This commentary examines the challenge of sustainable development in the Amazon, arguing that global efforts to mitigate climate change and current Amazonian policies are clearly inadequate to prevent global warming and deforestation from tipping the forest into a savanna. It analyses the growing climate pressures jeopardising the Amazon's resilience; the erratic Brazilian, Bolivian, Colombian, Ecuadorian and Peruvian governance of the forest; and the failure of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) to establish long-term forest conservation policies in the region. The research demonstrates that the ‘savannisation hypothesis’ is potentially closer to reality than most debates in the social sciences assume and should be considered seriously. The commentary concludes by suggesting possible pathways for preventing the dieback of the Amazon. These are based on three strategic axes: the strengthening of the ACTO, the promotion of a technological revolution in the forest, and a progressive environmental diplomacy by the Amazonian countries.

When the United States invaded Nicaragua in 1912 the popular reaction in El Salvador was so strong that it completely upended politics. The article argues that this anti-imperialist movement, completely ignored by the current historiography, forced Salvadorean governments to make decisions regarding foreign policy that would have been unthinkable had it not been for the pressure from below. Popular pressures contributed to limit the scope of the final version of the Chamorro–Bryan Treaty between the United States and Nicaragua. The treaty did not include Platt Amendment-like provisions. Moreover, the Wilson administration abandoned the idea of extending a protectorate to all the Central American countries and building a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca.

Economic crises during Chile's civic–military dictatorship (1973–90) forced a growing number of people onto the streets, including women who commuted from peripheral neighbourhoods to beg in downtown Santiago. Under military rule, impoverished women in public spaces became a police problem. Despite their constant presence on the streets throughout the twentieth century, Chile's begging laws were rarely applied to women, except for a brief period under Pinochet, when begging emerged as a female crime in Santiago. This paper examines female begging and the policing of female begging, revealing both to be framed as a defence of the family.

This article offers an analysis of the transnational discursive construction processes informing Latin American security governance in the aftermath of 9/11. It demonstrates that the Global War on Terror provided an opportunity for external and aligned local knowledge producers in the security establishments throughout the Americas to reframe Latin America's security problems through the promotion of a militarised security epistemology, and derived policies, centred on the region's ‘convergent threats’. In tracing the discursive repercussions of this epistemic reframing, the article shows that, by tapping into these discourses, military bureaucracies throughout the Americas were able to overcome their previous institutional marginalisation vis-à-vis civilian agencies. This development contributed to the renaissance of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism discourses and policies in the region, allowing countries such as Colombia and Brazil to reposition themselves globally by exporting their military expertise for confronting post-9/11 threats beyond the region.

Scholars interested in labour in Latin America have traditionally paid little attention to trade unions’ legal mobilisation. However, the increasing number of legal complaints filed by workers with labour ministries and/or the courts in countries like Argentina, Brazil and Chile calls for a more serious debate on the role that trade unions play in this process. This article focuses on the Chilean case. Drawing on various sources, it shows that Chilean unions have turned legal complaints into a weapon to gain more rights and curb employers’ power. This process has involved the strongest and most combative unions, and is due to two historical conditions: (1) the obstacles placed in the way of successful resort to more disruptive tactics; (2) the increase in institutional opportunities to report infringements of the law. Overall, the article challenges the current image of the Chilean unions by foregrounding their agency and their achievements over the last decade.

Research on the politics of skills formation in Latin America is severely underdeveloped. This article offers a novel characterisation of the supply of skills in the region or ‘skills supply profiles’, taking inspiration from the comparative capitalisms literature. We identify four configurations of skills supply profiles – universalising, dual academic-oriented, dual VET-oriented and exclusionary – and analyse their historical dynamics. By doing this, we challenge general assessments of Latin America's skills formation systems as pertaining to one overarching type. This sets the stage for a deeper understanding of the politics of skills in the region and their connection with different development alternatives.

This article analyses strategies for channelling a migrant population out of a country by indirect means. Specifically, we examine the response of the Ecuadorean state to the influx of Venezuelan newcomers since 2015. We argue that this response has been characterised by inaction, rooted not in policy failures or bad governance, but rather in a strategic governmental rationality. We show how migrants are ‘herded’ out of the country as a result of a form of indirect government that works differently from other ‘anti-immigrant’ policies like forced deportations or incarceration at the border, and yet produces similar outcomes.