This essay reviews the following works:

The Sovereign Street: Making Revolution in Urban Bolivia. By Carwil Bjork-James. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2020. Pp. 304. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816540150.

Social Movements and Radical Populism in the Andes: Ecuador and Bolivia in Comparative Perspective. By Jennifer N. Collins. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021. Pp. 299. $120.00 hardcover. ISBN 978-1-4985-7233-0.

La izquierda latinoamericana contra los pueblos: El caso ecuatoriano (2007–2013). By Pierre Gaussens. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de Investigaciones sobre América Latina y el Caribe, 2018. Pp. 390 paperback. ISBN 978–607–30–0489–3.

Water for All: Community, Property, and Revolution in Modern Bolivia. By Sarah T. Hines. Oakland: University of California Press, 2021. Pp. 320. $85.00 hardcover. ISBN: 978–0520381636.

Indigenous Revolution in Ecuador and Bolivia, 1990–2005. By Jeffery M. Paige. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2020. Pp. xix +330. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816540143.

Del sueño a la pesadilla: El movimiento indígena en Ecuador. By Fernando García Serrano. Quito: Editorial FLACSO Ecuador, 2021. Pp. xvi + 259. $18.00 paperback. ISBN: 9789978675519.

Pachamama Politics: Campesino Water Defenders and the Anti-Mining Movement in Andean Ecuador. By Teresa A. Velásquez. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2022. Pp. 288 $55 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816544738

Candidate Matters: A Study of Ethnic Parties, Campaigns, and Elections in Latin America. By Karleen Jones West. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. x + 228 $74.00 hardcover. ISBN: 978–0190068844.

From 2016 to 2019, the backlash in Brazil against so-called gender ideology framed gender dissidence as a reason for the country’s perceived decline, playing a central role in the rise of Bolsonarismo, a movement increasingly identified as fascist. In this gender-hostile environment, I examine Brazil’s first trans men’s soccer team, the Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB), and its use of nudity as a response to the political shift rightward and to tell a story about the precarity of minoritized groups across the Americas. The team’s changing approach to trans representation exposes the period as a watershed in Brazilian politics. The MBB’s naked protest during this time of governmental change reveals resistance to the machinations of Brazilian fascism, including censorship, backlash, and shaming. By asserting that the MBB were never just about futebol, the team uses the national sport to enact trans politics and to claim belonging beyond the bounds of normative citizenship.

This essay reviews the following works:

Rebellion in Patagonia. By Osvaldo Bayer. Chico, CA: Edinburgh AK Press, 2016. Pp. 425. $21.95 paperback. ISBN: 1849352216.

Anarchism in Latin America. By Angel J. Cappelletti. Baltimore: AK Press, 2017. Pp. 429. $20.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781849352826.

Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States. Edited by Christopher J. Castañeda and Montse Feu. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2019. Pp. xvi + 305. $30.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780252084577.

155: Simón Radowitzky. By Agustín Comotto. Madrid: Nórdica Libros, 2018. Pp. 269. $46.00 paperback. ISBN: 8417281525.

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire and Revolution in the Borderlands. By Kelly Lytle Hernández. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2022. Pp. 384. $24.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781324004370.

For a Just and Better World: Engendering Anarchism in the Mexican Borderlands, 1900–1938. By Sonia Hernández. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2021. Pp. xxiv + 222. $28.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780252086106.

El anarquismo y la emancipación de la mujer en Chile, 1890–1927. By Manuel Lagos Mieres. Santiago de Chile: Centro de Estudios Sociales Lombardozzi, 2017. Pp. 436.

Anarchists of the Caribbean: Countercultural Politics and Transnational Networks in the Age of US Expansion. By Kirwin R. Shaffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xiv + 318. $49.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781108489034.

The World in a City: Multiethnic Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century Los Angeles. By David M. Struthers. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2019. Pp. 310. $28.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780252084256.

