• Calderón’s Foreign Travels
• Economic Policy
• Domestic Politics
• Conflict in Oaxaca

On July 2, Mexican voters chose conservative candidate Felipe Calderón by a slender margin over his leftist rival, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Anybody relying on the media coverage of last July’s national elections in Mexico can be forgiven for getting the impression that the proceedings were, as was historically the case, irredeemably corrupt. These images do not come close to matching the facts.

Step aside foreign direct investment (FDI) and net official development assistance (ODA), the volume of remittances going to the Latin America and Caribbean region has again exceeded the combined totals of these monies in 2005.

In an interview with the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas released on May 16, the former President of Brazil, F.H. Cardoso, focused on the region-wide reform agenda and analyzed the state of democracy in the region. “Populism is a threat that we ignore at our own peril.” The interview coincided with his recent book signing event at our New York office.

What’s good for Mexico—a new, coherent growth strategy—might be good for Latin America. The real news, though, is that, in a world where the United States has abdicated its leading economic policy role, at least some Latin leaders are again beginning to think about defining their own future course.