CULTURE: "Politics: Latin America's Quiet Revolution; An unprecedented political and economic transformation is under way in most of the region," by Stephen Haber, Wall Street Journal, 31 January-1 February 2009.

We are told, Mexico is nearly a failing state, and Bolivia seems like it's coming apart. Then there's Chavez's continuing shenanigans in Venezuela, including supporting the FARC in Colombia. Mismanagement abounds in these places, no doubt, but here's the glass-half-full diagnosis:

Most of Latin America is, however, undergoing a period of unprecedented political and economic transformation. In Chile, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, the Dominican Republic and, yes, Mexico--which is most decidedly not a failing state--there has been a quiet but substantial movement toward the creation of societies that are characterized by increased economic opportunity, social mobility and political democracy. This is not to say that Brazilians have achieved the same standard living as the Dutch, or that the rule of law operates in Mexico as it does in Canada. It is to say, however, that these countries have undertaken a series of economic and political reforms that make them vastly different places than there were two decades ago. The most obvious manifestations of this change are sound macroeconomic policies that have held down inflation, opened markets and encouraged investment, but these policies are often undergirded by changes in much deeper institutions, such as electoral rules that give rise to governments with centrist agenda or constitutional amendments that provide for independent central banks.

So drink deep with the populism where it appears, the article closes, because the underlying trends favor the sound practices of globalizing states.