Scholarly Books Detailing Latin American-United States Relations

 

Jorge I. Domínguez was a professor at Harvard University from 1972 until his retirement in 2018. He also served as director of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs for eleven years. He researched and taught the international relations of Latin America and the Caribbean, especially their relations with the United States.

 

He believed that research on the hemisphere’s international relations should be a shared effort between scholars in the United States, Latin American and Caribbean countries, and elsewhere. To support and develop this transnational scholarly community, he edited several books that paired scholars from various countries.

 

In the late 1990s, working closely with Dr. Rafael Fernández de Castro, he co-edited a series of twelve books on U.S.-Latin American Relations, which Routledge published. Nine examined U.S. relations with specific countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and two on Venezuela. One author was a scholar from the Latin American country paired with a scholar from the United States or other countries. In two other cases, one was a scholar from the United States paired with a scholar from the Central American or the Caribbean region. The twelfth book gathered seven scholars from the United States with nine from Latin American countries to examine U.S.-Latin American Relations broadly.

 

The mutual respect, the shared accomplishments, and the many talents set a good example and produced splendid books.

 

 

 

CSI Continues to Experience Steep

Dr. Jorge I. Dominguez is an international relations scholar with 50 years of research and publishing experience. The author of numerous articles and co-editor of books on Cuba, Dr. Jorge I. Dominguez has been an astute observer of the island nation's political evolution and economic challenges, an ongoing one being the hits to its sugar industry.

Traditionally underpinning a major rum export industry, sugar was a significant driver of employment and economic development before and during Cuba’s communist rule. 1989 represented a high-water mark, with eight million metric tons of sugar produced. Unfortunately, production has steadily fallen; in 2021 this number hit 800,000 metric tons, their lowest since 1908.

Reasons for this precipitous drop, part of a continuing trend, include inept state enterprise management, insufficient incentives to improve productivity, a history of counterproductive government decisions, strict US trade sanctions that impair Cuba's access to international financing for irrigation and basic replacement parts and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. This situation, which is systemic and cannot be remedied without major investment, may prove disastrous both for food self-sufficiency goals and the export economy. For 2022, the country has earmarked 500,000 metric tons of sugar for domestic consumption, while it expects to export 400,000 tons to China, as per longstanding trade arrangements. However, if production is even less than the 800,000 metric tons in 2021, there will be a major shortfall.

Mexico's Evolving Democracy

As a writer and publisher knowledgeable in Latin American political affairs, Jorge Dominguez has published many English and Spanish books on varying aspects of the region. In Mexico's Evolving Democracy: A Comparative Study of the 2012 Election (shortened to Mexico's Evolving Democracy), Jorge I. Dominguez, alongside Kenneth F. Greene, Chappell H. Lawson, and Alejandro Moreno, describes the factors that influenced Mexico’s 2012 election, and implications for the country’s political system.

The authors do not assume that readers of Mexico’s Evolving Democracy possess prior knowledge of the country’s political climate. In fact, the first two sections out of four explain Mexico’s political history, from the 1920s, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party first took power, to the end of the 2000s. The third section breaks down different voter demographics’ voting choices, integrating descriptions of candidates’ campaign strategies, pollsters’ methods, the nature of media coverage, and more. The last section presents possible implications of the election results for Mexico’s political system as a whole.

Dominguez, Greene, Lawson, and Moreno compiled Mexico’s Evolving Democracy with the assistance of fellow political scientists. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, the book released in 2015.

Cuba - Order and Revolution

Jorge Dominguez is a Latin America scholar based in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. Jorge I. Dominguez is also an accomplished author of several books including Insurrection or Loyalty: The Breakdown of the Spanish American Empire, Enhancing Global Human Rights, and Cuba: Order and Revolution.

Published in 1978, Cuba: Order and Revolution delves into the history of 20th Century Cuba. The book is divided into three sections: Pre-revolutionary Cuba, Revolutionary Cuba: Governing through Centralization, and Political Processes and Change. In the book’s pages you’ll learn about Cuba from the time it got its independence in 1902, how it was governed by Presidents Gerardo Machado and Fulgencio Batista, and finally Fidel Castro’s revolution. You’ll also learn how groups like the Cuban Women’s Federation, Cuban Labor Confederation, student unions, and the Cuban military helped shape the country’s history.

Key events like the revolution led by Fidel Castro and its impact on Latin America and Africa, the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 are also covered in depth in the book.

Facts about the Mexican Revolution

Jorge Dominguez attended Harvard University, where he earned his MA and PhD in political science. After receiving his PhD in 1972, Jorge I. Dominguez became a professor at Harvard, a job held for 46 years until his retirement in 2018. One of the courses Mr. Dominguez taught at Harvard was Mexico: Revolution, Authoritarianism, and Democracy: 100 Years.

The Mexican Revolution took place from 1910 to 1920. It was a major revolution that included several armed struggles that sought to bring an end to dictatorship in Mexico and introduce democracy. In addition to opposition to President Porfirio Diaz's 30 years of dictatorship, other causes of the Mexican Revolution were the exploitation and poor treatment of workers and a large disparity between the rich and poor in Mexico.

Key leaders of the Mexican Revolution were Francisco Madero, Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, and Pascual Orozco. By 1917, some of the reforms the revolutionaries were seeking had been achieved, but fighting continued periodically until 1930. Mexicans commemorate the Mexican Revolution, officially known as Dia de la Revolucion, on November 20th each year.

U.S.-Cuba Policy Likely to Shift

With a background as a professor and chair of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, Dr. Jorge I. Dominguez has a longstanding research focus on Latin America. An area of particular emphasis for Dr. Jorge Dominguez has been assessing Cuban’s economic, trade, and political challenges under Communist rule.

With the incoming Biden administration, U.S.-Cuba policy has reached a pivotal point that is likely define bilateral relations for the next several years. As reported in the Tampa Bay Times, the past decade has been one of blinding policy shifts, with President Barack Obama working to normalize relations through direct commercial flights and cruise line visits to Cuban ports, as well as scientific and art collaborations and exchanges.

The Trump administration rolled back that detente through a raft of new sanctions and travel restrictions, including a late move for Cuba’s inclusion on the list of states that sponsor terrorism. One economically impactful action involved sanctions on Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba.

With many questions unanswered, the Biden administration seems likely to tread a middle ground. Some level of research and cultural exchange will potentially return and the U.S. may seek to expand its embassy presence in Havana again. At the same time, Biden is likely to push for increased political diversity, countering the one-party system, and greater compliance with humanitarian rules.  

A Look at The Big Idea from the Harvard Business Review

Jorge I. Dominguez is from Center Harbor, New Hampshire, and had a varied career at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for over 40 years. Throughout this period, Jorge Dominguez had numerous articles and papers published, including with the Harvard Business Review (HBR), which has adopted The Big Idea to bring current issues to light.

HBR was first established in 1922 by the dean of the Harvard Business School for the purpose of assisting management students by giving them the information and tools they needed to succeed. For nearly a hundred years, HBR has covered important issues across industries and countries and has earned a reputation as a dynamic and thought-provoking publication.

Described as “the eventification of an article,” The Big Idea was brought into play more than ten years ago as a way to start moving into the digital era, and also keep readers entertained and informed between the bi-monthly issues of the review. HBR provides access to The Big Idea on all channels, thus allowing readers to explore the current topic on their favorite digital platform. This can consist of written articles, podcasts, and videos, and has covered issues such as problems for working parents, climate change, and gender equality, among others.