Research Library

Mexico is gradually laying the foundation for an oil and gas sector where private—along with some state-owned—international companies are taking central stage. However, authorities should not ignore the necessity of developing a domestic oil and gas sector, writes Adrian Duhalt in a post for the Baker Institute blog.

Social media is becoming more and more a part of the daily political process. From a political science perspective, the ability to capture the ideology of elites and citizens using a common platform greatly helps in answering a very important question: which party’s ideological position is closest to that of its supporters, on a left-right ideology scale? Research scholar Abdullah Aydogan analyzes the tweets of four major Turkish political parties to answer this question in a post for the Baker Institute Blog.

Media reports that Pemex, Mexico's state-owned petroleum company, is looking for buyers for its fertilizer subsidiary may indicate that it is seeking to scale down operations by selling assets and, perhaps more importantly, to withdraw from an economic activity seen as strategic in reducing Mexico´s dependency on imports of basic staples such as corn.

In this blog post, Mexico Center director Tony Payan discusses the results of Mexico's June 5 election and what they mean for the country's 2018 presidential election.

President Barack Obama’s visit to Argentina launched new bilateral relations in which traditional diplomacy was widely displayed with the signing of agreements in economics, energy, climate change, multilateral cooperation, global health, democracy, human rights, security and defense.

Latin America Initiative director Erika de la Garza blogs on the murder of Honduras activist Berta Cáceres, who was in Houston last November to receive an award for her work on behalf of Honduras’ indigenous communities.

Middle East fellow Kristian Coates Ulrichsen analyzes recent government shuffles in the United Arab Emirates.

Though drops in oil prices stand to impact Saudi Arabia’s economic stability, the government has turned to drawing down its foreign reserves and issuing bonds to alleviate budgetary pressures and avoid drastic domestic spending cuts. Fellow for the Middle East Kristian Coates Ulrichsen writes in the Baker Institute Blog: http://bit.ly/1fKLWG9.

This year marks a turning point in Argentinian politics now that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner lacks the constitutional possibility of being reelected. And with the party system fragmented as it is, no candidate has a clear victory.

After more than half a century of a highly restrictive policy toward Cuba that ranged from an economic embargo to prohibiting most travel by U.S. citizens to the island, President Obama announced on Dec. 17, 2014, that Washington and Havana hope to restore diplomatic relations in the near future. While President Obama's new Cuba policy falls short of lifting the embargo, which can only be done through congressional action, it nonetheless represents a historic shift in U.S. relations and leadership in Latin America.