Most recent papers:

• Ritual Demonstrations versus Reactive Protests: Participation Across Mobilizing Contexts in Mexico City.
  María Inclán, Paul D. Almeida.
  Latin American Politics and Society. September 14, 2017
  Using an innovative survey of protest participants and nonparticipants from five major street demonstrations in Mexico City in 2011 and 2012, this study tests the assumption that influences on protest participation vary across different types of events; namely, ritual demonstrations and reactive protests. The comparison is based on two assumptions: that these are two of the dominant forms of protest in contemporary Latin America, and that specifying the context for different types of social movement participation provides a better understanding of the individual mobilization process for groups seeking to defend their rights or gain new benefits. The comparative analyses reveal some crucial differences. Political interest and previous political experience are more influential in the decision to take part in reactive demonstrations. For ritual demonstrations, the decision to participate tends to be driven more by personal and organizational connections.

  September 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12033   open full text
• From Middle Powers to Entrepreneurial Powers in World Politics: Brazil's Successes and Failures in International Crises.
  Feliciano de Sá Guimarães, Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida.
  Latin American Politics and Society. September 14, 2017
  This article uses the concept of entrepreneurial powers to discuss how and under what circumstances Brazil successfully accomplishes its goals in international crises. The concept of entrepreneurial power focuses on systematic evidence of middle‐power behavior and its relation to foreign policy tools. Brazil resorts to three agency‐based foreign policy tools that are the substance of its entrepreneurial power. These instruments are always mediated by a structural condition, the dominant power pivotal position in the crisis. This study applies qualitative comparative analysis methodology to 32 international crises since the early 1990s in which Brazil played a role. It finds that for regional crises, the use of only one agency‐based tool is sufficient for success, regardless of the dominant power position; and for global crises, the use of only one agency‐based tool is a necessary and sufficient condition for Brazil to accomplish its goals, despite the dominant power position on the issue.

  September 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12032   open full text
• Chronicle of a Survival Foretold: How Protest Behavior Against Armed Actors Influenced Violence in the Colombian Civil War, 1988–2005.
  Carlos Enrique Moreno León.
  Latin American Politics and Society. September 14, 2017
  This article examines the circumstances under which civilians, using protests as a mechanism, alter the strategic use of violence by armed actors (rebels and state forces). By examining the civil war in Colombia between 1988 and 2005, this study finds that combatants decrease their attacks against the population when civilians protest against the enemy. Combatants interpret such demonstrations as costly signals of loyalty. Furthermore, when insurgents are the target of the protests, insurgents increase repression against civilians as rebels get stronger. In contrast, state forces (and paramilitaries) compensate for their weakness in the area by multiplying civilian victims. Both state forces and rebels, however, are likely to decrease violence against civilians when civilians protest against both parties in contested zones. In such contexts, armed actors are likely to refrain from retaliation because any violence might drive noncombatants toward the enemy.

  September 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12031   open full text
• Universal Citizenship Through the Discourse and Policy of Rafael Correa.
  Jeffrey D. Pugh.
  Latin American Politics and Society. August 04, 2017
  This article investigates political opportunities and constraints associated with incorporating the concept of universal citizenship into migration debates. Analyzing the speeches of Ecuador's president Rafael Correa over eight years, the article argues that Correa strategically crafted a narrative of universal citizenship to undergird politically beneficial policies. Political constraints from constituents and rivals, and the populist nature of his governing style, hollowed out progressive migration policy innovations to the point that universal citizenship became a rhetorical device more than a substantive policy agenda. Through this empirical case, the article develops a more nuanced critical understanding of universal citizenship discourses as sites for negotiating the relationship between states and migrants.

  August 04, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12028   open full text
• Explaining State Violence in the Guatemalan Civil War: Rebel Threat and Counterinsurgency.
  Yuichi Kubota.
  Latin American Politics and Society. August 04, 2017
  Literature on the Guatemalan Civil War has debated whether or not state violence was triggered by rebel activities. Did the government respond to each insurrection caused by the rebels, or did it blindly target regions where antigovernment antipathy and movements had historically prevailed? Because state violence was extensive during the civil war period, the dynamism of the war could have been the reason for its occurrence. Relying on the threat‐response model of state violence, this article argues that human rights violations occurred when the government perceived a rebel threat that would have seriously degraded its capability in future counterinsurgencies. The article employs propensity score matching to address the problem of confounding in empirical analysis, and reveals that rebel attacks, particularly those targeting security apparatus and resulting in human injury, increased the likelihood of state violence in the Guatemalan Civil War.

  August 04, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12026   open full text
• Watchdogs in Our Midst: How Presidents Monitor Coalitions in Brazil's Multiparty Presidential Regime.
  Carlos Pereira, Mariana Batista, Sérgio Praça, Felix Lopez.
  Latin American Politics and Society. July 21, 2017
  When delegating governing tasks to a coalition partner, the president would like to give a minister ample administrative powers to be able to effectively accomplish the political mission. Due to information asymmetries, the president runs the risk that this discretion might be used to pursue policy outcomes that may harm the president's preferences. This trade‐off between delegation and control is key to understanding governance strategies the president chooses to minimize agency risks and coordinate public policies. With Brazil as a case study, this article demonstrates that presidents have strategically made frequent use of junior ministers as watchdogs of coalition partners, especially when coalition allies are ideologically distant from the president's preferences. Yet neither the portfolio salience nor the president's decision to share powers with coalition partners proportionally seems to interfere in such strategic decisions.

  July 21, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12025   open full text
• Social Policies and Center‐Right Governments in Argentina and Chile.
  Sara Niedzwiecki, Jennifer Pribble.
  Latin American Politics and Society. July 18, 2017
  Latin America's “left turn” expanded cash transfers and public services, contributing to lower poverty and inequality. Recently, right‐leaning candidates and parties have begun to win back seats in the legislature, and in some cases have captured the executive branch. This shift has sparked debate about the future of Latin America's welfare states. This article analyzes social policy reforms enacted by two recent right‐leaning governments: that of Sebastián Piñera in Chile (2010–14) and Mauricio Macri in Argentina (2015–). It finds that contrary to neoliberal adjustment policies of the past, neither Macri nor Piñera engaged in privatization or deep spending cuts. Instead, both administrations facilitated a process of policy drift in some sectors and marginal expansion in others. Policy legacies and the strength of the opposition help to explain these outcomes, suggesting that Latin America's political context has been transformed by the consolidation of democracy and the experience of left party rule.

