This essay reviews the following works:

Democracy and Its Discontents in Latin America. Edited by Joe Foweraker and Dolores Trevizo. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2016. Pp. xi + 325. $79.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781626372764.

Reformas políticas a las organizaciones de partidos en América Latina (1978–2015). Edited by Flavia Freidenberg and Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú, Organización de los Estados Americanos, Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas de la UNAM y Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Político, 2016. Pp. 524. ISBN 9786124713408.

Recycling Dictators in Latin American Elections: Legacies of Military Rule. By Brett J. Kyle. Boulder, CO: First Forum Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 267. $79.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781626374379.

Democratization and Authoritarian Party Survival: Mexico’s PRI. By Joy K. Langston. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 256. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780190628529.

Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America. Edited by Steven Levitsky, James Loxton, Brandon Van Dyck, and Jorge I. Domínguez. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xxii + 574. $105.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107145948.

Life after Dictatorship: Authoritarian Successor Parties Worldwide. Edited by James Loxton and Scott Mainwaring. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xxii + 405. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781108445412.

Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay, and Collapse. Edited by Scott P. Mainwaring. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. p. xxviii + 496. $39.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316627525.

Party Vibrancy and Democracy in Latin America. By Fernando Rosenblatt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xiv + 280. $82.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780190870041.

This essay reviews the following works:

Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. By Kathleen DuVal. New York: Random House, 2015. Pp. ix + 464. $18.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780812981209.

Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution: Reform, Revolution, and Royalism in the Northern Andes, 1780–1825. By Marcela Echeverri. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xvi + 276 $27.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316018842.

Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution. By Ada Ferrer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xiv + 377. $29.98 paperback. ISBN: 9781107697782.

La restauración en la Nueva Granada (1815–1819). By Daniel Gutiérrez Ardila. Bogotá: Universidad Externado de Colombia, 2016. Pp. ix + 300. $11.99 paperback. ISBN: 9789587726725.

A Great Fear: Luís de Onís and the Shadow War against Napoleon in Spanish America, 1808–1812. By Timothy Hawkins. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2019. Pp. ix + 256. $49.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780817392130.

Who Should Rule? Men of Arms, the Republic of Letters, and the Fall of the Spanish Empire. By Mónica Ricketts. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 314. $78.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780190494889.

The Ideology of Creole Revolution: Imperialism and Independence in American and Latin American Political Thought. By Joshua Simon. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 284. $32.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781316610961.

Tides of Revolution: Information, Insurgencies, and the Crisis of Colonial Rule in Venezuela. By Cristina Soriano. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Pp. ix + 336. $95.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826359858.

Mexico City, 1808: Power, Sovereignty, and Silver in an Age of War and Revolution. By John Tutino. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Pp. x + 320. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780826360014.

New Countries: Capitalism, Revolutions, and Nations in the Americas, 1750–1870. Edited by John Tutino. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 408. $28.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822361336.

Este artículo analiza el mecanismo causal que subyace a las condicionalidades a partir del análisis de los procesos de implementación de la Asignación Universal por Hijo de Argentina y el Régimen de Asignaciones Familiares (Plan de Equidad) de Uruguay. Para ello, con el objetivo de aportar elementos sobre la relación causal entre condicionalidades y el eventual cambio de comportamiento de las familias, aquí se profundiza en cómo las condicionalidades son comunicadas a los receptores de ambas políticas, cómo son entendidas por ellos, y cómo el incumplimiento es sancionado. La comparación entre Argentina y Uruguay muestra cómo cada política pone el foco en distintas etapas de su proceso de implementación. Esto da cuenta de dos formas distintas de implementar las condicionalidades, alterando en forma distinta la cadena causal a través de la cual las condicionalidades podrían modificar la conducta de los receptores. El análisis provee elementos para reflexionar sobre el grado en que es esperable que las condicionalidades de las políticas de transferencias logren los efectos deseados y en qué condiciones es esto razonable.

Gendering Legislative Behavior: Institutional Constraints and Collaboration. By Tiffany D. Barnes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 274. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316507650.

Women, Politics, and Democracy in Latin America. Edited by Tomáš Došek, Flavia Freidenberg, Mariana Caminotti, and Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. v + 243. $87.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781349950089.

Inclusion without Representation in Latin America: Gender Quotas and Ethnic Reservations. By Mala Htun. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. x + 226. $26.68 paperback. ISBN: 9780521690836.

Women in Mexican Politics: A Study of Representation in a Renewed Federal and Democratic State. By Fernanda Vidal Correa. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016. Pp. ix + 122. $75.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781498534390.

Gender, Institutions, and Change in Bachelet’s Chile. Edited by Georgina Waylen. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. ix + 244. $101.64 hardcover. ISBN: 9781137501974.

