Canning Insights

‘Latin America is the most violent region of the world.’ This has been a fre- quent headline, both in the region and beyond, since April, when the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Unodc) released its most recent (2013) Global Study on Homicide. It was not actually news but it did dovetail with the widespread use of homicide rates as the yardstick of insecurity in Latin America — even though there is no automatic correlation between those rates and the public perception of insecurity. It is not the only case of wide- spread reliance on assumptions that hinder a useful understanding of the issue. This paper does not pretend to offer the ‘correct’ formula, but to iden- tify and help avoid the pitfalls.

Under starter’s orders in Brazil

Chile’s Bachelet faces defining challenges

Santos owes re-election to Colombia’s Left

Central America has experienced significant transformations in the last 25 years, moving from war to peace, from dictatorship to democracy and from a state-led, agricultural-based model to a market-oriented, service-based one. Governments in the region are increasingly focused on attracting for- eign direct investment (FDI) and promoting new non-traditional agriculture and manufacturing exports.

Argentina steps to the edge and back