Considerable research has been conducted on the relationship between socioeconomic inequality and political engagement. However, there is little consensus on the exact nature of the relationship, and considerable variation in the relationship exists even among countries with similar levels of inequality. This lack of clarity in the literature exists because the impact of inequality on engagement is not constant, but changes depending on the strategic choices of political leaders. Populist leaders; who tend to explicitly connect political and socioeconomic exclusion, can activate latent grievances around inequality. Using data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project, we show that inequality leads to disengagement among the poor in most contexts but increases engagement under populist rule. In other words, a primarily structural relationship is mediated by political variables. Even though the severity of inequality is outside the control of any political actor, leaders' reaction to inequality can dramatically alter its impact on mass political behavior.

Land reform has been one of the most contentious issues in Brazilian political history. Government administrations since the 1960s have adopted the banner of reform, and the country has implemented vast colonization and redistribution programs, but the objectives and the effects of those programs have varied widely. Throughout this long history, considerable scholarship has focused on the programs themselves as well as on the increasingly radical social movements that have fought for more enduring reform. Most of this work, however, has invoked the state as the site of policy making and political direction and paid little attention to the state workers responsible for actually implementing reform. In this article, I present a qualitative analysis of the agency in charge of land distribution and settlement since 1970, the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA). I argue that understanding the politics of reform requires attention to the political culture within INCRA, which can only be explained through examination of the agency's long history as first a tool of frontier colonization and then a response to social mobilization.

Within the extensive literature on international regionalism, the more limited academic work done on regional financial organizations (RFOs) tends to assume that, by pooling resources to address such common international economic issues as development funding and financial crises, RFOs contribute to economic stability in their parts of the global landscape. Although South America has led the pack in creating such RFOs, their effectiveness is limited by the asymmetry in economic heft of the continent's governments. Rather than weighing the significance of financial regionalism in South America from the point of view of the majority, we assess whether and how this phenomenon has contributed to Brazil's politico-economic rise to near-major-power standing on the world stage in the twenty-first century. Drawing on extensive interviews with Brazilian officials conducted in March 2013, we analyze three instances of South America's international public finance: development lending, crisis lending, and payment systems. Our findings suggest that self-generated unilateral and bilateral financial initiatives have brought Brasília far more significant economic and political results than have RFOs, whose various incarnations have yielded the continental giant few economic and only minor political gains.

Este artículo explica los efectos de la violencia y, en particular, el tipo de violencia relacionado con los cárteles de droga y su influencia sobre la competitividad electoral a nivel local (municipal). Resulta pertinente comprender y estimar este efecto para asegurar que la democracia, definida sobre la base de su requisito más elemental—es decir, elecciones libres y justas —, no se deteriore o transite al autoritarismo en los gobiernos locales. Los resultados revelan un deterioro en la competitividad electoral a nivel local debido a la violencia relacionada con el tráfico ilegal de drogas. Las estrategias represivas del gobierno mexicano no han sido efectivas en prevenir este resultado.

As reflexões sobre música popular com frequência enfatizam os casos de experiência musical voluntários, motivados por adesões identitárias, afetivas e simbólicas que os indivíduos e grupos sociais realizam com as músicas que gostam. Mas nem sempre é assim. Este texto tem como objetivo discutir as situações nas quais a experiência musical compulsória gera incomodo nos ouvintes, irritando e intimidando aqueles que não compartilham do prazer de ouvir determinado repertório. O exemplo debatido aqui é o caso do funk, gênero musical brasileiro com histórica vinculação com o contexto das periferias, morros e favelas e que volta a surgir como tema privilegiado na mídia a partir de seu uso nos fenômenos dos rolezinhos, causando incômodo e rechaço. Pensar sobre o incômodo do popular-funkeiro-periférico significa reprocessar ideias sobre a desigualdade social, num contexto de grandes transformações sociais, políticas e comportamentais no Brasil e no mundo.

En este trabajo reflexionamos sobre la posibilidad de plantear una arqueología sin excavación en el escenario social, político y académico en el que se desarrolla un proyecto de investigación arqueológica, desde el año 2006 a la actualidad. Dicho proyecto está centrado en el estudio de los cambios sociales y materiales ocurridos luego de las conquistas incaica y española en el departamento de Humahuaca, Quebrada de Humahuaca, Jujuy, República Argentina. A partir de las tensiones generadas entre comunidades originarias, otros pobladores, instituciones locales y arqueólogos en el contexto sudamericano dentro del cual se enmarca nuestra región de estudios, así como de un conflicto puntual sucedido en el año 2012, analizamos aquí los procesos por los que están atravesando las comunidades, nuestra postura como arqueólogas y el lugar de la excavación dentro de la disciplina.

Este artigo analisa aspectos do patriarcalismo presentes em obras de Machado de Assis. O objetivo é evidenciar a crítica a uma cultura patriarcal idealizada, segundo padrões de uma antiguidade clássica difundida no século XIX. Trata-se, portanto, da anatomia de uma farsa, oculta na retórica refinada de representantes da oligarquia escravocrata. Machado de Assis revela, em seus escritos, o ethos da oligarquia que estruturou a sociedade brasileira do anos 1800.