This article explores how sex and violence were part of the everyday making of the soldier in the Peruvian armed forces during the internal armed conflict between 1980 and 2000. In-depth interviews with Peruvian veterans indicate the importance of sex and violence in soldiers’ experience of becoming a combatant. The article analyzes the ambiguity in soldiers’ narratives about sex and violence, coercion, and consent, and how they are implicated in both receiving and enacting sexualized violence. In particular, authors discuss veterans’ accounts of collective experiences of sexualized hazing, abuse of women and girls, porn and prostitution, and references to gang rape. Soldiers, while in the army, experience intimacy through performative practices of sex and violence—which profoundly affect their interactions with one another—and the violence they perpetrate against enemy populations. These military intimacies, encouraged through institutional as well as cultural practices, help explain the prevalence of widespread sexual violence during the conflict.

El objetivo de este artículo es establecer el nivel de eficiencia del gasto público sanitario en América Latina y comprobar su relación con determinadas características institucionales como calidad regulatoria, participación del sector privado, descentralización o tamaño de la burocracia. Se estima una frontera estocástica de verdaderos efectos aleatorios que relaciona el gasto público en salud per cápita frente a la tasa de mortalidad neonatal e infantil y la esperanza de vida después de los sesenta años. Se regresan las ineficiencias resultantes respecto del conjunto de variables institucionales explicativas. Se evidencia el importante papel del gasto público sanitario en la obtención de determinados niveles de realización sanitaria. Sin embargo, su eficiencia es mejorable, especialmente a partir de optimizar la calidad regulatoria del Estado. Latinoamérica ha configurados sistemas sanitarios complejos, pero no han logrado mejorar la coordinación entre sus actores, lo que explica su ineficiencia. La rectoría del gobierno es esencial.

This article analyzes several patterns of antisemitism in twentieth-century Latin America. It identifies historical moments when carriers of social and political ideas projected negative images of Jews, sometimes pushing anti-Jewish policies and at times leading violent actions against Jews. Thus, antisemitism served to mobilize in defense of national identity; as a reaction to Jewish peddlers perceived as a threat to national economies; as a basis for the generalized rejection of “undesirable refugees” during World War II and the Holocaust; and as a Cold War phenomenon, along with anticommunism and neo-Nazism. Like other forms of xenophobia, antisemitism was grounded in prejudice and the demonization of a supposed enemy rather than being based on verified evidence. Analysis suggests that antisemitism has been deeply rooted in Latin America and has manifested over time with changing historical and social constellations. At the same time, while Judeophobic prejudices and actions have been intimidating and have at times precluded the legal immigration of Jews, antisemitism has rarely become dominant or led to systemic social discrimination, massive expulsion, or mass genocide, unlike in Europe.

In contemporary Latin America, deep-seated social discontent with political elites and institutions has been, paradoxically, the counterpart of democratic stability and resilience. This paradox suggests that scholarly assessments of democracy are, at least partially, at odds with citizens’ own views of democracy. This article thus develops a framework to describe citizens’ everyday experience with civil, political, and social entitlements associated with democracy. It introduces the framework by analyzing the structural underpinnings of democratic discontent in Chile and then applying it to the analysis of perceived citizenship entitlements in 18 countries, using the AmericasBarometer data. Significant variance is observed across time and both across and within countries. The descriptive findings also imply that only a (declining) minority of Latin American citizens feel fully entitled to civil, political, and social citizenship rights. We advocate the need to bring the demand side of democracy back to the analysis of democratic shortcomings and crises.

The use of veto points to block policy change has received significant attention in Latin America, but the different institutional venues have not been analyzed in a unified framework. Uruguay is exceptional in that political actors use both referendums and judicial review as effective ways to oppose public policies. While the activation of direct democracy mechanisms in Uruguay has been widely studied, the surge in the use of the judicial venue remains underexplored. This article argues that veto point use responds to the ideological content of policies adopted by different coalitions and the type of interest organization affected. It shows that policy opponents predominantly activate referendums when center-right coalitions rule and judicial review when center-left coalitions govern. It illustrates the causal argument by tracing the politics of court and referendum activation. This approach helps to bridge the gap between research on direct democracy and judicial politics, providing a unified framework.