From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 558-560
Author(s):  
Marco Fonseca

From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics, Donna Lee Van Cott, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004,pp. 300.During the 1980s and 90s the English literature on Latin American politics in the Anglo North American and Anglo European academic worlds roughly evolved from works centrally concerned—and discursively interconnected—with various models of transitions to democracy to the necessary processes that the new electoral democracies had to undergo and the policies they needed to implement to advance in the process of consolidation of democracy. For scholars who essentially viewed these processes either as largely completed in institutional terms or on their way to institutional maturity and stability, the focus of scholarly attention then shifted to more subtle questions of democratic quality. Donna Lee Van Cott's From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics is a work that not only fits into the category of works fundamentally concerned with the issues and challenges associated with either the consolidation of democracy literature or the quality of democracy literature, but it is also a work that helps to develop the literature by highlighting a central variable of Latin American culture and politics, namely, indigenous ethnic movements and politics.

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (13-14) ◽  
pp. 2032-2060 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan E. Carlin ◽  
Timothy Hellwig

The shifts from state-led development to neoliberalism in Latin America have prompted debates on the quality of democracy. Although most discussions focus on responsiveness, we examine how economic policy regimes influence accountability. How do policy regimes affect citizens’ ability to hold executives to accounts? This ability, we argue, strengthens where policy regimes are more statist and weakens where policy regimes are more market oriented. Time-series analyses of policy orientations, economic conditions, and presidential approval in 17 countries support this proposition, whereas complementary analyses at the individual-level are consistent with claims that policy regimes influence accountability via a responsibility mechanism. Findings from this study imply that by embracing heterodox policy regimes, recent Latin American executives have improved accountability compared with the era in which the “Washington Consensus” held sway.


Author(s):  
Diana Davila Gordillo ◽  
Kristin N. Wylie

In Latin America, a general discontent with political parties persists, fueling challenges to the quality of democracy. Two prominent limitations of Latin American democracies stem from the weakly institutionalized and unrepresentative character of many parties and party systems in the region. A regional overview of party longevity shows that older parties are the minority, and with few exceptions (Uruguay and Colombia), they control neither the government nor the opposition. Yet while earlier studies of party institutionalization in Latin America tended to focus on longevity, subsequent studies have emphasized the multidimensionality of the concept. Party institutionalization connotes not only longevity but also routinization of formal and informal procedures, organizational complexity and cohesion, and societal roots. As evidenced by parties throughout the region, those multiple dimensions are nonmutual. Even in inchoate party systems many Latin American parties have survived and routinized (sometimes informal) decision making procedures, often in the absence of organizational cohesion and societal roots. Although strong party organizations are important for democratic governance, they may be inversely related to party leadership, with strong leaders hindering party institutionalization. Leaders can alternatively play an important role in mobilizing voters and structuring party organizations, their routinization, and the party brand. While the region has been a global leader in the adoption of gender quotas and parity regimes and in women’s parliamentary representation, as of 2012, its party leadership remained dominated by men—the regional average in parties’ representation of women on their National Executive Commissions was just 20%. Willing party leaders in institutionalized parties are critical actors in the recruitment and support of candidates and can thus marshal party resources to help diversify party ranks. The inclusion of diverse voices in party leadership is important for responsiveness, legitimacy, and the quality of democracy more broadly.


Author(s):  
Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer

In this introductory chapter of Gender and Representation in Latin America, Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer argues that gender inequality in political representation in Latin America is rooted in institutions and the democratic challenges and political crises facing Latin American countries. She situates the book in two important literatures—one on Latin American politics and democratic institutions, the other on gender and politics—and then explains how the book will explore the ways that institutions and democratic challenges and political crises moderate women’s representation and gender inequality. She introduces the book’s framework of analyzing the causes and consequences of women’s representation, overviews the organization of the volume, and summarizes the main arguments of the chapters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 275-276
Author(s):  
Jose Aravena ◽  
Jean Gajardo ◽  
Laura Gitlin

Abstract In a scenario of increasing longevity and social inequalities, Latin-America is an important contributor to the worldwide dementia burden. Caregivers’ health is fundamental to maintain the person with dementia quality of life. However, caregiving is a culturally sensible role that requires tailored solutions. The aim is to synthesize the evidence about non-pharmacologic interventions targeted to caregivers of people with dementia in Latin-American contexts. A comprehensive review of interventions in caregivers and persons with dementia in Latin-American countries was conducted using MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, and Scopus with studies published until January 27th, 2020. Randomized clinical trials of non-pharmacologic interventions targeted to caregivers of people with dementia or dyads where included. Qualitative synthesis of the evidence was presented and analyzed. Overall, 9 pilot RCT were included for the final analysis (6 Brazil, 1 Colombia, 1 Mexico, 1 Perú). The biggest study recruited 69 caregivers and the smallest 13 dyads, with follow-up range of 3-6 months. 5 control groups received at least some other non-standard care type of intervention. 8 were targeted exclusively to caregivers (4 group intervention, 3 individual, and 1 combined) and 1 multicomponent intervention. Most frequent measured outcomes were caregiver’s burden, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and quality of life, and person with dementia neuropsychiatric symptoms. Individual interventions report better results in caregiver parameters such as burden and depressive symptoms and person with dementia neuropsychiatric symptoms. Group interventions presented mixed results. Nevertheless, the quality of evidence was low. There is a critical need to study interventions for caregivers in Latin-American contexts.