  July 18, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12027   open full text
• The Changing Terrain of Rural Contention in Brazil: Institutionalization and Identity Development in the Landless Movement's Educational Project.
  Anthony Pahnke.
  Latin American Politics and Society. July 18, 2017
  Studies of the Brazilian Landless Movement, particularly the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Landless Rural Workers' Movement), note two periods of collective action: the time when tactics such as land occupations are deployed to acquire land (luta pela terra) and subsequent mobilizations to develop territory (luta na terra). The latter period, which includes fostering educational opportunities and coordinating economic production, features prolonged interaction with government authorities. Instead of demobilizing during institutionalization, this study argues, postoccupation practices are as contentious as seizing territory. This is apparent in the movement's efforts to influence public policies that lead to the creation of schools where a contentious, movement‐centered identity develops. Documenting the movement's efforts in education provides a way to understand how the current moment in rural contention in Brazil—called by some the time to acumular forças (accumulate forces)—remains collective and political instead of indicating movement decline.

  July 18, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12024   open full text
• Compulsory Voting and Income Inequality: Evidence for Lijphart's Proposition from Venezuela.
  John M. Carey, Yusaku Horiuchi.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 09, 2017
  What difference does it make if the state makes people vote? The question is central to normative debates about the rights and duties of citizens in a democracy, and to contemporary policy debates in a number of Latin American countries over what actions states should take to encourage electoral participation. Focusing on a rare case of abolishing compulsory voting in Venezuela, this article shows that not forcing people to vote yielded a more unequal distribution of income. The evidence supports Arend Lijphart's claim, advanced in his 1996 presidential address to the American Political Science Association, that compulsory voting can offset class bias in turnout and, in turn, contribute to the equality of influence.

  May 09, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12021   open full text
• Effects of Institutional Reforms on Women's Representation in Colombia, 1960–2014.
  Mónica Pachón Buitrago, María Paula Aroca.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 09, 2017
  Starting in the 1990s, reforms aimed at addressing the underrepresentation of women have been implemented in Colombia. However, research on the consequences of these reforms has been inconclusive. This article analyzes the influence of institutional variables on the proportion of nominated and elected women in Colombia between 1962 and 2014, at both the national and local levels of government, in three different institutional environments. Results confirm the influence of institutional change, indicating that decentralizing reforms and the introduction of the gender quota have had a positive impact on the proportion of women's candidacies and elections, but that the adoption of the open list negatively affected the percentage of elected women.

  May 09, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12020   open full text
• Resilience and Renewal: The Enforcement of Labor Laws in Brazil.
  Salo Coslovsky, Roberto Pires, Renato Bignami.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 09, 2017
  What happens to a country's system of labor laws when its government embraces market‐oriented reforms? In a twist on the prediction that labor regulations will be repealed, researchers find that laws remain in place but are not faithfully enforced, a phenomenon known as de facto flexibility. This article examines the case of Brazil to understand its near‐opposite; namely, resilience and renewal in the enforcement of labor regulations. It finds that labor unions have combined the corporatist authority they gained under state control with the autonomy they acquired under democratization to devise new modes of action and to safeguard existing regulations. Meanwhile, labor inspectors and prosecutors rely on existing laws to combat precarious work conditions and promote formal employment relations, which strengthen the unions. This mutually supportive arrangement is neither perfect nor free of tension, but it shows how workers can be protected even when employers are subjected to global competition.

  May 09, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12019   open full text
• Union Affiliation, Socialization, and Political Identities: The Case of Mexico.
  Kimberly A. Nolan‐García, María Inclán.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 09, 2017
  The literature on voting behavior has generally accepted that party identification largely determines voter choice. While many studies have found that party identification is largely transmitted through social learning, less studied are the processes of the construction of party identity by way of group membership. This study seeks to understand how group identity influences party identification among Mexican workers through an analysis of the effects of union affiliation on political behavior. It assesses the utility of corporatist legacies in explaining party identity in Mexico and provides a first assessment of party affinities among independent unionists. The evidence draws from original survey data collected during six demonstrations in Mexico City. The study finds that union membership does condition the party identity of corporatist workers but not that of independent unionists.

  May 09, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12018   open full text
• Authoritarian Regimes and Their Permitted Oppositions: Election Day Outcomes in Cuba.
  Jorge I. Domínguez, Ángela Fonseca Galvis, Chiara Superti.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 09, 2017
  Electoral opposition to long‐established authoritarian regimes may be loyal or rejectionist. Loyal oppositionists vote to send a selective signal to rulers; rejectionist oppositionists vote blank or void the ballot in full disapproval. In Cuba, the number of candidates equals the number of seats, yet voters may vote blank, void, or selectively (choosing some but not all candidates on the ballot), although the Communist Party has campaigned for all candidates. This article uses a unique dataset for Cuba's 2013 National Assembly elections to study aggregate opposition outcomes. It shows the emergence of a loyal opposition, which sometimes votes for and sometimes against Communist Party candidates. The rejectionist opposition, stable over time, never votes for Communist Party candidates; it is found where the Communist Party behaves monopolistically. This combined opposition has better national‐level political information; it comes from more educated or larger urban areas or areas closer to Havana.

  May 09, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12017   open full text
• Inequality, Protests, and the Progressive Allocation of Cash Transfers in the Argentine Provinces.
  Ernesto Calvo, Lorena Moscovich.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 09, 2017
  In the last 20 years, two broadly defined theories have sought to explain the relationship between economic inequality and redistribution. The well‐known hypothesis set forth by Meltzer and Richard (1981) states that larger income differences between the median voter and the average income earner should increase redistributive pressures in democratic regimes. Power Resource Theory (PRT), by contrast, argues that income inequality breeds power inequality and should dampen redistribution. Critical to both theories is the translation of redistributive interest into policy signals. This article considers protests as signals that increase the salience of inequality among voters. Results provide evidence that protests facilitate more progressive cash transfers in highly unequal environments but have modest effects in more egalitarian ones.

