La idea de que Bolivia vive un proceso de fortalecimiento de la democracia, representada por el ascenso de Evo Morales Ayma, un dirigente sindical campesino de origen aymara, a la presidencia, está escondiendo no solamente el hecho de que su gobierno es la culminación de un largo proceso histórico, sino que también oculta los riesgos del rentismo petrolero, del caudillismo político y del debilitamiento institucional, que podrían estar afectando las perspectivas de la democracia y el desarrollo.

In rediscovering the interpenetration of popular culture and politics in Latin America, and thus the ways these realms mutually constitute one another, scholars have also witnessed the analytic irruption of one particular cultural field: religion. Close attention to grassroots political culture allows us to probe how people's spiritual subjectivity and political subjectivity overlap and cross-fertilize one another. In the process, religion shapes political outcomes in ways often unintended. Two further analytic insights are discussed: First, analysis of lived religion must partially decenter religious institutions from the focus of analysis but also pay attention to how institutions shape spiritual and political subjectivities. Second, our theoretical frameworks—while rightly rejecting dominant Western forms of anti-body dualism—must preserve analytic place for a realm of human experience termed here “embodied dualism” or “experiential dualism.”

This article analyzes Salvadoran newspaper coverage of a social movement struggle that emerged in 2002 to prevent the privatization of the health-care system. Movement groups pursued their policy goals through both extrainstitutional protest and formal legislative channels. Through an analysis of news content, this article examines whether these different components of the movement's claims-making repertoire influenced the portrayal of the movement's goals, actors, and actions by one of the major Salvadoran news dailies. The analysis reveals that, compared to protest events, legislative processes that the movement set in motion generated coverage that was more sympathetic to the movement and that presented greater interrogation of government and elite plans for health-care reform.

En un contexto histórico de expansión educativa, mejora de los rendimientos de la educación y aumento de la participación de la mujer en la actividad económica, este artículo examina y compara las pautas y tendencias en homogamia educativa en México y Brasil entre 1970 y 2000. Concretamente, tratamos en perspectiva temporal y comparada las siguientes cuestiones: grado y alcance de la homogamia educativa y simetría en las relaciones de género. Para ello utilizamos las muestras armonizadas de microdatos de los censos de México 1970, 1990 y 2000, y de Brasil 1970, 1980, 1991 y 2000, puestas a disposición por el proyecto IPUMS-International. Los resultados muestran un aumento de la homogamia entre las capas más instruidas y una disminución de la hipergamia femenina en ambos países. Comparativamente, la homogamia educativa es mayor en Brasil que en México, reflejo de una mayor desigualdad social, mientras que las diferencias de género son mayores en México.

Social spending by central governments in Latin America has, in recent decades, become increasingly insulated from political manipulation. Focusing on the 3×1 Program in Mexico in 2002-2007, we show that social spending by local government is, in contrast, highly politicized. The 3×1 Program funds municipal public works, with each level of government—municipal, state, and central—matching collective remittances. Our analysis shows that 3×1 municipal spending is shaped by political criteria. First, municipalities time disbursements according to the electoral cycle. Second, when matching collective remittances, municipalities protect salaries of personnel, instead adjusting budget items that are less visible to the public, such as debt. Third, municipalities spend more on 3×1 projects when their partisanship matches that of the state government. Beyond the 3×1 Program, our findings highlight the considerable influence that increasing political and economic decentralization can have on local government incentives and spending choices, in Mexico and beyond.

We examine the promise and accomplishments of New Social Movement (NSM) theory for understanding recent social movements in Latin America. After delineating and critiquing the key premises and concerns of NSM analyses, we demonstrate how a conceptual frame combining political economy and political sociology accounts better for the origins and trajectories of the social movements, including two of the most important in Latin America, Brazil's Movement of the Landless Rural Workers (MST) and Bolivia's Movement toward Socialism (MAS).

Latin American global cities have embraced international tourism as a pillar of economic development. Even as tourism has recently grown dramatically, some cities have succeeded and others have failed at capturing international tourists and delivering benefits to the population. This article examines the role of new public institutions (tourism ministries) and social structure from 2000 to 2010 in Buenos Aires, Havana, and Rio de Janeiro. Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, the evidence shows that both policy choices and social structure shape the composition of international tourism. Prospect theory and economic crisis help explain the emergence of entrepreneurial and innovative bureaucracies. Buenos Aires is an example of innovative inclusive tourism, Havana exhibits innovative disarticulated tourism, and Rio de Janeiro features stagnant urban enclave tourism.

El régimen militar (1973–1990) ha sido investigado en diversos ámbitos: político, jurídico, institucional, económico, derechos humanos, mediático, entre otros. Sin embargo, poco se ha indagado respecto a los cambios y alteraciones que experimentó el entorno estético cotidiano como consecuencia de la dictadura. Menos aún se ha investigado sobre aquellas actividades culturales y/o manifestaciones artísticas que fueron promovidas o apoyadas por el régimen militar. Éstas, analizadas desde una perspectiva de conjunto, podrían dar cuenta de aquellos rasgos que marcaron su producción simbólica, ya sea promoviendo ciertos modos de ver, ritos y sensibilidades o reprimiendo aquellas prácticas e imaginarios propios del sistema democrático. El presente artículo considera algunos antecedentes del golpe estético que vivió Chile entre los años 1973 y 1975, como consecuencia del golpe militar generado el 11 de septiembre de 1973. La expresión golpe estético simboliza el proceso de transformación y cambio experimentado en aspectos de la vida cotidiana, producto del quiebre que se produjo con el proyecto socio-cultural de la Unidad Popular (UP).

Drawing on the literature on the social construction of public policy, this article pinpoints the emergence of the trope of the “temporary Mexican,” that is, the migrant farm laborer, to the 1920 congressional hearings on the “admission of illiterate Mexican laborers.” I argue that this construction was the brainchild of southwestern agriculture and its congressional supporters who sought to conceive of the Mexican laborer in terms consistent with the eugenic, liberal, and socially conservative sensibilities of the time. What resulted from this strategic creative process was the temporary Mexican, a new breed of peon who had free will and was biologically destined to return to Mexico. This temporariness, which was what made this social construction most palatable in the 1920s, has stayed with Mexicans (and Latinos generally) to the modern day, turning them into an in-between group whose membership is always suspect.