Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy
by Moisés Naím

Pick up a newspaper anywhere, any day, and you will find reports of illegal migrants, drug busts, smuggled weapons, laundered money, or counterfeit goods. Illicit trades are booming and so are the traffickers' revenues—and their political influence. Black-market networks are stealthily transforming global politics and economics.

Illicit shows how we got to this dangerous point—and stresses the interconnections between these illegal enterprises, and how they endlessly recombine to breed new lines of business, distort the economy of entire countries and industries, enable terrorists and even take over governments. From pirated movies to weapons of mass destruction, from human organs to endangered species, drugs, or stolen art, Illicit reveals the inner workings of these amazingly efficient international organizations and shows why it is so hard—and so necessary—to contain them.

Altered States: Globalization, Sovereignty, and Governance
By Gordon Smith & Moisés Naím

In Altered States, Gordon Smith and Moisés Naím provide practical recommendations for improved governance and for strengthening and reforming the United Nations. They explore the dynamics of globalization and discuss what makes today's globalization distinct. They test the prevailing wisdom about sovereignty and state capacity, and sort out the humbug.

They consider whether sovereignty itself is an impediment or a requirement to security and prosperity. And, in three urgent areas ripe for progress — preventing deadly conflict, providing opportunities for the young, and managing the many harms of climate change — they advance plans of action by which states, with others in the global community, can govern successfully in the future.

Competition Policy, Deregulation, and Modernization in Latin America
Edited by Moisés Naím & Joseph Tulchin

Economic reforms in Latin America since the 1970s have focused first on economic stabilization, later on liberalization and deregulation, and only recently on creating, or in some cases re-creating, the legal, regulatory, and statutory institutions complementary to modern global capitalism.

This book addresses a central element of the newest round of reforms: the restriction of anticompetitive practices. Providing one of the first studies to explore the topic, the authors trace the development of competition policy in Latin America, where that policy stands today, and how it may be reconceptualized and deplyed as a tool for consolidating the region's economic future.

Mexico 1994: Anatomy of an Emerging-Market Crash
Edited by Sebastian Edwards & Moisés Naím

In late December 1994--after having attracted widespread praise as a model of economic reform and become a super-magnet for international investors as well as the United States' partner in the newly consummated NAFTA trade agreement--Mexico seemingly overnight plunged into political and economic crisis. The perceived threat to the global economy was to lead the Clinton administration, against strong congressional criticism, to push through an unprecedented $40-billion international rescue package.

The complex anatomy of this "first economic crisis of the 21st century" is here examined-in sometimes sharply divergent perspectives--by a distinguished international group that includes ex-ministers, financial market participants, leading political scientists and economists, and senior officials from the World Bank, the IMF, and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Lessons of the Venezuelan Experience
Edited by Louis W. Goodman, Johanna Mendelson Forman, Moisés Naím, Joseph S. Tulchin & Gary Bland

Until two attempts at military coups in 1992, Venezuela enjoyed a political stability that was exceptional for a Latin American nation under a succession, going back to 1958, of constitutionally chosen presidents. Venezuela had leaders who were socially responsible and progressive, funding social programs with money the state earned from petroleum exports.

What had weakened the foundation of that stability in the 1990s? In Lessons of the Venezuelan Experience, a distinguished group of scholars reviews Venezuelan exceptionalism and the key institutions that had atrophied economically, socially, and politically. The authors draw lessons on the need for public accountability in a democracy, and examine major political players--political parties, popular opinion, and the military; sectors of the economy; the state, populism, corruption, and crisis managment; and Venezuela's foreign relations.

Paper Tigers & Minotaurs: The Politics of Venezuela's Economic Reforms
by Moisés Naím

Paper Tigers & Minotaurs is an insider's account of national transition from a protected and state-controlled economy to one relying on free markets and open trade. Venezuela's experience with dismantling an entrenched economic structure and coping with the political consequences of a new system is a national story with international lessons.

With an eye for paradox and the unexpected, Naím retraces his country's passage through the maze of surprises and dangers that beset managers of large-scale reform. Some of the dangers turn out to be roaring but harmless paper tigers; others, the unexpected and deadly minotaurs capable of derailing the entire process of reform. Distinguishing one from the others, a none-too-simple task, emerges as an indispensible survival skill for reformers everywhere.