Questo volume intende fornire un contributo alla riflessione sulla storia politica e sociale dell'America Latina illustrando la grande varietà delle ideologie e delle storie politiche delle nazioni latino-americane, dall'inizio del nostro secolo sino al periodo più recente. Annotation Supplied by Informazioni Editoriali

"Devoting particular emphasis to Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico, proposes a theory of civil society to explain the economic and political challenges for continuing democratization in Latin America"--Provided by publisher.

The transition to democracy underway in Latin America since the 1980s has recently witnessed a resurgence of interest in experimenting with new forms of local governance emphasizing more participation by ordinary citizens. The hope is both to foster the spread of democracy and to improve equity in the distribution of resources. While participatory budgeting has been a favorite topic of many scholars studying this new phenomenon, there are many other types of ongoing experiments. In Barrio Democracy in Latin America, Eduardo Canel focuses our attention on the innovative participatory programs launched by the leftist government in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the early 1990s. Based on his extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Canel examines how local activists in three low-income neighborhoods in that city dealt with the opportunities and challenges of implementing democratic practices and building better relationships with sympathetic city officials.

In regions that have undergone tumultuous transitions, democratic social movements have often been the catalyst for great change. However, once those changes occur, can these movements survive, and if so, how? The editors and contributors to Movements in Times of Democratic Transition examine in comparative detail how social movements act within the context of the democratic transitions they have been fighting for, and how they are affected by the changes they helped bring about. Offering insights into the nature of how social movements decline, radicalize, revitalize, or spark new cycles of activism, Movements in Times of Democratic Transition provides a comprehensive analysis of these key questions of mobilization research. Contributors include: Paul Almeida, Christopher J. Colvin, Stephen Ellis, Grzegorz Ekiert, Grzegorz Forys, Krzysztof Gorlach, Camila Penna, Sebastián Pereyra, Steven Robbins, Ton Salman, Mate Szabo, Ineke van Kessel, Michal Wenzel, and the editors.

Waves of Democracy looks at two centuries of history of democratization as a series of multicontinental episodes in which social movements and elite power holders in many countries converged to reorganize political systems. Democracy is defined and redefined in these episodes. John Markoff examines several ways in which governing elites of national states mimic each other and ways in which social movements and elites interact. There is no other book written for undergraduates that looks at democracy over such a broad sweep of time and across so many countries and cultures.

Between 1974 and 1990 more than thirty countries in southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. This global democratic revolution is probably the most important political trend in the late twentieth century. In The Third Wave, Samuel P. Huntington analyzes the causes and nature of these democratic transitions, evaluates the prospects for stability of the new democracies, and explores the possibility of more countries becoming democratic. The recent transitions, he argues, are the third major wave of democratization in the modem world. Each of the two previous waves was followed by a reverse wave in which some countries shifted back to authoritarian government. Using concrete examples, empirical evidence, and insightful analysis, Huntington provides neither a theory nor a history of the third wave, but an explanation of why and how it occurred. Factors responsible for the democratic trend include the legitimacy dilemmas of authoritarian regimes; economic and social development; the changed role of the Catholic Church; the impact of the United States, the European Community, and the Soviet Union; and the "snowballing" phenomenon: change in one country stimulating change in others. Five key elite groups within and outside the nondemocratic regime played roles in shaping the various ways democratization occurred. Compromise was key to all democratizations, and elections and nonviolent tactics also were central. New democracies must deal with the "torturer problem" and the "praetorian problem" and attempt to develop democratic values and processes. Disillusionment with democracy, Huntington argues, is necessary to consolidating democracy. He concludes the book with an analysis of the political, economic, and cultural factors that will decide whether or not the third wave continues. Several "Guidelines for Democratizers" offer specific, practical suggestions for initiating and carrying out reform. Huntington's emphasis on practical application makes this book a valuable tool for anyone engaged in the democratization process. At this volatile time in history, Huntington's assessment of the processes of democratization is indispensable to understanding the future of democracy in the world.

This book presents a new theory for why political regimes emerge, and why they subsequently survive or break down. It then analyzes the emergence, survival and fall of democracies and dictatorships in Latin America since 1900. Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán argue for a theoretical approach situated between long-term structural and cultural explanations and short-term explanations that look at the decisions of specific leaders. They focus on the political preferences of powerful actors - the degree to which they embrace democracy as an intrinsically desirable end and their policy radicalism - to explain regime outcomes. They also demonstrate that transnational forces and influences are crucial to understand regional waves of democratization. Based on extensive research into the political histories of all twenty Latin American countries, this book offers the first extended analysis of regime emergence, survival and failure for all of Latin America over a long period of time.

Latin American states took dramatic steps toward greater inclusion during the late twentieth and early twenty-first Centuries. Bringing together an accomplished group of scholars, this volume examines this shift by introducing three dimensions of inclusion: official recognition of historically excluded groups, access to policymaking, and resource redistribution. Tracing the movement along these dimensions since the 1990s, the editors argue that the endurance of democratic politics, combined with longstanding social inequalities, create the impetus for inclusionary reforms. Diverse chapters explore how factors such as the role of partisanship and electoral clientelism, constitutional design, state capacity, social protest, populism, commodity rents, international diffusion, and historical legacies encouraged or inhibited inclusionary reform during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Featuring original empirical evidence and a strong theoretical framework, the book considers cross-national variation, delves into the surprising paradoxes of inclusion, and identifies the obstacles hindering further fundamental change.

This is the first comparative study of the relationship between social movements and citizenship rights. It identifies the main connections made between collective action and individual rights, in theory and history, and tests them in the context of modern authoritarian regimes. It does so bymeasuring both social mobilization and the presence of rights over time, and by analysing their mutual impact statistically - both within and across national cases. The results create a new perspective on democratic struggles in authoritarian conditions, and on processes of democratic transitions. The selected cases of Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Spain are similar enough to make comparisons possible, and different enough to make them interesting. Measuring mobilization and rights provides a comparative description of their forms and fluctuations, just as the statistical results promote acomparative analysis of their influence and interactions. The study uses statistical techniques, but employs them to illuminate historical processes. In sum, its quantitative methods work to enhance the qualitative inquiry, and together they come to constitute a robust defense of democracy as the direct result of collective struggles for individualrights.

This new edition brings Daniel C. Hellinger’s brilliantly succinct and accessible introduction to Latin America up to date for a new generation of educators. In crisp detail, Hellinger gives a panoramic overview of the continent and offers a unique balance of comparative politics theory and interdisciplinary country-specific context, of a thematic organization and in-depth country case studies, of culture and economics, of scholarship and pedagogy. Insightful historical background in early chapters provides students with ways to think about how the past influences the present. However, while history plays a part in this text, comparative politics is the primary focus, explaining through fully integrated, detailed case studies and carefully paced analysis. Country-specific narratives are integrated with concepts and theories from comparative politics, leading to a richer understanding of both. Updates to this new edition include: • Revisiting contemporary populism and the global emergence of right-wing populism. • The pros and cons of extractivism; the impact of Chinese investment and trade. • Contemporary crisis in Venezuela; expanded treatment of Colombia and Peru. • The role of the military; LGBTQ+ issues; corruption; violence; identity issues. • New sections on social media, artificial intelligence, and big data cyber technologies. • Examination of post-Castro Cuba; Costa Rica’s exceptionalism. • Broader study of environmental movements; how governments relate to social movements. • Examination of personalist parties; refugee and asylum rights. • Interventionist policies of the current U.S. administration. • Early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparative Politics of Latin America is a thoughtful, ambitious, and thorough introductory textbook for students beginning Latin American Studies at the undergraduate level.