Observaremos la manera en que el extractivismo económico y otras de sus formas aparecen en la obra Los pasos perdidos de Alejo Carpentier: El protagonista anónimo expresa formas de pensar y de actuar que pueden entenderse como construcciones culturales de cuño extractivo. Analizaremos el uso narrativo del presente, pues se relaciona de manera explícita con las reflexiones del protagonista sobre el mundo contemporáneo y sus descubrimientos. Se examinará la manera en que las descripciones de los paisajes se relacionan con el presente, y permiten analizar el lenguaje usado para hacerlas. Por último, presentaremos algunas conclusiones acerca de las relaciones entre el modelo económico extractivo y el lenguaje en la obra: el protagonista intenta reconstruir —inútilmente— un vínculo sacro entre la realidad y la palabra.

Existing research has shown that there is considerable diversity when it comes to populist radical right party (PRRP) organization, but it is unclear why this is the case. The Netherlands provides an ideal laboratory to examine this question. Within two decades, the country witnessed the rise of several PRRPs, including the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), the Party for Freedom (PVV) and Forum for Democracy (FvD). Despite ideological similarities, there are clear differences between these parties in terms of party organization. We argue that the organizational model of the FvD is a synthesis of the LPF and the PVV. To avoid internal dissension that brought about the demise of the LPF, the FvD adopted organizational elements of Geert Wilders’s ‘personal party’. The FvD also drew lessons from the financial limitations of the PVV by creating a large membership base. The findings show clear evidence of institutional learning. By learning from the experiences of others, PRRPs are becoming much better equipped to endure setbacks, which suggests that they are less likely to subside in the near future.

The enforcement of labor informality is subject to electoral motivations, and political parties on the left and right have different incentives to do so. While leftist governments are more lenient not to harm their informal electorate, right-wing incumbents face an electoral dilemma: the part of its constituency that benefits from informal work is in favor of a permissive attitude, but another section demands a tough hand to deal with the unfair competition that informal work represents. Taking Chile as a case study and drawing on panel data on labor inspections, this article explores the electoral drivers behind enforcement. Our estimations, robust to fixed-effect and panel event-study approach, reveal that the left does not forbear, but the right carries out selective enforcement, concentrating inspections in competitive districts and accelerating the pace of control as presidential polls approach. The article concludes with policy recommendations to limit the electoral bias.

The article examines the patterns of turnover of Latin American legislators. It contributes (1) by introducing a large original dataset of turnover rates in 204 elections between 1985 and 2023 based on manually coded lists of all Latin American legislators elected since 1985, (2) by describing the cross-national and temporal patterns of turnover in Latin America, and (3) by examining empirically the relationship between turnover rates and temporal institutional arrangements designed to regulate the time horizons of legislators. The data reveals that turnover rates in Latin America are extremely high on average (around 70%) compared to democracies in other regions, although with significant variation. Institutional determinants governing time horizons of politicians are associated with turnover, with term limits, the presence of staggered elections and term length being positively associated with elevated turnover rates.

Under what conditions do South American states create regional institutions that consolidate or undermine the liberal international order (LIO)? To address this question, we compare two cases of contestation of the LIO through counter-institutionalization in the domains of migration and election monitoring, both of which are closely related to the LIO’s core political principles. We argue that the variation in the effects of counter-institutionalization—LIO-consolidating in the case of migration and LIO-undermining in the case of election monitoring—results from the interaction of two explanatory factors: the source of dissatisfaction with the LIO’s norms and institutions in a specific domain, and the preferences of the state that exercises regional leadership in support of counter-institutionalization. The article sheds light on the coexistence of liberal and illiberal tendencies in South America’s regionalism and contributes to the debate on the determinants and effects of contestations of the LIO in the Global South.

Since the 1980s, the study of opinions towards immigration has grown exponentially throughout European scholarship. Most existing studies, however, are limited in their scope and do not specifically refer to an aggregate phenomenon, but rather an individual one. This study seeks to establish empirically whether aggregate public immigration preferences across 13 European democracies relate systematically to national socio-political indicators or other underlying societal mechanics. Particularly, we analyze four mechanisms more in-depth, namely the predictive values of economic deprivation, immigration policy, immigration flows and the political environment. To do so we rely on country-level level data and update a unique dataset of immigration opinions. We find that (ii) economic deprivation is an important correlate of more restrictive immigration opinions, (ii) immigration opinions respond thermostatically to immigration policy, (iii) the non-asylum inflow of foreigners further restricts immigration opinions, and (iv) the immigration positions of government and opposition parties have antithetical effects on immigration opinions.