This essay reviews the following books:

• New Geographies of Abstract Art in Postwar Latin America. Edited by Mariola V. Alvarez and Ana M. Franco. New York: Routledge, 2018. Pp. 268. $48.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780367787004.

• Dematerialization: Art and Design in Latin America. By Karen Benezra. Oakland: University of California Press, 2020. Pp. xiv + 256. $50.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780520307063.

• Learning from Madness: Brazilian Modernism and Global Contemporary Art. By Kaira M. Cabañas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 240. $45.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780226556284.

• Crossings: Cultural Exchange between Argentina and Brazil. By Maria Amalia García, translated by Jane Brodie. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. Pp. xiii + 320. $50.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780520302198.

• Contra el canon: El arte contemporáneo en un mundo sin centro. By Andrea Giunta. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2020. Pp. 234. $9.99 Kindle. ASIN: B08599RSVV.

• Sur Moderno: Journeys of Abstraction–The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift. By Inés Katzenstein and Maria Amalia García, et al. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2019. Pp. 240. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781633450707.

• Lina Bo Bardi: Habitat. By Adriano Pedrosa, José Esparza Chong Cuy, Julieta González, and Tomás Toledo. São Paulo: MASP, 2019. Pp. 352. $60.00 paperback. ISBN: 9788531000669.

• Hemispheric Integration: Materiality, Mobility, and the Making of Latin American Art. By Niko Vicario. Oakland: University of California Press, 2020. Pp. x + 312. $50.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780520310025.

The Dominican Republic retroactively stripped thousands of Dominico-Haitians of their Dominican citizenship yet managed to defuse international opprobrium over time. After a direct assault on people’s citizenship status in 2013 provoked the human rights community’s ire, the DR employed administrative obstructionism to maneuver around human rights activism and institutions. Policies instituted in 2014 appeared to offer a pathway for Dominico-Haitians to reinstate their citizenship yet were so administratively onerous that most of the affected population remains effectively stateless. Administrative obstructionism makes for an elusive target of attack because it unfolds across a series of decisions over time, transfers responsibility from a highly visible leader to dispersed and faceless bureaucrats, and is exceedingly difficult to monitor. Administrative obstructionism drags out proceedings, causing media attention to wither. Because international forces face special challenges in countering this strategy, a strong domestic opposition movement is necessary to sustain pressure on a rights-violating government.

This paper explores external (country-level) and internal (party-level) drivers of membership variations across parties. Relying on the Political Party Database combined with other datasets, we provide original, cross-sectional analyses of membership variation across 223 parties in 38 countries, innovatively covering third-wave democracies, post-communist countries, and advanced democracies. It allows for a unique analysis of recruitment patterns of parties under quite different contexts. Departing from the dominant view that parties are the powerless victims of external trends, we show that, while context matters, parties’ choices regarding affiliation rules and organization structure also matter. They are more powerful determinants of membership ratios than country-level variables. Especially, the representation of sub-groups in the party structure is a key driver of membership recruitment. We also show how party origins, and the foundational environment in which they emerged, are important to understand how membership varies across parties today. Overall, this study strongly advocates for a broad comparative, multilevel approach to party membership.

Solidarity is a key ingredient to making society work. Yet, recent developments such as the refugee crisis and the declining support for social democratic parties question the degree of solidarity in Western societies. So what could increase solidarity? The national identity argument (NIA) claims that a stronger national identity can foster solidarity. While this claim was proven in some cases, several others challenged it. This paper sets out to put the NIA to a severe empirical test by distinguishing five different forms of national identity: national belonging, national pride, patriotism, national chauvinism, and the normative perception of national boundaries. The data stems from national surveys in Germany, the UK, and the USA linked to the ISSP. The results reveal no clear support for the NIA. Whether national identity fosters solidarity depends on what type of national identity and what country one is looking at.

Este trabalho analisa comparativamente alguns aspectos convergentes da obra do pensador alemão Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) e do escritor uruguaio Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015). Apresentam-se, assim, certas afinidades entre os dois autores no que diz respeito à proposição de uma crítica à história oficial, tal como concebida a partir das classes dominantes, em prol da recuperação da memória de grupos sociais submetidos à violência e à opressão. Destacam-se, ainda, correspondências metodológicas acerca do emprego de analogias e metáforas por ambos os autores.

In this study, we explored the longitudinal relationship of political trust and subjective political competence during the COVID-19 outbreak. We also examined how levels of political trust and political competence were associated with compliance with COVID-19 recommendations. We used three-wave panel data including 2,205 observations (N = 735) to study changes within and between individuals from 2017 to 2020. The last round of the survey was conducted at the peak of the first wave of COVID-19. The measures included political trust, subjective political competence, political interest, multiple background variables, and measures for compliance with the social distancing recommendations. We found that Finns’ political trust increased significantly during the first wave of COVID-19. The between-individuals analysis suggested that political competence was negatively associated with trust. The results also indicated that citizens’ compliance with COVID-19 recommendations was directly linked to political trust but depended also on the interaction between competence and trust.

Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar las representaciones discursivas de “las yucatecas” presentes en el periódico literario el Museo Yucateco (1841–1842), como parte de las ficciones fundacionales de la identidad yucateca que fueron configuradas por la élite criolla de Yucatán, cuanto esta entidad era independiente de la nación mexicana a mediados del siglo XIX. Se observará que esta construcción de la identidad regional se basa en un discurso nacionalista apropiado por la ideología regionalista y que posee en una estructura patriarcal de carácter binario, la cual imagina las identidades políticas de modo iconizado (lo público y lo privado) y modela el poder del sujeto masculino sobre el femenino como parte de su búsqueda de una hegemonía política y simbólica.

This article constructs an understanding of the Brazilian middle classes using economic, sociological, and cultural factors. It argues that the so-called new middle class is actually an expanded vulnerable class, and that the middle classes are simultaneously conscious and in denial of injustice toward the lower classes. The argument is based on an accidental biographical ethnography: reinterpretation of a field journal and the use of one person to understand broader trends. The resulting textual product juxtaposes biographical passages with theoretical analysis, deviating from traditional article structures to share the voice of the biographical participant while also critically examining the implications of this voice.