  May 09, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12016   open full text
• Mapping Religious Change in Latin America.
  Nicolás M. Somma, Matías A. Bargsted, Eduardo Valenzuela.
  Latin American Politics and Society. February 01, 2017
  Using Latinobarometer survey data, we study the evolution of religious identities among the adult populations of 17 Latin American countries between 1996 and 2013. We find several interesting patterns. First, the current religious landscape is highly dynamic and is becoming increasingly pluralist among a majority of countries. Changes derive not only from the growth of Evangelicals, as commonly assumed, but also from the sharp rise in irreligious individuals. Second, religious change cannot be convincingly explained by important theories such as secularization, religious economies, and anomie. However, the predictions derived from anomie theory seem more useful for understanding Evangelical growth. Finally, our cohort analysis indicates that aggregate religious change largely results from individual‐level change across time—religious conversion and apostasy—rather than from generational replacement. Still, there are interesting variations across countries in that respect.

  February 01, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12013   open full text
• Explaining Strike Outcomes in Chile: Associational Power, Structural Power, and Spatial Strategies.
  Joel Stillerman.
  Latin American Politics and Society. February 01, 2017
  Research on strikes has traditionally focused on how economic, institutional, and political variables shape strike patterns. Recent work examines how workers' structural, associational, and symbolic power facilitate strikes. Building on this research, this article asks, what factors determine strike outcomes? It analyzes four strikes at MADECO, Chile's largest copper manufacturer, across democratic, authoritarian, and postauthoritarian regimes. Using qualitative and documentary evidence, it argues that strike outcomes reflect workers' capacity to halt or disrupt production and to access government allies who can pressure management to settle strikes in workers' favor. Outcomes vary based on the political composition of government, workers' capacity to halt production, and industry's and government's dependence on foreign investment. MADECO workers' location in Santiago, near national officials, allowed them to mobilize at the local, national, and international scales to pressure management. Comparisons with other strikes in Chile, Argentina, and Peru identify similar mobilization patterns.

  February 01, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12012   open full text
• Is It Race, Class, or Gender? The Sources of Perceived Discrimination in Brazil.
  Matthew L. Layton, Amy Erica Smith.
  Latin American Politics and Society. February 01, 2017
  Observers have long noted Brazil's distinctive racial politics: the coexistence of relatively integrated race relations and a national ideology of “racial democracy” with deep social inequalities along color lines. Those defending a vision of a nonracist Brazil attribute such inequalities to mechanisms perpetuating class distinctions. This article examines how members of disadvantaged groups perceive their disadvantage and what determines self‐reports of discriminatory experiences, using 2010 AmericasBarometer data. About a third of respondents reported experiencing discrimination. Consistent with Brazilian national myths, respondents were much more likely to report discrimination due to their class than to their race. Nonetheless, the respondent's skin color, as coded by the interviewer, was a strong determinant of reporting class as well as race and gender discrimination. Race is more strongly associated with perceived “class” discrimination than is household wealth, education, or region of residence; female gender intensifies the association between color and discrimination.

  February 01, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12010   open full text
• The Costs and Benefits of Party Switching in Mexico.
  Yann P. Kerevel.
  Latin American Politics and Society. February 01, 2017
  Are party switchers successful at furthering their careers? Most research on party switching focuses on the decision to switch and with which party to affiliate. Less attention is paid to the costs and benefits of switching parties. Moreover, previous research examining the electoral success of party switchers has often ignored how costs vary between the candidate selection process and the general election. This study addresses this gap in the literature by using original data on the careers of Mexican federal deputies to examine the costs and benefits of switching parties at the candidate selection stage and during general elections. The results suggest that party switchers are more successful at winning ballot access than nonswitchers but are less likely to win office. These results help explain why ambitious politicians would switch parties, given the known risks of changing party affiliation.

  February 01, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12009   open full text
• Electoral Accountability in the Midst of Criminal Violence: Evidence from Mexico.
  Sandra Ley.
  Latin American Politics and Society. January 06, 2017
  Rising levels of crime and insecurity affect the quality of life. A fundamental question for the prospects of democracy is whether voters, in hopes of reaching better solutions to conditions of prevailing insecurity, can hold their elected officials accountable for such situations. This article argues that electoral accountability amid criminal violence requires voters to be able to assign responsibility for crime, and that partisan alignment across levels of government facilitates this task. Recent Mexican elections are examined to test this argument. Relying on both aggregate electoral data and individual survey evidence, this study shows that voters hold politicians accountable for crime in the narrow circumstances of organized crime–related violence and political alignment. This evidence not only provides additional caveats to issue voting models, but also opens new avenues of research on electoral accountability.

  January 06, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12008   open full text
• Uneasy Partners Against Crime: The Ambivalent Relationship Between the Police and the Private Security Industry in Mexico.
  Logan Puck.
  Latin American Politics and Society. January 06, 2017
  Legitimation is a fraught process for private security companies operating in Mexico and other countries in the Global South where the police have a poor reputation. Mexican private security companies have an ambivalent relationship with the police, which causes firms to engage in two seemingly contradictory practices. Companies attempt to gain legitimacy by aligning with the image of the police to earn a sense of “symbolic stateness” while simultaneously distancing themselves from Mexico's actual police forces so as to disassociate from the institution's poor reputation. Consequently, collaboration between public and private security is limited, despite official attempts by the Mexican state to foster positive contact between them. Overall, this study contributes to the growing literature on private security by providing novel insights into the strategies private security firms utilize to navigate within states possessing delegitimated security forces, and the resulting lucrative political economy landscape.

