scholarly journals Transnational threats and security in the Americas: Patterns, contradictions, and more

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique S. Pumar

The article examines conflict patterns in Latin America since the second half of the twentieth century. It seems paradoxical that the region is one of the most peaceful in terms of interstate conflicts while contending with numerous domestic crises. The article first examines the peace studies literature and argues that neither the micro, macro, or more recent meso approach fits the Latin American experience well. Instead, a different approach proposes incorporating the effects of transnationalism, especially of transnational security concerns, into any consideration of peace in the region. Transnational threat perception diverts attention, suggests the need to handle a common enemy, increases the cost of fighting a conventional war, and involves issue-linkages. These factors along with the traditional absence of ethnic rivalries and the presence of international actors sustain the long peace in Latin America.

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).


2017 ◽  
pp. 26-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Knobel ◽  
Andrés Bernasconi

The higher education sector in Latin America has fallen short of its promise of spearheading cultural, social, and economic progress for the region. As higher education changes to meet the challenges on the new century, the few flagship universities of Latin America are called upon to lead. However, these universities face both internal and external obstacles that hinder their full modernization, threatening their leadership.


REVISTA PLURI ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Yvone Dias Avelino

Este artigo formula algumas reflexões sobre a associação da história com a literatura. Estabelecemos alguns nexos com trabalhos literários de autores latino-americanos do século XX. Nas páginas desses romances latino-americanos desfilam os expoentes de toda uma estrutura de dominação: políticos, velhos aristocratas, oportunistas recém-chegados, fazendeiros truculentos, funcionários públicos subservientes, advogados venais, representantes do capitalismo local, dominados e dominantes. Mostram-nos os vários escritores latino-americanos as ditaduras na sua insanidade grotesca, as repressões cruentas que fazem emergir os movimentos sociais populares. Estão presentes as turbulências do real e imaginário, utilitário e mágico, da dúvida e perplexidade, memória e esperança, do esquecimento e da desesperança, do espelho e labirinto.Palavras-chave: História, Literatura, Espelho, Labirinto, América Latina.AbstractThis article proposes some reflections about the association between history and literature. We have established some links with literary works written by Latin American authors of the twentieth century. In the pages of these Latin American novels the exponents of a whole structure of domination are paraded: politicians, old aristocrats, opportunist newcomers, truculent farmers, subservient civil servants, venal lawyers, representatives of local capitalism, dominated and dominant ones. The various Latin American writers show us dictatorships in their grotesque insanity, the bloody repressions that allow popular social movements to emerge. They outline the turbulences of the real and imaginary, utilitarian and magical, doubt and perplexity, memory and hope, forgetfulness and hopelessness, mirror and labyrinth.Keywords: History, Literature, Mirror, Labyrinth, Latin America.


2021 ◽  
pp. 47-76
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Davidson

To facilitate a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of the concept of sultanism, this chapter provides a detailed theoretical and empirical literature review. Firstly, it considers the oriental origins of the concept, as applied by Max Weber and others to the Ottoman Empire and a number of South Asian examples. Secondly, it traces the emergence of ‘contemporary sultanism’, as applied by scholars to Latin American regimes from the mid-twentieth century and onwards. Thirdly, it explores the more recent concept of neo-sultanism and the development of a distinct international empirical category of autocratic-authoritarianism which includes: various Latin America regimes; some of the former communist republics of central Asia and Eastern Europe; and a number of regimes in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. Finally, it assesses the need to address the scholarly deficit in applying contemporary sultanism or neo-sultanism to the Middle East, and suggests that the present-day Saudi And UAE regimes may be strong examples.


Author(s):  
Leiv Marsteintredet

Latin America holds a 200-year-long history of presidential constitutions. The region’s constitutional and democratic experimentation throughout history makes it an interesting laboratory to study the origins, development, and effects of presidential term limits. Based primarily on data from constitutions, this chapter provides an overview of presidential term limits in Latin America from independence until 1985. The chapter shows how term limits have varied across countries and time, and that the implementation of strict term limits often came as a reaction to prior dictatorial rules. Whereas both proponents and critics of consecutive reelection invoked arguments of democracy in their favour, the Latin American experience up until the Third Wave of Democracy shows that stable, republican, and democratic rule has only been possible under a ban on immediate presidential re-election.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar G Encarnación

This essay examines the conditions that enable a ‘gay rights backlash’ through a comparison of the United States and Latin America. The United States, the cradle of the contemporary gay rights movement, is the paradigmatic example of a gay rights backlash. By contrast, Latin America, the most Catholic of regions, introduced gay rights at a faster pace than the United States without much in the way of a backlash. Collectively, this analysis demonstrates that a gay rights backlash hinges upon organisationally-rich ‘backlashers’ and an environment that is receptive to homophobic messages, a point underscored by the American experience. But the Latin American experience shows that the counter-framing to the backlash can minimise and even blunt the effects of the backlash.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihail Kolesov

The main task of the author is to give a broad picture of the main processes of the revolutionary movement in several countries of Latin America of the XX century continental historical context. The author used primarily the original (Spanish) sources, among which a special place belongs to works by the famous French writer Régis Debray (Regis Debray). The book is intended for a wide audience, mainly for young people, for which the dramatic twentieth century already belongs to the annals of history.


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