In 1845, Argentine statesman Domingo Sarmiento predicted that ‘what took 20 years to occur in North America, i.e. the emergence almost by magic of numerous cities, provinces and states in what was once uninhabited terrain, will occur in Argentina in the same span of time’. Forty years later, however, French writer Emile Daireaux observed that ‘the commercial development of Buenos Aires is that of a satellite which orbits Europe's sphere of attraction; Argentina's other cities and towns are in turn satellites of Buenos Aires’. A half-century later still, Ezequiel Martínez Estrada could complain that ‘the country's progress will come only when…we care for the health of the entire body and not only the euphoria of its decapitated head’. The imagery of Daireaux and Martínez Estrada portrays Buenos Aires' comprehensive domination of the Argentine city system, a city system quite unlike the replica of the US model envisaged by an optimistic Sarmiento.

Elite family networks with overlapping economic and political power have been a basic feature of Latin America. Their influence was characteristically strong during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the export economies expanded and national governments, particularly in the larger nations, advocated order and progress at the expense of participatory democracy. Historically, the influence of the elites has been primarily a regional phenomenon underpinned by ownership of land, mines, or lucrative commercial enterprises. They formed economic, political, and blood alliances to control production of vital products, monopolise local government and, on occasion, initiate bold entrepreneurial initiatives. Examples include the thirty families who dominated henequen production and local government in nineteenth-century Yucatán, the Grupo Monterrey who ran the industrialising economy of northeastern Mexico during the Porfiriato, and the Paraíba oligarchy who controlled cotton production, municipal government, and local tax revenues during the Brazilian Old Republic (1889–1930).

After a prolonged period of authoritarian rule, the rebirth of democracy in Latin America has prompted a resurgent interest in civilian control of the armed forces. Few disagree that political leaders will be unable to consolidate their democratic gains without resolving ‘la cuestión militar’. Given the history of military political intervention in the region, scholars have long expressed scepticism over whether governments can ever fully subject the armed forces to their political will. Recently, the terms on which power has been transferred from military to civilian hands and developments subsequent to the transfer have prompted an even greater anxiety about the future of some of these new and fragile democracies.

Within a short time span Brazil became one of the world's largest producers of defence hardware. In 1987, Brazil was the fifth largest exporter of arms worldwide and the second largest arms producer among the newly industrialised countries (NICs). This article argues that the roots of this rapid development of the Brazilian Defence Industry (BDI) lie in the vital role of multinational companies (MNCs) and in the harmonious tripod orchestrated by the Brazilian government. The State, through its interaction with the Brazilian private sector and with subsidiaries of MNCs, brought together the political support, a supply of funds, the manufacturing capability and technology that are vital in any attempt to establish an indigenous defence industry. Above all, the Brazilian government achieved the balanced coordination of these variables essential for maintaining the dynamics of the industry.

Personal dictators remain a key feature of contemporary regimes termed ‘authoritarian’ or ‘totalitarian’, particularly in their early consolidating phases. But there is still disagreement over the seemingly ideological, polemical and indiscriminate use of the term totalitarian dictatorship as an analytic concept and tool to guide foreign policy formulation. Jeane Kirkpatrick elevated the taxonomy to a vociferous level of debate with a 1979 Commentary article. Entitled ‘Dictatorships and Double Standards’, the work raised anew semantic hairsplitting concerning the qualitative differences between all previous tyrannies and those bearing organisational similarities with the Nazi, Fascist or Stalinist prototypes.

This Commentary addresses the issue of ecological perception and ecological politics among poor populations, rural and urban. Some social struggles by poor people (and some national struggles by poor countries) can be understood also as ecological struggles. This approach reveals the ecological content, both hidden and explicit, of social movements from the past or present, which have been geared to defend access to natural resources against the advance of the generalised market system, and that have contributed to the conservation of resources to the extent that the market undervalues externalities. Examples are taken mainly from the history of highland and coastal Peru, but this approach is relevant also for the Amazonian region. Some comparisons are made with other countries in Latin America and also with India.