  January 06, 2017   doi: 10.1111/laps.12011   open full text
• Soft or Hard Power? Discourse Patterns in Brazil's Foreign Policy Toward South America.
  Carola M. Lustig.
  Latin American Politics and Society. November 02, 2016
  This article analyzes the discourse of Brazil's foreign policy toward South America from 1995 to 2010 by means of quantifying, codifying, and weighting all speeches registered in the homogeneous and periodic official documentation of Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs using a discourse analysis approach. The aim is to investigate discourse patterns in order to qualify Brazil's foreign policy as either hard power or soft power and to identify the orientation and differences in its discourse of foreign policy regarding each country of South America during the presidential terms of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002) and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003–2010).

  November 02, 2016   doi: 10.1111/laps.12004   open full text
• The Organizational Consequences of Politics: A Research Agenda for the Study of Bureaucratic Politics in Latin America.
  John Polga‐Hecimovich, Alejandro Trelles.
  Latin American Politics and Society. November 02, 2016
  The study of the bureaucracy in Latin America, within the study of politics, has long been little more than an afterthought. It is assumed to lie in the realm of public administration, distinct from other regional subfields that have increasingly gained the attention of political scientists. As a result, scholars' understanding of Latin American bureaucratic politics is limited. Here, we conduct a comprehensive survey of peer‐reviewed articles to evaluate the state of this subfield. We find a thematically, analytically, and methodologically splintered discipline, but a prime one for exploitation and new avenues of research. This article summarizes salient trends in the literature, describes advances in the study of bureaucracy in Latin America, and discusses limitations in this scholarship. It suggests a roadmap for scholars by proposing a series of research questions and recommends a series of analytical and methodological approaches to address those questions.

  November 02, 2016   doi: 10.1111/laps.12002   open full text
• “What Guarantees Do We Have?” Legal Tolls and Persistent Impunity for Feminicide in Guatemala.
  Shannon Drysdale Walsh, Cecilia Menjívar.
  Latin American Politics and Society. November 02, 2016
  Guatemala has one of the highest levels of killings of women and impunity for violence against women in the world. Despite laws created to protect women, Guatemala, like other countries, generally fails at implementation. This article examines justice system obstacles in contemporary Guatemala to processing cases of feminicide—killings of women because they are women in a context of impunity—comparing two recent feminicide cases. It argues that the sociopolitical context in Guatemala, including structural violence, widespread poverty, inequality, corruption, and normalization of gender violence against women, generates penalties, or “legal tolls,” that are imposed on victims' families and contribute to impunity through undermining victims' attempts to navigate the justice system. The analysis focuses on the tolls of fear and time: the need to overcome fear of retaliation and the extraordinary time and effort it takes to do so in a corrupt and broken system.

  November 02, 2016   doi: 10.1111/laps.12001   open full text
• Chinese Economic Statecraft and U.S. Hegemony in Latin America: An Empirical Analysis, 2003–2014.
  Francisco Urdinez, Fernando Mouron, Luis L. Schenoni, Amâncio J. de Oliveira.
  Latin American Politics and Society. October 11, 2016
  If one interprets China's sizable rise in Latin America as an unprecedented phenomenon, it follows that the concurrent story of declining U.S. influence in the region is an event hastily acknowledged at best and ignored at worst. In this article, we ask whether Chinese economic statecraft in Latin America is related to the declining U.S. hegemonic influence in the region and explore how. To do so we analyze foreign direct investments, bank loans, and international trade from 2003 to 2014, when China became a major player in the region. We use data from 21 Latin American countries, and find that an inversely proportional relationship exists between the investments made by Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), bank loans, manufacturing exports, and the U.S. hegemonic influence exerted in the region. In other words, Beijing has filled the void left by a diminished U.S. presence in the latter's own backyard.

  October 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/laps.12000   open full text
• The Formation of Cabinet Coalitions in Presidential Systems.
  Johannes Freudenreich.
  Latin American Politics and Society. October 11, 2016
  Cabinet coalitions are central to the functioning of Latin American presidential systems. However, the reasons for their formation remain unclear. While recent studies suggest that presidents invite parties to the cabinet to facilitate governability and lawmaking, this study argues that the composition of cabinet coalitions is largely predetermined by commitments made before presidential elections. To analyze this argument, the study introduces the conditional logit model as a new empirical strategy for modeling cabinet choice under this type of regime. Based on a new dataset of 107 cabinets in 13 Latin American democracies, the study shows that pre‐electoral commitments strongly affect cabinet formation and thereby also confound the relationship between cabinet formation and governability.

  October 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/laps.12003   open full text
• Chile's 2015 Electoral Reform: Changing the Rules of the Game.
  Ricardo Gamboa, Mauricio Morales.
  Latin American Politics and Society. October 11, 2016
  In 2015, a center‐left government introduced an electoral reform that replaced the binomial electoral system governing parliamentary elections since 1989 with a more proportional system. This article provides an account of the reform process, describes the new electoral law, and discusses the factors explaining the reform. We argue, first, that it was possible, due to the incentives the government provided, to secure the support of an ample majority of parliamentarians; also, a new and favorable political scenario had emerged, in which the support of the main right‐wing parties was not necessary for the reform to pass. Second, we maintain that the reform sought mainly to resolve problems affecting the parties of the governing coalition related to negotiations of coalition lists for elections. As a complementary objective, the reform promoted a general interest by establishing rules that allowed a “fairer” system of representation and improved competitive conditions.

  October 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/laps.12005   open full text
• Malapportionment and Ideological Bias in Chilean Electoral Districts.
  John M. Carey.
  Latin American Politics and Society. August 12, 2016
  In 2015, Chile fundamentally reformed the electoral system it had used since 1989. The old system was characterized by high levels of malapportionment, or differences across districts in the ratios of voters to representatives. In the first elections after redemocratization, malapportionment favored the ideological right, but elections since 2000 have yielded no evidence that malapportionment produced ideological bias. The new, postreform electoral system reduces malapportionment in the lower chamber, although it remains pronounced in both chambers. Nevertheless, analysis of results from previous elections, coupled with information about the new districts, suggests that, consistent with recent experience, malapportionment will not produce ideological bias in elections to either chamber.

