The authors discuss the various ways in which liberationist Catholicism and the Catholic charismatic movement in Brazil take positions in the overall globalizing and homogenizing cultural forces in universal Catholicism and wider society. They argue that in their discourses and practices, these two contemporary Catholic movements refer to notions of both local and global and identify with specific parts of global Catholicism by confronting processes of syncretism, acculturation, and inculturation. Through an analysis of the meaning of tradition and roots, the use of music, and the practice of pilgrimage, the authors show how both movements manage the construction of distinctive religious cultures and forms of inculturation in the context of tension between the local and the global.

The specific contribution of this study is to explore how a communitarian lifeworld. prepares the ground for practices of political clientelism without requiring the foundational favor“ noted in other contexts. Based on the encounter between ethnographies from two different communities of the Mesoamerican tradition in Mexico, the article argues that this lifeworld is forged by the habitual ways in which most collective tasks are carried out, that is, by forming and participating in networks. First, we offer a concrete description of the operation of two problem-solving networks of political clientelism in these communities. These networks are considered legitimate since they appear to be part of the communitarian practices. Second, we observe that the state often fails to reach out to the citizens with many social benefits, and we maintain that the problem-solving networks bridge the gap between the citizens and the state. Third, we argue that the ethnographic approach has been of paramount importance in reaching these findings, which are hardly attainable without this method. We consider that the workings of the clientelist networks represent a deep expression of people's communitarian lifeworlds.

The present study analyzes the role of collective remittances in promoting democratic consolidation amid the decentralization of political decision making in Mexico. Specifically, 1 analyze how the remittance-matching program 3 × 1 para Migrantes conditions municipal politics in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. To this end, I evaluate 3 × 1 para Migrantes investment patterns across Guanajuato's forty-six municipalities for the period 2001–2011. The results of my study indicate that, under the right conditions, remittances channeled through the 3 × 1 program stimulate higher levels of voter participation and in this manner have the potential to contribute to democratic growth. However, data patterns also indicate that 3 × 1 investments share a positive correlation with election cycles, demonstrating that local authorities may use the 3 × 1 program to garner political support. In this respect, my analysis calls into question the depth of democratic consolidation at the municipal level in the state of Guanajuato.

Peasant activists affiliated with the Confederación Campesina del Perú (CCP) seized the Pomacocha hacienda in Ayacucho in 1961. The invasion triggered over a decade of serious conflict between those peasants who supported local CCP activists and those who opposed them. The campesinos who challenged Pomacocha's CCP activists did so using the rhetoric of anticommunism, and they were in turn derided as “yellows,” or conservatives. Peasant anticommunism stemmed from conflicts over money, religion, participation, and especially political rivalries, as the staunchest anticommunist peasants in the community belonged to the rival APRA party. The Pomacocha case shows that landowning elites, the church, government officials, and the military had no monopoly on the Cold War rhetoric of anticommunism; peasants likewise mobilized counterrevolutionary discourses to further their own interests. Ultimately, anticommunism allowed campesinos to pierce through the political neglect that characterized indigenous peasants' relationships with the twentieth-century Peruvian state.

Las hipótesis sobre la relación entre competencia política y gasto particularista predicen consecuencias opuestas. Una sugiere que la competencia política —el gobierno sin mayoría<— constriñe al ejecutivo y reduce el particularismo, la perspectiva opuesta predice un mayor particularismo como resultado del intercambio de apoyo legislativo por beneficios. Ambas descansan sobre un supuesto que no siempre se cumple: la presencia de actores con poder de veto en el congreso. Este artículo argumenta que este supuesto es crucial para ambas hipótesis y muestra que allí donde aquel no se cumple estas últimas no se sostienen. Explora los efectos del gobierno con y sin mayoría en contextos de debilidad institucional del congreso a través de un análisis del gasto en bienes públicos locales de los gobiernos subnacionales en México y Argentina y muestra que el gobierno sin mayoría no conduce a ninguno de los resultados anticipados por los modelos existentes.

Por primera en vez Chile una mujer triunfó en las elecciones presidenciales. Sugerimos que la victoria de Michelle Bachelet se explicó, en primer lugar, por sus atributos personales. Los chilenos la evaluaron como la candidata más confiable y con mayor cercanía, valorando además sus condiciones como posible gobernante. En segundo lugar, se vio favorecida por un ambiente político y económico derivado de la reconocida gestión del ex presidente Ricardo Lagos. Un tema crucial que atraviesa todo el escrito corresponde a la solidaridad de género. Se sostiene que el apoyo de las mujeres fue determinante para el triunfo de Bachelet, cuestión que se corrobora tanto a nivel de encuestas en términos de intención de voto como de resultados electorales finales por comuna.

Why is Colombia, a country with fertile arable lands, increasingly importing its food supply as a consequence of shrinking lands dedicated to crop production, whereas land inappropriate for pasture and livestock has been expanding exponentially? The answer lies in the land laws approved since the 1930s, coupled with the state's economic policies, which have reduced the opportunity costs of investing in this sector. Both have provided an institutional matrix to transform parts of the rural economy from food production to a rentier political economy spearheaded by cattle ranching. This article explains why cattle ranching has become increasingly prominent since the 1950s for a segment of the dominant classes that is predisposed to invest in this endeavor despite the risks and low economic returns. More important, the article explains how the institutional matrix (laws and policies) and precarious property rights in rural areas provided the incipient narco-bourgeoisie, since the mid-1970s, with a pivotal incentive to choose cattle ranching as a favorite means to launder money, speculate, and exercise political power, consequently cementing rentier capitalism.