This article focuses on the intricate and developing nature of official politics and grassroots activism in post-revolutionary Mexico. It does so by tracing the trajectory of the Pentathlón Deportivo Militar Universitario, a right-wing youth movement that emerged in Mexico in 1938. By locating the group within both the international and domestic emergence of youth movements in the early twentieth century, the article shows how the study of Pentathlón's formation, objectives and later evolution can significantly enrich our understanding of an important phase in Mexico's post-revolutionary history. Within the context of right wing oppositional politics, analysis of the movement provides a fascinating insight into both the emerging Mexican state's ability to appropriate the radical impulses of the younger generation and the Pentathlón's willingness to accommodate such strategies in order to ensure its own survival.

Using interviews with former militants and previously unpublished documents, this article traces the genesis and internal dynamics of the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (People's Revolutionary Army, ERP) in El Salvador during the early years of its existence (1970–6). This period was marked by the inability of the ERP to maintain internal coherence or any consensus on revolutionary strategy, which led to a series of splits and internal fights over control of the organisation. The evidence marshalled in this case study sheds new light on the origins of the armed Salvadorean Left and thus contributes to a wider understanding of the processes of formation and internal dynamics of armed left-wing groups that emerged from the 1960s onwards in Latin America.

Popular attitudes towards crime in Latin America induce local legislators to support harsh sentencing frameworks. What, therefore, explains the adoption of non-prison sentences across the region? Using Brazil as a case study, this article claims that sentencing reform is a consequence of the growing autonomy of bureaucrats who manage the criminal justice system. Insulated from patronage networks and granted broad mandates to pursue solutions to pressing penal crises, these policy elites use their position in the state to develop new rules and facilitate their approval despite popular opposition to measures that limit the state's punitive capacity. The findings point to the importance of bureaucratic autonomy for the enactment of policies that can benefit the underprivileged but do not enjoy widespread support from voters.

The transcripts of the television programme Aló Presidente, the centrepiece of President Hugo Chávez's media strategy, provide insight into the different ways in which his movement promoted the image of its leader and sought to solidify his emotionally charged connection with the Venezuelan masses. The study outlines the dynamics behind the changing format and content of Aló Presidente and places it within the context of earlier research on populist media use in Latin America. Although similar to its predecessors, the programme was a unique creation of Chavismo, designed to balance Chávez's knack for improvisation with a structure designed to curb his excesses and keep him on message. This led to occasional tension between Chávez and the media professionals charged with the programme's production. The article provides a corrective to inaccurate treatments in the media and scholarly literature, and offers new information on Aló Presidente to facilitate future comparative studies.

This article addresses an internal conflict that arose in an Amazonian village when it adopted an officially recognised quilombola identity. It argues that this issue, which tends to be interpreted in terms of identity, is in fact primarily social. Indeed, the divergent positions adopted by different groups of relatives need to be examined in relation to the dynamics of socio-economic differentiation linked to family histories. The article shows that the conflict related back to power struggles between dominant groups of relatives and that the questions about the limits of the group reflected preoccupations concerning who held legitimate authority to make decisions about the future of the village. By analysing some of the assumptions of the current debate about multiculturalism and ethnicity in Amazonia, this article contributes to the wider discussion about these issues in Brazil and, more broadly, in Latin America.

Studies on the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) have tended to emphasise popular support for the Cardenista regime while underestimating the domestic opposition to the president. The story of Enrique Rodríguez (‘El Tallarín’), a former Zapatista militant from the state of Morelos, reveals the breadth and complexity of the opposition to Cárdenas. The rebellion led by Rodríguez from 1934 to 1938 forced Cárdenas to renegotiate the terms of Zapatista loyalty to the federal government in order to secure peace in Morelos and represented a broad critique of the post-revolutionary state's advancement during the 1930s. Rodríguez stood as a defender of agrarian self-reliance, traditional chieftainship and pueblo religious liberty.