  August 12, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00321.x   open full text
• Institutions, Civilian Resistance, and Wartime Social Order: A Process‐driven Natural Experiment in the Colombian Civil War.
  Ana Arjona.
  Latin American Politics and Society. August 12, 2016
  Why do armed groups fighting in civil wars establish different institutions in territories where they operate? This article tests the mechanisms of a theory that posits that different forms of wartime social order are the outcome of a process in which an aspiring ruler—an armed group—expands the scope of its rule as much as possible unless civilians push back. Instead of being always at the mercy of armed actors, civilians arguably have bargaining power if they can credibly threaten combatants with collective resistance. Such resistance, in turn, is a function of the quality of preexisting local institutions. Using a process‐driven natural experiment in three villages in Central Colombia, this article traces the effects of institutional quality on wartime social order.

  August 12, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00320.x   open full text
• When War Adversaries Talk: The Experimental Effect of Engagement Rules on Postconflict Deliberation.
  Juan E. Ugarriza.
  Latin American Politics and Society. August 12, 2016
  A set of discussion groups including leftist ex‐guerrillas and rightist ex‐paramilitaries in Colombia shows the limits for democratic deliberation in postconflict societies, but also points to ways that outcomes closer to the deliberative ideal might be obtained. A total of 342 ex‐combatants agreed to sit down and talk politics under a number of experimental conditions, using three different protocols of engagement. Results show that consensus rule fosters simultaneously a more reasoned and common‐good–oriented, and less self‐interested type of discussion when compared to majority rule and unstructured “free talk.” Nevertheless, while it might be desirable to promote a better quality of deliberation in divided societies, it does not necessarily prevent antagonists’ tendency to polarize.

  August 12, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00319.x   open full text
• Contemporary Left‐wing Populism in Latin America: Leadership, Horizontalism, and Postdemocracy in Chávez's Venezuela.
  Yannis Stavrakakis, Alexandros Kioupkiolis, Giorgos Katsambekis, Nikos Nikisianis, Thomas Siomos.
  Latin American Politics and Society. August 12, 2016
  Critical engagement with the case of Chavismo in Venezuela can offer valuable insights for a fuller understanding of contemporary populism in Latin America. While for some scholars Chávez's populism has fostered popular empowerment, others dwell on the newly confirmed tensions between populism, liberal rights, and democratic proceduralism. This article embraces both positions but moves beyond their one‐sidedness to cast Chavista populism as an inherently contradictory phenomenon that has constituted an ambivalent and transitory process in response to the gradual closure of liberal (post)democracy. Chavista “caesaro‐plebeian” populism is construed as a site of tension and contention, which entails both promises and dangers for democracy. To make these points, the article draws on the discursive analysis of populism and on a new, productive shift in the study of populism in Venezuela, which pursues ethnographic field research on social movements instead of focusing exclusively on the figure of the leader.

  August 12, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00318.x   open full text
• Presidentas Rise: Consequences for Women in Cabinets?
  Catherine Reyes‐Housholder.
  Latin American Politics and Society. July 18, 2016
  Since 1999, women have democratically won the presidency eight times in Latin America and have named hundreds of ministers. This study argues that under certain conditions, presidentas are more likely than male presidents to improve women's cabinet representation. Two mechanisms, presidenta mandates and gendered networks, appear to drive the relationship. Furthermore, because the pool of ministerial candidates is shallower for women than for men, presidentas are most likely to advance women's representation in cabinets at the beginning of their term and for “feminine” ministries. A case study of Michelle Bachelet's 2006 ministerial appointments reveals initial evidence for the argument. Empirical implications are then tested with an original dataset of 1,908 ministers of all democratically elected Latin American presidents since 1999. Model results are consistent with the theory that presidentas are most likely to “make a difference” when they are least constrained by the supply of female ministerial candidates.

  July 18, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00316.x   open full text
• Laboring Under Chávez: Populism for the Twenty‐first Century.
  Paul W. Posner.
  Latin American Politics and Society. July 18, 2016
  This analysis addresses two interrelated questions: what were labor conditions like under Hugo Chávez? and what do those conditions suggest about the relationship between populism and leftism in Latin America? The answer to the first question is unequivocal. Despite its socialist rhetoric, the Chávez regime fragmented and weakened organized labor, undermined collective bargaining, and exploited vulnerable workers in cooperatives. Thus the regime's primary foible was not its radical leftism but its pursuit of populist control at the expense of the leftist goals of diminishing the domination of marginalized groups and expanding their autonomous participation in civil society. This appraisal of labor politics under Chávez indicates substantial tension between the realization of these leftist goals and populist governance. It further suggests the need to distinguish more clearly between leftism and populism and their respective impacts on democracy.

  July 18, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00317.x   open full text
• Business Power and the Politics of Postneoliberalism: Relations Between Governments and Economic Elites in Bolivia and Ecuador.
  Jonas Wolff.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 17, 2016
  The article analyzes and compares the dynamics of business‐government relations in Bolivia and Ecuador during the presidencies of Evo Morales and Rafael Correa. It specifically traces the shift from confrontation to rapprochement to a fairly stable pattern of negotiation and dialogue that characterizes the two governments' interaction with core business elites. Drawing on the structural and instrumental power framework developed by Tasha Fairfield, it proposes an explanation that accounts for this overall shift as well as for the main differences between the two countries. In a nutshell, the article argues that the business elites' response to a severe loss of instrumental power and the governments' response to the persistent structural power of business combined to cause the shift toward negotiation and dialogue. The article also probes the plausibility of this power‐based explanation by briefly comparing the two cases with other left‐of‐center governments in the region.

  May 17, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00313.x   open full text
• Presidential Approval and Public Security in Mexico's War on Crime.
  Vidal Romero, Beatriz Magaloni, Alberto Díaz‐Cayeros.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 17, 2016
  To fight criminal organizations effectively, governments require support from significant segments of society. Citizen support provides important leverage for executives, allowing them to continue their policies. Yet winning citizens' hearts and minds is not easy. Public security is a deeply complex issue. Responsibility is shared among different levels of government; information is highly mediated by mass media and individual acquaintances; and security has a strong effect on peoples' emotions, since it threatens to affect their most valuable assets—life and property. How do citizens translate their assessments of public security into presidential approval? To answer this question, this study develops explicit theoretical insights into the conditions under which different dimensions of public security affect presidential approval. The arguments are tested using Mexico as a case study.

