scholarly journals Latin America: Social and Political Context of Protest Activity

Author(s):  
Nailya YAKOVLEVA

The article is devoted to the 2019 upsurge in mass protests in Latin America. The vast majority of actions had anti-elite character and reflected the growing discontent of the population with government economic and social policies. Latin American societies are becoming increasingly sensitive to large-scale corruption among the ruling elites. In these conditions, public confidence in government institutions, including that of presidency, is declining. As the problems of the region’s countries do not have quick solutions, the rise of mass protests may extend to the current year, and the social agenda may be supplemented with a political one.

Author(s):  
Agustín Salvia

AbstractThis chapter contains a comparative analysis of the changes in the inequality of family income distribution in the last two decades in Latin America and Europe. The study examines the degree to which the economic-productive factors—associated with the primary income distribution—or, on the contrary, the social policies—linked to the secondary distribution—reveal structural differences in economic inequality between regions in the 2000–2017 period. Based on a wide sample of countries, the evolution of inequality is compared within and between regions. The dissimilarity of these behaviours is examined as well as how valid certain economic-institutional factors are to give an account of the changes that occurred within each region.The chapter shows that, in the last two decades of the twenty-first century, Western Europe and Latin America have reduced their economic inequality gap, although following different paths: while inequality decreased in the majority of Latin American countries, an inverse process, although moderate, has been taking place in the majority of Europe. While both trends had national exceptions, the evidence presented helps us to deduce that it was simultaneously due to productive changes and to changes in the growth style, and to transformations in the redistributive efficiency of expenditure on social policies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-62
Author(s):  
Nadezhda Kudeyarova ◽  

The migration ties between Latin America and Europe at the beginning of the XXI century were manifested in a massive migration flow, resulting in the dramatic growth of the number of South American natives in Europe. The Migratory Space concept is applied to the current stage of transatlantic mobility, which makes it possible to determine the territorial limits of the involved states, to distinguish the transatlantic space from the general panorama of the Latin America migration movement as well as from the European migration context. At the present stage, the South American states are mainly the migration donors, while the European states are recipients. The historical ties between continents, their linguistic commonality and the social networks between migrants contributed to the transatlantic mobility. The majority of the Latin American migrants is localized in Spain and Italy. The high degree of integration into the host communities contributed to generally favorable public opinion about the migrants in the recipient countries. A large-scale migration presence also became an important factor in strengthening economic and political ties in the Iberoamerican Community of Nations.


Author(s):  
José Luis Coraggio

In this chapter the Social and Solidarity Economy is presented both as an alternative theory and a counterhegemonic program of political action that challenges the tenets of the market economy of neoliberal doctrine. The proposal is framed within a substantive economy approach based on the works of Marx and Polanyi. The categories of a substantive economic analysis regarding ethical and specifically economic principles and institutions are outlined. Recent advances in the line of a Social and Solidarity Economy are sketched for some of the Latin American national-popular political processes (Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, with some references to Brazil), including an especial reference to the new constitutions and public policies and the tensions between different objectives revealed within them.


1970 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Magdalena Śniadecka-Kotarska

The article was originally published without an abstract, short summary by Michal Gilewski The article studies what is causing women to join guerillas in Latin America. The participation of women in such militant groups started with the leftist guerillas of the second half of the 20th century. The article describes different backgrounds and different reasons for the women to join armed struggle groups. It also describes how women functioned in the social, ideological and biological dimensions of guerillas. Śniadecka-Kotarska suggests that, although the guerilla movement failed to achieve its goals of socio-political transformation of Latin American societies, it made an important contribution to the emancipation of women in these societies.  


Author(s):  
Felipe Gaytán Alcalá

Latin America was considered for many years the main bastion of Catholicism in the world by the number of parishioners and the influence of the church in the social and political life of the región, but in recent times there has been a decrease in the catholicity index. This paper explores three variables that have modified the identity of Catholicism in Latin American countries. The first one refers to the conversion processes that have expanded the presence of Christian denominations, by analyzing the reasons that revolve around the sense of belonging that these communities offer and that prop up their expansion and growth. The second variable accounts for those Catholics who still belong to the Catholic Church but who in their practices and beliefs have incorporated other magical or esoteric scheme in the form of religious syncretisms, modifying their sense of being Catholics in the world. The third factor has a political reference and has to do with the concept of laicism, a concept that sets its objective, not only in the separation of the State from the Church, but for historical reasons in catholicity restraint in the public space which has led to the confinement of the Catholic to the private, leaving other religious groups to occupy that space.


