Book Review: Transforming Latin America: The International and Domestic Origins of Change

• Author: Ernesto F. Calvo
• Published date: 01 June 2006
• Date: 01 June 2006
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/001041400603900508
• Subject Matter: Articles

to a country that was unqualified to adapt to their needs. Mikhail Gorbachev’s

unilateral force cutbacks and acceptance of troop limits contributed to this dilemma.

These decisions hastened an unanticipated crisis in Russia in which there was insuf-

ficient housing, pension funding, or adequate retraining programs for demobilized

officers.

This meant greater political opportunities for ethnopolitical contenders to seek

autonomy or a greater share of power. Such challenges often are reinforced by

adjoining states that are now freer to encourage ethnic kindred and coreligionists to

rebellion. Explosive spots have been the Ukraine, and the Baltic States. Ethnic

clashes have not been isolated to these areas. Antagonisms within Russia proper,

that is Tartarstan, North and South Ossetia, Donbass, the Crimea and the Trans-

Dniester region, have been ongoing.

David Carment

Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

References

Cohen, L. J. (1992). The disintegration of Yugoslavia. Current History,91(November),

369-375.

Carment, D., & Rowlands, D. (2004). Vengeance and intervention: Can third parties bring

peace without separation? Security Studies,13(4), 366-393.

Arceneaux, C., & Pion-Berlin, D. (2005). Transforming Latin America:The

International and Domestic Origins of Change. Pittsburgh: University of

Pittsburgh Press.

Transforming Latin America is an ambitious book that provides a unified frame-

work for explaining political change in Latin America. In an age in which grand

theorizing and regional studies have lost much of their professional appeal, this

interesting volume pursues boldly a general approach that explains how interna-

tional and domestic factors shape key policy issues across a broad sample of Latin

American countries. Although the end product falls short from fulfilling such an

ambitious promise, the different self-contained issue-based studies are thoroughly

researched and constitute a valuable addition to the library of articles required for

teaching advanced classes on Latin American politics.

In Transforming Latin America, Craig Arceneaux and David Pion-Berlin begin

by presenting the reader with two contrasting images of Latin America: one of frail

and submissive governments subject to the dictates of a global hegemon (the United

States), and another one in which domestic actors embedded in local political games

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