A 1995 survey shows that Mexican citizens depend on their cognitive and affective orientations toward the United States in forming opinions about economic agreements between the two countries. The degree to which respondents utilized general feelings toward the United States rather than images of the United States varies by educational level and across the two agreements that were examined, NAFTA and the Clinton economic stabilization package of 1995. Whether respondents utilized an image of U.S. economic imperialism or of racial discrimination against people of Mexican origin in forming their opinions also depends on the level of education attained and on the policy domain of the agreement. The cognitive processes respondents utilized to form opinions about these economic agreements also differ across educational levels and policy domains. The findings have important implications for the capacity of Mexican elites to mobilize support for agreements with the United States and more generally for U.S.-Mexican relations.

This article analyzes the campaign of Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Alemán (1997–2002) against organized competitors, what has been called his war against the nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. Alemán's attacks on the NGO sector are shown to be consistent with the logic of the new populism in Latin America. At the same time, his choice of targets—prominent NGO figures who were often foreign-born and always female—must be explained with reference to the specifics of Nicaraguan civil society and its evolving relationship with the political parties. This study argues that by choosing to respond to the challenges of international neoliberalism and local feminism through the anti-NGO campaign, Alemán helped to weaken democracy in Nicaragua.

The article synthesizes contributions from the recent comparative research on civil war and the case-specific literature on Colombia to argue that too often, commentators on this conflict overlook some of its key dimensions. A comprehensive analysis shows that no fewer than six factors are fueling violent conflict in Colombia: economic forces, state weakness, landscape, U.S. policies, long-duration and spin-off violence, and malicious opportunism by non-combatants. The first three are the ones that matter most. The case made here is that when analysts disregard the range and interrelatedness of the factors involved, the result is a distortion of reality and a tendency to support policies that will not enhance the prospects for peace.

In the transition from military rule to democracy, the government of Augusto Pinochet bequeathed to Chile a unique electoral law by which all legislative seats are contested in two-member districts. A key implication of this rule is that in order to secure legislative majorities, coalitions have to put their strongest candidates in the most precarious electoral list positions. This generates a divergence of interests between coalitions and politicians. Chile's largest coalition, the Concertación, has resolved the dilemma by providing appointed posts to unsuccessful congressional candidates who accept personal political risk on the coalition's behalf. This study argues that this insurance system has provided the critical glue to hold the coalition together since Chile's transition to democracy in 1990. Recent changes in the electoral environment could threaten the Concertación's control over the appointed posts that have sustained this informal institution. This could jeopardize the Concertación's cohesion during the process of negotiating coalition candidate lists for the 2005 legislative elections.

The changes men and women in a rural community in Nicaragua say they have implemented over the past decades differ in ways that relate to their vulnerability to drought. Short-term coping was more common among the women, especially the female heads of households, while adaptive actions were more common among the men. The Community Capitals Framework offers a tool to understand the differences. A gendered culture meant that the division of other types of capital (natural, human, social, financial, built, cultural, and political) as well as the division of labor in the case study area were also highly gendered. These gendered inequalities in access to and control over different forms of capital has led to a gender-differentiated capacity to respond to climate change, men being able to adapt and women experiencing a downward spiral in capacity and increasing vulnerability to drought.

Based on a case study of Colombian journalist Patricia Nieto, who has written extensively about Colombia’s armed conflict, this article offers a new approach to understanding demands on journalists and challenges that face them when covering the effects of violence and trauma. The analysis focuses on the prologues Nieto wrote for the edited volumes of testimonies that she and her students put together. The books were product of a collective endeavor by which Nieto and her students guided and helped victims and survivors of violence to write their own stories. In the prologues to these volumes, Nieto’s reflections place politics and aesthetics close together in discussing the act of writing as the search for an inner voice to reconstruct the events that transformed someone into a victim. To understand the process of working with the victims, the article combines textual analysis and ethnographic fieldwork. It analyzes Nieto’s professional trajectory and her position in the local field of journalistic production, considering her emotional and ethical quest when covering her country’s armed conflict.

Este trabajo analiza tres momentos entre las décadas de 1930 y 1940 que permiten comprender el proceso por el cual el Estado, los empresarios cinematográficos y el clero y el laicado católico se consolidaron como los actores más influyentes del cine en Argentina. Se abordan la redefinición de los vínculos entre las ramas del empresariado y el surgimiento de una producción cinematográfica industrial en el marco de las transformaciones provocadas por la implementación del sonoro y el impacto de la crisis económica mundial; el desarrollo de oficinas de moralidad católicas en el marco de la experiencia de imbricación institucional de Estado e Iglesia católica; y la elaboración de una política estatal de protección y fomento cinematográfico que produjo una identificación de intereses de empresarios productores y Estado, en el contexto de las sanciones de Estados Unidos a Argentina durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El trabajo discute el concepto de autonomía relativa relacionada a la teoría de los campos de Bourdieu y la problematización de este concepto a la luz de un arte industrial como la cinematografía, proponiendo entender la participación de estos actores en el campo cinematográfico a partir del análisis de modos concretos de reestructuraciones internas de influencias externas.

This essay reviews the following works:

Rivalry and Alliance Politics in Cold War Latin America. By Christopher Darnton. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 285. $44.95 paper. ISBN: 9781421413617.

Neither Peace nor Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Latin America. By Patrick Iber. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. 1 + 327. $39.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780674286047.

Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution. By Renata Keller. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xix + 274. $103.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781107079588.

Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana. By William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Pp. xiv + 524. $25.00 paper. ISBN: 9781469617633.