  May 17, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00312.x   open full text
• Conditional Cash Transfer Programs and Electoral Accountability: Evidence from Latin America.
  Nara Pavão.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 25, 2016
  Do conditional cash transfer programs reduce voters' incentives to hold their government accountable for its performance? Studies show that these programs generate considerable electoral returns for the governments responsible for them. One important and unexplored question is whether these popular programs have also changed the landscape of accountability in Latin America. Survey data from 16 Latin American countries that have adopted CCT programs do not offer support for the claim that such programs have a detrimental effect on electoral accountability for corruption and for the economy. Only in countries where CCT programs do not follow strict rules do beneficiaries attribute relatively less weight to the government's economic performance, but this effect is marginal. These findings fill an important gap in the literature and offer reassuring evidence that cash transfers can alleviate poverty while preserving voters' incentives to exercise electoral accountability in crucial areas of government performance.

  April 25, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00311.x   open full text
• Informal Sector Work and Evaluations of the Incumbent: The Electoral Effect of Vulnerability on Economic Voting.
  Matthew M. Singer.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 25, 2016
  Economically vulnerable voters are expected to hold politicians accountable for their management of the economy because these voters are more likely to be personally affected by economic shocks and less able to cope with the resulting dislocation. Evidence from the informal sector in Argentina, where the lack of formal registration increases income volatility and denies unemployment benefits, is consistent with this hypothesis. Data from Argentina from 2005 to 2006 show that the association between evaluations of the economy and evaluations of President Néstor Kirchner was stronger among those working without formal employment guarantees. The implication is that the electoral support of Latin America's many informal workers may very well be fickle and dependent on economic performance.

  April 25, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00310.x   open full text
• The International Monetary Fund, Party System Institutionalization, and Protest in Latin America.
  Sergio Béjar, Juan Andrés Moraes.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 25, 2016
  Extant studies have documented a positive correlation between country participation in International Monetary Fund–sponsored programs and collective protests in Latin America. However, anecdotal evidence indicates that there is a great deal of variation in the number of protests in recipient countries across the region. This article provides a theoretical argument that explains how the fund interacts with the level of party system institutionalization to affect the level of protest. The main prediction is that the level of protest decreases in recipient countries when the level of party system institutionalization is high. Empirical results from a sample of 16 Latin American democracies observed from 1982 to 2007 provide strong statistical and substantive support for the main hypothesis.

  April 25, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00309.x   open full text
• Can Anyone Stop the President? Power Asymmetries and Term Limits in Latin America, 1984–2016.
  Javier Corrales.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 25, 2016
  Since the late twentieth century, numerous Latin American nations have launched efforts to relax presidential term limits, often successfully. This article discusses the conditions under which countries succeed in relaxing term limits. Drawing from bargaining models and reviewing 36 cases, it makes three arguments. First, actors' preferences are fairly predictable on the basis of officeholding: presidents are the most prominent actors pushing for expansion of term limits; opposition parties lead the resistance. Second, power asymmetry, measured by presidential approval ratings, is the best predictor of success, better than ideology or share of seats in Congress. Third, the only hope for stopping popular presidents rests with ruling parties and the courts, but only when the latter are sufficiently independent.

  April 25, 2016   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00308.x   open full text
• Countering Convergence: Agency and Diversity Among Guatemalan NGOs.
  Erin Beck.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 21, 2014
  The proliferation of nongovernmental organizations across the developing world has sparked discussions of the “NGOization” of civil society and concern that NGOs have become increasingly uniform and internally homogenous. This article explores the evolution of NGOs in Guatemala since the 1960s and finds that NGOs historically and currently respond in diverse ways to external pressures—adjusting their strategies and actively attempting to shape their environment. Comparing two microcredit NGOs, it finds in addition that old and new models combine in unique organizational contexts in distinct ways. These two findings suggest that diversity is likely to persist among NGOs.

  May 21, 2014   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2014.00234.x   open full text
• Hooking Workers and Hooking Votes: Enganche, Suffrage, and Labor Market Dualism in Latin America.
  Matthew E. Carnes.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 21, 2014
  Labor market dualism—the segmentation of workers between formal, legally protected employment and informal, unprotected status—has long drawn attention from scholars and policymakers in Latin America. This article argues that lasting patterns of economic and political segmentation of workers arose earlier in the region's history than has previously been understood, well before the classic “incorporation” period. Late‐nineteenth‐century practices for the recruitment and retention of workers shaped Latin America's first sets of labor laws, most notably those governing union organization and individual worker job stability. Subsequently, these first laws served as important templates for development, constraining and conditioning the labor codes adopted under mass‐based politics. Using historical data drawn from Chile, Peru, and Argentina, this article shows how differing recruitment practices and variation in the extension of effective suffrage rights and electoral participation shaped early legal labor market segmentation and inequality in Latin America.

  May 21, 2014   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2014.00233.x   open full text
• Multicultural Institutions, Distributional Politics, and Postelectoral Mobilization in Indigenous Mexico.
  Todd A. Eisenstadt, Viridiana Ríos.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 21, 2014
  Contrary to the predictions of “power sharing” to mitigate ethnic conflicts, multicultural rights recognition can actually increase the frequency of local postelectoral mobilizations. This article demonstrates that the adoption of an ethnic rights regime for electing local government representatives may actually increase conflict if these multicultural laws are not carefully circumscribed to avoid violating human rights. Focusing on the 1995 multicultural rights reforms in Oaxaca, it presents evidence that legal changes purportedly implemented to recognize indigenous rights actually increased postelectoral disputes due to conflicts between county seat communities and peripheral population hamlets over access to funding by the central government. Based on this finding, the article addresses normative implications of “power‐sharing” multiculturalism, recommending that multicultural laws be implemented only together with legal mechanisms to solve postelectoral disputes.

