlos Salinas de Gortari is leading this change, transforming Mexico and US-Mexican relations more profoundly and positively than any president in this century.

Not yet one-third into his term, he has already moved decisively to wrestle control from union bosses and drug traffickers; he has sold off state corporations, de-regulated large sectors of the economy, lowered trade and investment barriers, and began, grudgingly, to democratize. Yet his most daring gamble is his proposal for a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States, and he is ready to sell the idea in both countries.

In the political debate which swirls around “democratization” Guatemala must be counted. The policies of its first civilian government since the 1960s, now completing its term, have been important for the success of regional peace. Yet a new wave of violence surrounds the preparation for elections and is testing the government's fragile accomplishments. Underlying such phenomena is Guatemala's struggle to discover what democracy really means in the Latin context where elected officials often serve as a façade for ongoing military control.The contest extends the debate beyond bourgeois and popular conceptions of democracy, especially when Guatemala's civilian-military government is characterized as a “permanent counter-insurgency state” (see Anderson and Simon, 1987; exchange of letters in The Nation, 1989; Guatemalan Church in Exile, 1989). Such a portrayal effectively reduces the nation's democratic manifestations to a charade.

Nowhere on the crisis-ridden latin continent were hopes raised as high as they were in Peru with the 1985 election of Alan Garcia. Nowhere were hopes dashed as dramatically by the onset of an economic, social, and political crisis of unprecedented severity. There is no single explanation for the dismal performance of the APRA government. Indeed, the APRA's performance in power was in keeping with Peru's age-old paradox: an extremely poor record of social reform despite the longterm presence of a strong reformist party. This raises the question of why reform is so difficult to implement in Peru, and why APRA, in particular, proved so inept once in power. While external conditions were largely responsible for Peru's decade-long economic crisis, yet they were far less important than domestic political factors in explaining the APRA's disastrous performance.

Cuba has entered the decade of the 1990s in a state of profound existential crisis. The countries of Eastern Europe, whose economic and political institutions and ideologies were adopted by Cuba, albeit with some modifications, were abandoning those same institutions and ideologies. Cuba's place in the international system had become one of growing isolation: Cuba had become a curiosity from the 1960s rather than the wave of the future, as it once perceived itself. By mid-1990, it appeared almost certain that the generous subsidization of the Cuban economy by the Soviet Union was about to end. Moreover, the Cuban economy was in serious difficulty as a result of some external factors, namely the convertible currency debt crisis and the problems and uncertainties in its relationship with the Soviet Union since 1985, but also as a result of internal institutional incapacities and deformities.

The 1980s Witnessed a series of halting, tenuous but, nonetheless, widely—hailed transitions from military regimes to constitutional democracies throughout South America. Yet, despite the initial optimism, the political newcomers faced formidable tasks. Not only had memories of democratic rule and practices grown dim in the years of disuse, but, with few exceptions, new governments found themselves threatened by a deteriorating economy with bleak prospects for the future. Equally — perhaps even more — threatening was the fact that though the military regimes may have relinquished their position, they had not necessarily relinquished their power, which raised the possibility that their civilian successors might not be able to stay in office long enough to confront their multifarious problems.

In Argentina, the risk of a return to military rule was perhaps even greater than in some of its neighbors as the country had experienced a mosaic of alternating military and civilian governments ever since 1930.

On the evening of 14 May 1989, hours after Argentina had held its first elections for a presidential succession in 60 years, the atmosphere at the Buenos Aires headquarters of the Unión del Centro Democrático(UCEDE) was lugubrious. The electoral news flowing into the computer terminals harbingered a resounding victoiy for Carlos Menem, the Peronist presidential candidate, and a remote third place showing of 6% for Alvaro Alsogaray, the presidential candidate of the young conservative party. Even in the capital city of Buenos Aires, where the UCEDE had led in the polls for congressional elections right up to election day, it trailed in third place. Would-be congressmen wandered the headquarters floor bewildered.