This essay reviews the following works:

The Pinochet Generation: The Chilean Military in the Twentieth Century. By John R. Bawden. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2016. Pp. x + 304. US$29.95 paperback. ISBN: 978–0817319281.

La Unidad Popular y la revolución en Chile. By Mario Garcés. Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2020. Pp. 340. CL$45,000 cloth. ISBN: 978–956–00–1382–8.

Pinochet desclasificado: Los archivos secretos de Estados Unidos sobre Chile. By Peter Kornbluh. Santiago: Catalonia, 2023. Pp. 529. CL$25,900 paperback. ISBN: 978–956–415–039–0.

Historia de la Unidad Popular: Tiempos de preparación: De los orígenes al 3 de septiembre de 1970, vol. 1. By Jorge Magasich Airola. Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2020. Pp. 346. CL$20,000 paperback. ISBN: 978–956–00–1367–5.

Historia de la Unidad Popular: De la elección a la asunción: Los algidos 60 días del 4 de septiembre al 3 de noviembre de 1970, vol. 2. By Jorge Magasich Airola. Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2020. Pp. 201. CL$14,400 paperback. ISBN: 978–956–00–1368–2.

Historia de la Unidad Popular: La primavera de la Unidad Popular, vol. 3. By Jorge Magasich Airola. Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2023. Pp. 397. CL$42,000 paperback. ISBN: 978–956–00–1725–3.

Historia de la Unidad Popular: De tres a dos bloques, vol. 4. By Jorge Magasich Airola. Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2023. Pp. 257. CL$42,000 paperback. ISBN: 978–956–00–1732–1.

El proceso populista: Momento, fenómeno, régimen: El caso de Chile que no fue: Chile (1932–73). By Claudio Riveros Ferrada. Raleigh, NC: Editorial A Contracorriente, 2018. Pp. xii + 364. US$30.00 paperback. ISBN: 978–0990919193.

A History of Chile 1808–2018, 3rd ed. By William F. Sater and Simon Collier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Pp. xviii + 560. US$120.00 cloth and US$39.99 paperback. ISBN: 978–1009170215.

This article contributes to broader discussions of early Latin American nation-making by focusing on the interplay among territory, sovereignty and human movement in nineteenth-century Central America. How did early Central American nations create sovereign spaces? And how did human movement in turn impact the meanings of bordered spaces? Drawing from constitutions, legal codes and archival documents related to the implementation of migration laws, the central argument of this article is that Central American governments typically treated free migration not as a threat to sovereignty but as an opportunity to reinforce sovereignty over the fixed spaces through which people moved.

This article examines one of the most violent episodes in Mexico’s recent history—the Corpus Thursday massacre orchestrated by the Mexican government against young students on June 10, 1971. The event marked the beginning of a period known as the guerra sucia (dirty war), marked by the systematic repression of students and dissenting political groups by government forces. The present work advocates for “making history with photographs,” urging readers to explore the historical moment through the narratives presented by three distinct historical actors: the press, independent photographers, and the perspective of power from governmental organizations.

This essay reviews the following works:

Indigenous Struggles for Autonomy: The Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. Edited by Luciano Baracco. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. Pp. vi + 239. $105.00 hardcover, $99.50 e-book. ISBN: 9781498558815.

Aprendizajes del movimiento zapatista: De la insurgencia armada a la autonomía popular. By Lia Pinheiro Barbosa and Peter Michael Rosset. Buenos Aires: CLACSO (Colección En Movimiento); San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico: El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), 2023. Pp. 152. Paperback, digital. ISBN: 9789878135694.

Colonialismo, comunidad, y capital: Pensar el despojo, pensar América Latina. Edited by Santiago Bastos Amigo and Edgars Martínez Navarrete. Quito: Religación Press, 2023. Pp. 419. paperback, digital. ISBN: 9789942708007.

Oaxaca Resurgent: Indigeneity, Development, and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Mexico. By A. S. Dillingham. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2021. Pp. xiv + 254. $30.00 paperback, $90.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781503627840.

Autonomías y autogobierno en la América diversa. Edited by Miguel González, Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor, José Marimán, Pablo Ortiz-T., and Ritsuko Funako. Quito: Editorial Universitaria Abya-Yala, 2021. Pp. 692. Paperback, digital. ISBN: 9789978105504.

Black and Indigenous Resistance in the Americas: From Multiculturalism to Racist Backlash. By Juliet Hooker. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. Pp. x + 330. $42.99 paperback; $121.00 hardcover; $40.50 e-book. ISBN: 9781793615527.

Pensar las autonomías: Experiencias de autogestión, poder popular y autonomía. Edited by Alicia Hopkins and César Enrique Pineda. Mexico City: Bajo Tierra, 2021. Pp. 458. Paperback, digital. ISBN: 9786079675172.