  May 21, 2014   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2014.00232.x   open full text
• Assessing Candidates at Home and Abroad: A Comparative Analysis of Colombian Expatriates in the 2010 Presidential Elections.
  Cristina Escobar, Renelinda Arana, James A. McCann.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 07, 2014
  This article examines candidate favorability among Colombian expatriates and Colombians in the home country in the 2010 Colombian presidential elections. It analyzes the influence of several socioeconomic, migratory, mobilizing, and contextual factors on candidate appraisal using a large exit poll conducted at Colombian consulates in five cities in the United States and Europe and five cities with high emigration rates in Colombia. Aside from differences in candidate favorability stemming from socioeconomic variables (education, income, and religious affiliation), Colombians living abroad largely evaluate candidates in ways similar to Colombians living in the country.

  April 07, 2014   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2014.00228.x   open full text
• Explaining Electoral Volatility in Latin America: Evidence at the Party Level.
  Yen‐Pin Su.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 07, 2014
  Many existing explanations of electoral volatility have been tested at the country level, but they are largely untested at the individual party level. This study reexamines theories of electoral volatility through the use of multilevel models on party‐level data in the lower house elections of 18 Latin American countries from 1978 to 2012. Testing hypotheses at different levels, it finds that irregular institutional alteration increases electoral volatility for all the parties in a country, but the effect is more significant for the presidential party. At the party level, the results show that while a party that is more ideologically distinctive than other parties tends to experience lower electoral volatility, party age is not a statistically significant factor for explaining party volatility.

  April 07, 2014   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2014.00231.x   open full text
• Inching Toward Accountability: The Evolution of Brazil's Anticorruption Institutions, 1985–2010.
  Sérgio Praça, Matthew M. Taylor.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 07, 2014
  This article analyzes the evolution of the network of Brazilian federal accountability institutions over the course of the past generation, between the transition to democracy and the end of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's second term. Substantively, the article charts the significant gains that have been made in accountability institutions. Theoretically, it evaluates the evolution of these institutions as a consequence of the distribution of rules, routines, roles, and resources across a larger institutional network, demonstrating that changes in the various bureaucratic agencies have mutually reinforced each other and generated autocatalytic processes of reform.

  April 07, 2014   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2014.00230.x   open full text
• Why Party Organization Still Matters: The Workers' Party in Northeastern Brazil.
  Brandon Van Dyck.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 07, 2014
  Does party organization still matter? Much of the party literature suggests that politicians, who can use substitutes like mass media to win votes, lack incentives to invest in party organization. Yet it remains an electoral asset, especially at lower levels of government. Evidence from Brazil's Workers' Party (PT) indicates that party elites invest in organization when they prioritize lower‐level elections and that this investment delivers electoral returns. In the mid‐2000s, the PT strengthened its support across levels of government in the conservative, clientelistic Northeast. Drawing from underutilized data on party offices, this article shows that organizational expansion contributed substantially to the PT's electoral advances in the Northeast. While President Lula da Silva's (PT) 2006 electoral spike in the Northeast resulted from expanded conditional cash transfers, the PT's improvement at lower levels followed from top‐down organization building. The PT national leadership deliberately expanded the party's local infrastructure to deliver electoral gains.

  April 07, 2014   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2014.00229.x   open full text
• Building a Following: Local Candidates' Political Careers and Clientelism in Argentine Municipalities.
  Mariela Szwarcberg.
  Latin American Politics and Society. July 10, 2013
  Why do some candidates prefer to use clientelistic strategies to mobilize voters while others do not? Building on existing explanations that highlight the importance of voters' demand for particularistic goods and parties' capacities to supply goods and monitor voters, this article focuses on candidates' political careers. It argues that how candidates begin mobilizing voters to participate in rallies and elections becomes crucial in explaining their preferences to use clientelism. Candidates who receive a salary based on their ability to mobilize voters—paid party activists—are more likely to use clientelism than candidates who are not paid for their political work, unpaid party activists.

  July 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00200.x   open full text
• Social Movements, Party Organization, and Populism: Insights from the Bolivian MAS.
  Santiago Anria.
  Latin American Politics and Society. July 10, 2013
  The Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) emerged in Bolivia's Chapare region in the 1990s. Born of a rural social movement of coca growers, it spread to the cities and became the country's dominant political force as its leader, Evo Morales, was elected to the presidency in 2005. This article argues that the MAS is a hybrid organization whose electoral success has been contingent on the construction of a strong rural‐urban coalition, built on the basis of different linkages between the MAS and organized popular constituencies in rural and urban areas. Whereas the MAS's rural origins gave rise to grassroots control over the leadership, its expansion to urban areas has fostered the emergence of top‐down mobilization strategies. The analysis also reveals how much popular sectors allied with the MAS have pressured the Morales government from below and held it accountable to societal demands.

  July 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00201.x   open full text
• Book Reviews.
  
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 30, 2013
  Books reviewed in this issue. Gretchen Helmke and Julio Ríos‐Figueroa, eds., Courts in Latin America. Ksenija Bilbija and Leigh A. Payne, eds., Accounting for Violence: Marketing Memory in Latin America. J. Tyler Dickovick, Decentralization and Recentralization in the Developing World: Comparative Studies from Africa and Latin America. Andreas Tsolakis, The Reform of the Bolivian State: Domestic Politics in the Context of Globalization. Luis Roniger, Transnational Politics in Central America. María Clemencia Ramírez, Between the Guerrillas and the State: The Cocalero Movement, Citizenship, and Identity in the Colombian Amazon. Kenneth J. Mijeski and Scott H. Beck, Pachakutik and the Rise and Decline of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement. Todd A. Eisenstadt, Politics, Identity, and Mexico's Indigenous Rights Movements. David Close, Salvador Martí i Puig, and Shelley A. McConnell, eds., The Sandinistas and Nicaragua Since 1979. Olga M. González, Unveiling Secrets of War in the Peruvian Andes. George Philip and Francisco Panizza, The Triumph of Politics: The Return of the Left in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

  May 30, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00199.x   open full text
• Inequality in Latin America: Changes and New Perspectives.
  Luisa Blanco, Shaun Lillard.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 30, 2013
  There is no abstract available for this paper.

