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The article talks about the politics and political elites in Latin America. It mentions several politicians interfere on a daily basis in decision-making of the government that affects people and is valuable in its own right. It mentions about the articulation between gender, race, coloniality and spirituality; and feminist efforts toward questioning the standards.

This article addresses – from a theoretical and historical perspective – the discussion on republicanism and populism, in connection to different ways of conceiving political modernity. It places republicanism and populism within the framework of contemporary democracies in the Latin American context, looking at the reciprocal interaction between these political traditions, and their relevance for understanding the current challenges of the liberal model in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In several Latin American countries, social violence has risen to warlike levels. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the extent of social violence and the new (informal) forms of governance generated by the so-called violent nonstate actors (VNSAs). Where a state’s forces fail to provide for the physical protection and social security of its citizens, some areas are governed by a mix of formal (vertical) and informal (horizontal) forms of governance, mixing state and nonstate actors. In these socially bounded spaces, nonstate actors produce and distribute public goods similarly as the state does. In this article, we explore how hybrid governance has appeared in the South American region, considering the operation of two regional VNSAs, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in Brazil and the Bandas Criminales (BACRIM) in Colombia. We show that such VNSAs are significant agents for security governance, as they challenge preconceived notions of state authority (legitimacy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data drawn from surveys of Latin American elites and citizens, this article aims to analyse the determinants of evaluations of Pope Francis, with a special focus on ideology and religious denomination, religiosity, and trustworthiness of the Catholic Church. Results show that the Pope remains linked to opinions on the Church, but not to religiosity, and that differences in personal religious affiliations (or lack thereof) among respondents are sharper among citizens than among elites. Furthermore, Pope Francis is found to be not closely associated to the left–right axis in Latin America, except in the case of Argentine MPs, where the right‐leaning members express lower opinions of the Pope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women hold less than 10 percent of chief executive positions worldwide. Understanding how women democratically access these posts requires theorizing how they gain resources from established parties to mount viable electoral campaigns. We argue that in stable regimes marked by representational malaise parties respond to gendered incentives and nominate female candidates. Drawing on Latin American cases, we show how diverse parties nominated women in order to signal change or novelty, to credibly commit to "feminine" leadership and issues, and to mobilize female voters. A negative case depicts how a lack of representational critiques can fail to incentivize parties to back women instead of men. Our focus on gendered incentives provides a new framework that places political parties at the center of questions about women's electoral opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an analysis of the transnational discursive construction processes informing Latin American security governance in the aftermath of 9/11. It demonstrates that the Global War on Terror provided an opportunity for external and aligned local knowledge producers in the security establishments throughout the Americas to reframe Latin America's security problems through the promotion of a militarised security epistemology, and derived policies, centred on the region's 'convergent threats'. In tracing the discursive repercussions of this epistemic reframing, the article shows that, by tapping into these discourses, military bureaucracies throughout the Americas were able to overcome their previous institutional marginalisation vis-à-vis civilian agencies. This development contributed to the renaissance of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism discourses and policies in the region, allowing countries such as Colombia and Brazil to reposition themselves globally by exporting their military expertise for confronting post-9/11 threats beyond the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralization has triggered widespread use of the subnational comparative method in the study of Latin American politics. Simultaneously, it has created challenges for this method that deserve careful attention. While subnational governments after decentralization can often be treated as potentially autonomous policy jurisdictions, their autonomy is also subject to new constraints and incursions, which may limit scholars' ability to treat them as relatively independent units. By taking stock of the vibrant literature that has emerged in recent years, this article explores three major challenges that complicate the use of the subnational comparative method. Two are vertical in nature: how to theorize national causes of subnational variation, and how the varied linkages between subnational governments and transnational actors can be conceptualized in work that compares subnational units. The third challenge is horizontal, referring to interactions between governments at the same subnational level that can either enhance or subvert autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines patterns of change and continuity in Latin American foreign policies. It asks