In this article the author compares recent efforts in Bolivia and Colombia to implement constitutionally mandated regimes of legal pluralism, and identifies the most important factors affecting the practical realisation of legal pluralism: the capacity of the political system, the legal tradition and society to tolerate normative diversity; the geographic isolation and cultural alienation of indigenous communities; the degree of internal division within indigenous communities and movements regarding legal pluralism in general, and in specific cases, that have arisen, and the availability of effective legal mechanisms to indigenous communities seeking to protect this right.

British business in Latin America struggled throughout the inter-war period, affected by the First World War, aggressive US trade strategies and a dated British commercial support structure that had turned its attentions to imperial markets. Chamber of Commerce archive material reveals the frustrations of the British business community in Chile as hard-won markets were lost to well-supported US firms and returning German competition, as a consequence of weak political, financial and marketing support. Against a backdrop of British commercial decline worldwide, the Chilean case echoes the experiences of businessmen across Latin America's non-imperial markets. As the British government dallied, US business established an unassailable position.

The purpose of this commentary is threefold. First, to review the origins and definitions of the concept of social capital as it has developed in the recent literature. Second, to examine the limitations of this concept when interpreted as a causal force able to transform communities and nations. Third, to present several relevant examples from the recent empirical literature on Latin American urbanisation and migration. These examples point to the significance of social networks and community monitoring in the viability of grass-roots economic initiatives and the simultaneous difficulty of institutionalising such forces.

Current interest in the concept of social capital in the field of national development stems from the limitations of an exclusively economic approach toward the achievement of the basic developmental goals: sustained growth, equity, and democracy. The record of application of neoliberal adjustment policies in less developed nations is decidedly mixed, even when evaluated by strict economic criteria. Orthodox adjustment policies have led to low inflation and sustained growth in some countries, while in others they have failed spectacularly, leading to currency crises, devaluations, and political instability. The ‘one-size-fits- all’ package of economic policies foisted by the International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury on countries at very different levels of development have led to a series of contradictory outcomes that orthodox economic theory itself is incapable of explaining.