Mounting evidence shows that authoritarian orientations exert a powerful influence on public opinion attitudes and candidate support. The 2018 Brazilian elections brought to power Jair Bolsonaro, a candidate with an open disregard for democracy and democratic institutions. This study examines Brazilian voters’ differences in authoritarianism and electoral support for a right-wing authoritarian candidate. It employs the AmericasBarometer national survey data to demonstrate that authoritarianism is politically important in Brazil because of its association with attitudes toward the use of force as well as with conservative social and political attitudes. The effect of authoritarianism on the probability of voting for Bolsonaro is as large as that of other relevant political behavior variables such as ideology, negative partisanship, or religiosity, whereas nonauthoritarian voters spread their votes across other candidates. Although these other variables are also relevant to Bolsonaro’s victory, his candidacy was uniquely able to mobilize a coalition of authoritarian voters. Whether or not authoritarianism remains a salient cleavage in the electorate is considered along with the consequences of this potential divide for political competition in Brazilian politics.

Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay today account for well over a third of world exports of cellulose, yet this industry only came into existence in the late twentieth century. The evolution of this industry across the three countries is the object of this study. This nascent industry required direct government support in all three countries to be successful. Forestry laws and government investments in research, education, and factory construction were all needed to encourage local and foreign capital. There were differences among these countries in their linkages to other economic sectors as well as their export mix. But in all three countries, the forestry industry was part of a general modernization of agriculture that allowed for successful competition in world markets.

This essay reviews the following works:

Concrete Dreams: Practice, Value, and Built Environments in Post-crisis Buenos Aires. By Nicholas D’Avella. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. Pp. 312. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781478005117.

Black Market Capital: Urban Politics and the Shadow Economy in Mexico City. By Andrew Konove. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018. Pp ix + 304. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520293687.

Mapping the Megalopolis: Order and Disorder in Mexico City. Edited by Glen David Kuecker and Alejandro Puga. Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield, 2017. Pp vii + 304. $110.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781498559782.

Defiant Geographies: Race and Urban Space in 1920s Rio de Janeiro. By Lorraine Leu. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020. Pp. 238. $42.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780822946007.

The Street Is Ours: Community, the Car, and the Nature of Public Space in Rio de Janeiro. By Shawn William Miller. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp viii + 349. $120.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781108426978.

New World Cities: Challenges of Urbanization and Globalization in the Americas. Edited by John Tutino and Martin V. Melosi. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. xii + 344. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781469648750.

The Invention of the Favela. By Licia do Prado Valladares. Translated by Robert N. Anderson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. xxxii + 286 pages. $32.50 paperback. ISBN: 9781469649986.

A City on a Lake: Urban Political Ecology and the Growth of Mexico City. By Matthew Vitz. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Pp ix + 352. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822370406.

During a week in September of 2016, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC) held its tenth guerrilla conference, the Décima, in the plains of Yarí in southern Colombia. The guerrilla group blew the event open to the media, orchestrating a festival cum eco-conflict-tourism extravaganza to mark its transition to legal politics. This photo/ethnographic analysis of the Décima illuminates the FARC's symbolic and discursive formation at a pivotal transitional moment and how the group imagined its political possibilities at the cusp of its demobilisation. By engaging with Guy Debord's concept of ‘integrated spectacle’, I argue that the FARC's vanguardist structure led it to brand itself as the leader of a broad political mobilisation, even as it struggled to retain the allegiance of its former combatants. The article considers the ongoing relevance of the integrated spectacle for scholars and activists and opens a path for further research into politics of spectacle in Latin America.

In the shadows of a Shinto torii (gateway) in São Paulo's ‘Japanese’ neighbourhood rests the city's first burial ground for enslaved Africans. Recently unearthed, the gravesite is one of the few visible remains of the Liberdade neighbourhood's significance in São Paulo's ‘Black zone’. This article excavates the history of the nearby Remedies church, the headquarters of Brazil's Underground Railroad and a long-time museum to the enslaved. The 1942 demolition of the Remedies church, I argue, comprised part of a spatial project of forgetting centred on razing the city's ‘Black zone’ and reproducing São Paulo as a non-Black, ethnically immigrant metropolis.

Bachata has used mass media throughout its history to foster a sense of inclusion and community among fans, from Radio Guarachita in the 1960s to livestreaming on social media in the twenty-first century. This article considers how the Dominican Facebook Live program, El Tieto eShow, continues bachata’s intimate relationship with mass media through the creation and development of a virtual imagined community of bachata enthusiasts around the globe. The article explores how the cultural roots of the imagined community—the decline of sacred languages and societal high centers and the acceptance of calendrical over sacred time—contribute to this sense of group among El Tieto eShow’s worldwide audience. It also considers the importance of this type of virtual fan community in propagating a sense of proximity to each other and musicians.