two interrelated questions: How can we conceptually and empirically account for foreign policy change? And why do states change their foreign policies in Latin America? To answer these questions, we used the results of a new expert survey on foreign policy preferences in the region between 1980 and 2014. The results we obtained using both linear and nonparametric specifications are very clear and consistent: presidential ideology is what matters the most. Simply put, a change in the ideology of the president produces a change in foreign policy that is almost equivalent in magnitude, all other theoretically relevant factors set to their means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More and more, political life in Latin America is playing out on social media. What are the implications for democracy? Recent elections in Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, and Mexico show that social media can help to elevate political outsiders and spread sophisticated misinformation. Survey data show that while social-media users are more supportive than others of democratic principles, they have more negative views of their political systems. While there have been important innovations in combating misinformation, policy makers must also focus on the underlying conditions that are the fodder for social media's ill effects: political polarization and deepening public distrust of democratic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article analyzes the rise of international transformative constitutionalism in Latin America and responds to some of the challenges to its legitimacy and effectiveness. It focuses on the practice of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), the decisions and procedures of which constitute a small, but vibrant and essential, part of a wider Latin American community of human rights—a diverse group of actors who confront violence, social exclusion, and weak institutions through legal means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America is one of the world's only regions to have witnessed a fall in income inequality during the 2000s. This paper evaluates the role fiscal policy played in this change. Recent scholarship has examined this in individual countries; lacking is a regional perspective. We examine the effects of nine fiscal instruments on income inequality in 17 countries between 1990 and 2014. Fiscal policy had a positive – albeit small – effect in reducing income inequality, especially from 2003, working best at the urban level. Public spending on education, personal income taxes and social contributions were especially instrumental in reducing income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What impact does personalism, or presidential dominance of a weakly organized ruling party, have on the level of democracy? We argue that presidents who dominate their own weakly organized parties are more likely to seek to concentrate power, undermine horizontal accountability, and trample the rule of law than presidents who preside over parties that have an independent leadership and an institutionalized bureaucracy. Independent party leaders, we suggest, will often try to curb the excesses of the president in order to protect their own political prospects. We explore these hypotheses through a quantitative analysis of the determinants of the level of democracy in 18 Latin American countries from 1980–2015. We find that personalism has a consistently negative impact on the level of democracy in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1998, several Latin American presidents have attempted to create constituent assemblies, rewrite constitutions, and fundamentally shift power relations with varying levels of success. I argue that two variables have determined executive success. These are mobilizational leverage, or the ability to rally popular support behind the reform agenda, and institutional leverage, or the ability to convince the Judiciary or Electoral Council to allow a referendum to form a Constituent Assembly and sanction its supreme power. I examine this argument through process tracing cases of success (Chávez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, and Correa in Ecuador) and a case of failure (Zelaya in Honduras), drawing on data from 118 elite interviews in Bolivia and Ecuador. This article contributes to the literature on executive-legislative relations and presidential power, explaining a process that allows presidents to navigate the institutions of democracy and enact ambitious reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party system institutionalization (PSI) is a critical dimension of modern democracies. However, conventional approaches to institutionalization do not include party systems' ability to adapt and respond to challenges that emanate from society, one of the crucial traits in Huntington's definition of institutionalization. We discuss conventional approaches to the analysis of PSI. Building upon the idea of social orders put forth by North, Wallis, and Weingast, we argue that the analysis of institutionalization at the level of party systems must consider the system's ability to provide open access and to include all sectors: that is, the system's ability to incorporate demands that emanate from society. We propose a new conceptualization and operationalization of PSI, and we present a new data set of PSI indicators for 18 Latin American countries. Finally, we analyze the data to assess the level of PSI and type of party system in each Latin American country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the governance by criminals in Latin America and the Caribbean. Topics discussed include background on the police militias in Brazil, Colombia's history of criminal involvement in politics, overview of violence and criminal governance in Jamaica, and Venezuela's economic and political crisis.