  May 30, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00198.x   open full text
• Identity and Foreign Policy: Canada as a Nation of the Americas.
  Jean‐Philippe Thérien, Gordon Mace.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 30, 2013
  Using Canada's relations with the Americas as a case study, this article seeks to better understand the link between identity and foreign policy. It argues that there is a gap between the Canadian government's recent efforts to construct a state identity increasingly turned toward the Americas and Canadians' national identity as it is expressed through public opinion. It concludes that the most plausible explanation for this gap probably has to do with Canada's European cultural heritage. The analysis shows that the projection of national identity into foreign policy is a much more complex process than the projection of state identity.

  May 30, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00197.x   open full text
• Disasters as Crisis Triggers for Critical Junctures? The 1976 Guatemala Case.
  Vincent T. Gawronski, Richard Stuart Olson.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 30, 2013
  This article focuses on the 1976 Guatemala earthquake disaster as a possible crisis trigger, in a relatively strict application of the critical juncture analytical approach. It expands to include the broader question of what conditions might cause disasters to trigger crises that open critical junctures for nation‐states. The research concludes that the 1976 Guatemala disaster led to a high degree of community self‐organizing and alliance‐building across Guatemala, which the Guatemalan national security state at that time perceived as a fundamental crisis requiring a response. This reaction generated significant debate and policy conflict within the state; the resulting decision was massively repressive violence, with legacies that continue to this day. Another conclusion is that strictly applied, critical juncture analysis can untangle often very complicated disaster postimpact emergency, recovery, and reconstruction situations.

  May 30, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00196.x   open full text
• Commemorating Chile's Coup: The Dynamics of Collective Behavior.
  María del Valle Barrera, Tomás Koch, Benigno E. Aguirre.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 30, 2013
  This article examines the dynamics of collective behavior in Santiago, Chile every September 11, the date of the 1973 coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. It uses a multiple‐method strategy that includes participant observation, personal interviews, and content analysis of three major newspapers during the period 2003–8. The theoretical approach emphasizes time and space coordinates of specified social actors, sociocultural emergence, a limited range of dominant emotions, and dramaturgy to describe the complexity of ritualized commemorations. It shows that incidents occurring on this date are not primarily caused by the actions of social movement organizations. Moreover, the dichotomy of “day and night” used to understand the peaceful and violent commemorations is an oversimplification of a complex network of events, actors, and scenarios that has the effect of denying any legitimacy to actions that fall outside the state‐approved practices.

  May 30, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00195.x   open full text
• Presidential Preferences? The Supreme Federal Tribunal Nominations in Democratic Brazil.
  Mariana Llanos, Leany Barreiro Lemos.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 30, 2013
  This article studies the processes of nomination and appointment to the Supreme Federal Tribunal in Brazil made by Presidents Sarney through Lula da Silva. It shows that in relations with the Senate, presidential anticipation prevails over presidential dominance. Brazilian presidents are successful appointers because they invest great effort in the moment of selection, when potential candidates are tested in the juridical and political communities. As a consequence, a uniform Senate approval of candidates coexists with a differential pattern of candidate recruitment. Sometimes presidents can select close candidates from their government; sometimes first‐choice candidates are ruled out for lack of consensus. The type of coalition the president heads and the number of vacancies available affect the president's chances of imposing a candidate. The filter posed by center‐right parties in the Senate induces the selection of nominees with centrist preferences.

  May 30, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00194.x   open full text
• “Corporatism With Adjectives”? Conceptualizing Civil Society Incorporation and Indigenous Participation in Latin America.
  Sarah Chartock.
  Latin American Politics and Society. May 30, 2013
  Ethnodevelopment is a relatively new type of participatory policy that targets the poverty of marginalized ethnic groups with a focus on identity and self‐management. While observers have recognized the empirical significance of this new paradigm, little has been done to conceptualize ethnodevelopment. This article argues that national‐level ethnodevelopment implementation is a form of corporatism. Examining ethnodevelopment institutions in Ecuador, it shows that the state has structured, subsidized, and partially controlled the indigenous sector through ethnodevelopment policies and agencies. However, certain components of classical corporatism, such as monopolies of representation, do not characterize this paradigm. This article therefore classifies ethnodevelopment as a diminished subtype of corporatism. It challenges corporatism's long association with a particular historical period in the region and finds that Latin American states and social groups have called on historical institutional repertoires in responding to the newly salient ethnic cleavage in the region.

  May 30, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00193.x   open full text
• Campaigning on Public Security in Latin America: Obstacles to Success.
  Randy Sunwin Uang.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 17, 2013
  Crime and violence have made public security a major concern to voters throughout Latin America. Existing research predicts that such widespread concerns should make public security a consistently successful issue in presidential election campaigns. Yet recent empirical reality in Latin America has been more varied. This study argues that success on public security is not so automatic. Human rights concerns combine with low trust in security forces to make success on security contingent on the correct conditions. Two key conditions affect the use of the issue: the degree to which security threats are organized and the degree to which recent repression has occurred. Then, winning votes depends on two further conditions: having a civilian background and a campaign that balances security with other issues. Together, these factors explain the dramatic variation in success, and suggest a key change from Latin America's past.

  April 17, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00192.x   open full text
• Grassroots Bureaucracy: Intergovernmental Relations and Popular Mobilization in Brazil's AIDS Policy Sector.
  Jessica A. J. Rich.
  Latin American Politics and Society. April 09, 2013
  How does the state ensure the implementation of national policies in a context of decentralized political authority? This article identifies a new strategy utilized by national bureaucrats to regulate the behavior of subnational politicians: mobilizing civil society as government watchdog and political advocate. In the context of decentralized governance, in which local politicians administer most social sector programs, reform‐minded bureaucrats often find that they have little control over the implementation of their progressive policies. In Brazil's AIDS policy sector, however, bureaucrats have ensured the successful implementation of their policies by developing allies outside government. These state actors—here called activist bureaucrats—have been largely overlooked in the English‐language literature, yet they form a new layer of politics in Latin America.

  April 09, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00191.x   open full text