This article explores the financial and geopolitical networks behind the independence of Gran Colombia. It shows that the failure to obtain official British government support for independence was compensated for by the development of a network of private individuals and partnerships that supplied large quantities of arms, equipment and men. A Colombian government document granting ‘Powers’ to London intermediaries was crucial to the construction of this network. We analyse who the key players were and how the network operated. By exploring the decisions and actions of merchants through the lens of risk, trust, credit and networks, we provide a fresh insight into the wider process of independence in Gran Colombia.

El presente artículo aborda los alcances y limitaciones del reconocimiento obtenido por el Pueblo Tribal Afrodescendiente Chileno en el proceso constituyente iniciado en Chile luego de la revuelta social de 2019 y, particularmente, en las deliberaciones de la Convención Constitucional que sesionó entre 2021 y 2022. Además de analizar la presentación y votación de normas relacionadas con el Pueblo Tribal Afrodescendiente, el principal foco está puesto en los discursos de los/as convencionales constituyentes relacionados con dichas normas. Mediante un análisis crítico del discurso, se identifican tres ejes discursivos que enmarcaron el apoyo o rechazo de iniciativas en torno al reconocimiento afrodescendiente, vinculados al significado de la categoría jurídica de “pueblo tribal”, a la cuestión de la preexistencia y a la extranjerización. El artículo concluye con una discusión de las posturas adoptadas por diferentes sectores de la Convención, identificando algunos imaginarios que comportaron límites para la inclusión del pueblo afrochileno en la propuesta constitucional.

Recent research has shed light on the impact of pre-electoral coalitions on government formation in presidential democracies. However, the fact that pre-electoral coalitions are not automatically transformed into coalition cabinets has often gone under the radar. In this article, I argue that the importance of pre-electoral pacts for government formation depends on the degree of legislative polarization. When parties are distant from one another in the ideological spectrum, presidents face more difficulties in breaking away from the pre-electoral pact and rearranging their multiparty alliances. Conversely, when polarization is not pervasive, presidents have more leeway to build coalition cabinets different from the ones prescribed by pre-electoral coalitions. Drawing on a dataset of 13 Latin American countries, the results support my claim and suggest that the relationship between government formation and the concession of office benefits for pre-electoral coalition members is more nuanced than previously assumed.

In this paper, we explore the bases of Mexican national identity construction and use an array of conceptions of nationhood to study contemporary attitudes towards foreigners’ sociopolitical rights in Mexico. Rarely is the study of national identity connected with immigration policy preferences in general, and even less so outside advanced countries. We explore the content of Mexicanness and use this content to understand public opinion preferences towards the integration of diverse groups of foreigners in Mexico. We employ 2016 survey data and a survey experiment and find the persistence of xenophobic attitudes towards the Chinese community in Mexico. We also show that civic conceptions of nationhood cannot counter contemporary anti-Chinese sentiment, in great part because the civic belonging of the Chinese was defined on racial terms. Lastly, we show that these processes of national identity construction, based on the marginalization of certain groups, are persistent and shape todays’ attitudes and preferences towards the incorporation of different groups of foreigners. It remains to be explored whether material interests associated with the recent Chinese “going out” policy may be able to counter deep-seated anti-Chinismo

During the last decades, political distrust has seemingly become a common trend across Latin American democracies, however, differences in the levels of confidence among groups have also been identified. This article considers the potential effects of ethno-racial structures and their interactions with other forms of socioeconomic inequalities on political trust. Building on data from four waves of the Latinobarometer project and contextual measures from different sources, we analyze these relations and find that both socioeconomic and ethno-racial inequalities affect political trust and impact on the formation of different relations with the political system across Latin America. Furthermore, in particular it is found that at the individual-level interactions between inequalities shape political trust differently depending on the particular ethno-racial identification. These findings contribute to the understanding of ethnicity and race and its associations with other structural inequalities in shaping mass political culture.

Since the so-called war on drugs began in Mexico in 2006, the military has been the leading actor in charge of the government’s public security policy, undertaking tasks that should be carried out by the police. Analyses of this security strategy are based on quantitative methods and have focused on its results: e.g., an increase in the homicide rate or the committing of human rights violations. In contrast, based on in-depth interviews, this article explores the testimony of military personnel to understand what they experience in the field. Contrary to what the existing literature argues, which maintains that the military acts with a logic of war, this article shows that the situation is far more complex: they act in a scenario characterized by improvisation, facing the dilemma between acting and being accused of human rights or not acting and being accused of disobedience.

What is the relationship between clientelism and political participation in popular urban neighborhoods? This article addresses the question based on qualitative research in two popular neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, drawing on participant observation and interviews with residents, activists, and party brokers. Adding to a growing literature on “participatory clientelism,” we argue for greater attention to the urban context through which this unfolds. To date, research into participatory clientelism has predominantly considered specific practices—participatory innovations or contentious politics—and been limited to the survival of the urban poor and the demand for political support by party brokers. While these are crucial practices, they are not exhaustive of the relations that sustain participatory clientelism, particularly in contexts of territorialized politics. Based on the socio-spatial approach of Henri Lefebvre, influential in urban studies, we define three interconnected dimensions of participatory clientelism and identify them in the cases under study.