Violence against women in politics is increasingly recognized as a problem for women's political participation worldwide. At the same time, antiprogressive campaigns promoted by religious groups and populist governments have risen across the globe. Looking at several cases in Latin America, I explore the differences and similarities between violence against women in politics and backlash, arguing that while they may be interrelated or concurrent, there are important differences between the goals, perpetrators, and forms of these two phenomena. While violence against women in politics is directed at women as women , backlash is directed at particular policies that, in the view of backlashers, upend a social order based on the heterosexual and patriarchal family. Ending both violence against women in politics and backlash requires structural and cultural changes, but each requires distinctive techniques. On the one hand, institutional changes that disincentivize violence against women in politics and provide effective reporting mechanisms will reduce the effects of this form of violence. Combatting backlash, on the other hand, requires strong and autonomous civil society organizations, mobilized grassroots movements, and political alliances between these actors to create effective pressure for resisting regressive policies. Both violence against women in politics and backlash pose important challenges for democracy worldwide, and combating them is imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the experience of crime lead to individual disenchantment from politics or can it even stir political activism? We study how crime victimization affects the intention to vote with survey data from Latin America and the Caribbean. Research on non-electoral political behavior reveals that crime victims become politically more engaged. In contrast, findings from psychological research suggest that victimization increases apathy due to loss of self-esteem and social cohesion. Building a cognitive foundation of political activism, we propose that it is the level of distress which increases—in the case of non-violent crime—or decreases—in the case of violent crime experience—the likelihood of voting. The results support the hypothesis on victims of non-violent crime. The probability of turnout does, however, not change for victims of criminal violence. We subsequently test for a possible anti-right-wing incumbent effect, to explain the mobilization of victims of non-violent crime, but only find evidence for an anti-center incumbent tendency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Vice-presidents in Latin America have often been at the centre of political turbulence. To prevent conflicts within the executive, most Latin American countries have therefore put in place formulae to elect presidents and vice-presidents on a joint electoral ticket. Still, it is common for presidential candidates to pick running mates from other parties in order to construct alliances and appeal to a broader set of voters. But the presence of such 'external' vice-presidents seems to increase the risk of presidential interruption in general and impeachment processes in particular. Accordingly, we argue that the frequently overlooked institution of the vice-president deserves attention as a possible intervening variable that can contribute to the explanation for government crises and their outcomes in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin American Political Psychology (PPL) is a field of knowledge composed of multiple theoretical and methodological references. However, some theories were not included in its repertoire, such as Group Operational Conception of Pichon- Rivière (GOCP). The aim of this article is to discuss possible contributions of GOCP to PPL. As a method we carried out a theoretical study on the work of Pichon- Rivière and PPL. As results, 1) we found aspects that distanced PPL from GOCP, such as biased interpretations, or its non-mention; 2) we conducted theoretical and political approaches between GOCP and a key author of PPL, Martín- Baró; and 3) we translated the group operation of Pichon-Rivière to the PPL, elaborating a psycho-political cartography of the different social positions. We conclude that the repertoire elaborated by GOCP can contribute to the PPL in the constitution of a field of analysis of collectives and social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The progressive movement of the Catholic Church that flourished after the Second Vatican Council (1962–5) continues to exert a strong influence on Latin American politics and society. Moreover, we can now observe this movement's influence in new areas: no longer apparent only in a strictly ecclesiastical sphere, its influence can now be felt within the ambit of civil society. This article analyzes and explains the evolution of 'the church of the poor' in Oaxaca from its sponsorship by the Catholic hierarchy starting in the early 1960s through its transformation into civil society organizations beginning in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the answers of over fifty Latin American scholars to a survey as its foundation, this paper analyses the features of the global and Latin American context and presents some of the potential areas for its development over the coming decade. To do this, the number of poles in the system is considered along with the logics of cooperation and competition that predominate in the relations between countries. In addition, an analysis is made of how different countries define a 'region' in their foreign policy, and the reasons behind Brazil losing its leadership position and