Reagan and Pinochet: The Struggle over U.S. Policy toward Chile. By Morris Morley and Chris McGillion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xiii + 338. $35.99 paper. ISBN: 9781107458093.

This essay reviews the following works:

Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime, and Violence in the Americas Today. Edited by Bruce M. Bagley and Jonathan D. Rosen. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015. Pp. ix + 431. $84.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780813060682.

The Politics of Crime in Mexico: Democratic Governance in a Security Trap. By John Bailey. Boulder, CO: Lynn Rienner Publishers, 2014. Pp. ix + 225. $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781935049890.

Women Drug Traffickers: Mules, Bosses, and Organized Crime. By Elaine Carey. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 281. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780826351982.

Linking Political Violence and Crime in Latin America: Myths, Realities, and Complexities. Edited by Kirsten Howarth and Jenny H. Peterson. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. Pp. vii + 143. $80.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781498507196.

Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats: U.S. Policymaking in Colombia. By Winifred Tate. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015. Pp. xi + 275. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780804795661.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Politics of Market Discipline in Latin America: Globalization and Democracy. By Daniela Campello. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. viii + 239. $29.99 paper. ISBN: 9781107649866.

Private Wealth and Public Revenue in Latin America: Business Power and Tax Politics. By Tasha Fairfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. viii + 333. $34.99 paper. ISBN: 9781107459090.

Globalization and the Distribution of Wealth: The Latin American Experience, 1982–2008. By Arie M. Kacowicz. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. vii + 248. $29.99 paper. ISBN: 9781107499744.

Globalization and Austerity Politics in Latin America. By Stephen B. Kaplan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 331. $20.99 paper ISBN: 9781107670761.

The International Monetary Fund and Latin America: The Argentine Puzzle in Context. By Claudia Kedar. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 251. $74.50 cloth. ISBN: 9781439909119.

Designing Industrial Policy in Latin America: Business-State Relations and the New Developmentalism. By Ben Ross Schneider. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. vii + 101. $70.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781137524836.

This essay reviews the following works:

Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production. By Sarah Bowen. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. Pp. xvii + 260. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520281059.

Alcohol in Latin America: A Social and Cultural History. Edited by Gretchen Pierce and Áurea Toxqui. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 306. $60.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780816530762.

Alcohol and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Mexico. By Deborah Toner. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. Pp. vi + 346. $30.00 paper. ISBN: 9780803274327.

En torno a estas tres interrogantes se estructura este texto: ¿Potenciar una agenda de género es contraproducente cuando un sujeto político es marcado por la categoría “etnia”? Cuando las demandas son étnicas, culturalistas, o identitarias ¿implican siempre una revalorización de la tradición que sitúa a las mujeres en lugares desaventajados o subordinados? ¿La agenda autonomista recoge la diversidad del mundo indígena? También se hace una breve referencia a los aspectos metodológicos de la investigación que inspira este texto. Finalmente se deja planteada una reflexión en torno a la figura del intelectual indígena. La relevancia de esta discusión se explica por un contexto sociopolítico que vive el movimiento indígena en Chile: una “reemergencia” que se advierte crecientemente a partir de los años 90. Es una situación en la cual ciertas demandas ancladas territorialmente han permeado otras esferas de la vida de un grupo tan heterogéneo como dinámico y en cuyo escenario se ha bosquejado una identidad mapuche que se construye en el terreno de la resistencia y que, por lo mismo, experimenta todo tipo de tensiones y potencia la construcción de agendas controversiales. Una de las figuras que encarna esta resistencia es la del intelectual indígena.

This essay reviews the following works:

Popular Politics and Rebellion in Mexico: Manuel Lozada and La Reforma, 1855–1876. By Zachary Brittsan. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 220. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780826520449.

El jefe político: Un dominio negociado en el mundo rural del Estado de México, 1856–1911. By Romana Falcón. Mexico City: El Colegio de México; El Colegio de Michoacán; CIESAS, 2015. Pp. 9 + 744. $39.99 paper. ISBN: 9786074627381.

Independent Mexico: The Pronunciamiento in the Age of Santa Anna, 1821–1858. By Will Fowler. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 362. $40.00 paper. ISBN: 9780803225398.

Mexico’s Supreme Court: Between Liberal Individual and Revolutionary Social Rights, 1867–1934. By Timothy M. James. Albuquerque: University of Mexico Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 149. $45.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780826353788.

Conflict and Carnage in Yucatán: Liberals, the Second Empire, and Maya Revolutionaries, 1855–1876. By Douglas W. Richmond. Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 177. $49.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780817318703.

Las élites empresariales y la independencia económica de México: Estevan de Antuñano o las vicisitudes del fundador de la industria textil moderna, 1792–1847. By Evelyne Sanchez. Mexico: Plaza y Valdés Editores, 2013. Pp. ix + 363. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9786074026177.

This article envisions the Caracas Metro as infrastructure that forms and is formed by political subjectivity and urban space. The first section provides a brief history of the metro as conceived by modernization-minded politicians in the twentieth century. Here the Metro is seen as playing a pedagogical function in accordance with a larger tradition of Venezuelan positivism. The second section examines a shift in the social and political composition of Caracas after El Caracazo of 1989. In response to neoliberalization, social movements reshaped the terrain of politics and the city in a way that can be usefully conceptualized as demands for the right to the city—that subjects have the right to access, shape, and themselves be shaped by the urban environment. I conclude with an analysis of 2014’s violent antigovernment protests. The tactics and targets of these protests—barricades and direct attacks on public infrastructure such as the Metro—illustrate the perceived threat democratized urban space poses to traditional elites in the context of social change.