1. The Present Decline: Latin America in the Garden of Democratic Delights

2. “Democracy in America” by Tocqueville, 1835-1840 A perceptive analysis of the political and social system of the United States in the early 19th century. Tocqueville greatly admired American representative institutions and made a penetrating analysis of the new power of the press. He also foresaw that under democracy education would be respected more as a ladder to success than for its intrinsic content and might thus become mediocre.

3. “An epistemological change” (26:1) Epistemology: From the Greek epistemos (knowledge) and logos (discourse); the theory or science of the method or grounds of knowledge

4. Hyper-presidentialism Hyper: From the Greek: over, beyond, over much, above measure. Presidentialism: The system or practice of presidential government. Hyper-presidentialism The excessive role of Presidents in politics.

5. Dollarization Dollarization: The action or process of basing the value of a national currency upon that of the U.S. dollar (e.g. Panama since 1900, Argentina 1991-2001, Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador since 2001); also, the tendency of an economy to become dominated by U.S. influence.

6. Capital flight Capital flight: Rapid divestment of domestic securities and currency immediately followed by shifting of capital to foreign markets, mostly in Europe and USA.

7. References All definitions from: Oxford English Dictionary (online) http://dictionary.oed.com And Encyclopædia Britannica Online (academic edition) http://search.eb.com/