A partir de los modelos de corrientes múltiples (Kingdon 1995) y de diseño político y construcción social (Schneider y Ingram 1997), este artículo propone un modelo analítico que permite analizar el proceso de formulación de la política pública indígena en Chile en el gobierno de Patricio Aylwin Azócar (1990-1994) a través de sus coyunturas, actores, valores e intereses en juego. La evidencia muestra que existen elementos particulares del proceso cuando se trata de pueblos culturalmente diferenciados. Esta información se recoge a partir de la aplicación y análisis de entrevistas a veintidós actores claves del proceso junto con revisión y análisis de prensa y documentos oficiales. El artículo identifica, describe y explica las características que definen la política indígena para el caso chileno.

This article brings new evidence and a revisionary argument to the debate over Mexico's exceptional relations with Cuba in the decade after the Cuban Revolution. It uses recently declassified Mexican intelligence records to show that Mexican leaders defended Castro primarily because they were afraid of domestic leftist groups and individuals. The first part of the article examines the intelligence information that Mexican decision makers received about internal threats, drawing out the connections that they perceived between Cuba and the Mexican left and the reasons they designed their foreign policy for domestic ends. The second section shifts to the international level, challenging the traditional arguments that foreign or ideological factors determined Mexico's policy toward Cuba. It examines the ways that Mexican leaders defused and negotiated against possible repercussions from Cuba or the United States as a result of their decision to maintain relations with Castro's government.

El intenso proceso de descentralización de algunas políticas sociales observado en Brasil desde la década de 1980 no ha dado lugar a la disminución de las desigualdades regionales en términos de la atención de las necesidades locales por dichas políticas. Por otra parte, en los últimos años, el éxito del programa Bolsa Familía—de gestión centralizada y cobertura focalizada en los mas pobres—ha despertado el interés por valorar qué estrategia de suministro resulta capaz de ofrecer los resultados más eficientes en términos de la relación gasto-necesidad. El examen de las políticas sociales con base en dos dimensiones centrales (centralización-descentralización y universalización-focalización) ha revelado que tanto la centralización como lafocalización presentan mejores resultados que la descentralización y universalización.

In a recent article published in the Latin American Research Review, Simone Bohn analyzed electoral results and survey data from Brazil to contest several theses concerning the reelection of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2006. In particular, Bohn asserted that beneficiaries of Bolsa Família, a conditional cash transfer program that was reaching eleven million families at the time of the 2006 election, were already supporters of Lula in 2002, and therefore the program could not have contributed to the change in Lula's constituency between his election in 2002 and his reelection in 2006. We show that these claims are based on voter recall data collected between nine and fifty-seven months after the elections, and that these data grossly overestimate actual electoral support for Lula—probably as a result of well-known reporting biases. Reanalysis of Bohn's data as well as analysis of more reliable surveys suggest that there were indeed significant changes in voting patterns between 2002 and 2006, and that Bolsa Família did play an important role in the 2006 elections.

When we as LARR associate editors learned of the proposal of Jeffrey Rubin, David Smilde, and Benjamin Junge for this special issue, we were eager to be involved. Representing the journal, we had the great pleasure to attend meetings in Boston in 2011 and 2012 of this important new research initiative, initially titled “Religion, Social Movements, and Progressive Reform in Latin America,” where we heard many stimulating papers from a diverse range of scholars working in Latin America and the United States. At each meeting the group of presenters was never the same, which made for much exciting cross-fertilization of thinking in efforts to work through these themes, with stimulating and lively discussions moving from conference venues to restaurants and spilling out later onto the sidewalks of Boston. As our gracious host and the main convener of the meetings, Jeff Rubin skillfully wove together disparate views and approaches, moving toward the common threads that you see highlighted in this volume: zones of crisis, the day-to-day experience of religion, and citizenship. Each of the papers configures these themes in a unique way, demonstrating the undeniable centrality of religion as an inspiration and shaper of subjectivities, personal and public action, and engagement with politics in diverse settings across the Americas.

Several scholars have argued that decentralization benefits states and municipalities, granting them more autonomy for managing their budgets and more resources to deliver their services. Others have questioned this assertion, claiming that decentralization makes subnational units more fiscally dependent on central governments. This article argues that the fiscal impact of decentralization must be differentiated across states. It theoretically specifies and empirically demonstrates which states benefit during periods of decentralization and centralization. It argues that powerful presidents who centralize resources have imposed greater costs on more developed and fiscally independent districts (which prefer to administer their own resources and can be serious challengers to presidential power), thus relying mainly on support from less developed and more fiscally dependent provinces, which prefer more redistribution. I present empirical evidence for Argentina (1983-2004), a developing federation with strong governors and high cross-regional inequality, and discuss some implications for comparative studies on the topic.

The United Nations describes aquaculture as the fastest-growing method of food production, and some industry boosters have heralded the coming of a sustainable blue revolution. This article interprets the meteoric rise and sudden collapse of Atlantic salmon aquaculture in southern Chile (1980–2010) by integrating concepts from commodity studies and comparative environmental history. I juxtapose salmon aquaculture to twentieth-century export banana production to reveal the similar dynamics that give rise to “commodity diseases”—events caused by the entanglement of biological, social, and political-economic processes that operate on local, regional, and transoceanic geographical scales. Unsurprisingly, the risks and burdens associated with commodity diseases are borne disproportionately by production workers and residents in localities where commodity disease events occur. Chile's blue revolution suggests that evaluating the sustainability of aquaculture in Latin America cannot be divorced from processes of accumulation.

In the last decade a unique form of struggle developed in Argentina: the appropriation of bankrupt enterprises by their workers. This article combines several sources of data to explain the emergence and development of this practice and its effects on Argentine labor politics. We argue that the recuperation of enterprises is the result of workers' contingent responses to a deep social crisis, the emergence of organizations that promoted this practice, and the presence of a class culture in which wage work is considered a dignified form of work. Furthermore, we argue that the recuperation of enterprises is now part of the repertoire of contention of Argentine workers.

O presente artigo busca responder a seguinte questão: quando confiar é bom? Diversas pesquisas têm se debruçado sobre o fenómeno da desconfiança, estudando suas causas e efeitos para o regime democrático. Porém, pouca coisa foi explorada em relação ao fenómeno contrário, o da confiança. Nosso argumento é que confiar é bom quando duas condições são satisfeitas: a existência de um contexto institucional que justifique a confiança e um ambiente informacional adequado. Para justificá-lo, utilizamos dados.de uma pesquisa sobre um projeto de socialização política no Brasil, o Parlamento Jovem. Trata-se de um quase experimento, com pré-teste, pós-teste e grupo de controle, realizado em Minas Gerais em 2008. A conclusão é que mediante um intenso fluxo informacional, os participantes do projeto adquiriram maior conhecimento a respeito do processo de desenvolvimento institucional da Assembleia Legislativa Mineira, passando, então, a confiar mais nela. Mediante esse quadro, pode-se dizer que confiar é bom.