1994 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-574
Author(s):  
Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley

Social revolutions as well as revolutionary movements have recently held great interest for both sociopolitical theorists and scholars of Latin American politics. Before we can proceed with any useful analysis, however, we must distinguish between these two related but not identical phenomena. Adapting Theda Skocpol’s approach, we can define social revolutions as “rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures; and they are accompanied and in part carried through by” mass-based revolts from below, sometimes in cross-class coalitions (Skocpol 1979: 4; Wickham-Crowley 1991:152). In the absence of such basic sociopolitical transformations, I will not speak of (social) revolution or of a revolutionary outcome, only about revolutionary movements, exertions, projects, and so forth. Studies of the failures and successes of twentieth-century Latin American revolutions have now joined the ongoing theoretical debate as to whether such outcomes occur due to society- or movement-centered processes or instead due to state- or regime-centered events (Wickham-Crowley 1992).


2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 721-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT ANDOLINA

A crucial development in current Latin American politics is the growing involvement of indigenous movements in democracies grappling with the challenges of regime consolidation. This article examines how Ecuador's indigenous movement consecrated new rights and national constitutive principles in the 1997–8 constitutional assembly. It argues that the indigenous movement defined the legitimacy and purpose of the assembly through an ideological struggle with other political actors, in turn shaping the context and content of constitutional reforms in Ecuador. The article concludes that softening the boundary between ‘cultural politics’ and ‘institutional politics’ is necessary in order to understand the impact of social movements in Latin America.


Author(s):  
Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste ◽  
Juan Carlos Rodríguez

This introductory chapter provides a general context for this collection, starting with the anecdotal inception of the project. It provides a list of some of the important titles in the field of digital humanities that figure prominently as academic predecessors and ponders on the consequences and implications of the digital turn in the humanities for the study of Latinx and Latin American culture. In response to the cultural hegemony of Anglocentric circles in the digital humanities, it provides ample evidence of the development and existence of the field in Latin America. Finally, it provides a brief overview of the four sections into which the book is divided: digital nations, transnational networks, digital aesthetics and practices, and interviews with Latin American DH scholars.


1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsa Barberena

Latin American culture is very rich, yet there is insufficient documentation on Latin American art, and much of the documentation which does exist is not adequately covered by the major art indexes. A number of magazines have set out, especially since the 1940s, to disseminate information about Latin American art, but most have been short-lived. The LATINOARTE project, based in the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), aims to develop and to network a database including citations to documentation available in 62 libraries and information centres inside and outside Latin America. Already, some 1,500 records are available on contemporary Latin American art. (The edited text of a paper presented to the IFLA Section of Art Libraries at the IFLA General Conference at Havana, August 1994.)


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis F Gomez ◽  
Carolina Soto-Salazar ◽  
José Guerrero ◽  
María Garcia ◽  
Diana C Parra

Abstract To conduct a systematic review examining the associations between neighborhood environments and self-rated health (SRH) and health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) in the urban context of Latin America. We conducted a structured search of quantitative studies in three bibliographic databases published in Spanish, English, Portuguese and French from January 1990 to December 2015. We restricted the search to studies conducted in Latin-American cities with one million and more inhabitants. Eleven studies were finally included in the analysis. Ten were cross-sectional studies and one was a cohort follow-up study. Two studies found positive associations between accessibility to parks and HR-QOL. One study found that high neighborhood social capital was positively associated with SRH. Neighborhood socioeconomic status was positively associated with both HR-QOL and SRH in two studies. A walkable neighborhood was positively associated with SRH in two studies. Three studies included attributes related with neighborhood security perception and road safety, with higher scores of HR-QOL, both in the physical and mental dimensions, while high levels of street noise were negatively associated. Narrowness and slope of streets were negatively associated with SRH. No association was found between the perception of neighborhood security and SRH. The results of this systematic review show that several studies conducted in Latin America have found significant associations between neighborhood environment and SRH and HRQOL. However, the relatively small number of studies and the heterogeneity among them require further studies to better understand this topic in the region.


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