Editor's Foreword: The LARR -LASA Relationship and the Move to McGill 2008-12
April 2006
Most Latin American Studies Association members are probably unaware that the Association actually grew out of the Latin American Research Review, not the other way around. The year after the journal's creation in 1964, the founding members of LARR created the Association. And while LARR has always been viewed as the Association's journal, this fact may help to explain why LARR has always had a rather unusual and autonomous relationship with the Latin American Studies Association—quite unlike that which usually exists between a professional association and its journal(s).
Few people would argue that editorial autonomy is not essential, of course, but so, too, has LARR's financial autonomy been important in allowing past editors to develop the journal in a manner relatively unfettered by the LASA secretariat, by the Executive Council, and elected leadership, the presidency of which changes every eighteen months. In Gil Merkx's words (LARR 37, no. 1: 5), this separation was "the firewall" in LARR's "editorial and managerial autonomy." In my view, too, this financial, managerial, and editorial autonomy has been the key to LARR's widely acknowledged status as the leading Latin American studies journal and to the success of the initiatives that we have put in place here at the University of Texas at Austin since our first issue appeared in 2003 (vol. 38, no. 1). It has ensured our total editorial control over policy and content, the appointments to the Editorial Board, internal management structure and process, production and design, advertising, electronic journal development, royalty negotiations, and the setting of institutional subscription rates. Naturally, all of these activities are regularly [End Page 3] reported to the elected members of the Executive Council (EC) by the editor, who serves ex officio on the Council, and LARR reports in full each year to the LASA Secretariat, which oversees and audits the accounts. LASA also approves the Editorial Board slate, and every five years oversees the bid process in order for the EC to appoint, or to reappoint, the editor and university venue. But once appointed, and outside of the regular reporting, the autonomy of the editor and university team charged with LARR has always been respected.
Not surprisingly, over the years this relative autonomy has sometimes been a source of tension between my predecessors and the LASA Secretariat, particularly relating to the annual subvention LASA provides towards the costs of producing and distributing the journal to LASA members. Since the LASA members comprise over 80 percent of the journal's total circulation, the lion's share of production and distribution costs are associated with circulation to the membership. Yet the LASA to LARR subvention runs a little under one-third of the actual production and circulation costs (the remainder comes from LARR institutional subscriptions and income); thus the flow of resources has been firmly one of LARR to LASA, rather than being a subsidy to the journal from the Association.
There have been several past attempts by the Secretariat to assume financial and production control of LARR, but until now those attempts have always been successfully resisted. Indeed, following John Martz, 1 in 1982 then entering editor Gil Merkx and the LASA leadership saw the desirability of drawing up the Articles of Understanding that have guided the relationship for more than twenty years (these were reprinted in LARR 37, no. 1 [2002]: 5–6).
Now, it is with considerable regret that I must report that those Articles of Understanding were unilaterally set aside by the LASA Secretariat and the Ways and Means Committee in drawing up the new bid requirements for the period 2007–11. Thus the LARR-LASA relationship is about to change irrevocably, with LASA assuming full financial and production control of the journal from 2008 (vol. 43) onwards. As editor, in 2005 I vigorously protested the lack...