El estudio revisa las diferentes teorías sobre las relaciones entre informalidad, competitividad e institucionalidad y las contrasta con lo sucedido en los últimos diez años en el Perú, valorando aquellas que pueden dar cuenta de la articulación de lo formal e informal. Arriba a la conclusión de que en la etapa de auge se produjo una combinación de crecimiento sin competitividad y con un debilitamiento institucional, que es el modelo final de economía y sociedad de la informalidad. Se fundamenta el paso de la informalidad blanda a la informalidad dura, con la consiguiente expansión de una cultura de trasgresión y encarecimiento de los costos de transacción. El ciclo de crecimiento no sostenible que se vivió en la primera década del nuevo milenio produjo un éxito fácil que ahora está a prueba con el cambio en el entorno global y nacional. El estudio se basa en una amplia revisión bibliográfica y documental, así como en bases de datos de estadísticas nacionales e internacionales.

Existing work on state building focuses on the creation of modern bureaucracies and institutions for education and taxation but generally neglects to point to communal property regimes as tools of statecraft. Political science scholars who focus on ethnic communal lands in the Americas emphasize the rise of formal multicultural institutions, including Indigenous land rights, but are skeptical about governments’ willingness to title large extensions of land to Indigenous or other ethnic groups because of opposing economic interests. Focusing on the titling of 12 percent of Honduras’s territory between 2012 and 2016, this article uses semi-structured elite interviews, land titling data, field notes from three months in rural and urban sites in Honduras, and drug-trafficking reports to examine the motivation of officials in the central government. Evidence suggests that the central government views and uses ethnic land titling as a strategy to reclaim territorial dominance in contested locations that lack state presence.

Criminal Enterprises and Governance in Latin America and the Caribbean. By Enrique Desmond Arias. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 301. $75.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107153936.

Sharing This Walk: An Ethnography of Prison Life and the PCC in Brazil. By Karina Biondi. Edited and translated by John F. Collins. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 194. $24.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781469623405.

Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico. By Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 379. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477312759.

The Killing Consensus: Police, Organized Crime, and the Regulation of Life and Death in Urban Brazil. By Graham Denyer Willis. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. Pp. ix +192. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520285712.

The Politics of Drug Violence: Criminals, Cops, and Politicians in Colombia and Mexico. By Angélica Durán-Martínez. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 328. $29.95, paperback. ISBN: 9780190695965.

Making Peace in Drug Wars: Crackdowns and Cartels in Latin America. By Benjamin Lessing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. vii + 326. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316648964.

En la niebla de la guerra: Los ciudadanos ante la violencia criminal organizada. By Andreas Schedler. Mexico City: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, 2015. Pp. 282. $17.99 paperback. ISBN: 9786079367480.

Mano Dura: The Politics of Gang Control in El Salvador. By Sonja Wolf. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Pp. vii + 304. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9781477311660.

This article explores the cases of two satirical publications—The Clinic (Chile, 1998–) and Barcelona (Argentina, 2003–). Through critical humor, visual subversions, and parody, these independent magazines challenged mainstream journalism and official political discourse, offering alternative interpretations about the ruling class and society after traumatic periods—Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile and the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina. Through interviews with the editors and content analysis, this article examines how these satirical publications responded to their respective national contexts by questioning the functioning of power on several levels of society, and how they evolved after they became popular, negotiating their space within the national mediascape. This study also suggests the notion of hybrid alternative media to describe these publications, which became part of a liberating process of collective healing. Initially perceived in opposition to mainstream media in contexts when the press’s credibility had decreased, they filled gaps in their society’s political communication.

During the almost constant political turmoil of the 1970s up to Raúl Alfonsín’s election in 1983, classical music in Buenos Aires was arguably one of the most stable domains of cultural life in Argentina. If this applies to public institutions such as the Teatro Colón, it is even truer of private concert associations like the Mozarteum Argentino, whose president Jeannette Arata de Erize remained in charge from 1955 until her death in 2013. Under the dictatorship of 1976–1983, the Mozarteum concerts were supported by leading economic groups like Techint, whose CEO, Roberto Rocca, was a member of the board of directors, as was the minister of Economy, José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz. Politics, though, were totally absent from the association’s life. This apoliticism, derived from the Romantic era, strengthened the cohesion of the upper classes while converging with the alleged apolitical nature of the military regime itself.

This essay reviews the following works:

Illiberal Practices: Territorial Variance within Large Federal Democracies. Edited by Jacqueline Behrend and Laurence Whitehead. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. Pp. x + 330. $49.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781421419589.

Avoiding Governors: Federalism, Democracy, and Poverty Alleviation in Brazil and Argentina. By Tracy Beck Fenwick. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2016. Pp. xviii + 277. $29.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780268028961.

Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies. By Edward L. Gibson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 192. $31.99 paperback. ISBN: 9780521127332.

Democrats and Autocrats: Pathways of Subnational Undemocratic Regime Continuity within Democratic Countries. By Agustina Giraudy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xx + 214. $86.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780198706861.

Diffusion of Good Government: Social Sector Reforms in Brazil. By Natasha Borges Sugiyama. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. Pp. xx + 265. $35.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780268041427.

O presente artigo tem por objetivo lastrear o desenvolvimento inicial das concepções sobre a teoria marxista da dependência ainda no calor do embate político no Brasil entre 1959 e 1967. Inicialmente, o texto se debruça sobre a formação e desenvolvimento da Organização Revolucionária Marxista Política Operária através da análise de alguns documentos políticos da organização, para em seguida, pôr em foco o Programa Socialista para o Brasil de 1967, de modo a destacar certas similaridades do programa político com as linhas centrais que virão a compor a teoria marxista da dependência. Ao final, o artigo levanta relação recíproca entre os conhecimentos forjados no calor da luta política com aqueles elaborados dentro da universidade, indicando a presença e reelaboração das concepções da organização política nas obras iniciais dos cientistas sociais brasileiros Theotônio dos Santos e Ruy Mauro Marini.

Este artículo analiza la prensa satírica producida por obreros tipógrafos en Chile entre finales del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX. A partir de la revisión de archivos de prensa y utilizando la conceptualización sobre “cultura popular ausente”, los principales resultados revelan características diferenciadas del objeto de estudio respecto de la autorrepresentación de lo popular y del rol jugado en la esfera pública, que por un lado lo apartan de la sátira chilena del siglo XIX centrada en las disputas de los partidos oligárquicos, al tiempo que visibilizan un sujeto popular (emisor y receptor) más complejo y paradójico que el de la prensa obrera dominante, generando hallazgos relevantes para un debate actual sobre los otros populares, el modo en que han permanecido ocultos históricamente y cómo traerlos a escena para la reflexión sobre proyectos políticos del presente.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Oxford Handbook of the Brazilian Economy. Edited by Edmund Amann, Carlos R. Azzoni, and Werner Baer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. ix + 813. $150.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780190499983.

História económica de la Argentina en los siglos XX y XXI. By Claudio Belini and Juan Carlos Korol. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores, 2020, rev. ed. Pp. 7 + 396. ARS $1,290. ISBN: 9789878010380.

State and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain: The Rise and Fall of the Developmental State. Edited by Agustin E. Ferraro and Miguel A. Centeno New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. ix +436. $140.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107189829.

The Political Economy of Taxation in Latin America. Edited by Gustavo A. Flores-Macías New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp vii + 282. $99.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781108474573.

The Public Good and the Brazilian State: Municipal Finance and Public Services in São Paulo, 1822–1930. By G. Anne. Hanley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. xii + 290. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780226535074.

Feeding the World: Brazil’s Transformation into a Modern Agricultural Economy. By Herbert S. Klein and Francisco Vidal Luna. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp viii + 468. $32.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781108460972.

The Mexican Heartland: How Communities Shaped Capitalism, a Nation, and World History, 1500–2000. By John Tutino. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. Pp 512. $39.50 hardcover. ISBN: 9780691174365.

Today, Brazil has one of the most diverse energy systems in the world. The sugar-based ethanol industry plays a pivotal role in that achievement, yet scholars of energy development have focused little on ethanol. This article examines the history of the sugar-based ethanol industry from its beginning in the 1930s to the creation of the state-led program Proálcool (the National Ethanol Program) in 1975 and the ethanol-fueled car in 1979. This article demonstrates how federal and private actors connected nationalist goals of a modern, industrial Brazilian identity to ethanol in order to sustain the industry against the vagaries of the sugar market. Drawing from production data, the monthly sugar industry journal Brasil Açucareiro, newspapers, government funding applications for privately owned ethanol distilleries, and oral interviews, it highlights how the idea of a nationally developed technology and domestic industry etched a long-term place for the ethanol industry in the nation’s energy strategy.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognizes Indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination and to maintain their distinct institutions. This article investigates how those rights are being exercised in Charagua, which became Bolivia’s first “Indigenous autonomous government” when the municipality’s Guaraní majority approved conversion in 2015. We explore the construction of novel institutions of self-government to assess how local Guaraní leaders are negotiating autonomy, both externally and internally. The result of those negotiations is a hybrid political system in which power is balanced between an executive organ (as required by Bolivian law) and a deliberative assembly (the Ñemboati Guasu, which operates according to Indigenous custom). The prominence of the assembly expresses a significant form of autonomy that promotes intercultural political participation and enacts Indigenous self-government in ways that are important to Guaraní people. Yet, because the new political unit does not control subsoil rights and thus cannot determine the sorts of development that take place in its territory, we cannot yet say the Guaranís are exercising full and robust autonomy as expressed by the UN Declaration’s provisions for self-determination.

