Post-neoliberal electricity market ‘re-reforms’ in Argentina: Diverging from market prescriptions?

This paper focuses upon the policy and institutional change that has taken place within the Argentine electricity market since the country’s economic and social crisis of 2001/2. As one of the first less developed countries (LDCs) to liberalise and privatise its electricity industry, Argentina has since moved away from the orthodox market model after consumer prices were frozen by the Government in early 2002 when the national currency was devalued by 70%. Although its reforms were widely praised during the 1990s, the electricity market has undergone a number of interventions, ostensibly to keep consumer prices low and to avert the much-discussed energy ‘crisis’ caused by a dearth of new investment combined with rising demand levels. This paper explores how the economic crisis and its consequences have both enabled and legitimised these policy and institutional amendments, while drawing upon the specifics of the post-neoliberal market ‘re-reforms’ to consider the extent to which the Government appears to be moving away from market-based prescriptions. In addition, this paper contributes to sector-specific understandings of how, despite these changes, neoliberal ideas and assumptions continue to dominate Argentine public policy well beyond the postcrisis era.

The rise of urban tourism in Havana since 1989

This article looks at the development of urban tourism in Havana, Cuba, in the period since the collapse of state socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe. It provides an interesting case study of the adoption of an outward-oriented state development policy in the context of a socialist state. The dramatic rise of urban-based tourism in Havana since 1989 is described, followed by a review of the socio-economic impacts of such tourism. These include: income generation; job creation; the rise of the informal economy, including crime and prostitution; increased migration to the primary city, along with spatial concentration on the coastal strip, and associated environmental impacts. In conclusion, the article considers the fat that the promotion of tourism has returned Havana to some of the conditions that existed in the city Socialist Revolution in 1959.

City Profile: Havana

Since 1989, after 40 years of curbing urban development and under-investment in urban infrastructure, Havana is slowly regaining its primacy as Cuba's, and indeed one of the Caribbean's. major tourist destinations. This profile focuses on the urban change undergone by Havana since the introduction of the socalled'Special Period' in 1.989, following the collapse of State socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe. A particular emphasis is placed on the role played by international tourism as a catalyst for socio-economic and environmental change in Havana in the 1990s. The profile also reviews the main urban development and governance issues that Havana is likely to face in the future. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dual citizenship or dual identity? Does 'transnationalism' supplant 'nationalism' among returning Trinidadians?

In this article we focus on the dual identities of relatively young Trinidadians who have decided to return to the island of their birth, or of their parents, while still in their thirties and forties. Highly-educated professional transnational migrants mostly make tip our sample of 36; 26 possess dual citizenship. We focus on our informants' narratives about their transnational experiences, self-appraisals of their dual identities and how they value dual citizenship. More generally, we ask does transnationalism supplant nationalism among our returning informants? Unsurprisingly, the diverse responses we document do not support the commonly held explanatory relationship between return adaptations, 'national belonging' and the expected dominance of 'transnational belonging'. Family, relations intervene significantly, both to encourage transnationalism and to strengthen nationalism. Feelings of notional belonging often accompany transnationalism. Notably, we view dual citizenship strategically and pragmatically as advantageous to the continuation of transnational practices.