Mexico's potential role in the region are set out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reappraising cepalina import-substituting industrialisation (ISI) means exploring strategies associated with diagnoses and policy prescriptions, recognising that ideas and processes changed over time, that there was divergence between original diagnoses of development problems and policy interventions designed to resolve them, and that some strategies and outcomes attributed to ECLA were distant from original propositions. Section one locates the ECLA project within a stylised chronology. The second focusses on two sub-periods: (i) proto-cepalismo; (ii) the classic phase of cepalismo. The third re-evaluates the project, challenging contemporary and current opinions. The main findings emphasise continuities between the two sub-periods, arguing that current vilification of the project by the left and the right is/was myopic. Industrial growth was underway in some economies by/before the end of the nineteenth century; industrialisation may have occurred in some countries before 1940; and what had been achieved by the 1990s in parts of the continent was considerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En los últimos decenios, la población de América Latina entró en un proceso de envejecimiento sostenido. Los cambios relacionados con el auge de la sociedad digital han transformado profundamente la manera en que los habitantes de la región interactúan entre sí y con sus Gobiernos. En este artículo se analiza el uso y la apropiación de las tecnologías digitales por parte de las personas mayores en la región. Se describe la evolución del uso que hacen de Internet, utilizando datos de las encuestas de hogares de los respectivos países. Se examinan los factores determinantes del uso de Internet entre las personas mayores, teniendo en cuenta variables como el sexo, el origen étnico, el nivel educativo y la residencia rural o urbana mediante análisis de regresión logística, y se destacan las políticas y los programas para promover la inclusión de las personas mayores mediante el uso de tecnologías digitales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stereotypes of Latin American legislatures as either rubber stamps or obstructionist obscure important cross-national differences. This article argues that the ability and willingness of legislatures to serve as counterweights to presidents are functions of their capabilities, electoral rules and the president's powers. These arguments are assessed by comparing the legislative debates of free trade agreements with the US and accompanying legislation in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru. The cases reveal that legislatures with strong capabilities behave proactively, proposing their own policies that challenge the executive's. If they challenge the president, congresses with weaker capabilities do so primarily through obstruction. Further, electoral rules shape the way legislators go about challenging the executive. Whereas legislators elected under personal vote systems take their cues from constituents, those elected under party-vote systems follow the party line. Worryingly, however, even a capable and motivated legislature may be sidelined by a powerful executive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By doing a parallel between old and new reforms on governance issues applied in Latin America, this paper seeks to identify learnings as well as to understand what is new and what is not from this type of policy endeavor. The article focuses on the analysis of the State reforms implemented in Latin America during the 1920s and those of the 1990s. It shows that modernization of public administration follows the State reform; that needs calling for modernization are permanent; and that while ends pursued by the State change in the long run, modernization has to be a permanent activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory research aims to propose a conceptual definition of governance and to speculate on the state of governance in Latin America. Political instability, corruption, government trust, the rule of law, and nascent democracy complicate the definition and practice of governance in the region. Nevertheless, this papers offered a working definition. Such definition applies variously across countries— some cases show disheartening results, others seem promising. Common to all countries is that governance is not sufficiently collaborative and innovative in designing democratically responsible solutions to complex twenty-first-century problems because it still depends on highly hierarchical structures and it is rule driven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We contribute to the extensive literature on international influences on democratization and democratic breakdowns by conceptualizing hegemonic mechanisms of regime change and assessing them empirically. Our findings are based on a multi-methods approach and highlight the varying importance of hegemonic influences in post-1945 Latin America. We argue that US support for democratization was consistent in the wave of transitions to democracy that began in Latin America in 1978 and that it was decisive in many of these transitions. While past work has attributed responsibility to the US for the waves of democratic breakdowns from 1948 to 1956 and 1964 to 1976, an examination of the 27 breakdowns from 1945 to 2010 gives reason to doubt this interpretation. Future research could use these conceptual and methodological tools to explore the role of other powers in waves of democracy and authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]