Significant+Terms+&+Concepts

=**Significant Terms & Concepts:**=
 * Dependency theory: **A body of social science theories predicated on the notion that resources flow from a "periphery" of poor and underdeveloped states to a "core" of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former.**
 * Caudillos: **A Spanish word (caudilho in Portuguese) usually describing a political-military leader at the head of an authoritarian power. It is usually translated into English as "leader" or "chief," or more pejoratively as warlord, "dictator" or "strongman".**
 * Central America: **isthmus connecting North America and South America; contains seven countries.**
 * Comparative advantage theory: **refers to the ability of a party (an individual, a firm, or a country) to produce a particular good or service at a lower [|opportunity cost] than another party. It is the ability to produce a product with the highest relative efficiency given all the other products that could be produced**
 * Conservatism: **The idea of keeping everything the same.**
 * Corporate state: **the structure of fascism**
 * Coup d'etat: **Literally 'coup, putsch, and overthrow', meaning an illegal ovrethrowing of the government.**
 * Bourbon Reforms: **(in [|Spanish]: //Reformas Borbónicas//) were a set of economic and political legislation introduced by the [|Spanish] [|Crown] under various kings of the [|House of Bourbon] throughout the 18th century. The reforms were intended to stimulate manufacturing and technology in order to modernize Spain. In Spanish America the reforms were designed to make the administration more efficient and to promote its economic, commercial, and fiscal development. The crown did this in hopes that it would have a positive effect on the economy of Spain. Furthermore, the Bourbon Reforms were intended to limit the power of Creoles and re-establish Spanish primacy over their colonies.**
 * Fascism: **a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized [|autocratic] government headed by a [|dictatorial] leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition**
 * Import-substituting industrialization: **(called ISI) is a [|trade] and [|economic] [|policy] based on the premise that a [|country] should attempt to reduce its foreign dependency through the local production of industrialized products. The term primarily refers to 20th century [|development economics] policies, though it was advocated since the 18th century.**
 * Latin America: **Latin America (América Latina or Latinoamérica; América Latina; Amérique latine) is a geographic and cultural region of the Americas comprised of 18 Spanish-speaking countries where Romance languages (i.e., those derived from Latin) – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken.**
 * Laissez-faire capitalism: **Literally meaning 'let do' but implying 'let it be'. It's the belief that the government should stay out of the peoples' business.**
 * Liberalism: **The idea of liberty, equality, and popular sovereignty (a popular leader).**
 * Marxism-Leninism:
 * Mesoamerica:**is a region in the mid-latitudes of the Americas, namely the culture area within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.**
 * Military junta:**A `military junta` is government by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish `junta` meaning committee, specifically a board of directors. It originally referred to an executive body that came to power after a military coup in 20th century Latin America.**
 * Nationalism:**a belief in the importance of the nation founded on the assumption that a population with common characteristics such as language, ethnicity and religion also constitutes a unified political entity.**
 * Neocolonialism:**control by a powerful country of its former colonies (or other less developed countries) by economic pressures.**
 * Neoliberalism: **describes a market-driven[|[1]] approach to economic and social policy based on [|neoclassical theories of economics] that stresses the efficiency of private enterprise, [|liberalized trade] and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the state.**
 * Oligarchs & oligarchy: **government run by a few to several people**
 * Pombaline Reforms:**was a series of reforms between 1750 and 1808 by Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of Pombal with the goal of making Portugal an economically self-sufficient nation.**
 * //The Porfiriato//: **An era of rapid growth; the economic transformation of Mexico, 1876-1910.**
 * Positivism:**Positivism was founded by Auguste Comte, who introduced the term "positivism". A trend in bourgeois philosophy which declares natural (empirical) sciences to be the sole source of true knowledge and rejects the cognitive value of philosophical study.**
 * Social Darwinism:**is a belief, popular in the late Victorian era in England, America, and elsewhere, which states that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die.**
 * Trotskyism:**is the theory of [|Communism] as advocated by [|Leon Trotsky].**
 * **Central America physical map**
 * **[|South America physical map]**
 * **[|South America physical map]**