This essay reviews the following works:

Legislative Institutions and Lawmaking in Latin America. Edited by Eduardo Alemán and George Tsebelis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xvii + 266. $90.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780198777861.

Democratization by Institutions: Argentina’s Transition Years in Comparative Perspective. By Leslie E. Anderson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 292. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780472053230.

Political Institutions and Party-Directed Corruption in South America: Stealing for the Team. By Daniel W. Gingerich. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xviii + 282. $34.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107040441.

Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change. By Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman. New Jersey Princeton University Press, 2016. Pp. xxii + 396. $32.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780691172156.

Institutions on the Edge: The Origins and Consequences of Inter-Branch Crises in Latin America. By Gretchen Helmke. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. xvii + 183 pp. $28.99 paperback. ISBN: 9780521738408.

How Democracies Die: What History Reveals about Our Future. By Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. New York: Penguin, 2018. Pp. 320. $16.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781524762940.

This essay reviews the following works:

Teerã, Ramalá e Doha: Memórias da política externa ativa e altiva. By Celso Amorim. São Paulo: Benvirá, 2015. Pp. 520. R$44.00 paperback. ISBN: 9788582401712.

Brazil and Latin America: Between the Separation and Integration Paths. By Jose Briceño-Ruiz and Andrés Rivarola Puntigliano. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017. Pp. 198. $36.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781498538473.

Foreign Policy Responses to the Rise of Brazil: Balancing Power in Emerging States. Edited by Gian Luca Gardini and Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. xiv + 239. $49.99e-book. ISBN: 9781137516695.

Brazil as a Rising Power: Interventions Norms and the Contestation of Global Order. Edited by Kai Michael Kenkel and Philip Cunliffe. London: Routledge, 2016. Pp. 234. $57.95e-book. ISBN: 1138946788.

Política externa na Nova República: Os primeiros 30 anos. By Dawisson Belém Lopes. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2017. Pp. 284. R$47.00. ISBN: 9788542301915.

Brazil on the Global Stage: Power, Ideas, and the Liberal International Order. Edited by Oliver Stuenkel and Matthew M. Taylor. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. xvii + 228. $84.99 e-book. ISBN: 9781137491657.

This essay reviews the following works:

Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence–and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets. By Thomas Abt. New York: Basic Books, 2019. Pp. 304. $30.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781541645721.

MS-13: The Making of America’s Most Notorious Gang. By Steven Dudley. New York: Hanover Square Press, 2020. Pp. 352. $28.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781335005540.

Mortal Doubt: Transnational Gangs and Social Order in Guatemala City. By Anthony W. Fontes Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018. Pp. 332. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520297098.

El Niño de Hollywood: Cómo Estados Unidos y El Salvador moldearon a un sicario de la Mara Salvatrucha 13. By Óscar Martínez and Juan José Martínez. Mexico City: Debate, 2018. Pp. 272. $16.95 paperback. ISBN: 9786073169004.

La tropa: Por qué mata un soldado. By Daniela Rea and Pablo Ferri. Mexico City: Aguilar, 2018. Pp. 336. MXN339.00 paperback. ISBN: 9786073177795.

Gangs of the El Paso-Juárez Borderland: A History. By Mike Tapia. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. Pp. 200. $45.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826361097.

Carta desde Zacatraz. By Roberto Valencia. Madrid: Libros del K.O., 2018. Pp. 381. $20.00 paperback. ISBN: 9788416001866.

State of War: MS-13 and El Salvador’s World of Violence. By William Wheeler. New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2020. Pp. 150. $15.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781733623728.

The ethnographic study of tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean offers the opportunity to examine the ways that racial ideologies perpetuate social inequality, debunking the myth of racial democracy in countries such as Brazil. In the case of Brogodó, in Bahia, Brazil, structural inequality and racial ideology limit the equal participation of Brazilians of African descent in the local ecotourism industry. This article draws on evidence from ethnographic research to investigate the relationship of structural inequality, racial ideology, and cultural and symbolic capital. In the ecotourism industry, employer discourses emphasizing the limits of local community members’ cultural capital conceal their preference for employees exhibiting both the habitus and phenotypic traits associated with whiteness, reflecting broader social and economic practices that discriminate against African-descendent Brazilians. The ability to naturalize habitus and disguise racial ideology behind discussions of education and qualifications reflects employers’ and members of the dominant classes’ symbolic power.