In contemporary Latin America whenever there are successive free elections turnover tends to occur at every opportunity. That is, incumbent parties or coalitions seldom win; if they do, they almost invariably show diminished electoral support compared to that of the previous election.

The frequency of incumbent defeat seems especially remarkable in view of the traditionally strong Latin American presidency. The history of some Latin American countries has been replete with continuismo (the perpetuation of a president or regime in office through manipulation of formal constitutional procedures). Even in those polities with a record of frequent adherence to constitutional norms, the president has tended to be “strong,” at least compared to other governmental institutions, such as legislatures, courts, and state or local governments. Unsatisfied with the term “presidential,” in the North American sense, Jacques Lambert calls Latin American governments “regimes of presidential dominance” (Lambert, 1967).

The crushing weight of Brazil's foreign debt and the enormous role of state enterprise in the economy have led to sharp criticism of public economic policy. Private entrepreneurs and many social scientists complain that the state has become virtually autonomous, subjecting society to its will. The “bureaucratic bourgeoisie” has taken advantage of two decades of authoritarian rule to concentrate power and “mordomias” (perquisites). According to critics, they have thereby caused the national private sector to atrophy and development to halt. The solution suggested by many Brazilians today is redemocratization; by making the state more responsive to civil society its economic presence can be diminished and the private sphere strengthened.

The study of Brazil's past experience with changes of regime casts doubt on the possibility of restricting the scope of the state in the economy. It is true that the traditional interpretation argues that the Republican Revolution of 1889 dramatically reduced the state's economic role.

Widespread malnutrition persists in Guatemala despite substantial economic growth since 1960. Indeed, there was a deterioration in the living standards of many (for example, the Indians in the Western highlands) even prior to the destruction caused by the government's pacification campaigns of the early 1980s. Chronic and widespread malnutrition has not been the result of just “natural causes”; to the contrary, it is the intent of this study to document that Guatemala's extraordinarily high level of malnutrition is the result of structural transformations and public policy, as well as demographics.

This argument has been documented best, in a Central American context, by two excellent works on El Salvador. Durham (1979: 21-51) presented a thorough analysis that demonstrates that land scarcity has not been primarily the result of a high rate of population growth (although that certainly contributes) but, instead, of increasing land concentration.

The possible correlation between religious affiliation and economic status and development has long interested social scientists. The purpose of this study is to analyze the potential contribution of Protestantism to the agricultural and economic development of Latin American agrarian communities.

The effects of religious affiliation on economic behavior have been studied most extensively in Western Europe and the United States. Max Weber (1958: 35) concluded in his pioneering study, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that in nations of mixed Catholic-Protestant religious composition the business leaders, owners of capital, and higher grades of skilled labor were “overwhelmingly Protestant.” Weber's initial intent was not to compare Protestant and Catholic economic achievement in Germany but, rather, to provide a non-Marxist interpretation of the rise of industrial capitalism and the attendant expansion of urbanization.