2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastián M. Saiegh

In this article, I use joint scaling methods and similar items from three large-scale surveys to place voters, parties, and politicians from different Latin American countries on a common ideological space. The findings reveal that ideology is a significant determinant of vote choice in Latin America. They also suggest that the success of leftist leaders at the polls reflects the views of the voters sustaining their victories. The location of parties and leaders reveals that three distinctive clusters exist: one located at the left of the political spectrum, another at the center, and a third on the right. The results also indicate that legislators in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru tend to be more “leftists” than their voters. The ideological drift, however, is not significant enough to substantiate the view that a disconnect between voters and politicians lies behind the success of leftist presidents in these countries. These findings highlight the importance of using a common-space scale to compare disparate populations and call into question a number of recent studies by scholars of Latin American politics who fail to adequately address this important issue.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camila Arza

Gender inequalities are a key issue for most pension systems in Latin America. Contributory pension schemes that link benefit entitlements to work and earnings tend to reflect in the benefits they offer the gender gaps that prevail in the labour market. This deepened with the implementation of individual private accounts as part of structural pension reforms in a number of countries. This article evaluates how recent pension policies, including measures geared to coverage expansion and so-called pension ‘re-reforms’, have addressed gender gaps in pensions in four Latin American countries. It shows that the expansion of non-contributory pensions and a greater emphasis on redistribution are important for the protection of older women in a context of gendered labour markets and the unequal distribution of paid and unpaid work between women and men. Looking at the cases of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile, the article identifies progress but also the persistence of gender gaps in pensions and emphasises the need for further measures to promote adequate social protection for older women.


2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-392
Author(s):  
Vincent Peloso

Stanley J. Stein, Walter Samuel Carpenter III Professor of Spanish Civilization and Culture and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Princeton University, is a lifelong Latin Americanist. Together with his late wife Barbara, herself an accomplished bibliographer and historian of the region, Professor Stein wrote several books and articles that put their stamp on methods of writing the social history of modern Latin America, specifically on the impact of colonialism and industrialism in Mexico and Brazil in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is fair to say that no one who studied Latin American history over the last 35 years would have failed to engage the slim, elegantly written synthesis, The Colonial Heritage of Latin America: Essays on Economic Dependence in Perspective (1970). Recipients of grants and fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, singly or together, the Steins were honored for their path-breaking studies with the CLAH Robertson and Bolton prizes, the Conference on Latin American History Distinguished Service Award (1991), and the American Historical Association Award for Scholarly Distinction (1996).


2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (03) ◽  
pp. 379-392
Author(s):  
Vincent Peloso

Stanley J. Stein, Walter Samuel Carpenter III Professor of Spanish Civilization and Culture and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Princeton University, is a lifelong Latin Americanist. Together with his late wife Barbara, herself an accomplished bibliographer and historian of the region, Professor Stein wrote several books and articles that put their stamp on methods of writing the social history of modern Latin America, specifically on the impact of colonialism and industrialism in Mexico and Brazil in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is fair to say that no one who studied Latin American history over the last 35 years would have failed to engage the slim, elegantly written synthesis, The Colonial Heritage of Latin America: Essays on Economic Dependence in Perspective (1970). Recipients of grants and fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, singly or together, the Steins were honored for their path-breaking studies with the CLAH Robertson and Bolton prizes, the Conference on Latin American History Distinguished Service Award (1991), and the American Historical Association Award for Scholarly Distinction (1996).


Author(s):  
Benito Bisso Schmidt ◽  
Rubens Mascarenhas Neto

This article focuses on Red Latinoamericana de Archivos, Museos, Acervos y Investigadores LGBTQIA+ (AMAI LGBTQIA+), a network composed of researchers and institutions related to LGBTQIA+ memory in Latin America, founded in 2019. First, the authors analyse the network’s creation arising from the discontent of some participants of the June 2019 Archives, Libraries, Museums and Special Collections (ALMS) Conference, in Berlin, who felt bothered by the lack of attention given to subaltern perspectives on LGBTQIA+ history and memory. Next, the authors describe and analyse the network’s first year of activities communicated through its Facebook group. Multiple challenges arose from creating a network with members from different national origins, languages, and identities, especially considering the conservative political contexts of several Latin American countries and the social distancing measures imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, the authors present a general profile of the network’s members and a map of partner institutions. Finally, the article points out some challenges to the network’s continuity and its desire to render Latin America more visible in the broader panorama of global LGBTQIA+ history. The authors conclude by highlighting the importance of AMAI LGBTQIA+ in stimulating further discussions about the participation of global-south researchers and perspectives on global queer history initiatives.


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