Bert Hoffmann is Senior Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute of Latin American Studies.

• Introduction Part I: Third World Development and NICT in Political Perspective 1. The New Information and Communication Technologies (NICT): Comparative Experiences and Present Disparities 2. NICT in Third World Development: Political Issues in a Transformed Telecommunications Regime Part II: Latin America's 'Mixed Model': Costa Rica 3. The Costa Rican Development Model and Its Telecommunications Regime 4. Active NICT Development by State Monopoly: A New Costa Rican Model? Part III: Latin America's 'Socialist Model': Cuba 5. Cuba's State-Socialist Development Model and Its Telecommunications Regime 6. From the Rejection of the Internet to the 'Informatization of Society': A Political Anatomy of Change 7. The Politics of the Internet in Third World Development: Conclusions in Comparative Perspective