Este artículo estudia la circulación y apropiación de la legislación electoral en Colombia entre 1855 y 1886. Ofrece algunas respuestas y una nueva perspectiva para el estudio de la propagación, recepción y lectura de la democracia en Colombia e Hispanoamérica en el siglo XIX. El trabajo abre con un estudio de la circulación de las constituciones y las leyes electorales, en un esfuerzo por examinar las distintas maneras en que los gobernantes, periódicos, librerías y tiendas expandieron este campo de la cultura escrita. Se ofrece también un análisis de cómo se apropiaron de esta legislación electoral numerosos sectores de la sociedad en distintos contextos. El ensayo concluye con unas reflexiones acerca de las dos primeras secciones, cuestiona algunos lugares comunes de la historiografía imperial acerca de las repúblicas de Hispanoamérica, e indaga por el lugar que tuvo la circulación de estas constituciones y leyes electorales en un mundo todavía dominado por los imperios y los reinos.

Why do politicians pursue policy reforms to improve government performance when these are perceived to be costly, both materially and politically? Theories based on advanced democracies stress electoral accountability mechanisms rooted in programmatic parties with strong ties to society. Empirically, these are largely absent in less developed democracies, and this often leads to poor public goods provision. To better understand the incentives for local policy reform in developing democracies, we constructed a comprehensive data set of local natural resource management reforms in Ecuador's cantons during 1997–2008. We find that the presence of “organic” political parties, legitimate participatory decision-making institutions, and high levels of civic engagement increased the incidence of reform. Our findings suggest that even in environments marked by clientelist politics and weak, elite-based party systems, institutions linking politicians with a mobilized civil society (e.g., organic parties and participatory decision-making institutions) can incentivize elected officials to pursue performance-enhancing reforms.

This article examines the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and a set of economic variables including gross domestic product, economic growth, unemployment, informality, corruption perceptions, macroeconomic stability, and labor regulations. We use panel data from nine Latin American countries covered by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor from 2000 to 2010. We focus on necessity-based entrepreneurship, as the rates of this type of activity are relatively high in Latin America. The results show that economic growth is positively related to opportunity-based entrepreneurship. Other factors such as inflation, informality, and transparency (versus corruption) are positively associated with higher rates of necessity-based entrepreneurship. Lines of future research and policy implications are discussed.

The present article analyzes the media produced by the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, especially its national cable TV station and online news agency. We discuss whether these media sources promote accountability and participation. Our findings suggest that although these sources have been employed, according to the logic of audience democracy, to promote the public visibility, credibility, and reputation of Brazil's federal representatives, they do contribute to enhancing the accountability and quality of Brazilian democracy, insofar as they provide access to relevant information about legislative processes.

Urban violence is an emerging challenge to development and democracy across Latin America. How do cities negotiate this challenge alongside pressures to compete in global markets and enable greater political participation? This article analyzes the politics of urban violence in the intriguing case of Medellín, Colombia, which international donors and policy makers herald as having reshaped its urban governance and economic appeal through its response to violence. The article provides a within-case comparative analysis of contrasting outcomes in the trajectories of the political projects Medellín launched in response to urban violence amid the drug wars of the early 1990s and the subsequent urbanization of the Colombian civil war. I argue that a focus on urban political economies and patterns of armed territorial control contributes to our understanding of the politics of urban violence, reveals limitations for the diffusion of the Medellín model, and identifies promising avenues for future research.

This study considers whether there are gender differences in the ability of international migrants as well as remittance managers in households of origin to channel remittances to physical and financial asset accumulation. Drawing on a national-level survey of household assets for Ecuador, we show that while only a small share of male or female migrants are able to channel their remittances to asset accumulation, women are as likely to do so as men. Moreover, female migrants tend to exert greater control over their remittances than men, particularly when these are to be used for the acquisition of assets. In addition, women managers in households of origin are a majority of those owning the assets purchased with remittances. These results suggest that processes of international migration may strengthen the economic autonomy of women and facilitate greater gender equality.

Asians in Argentina have received little scholarly attention despite the current proliferation of studies on Asians in Latin America. Asian Argentines' absence from academic research reflects, in part, their marginality and presumed foreignness in Argentina's past and current national narratives. Existing scholarship frames Asian descendants predominantly as members of single-ethnic colectividades (communities) illustrating ties to co-ethnics and country of origin. To broaden this perspective, I examine the possibilities of a panethnic and domestic “Asian Argentine” approach. Conceptualizing an Asian Argentine category can be problematized by ongoing theoretical discussions regarding the limitations of multiculturalism and nation-based inquiries. Situating these critiques in Argentina's particular context—from its historical insistence on whiteness to its newly ethnicized political arena today—I argue that an Asian Argentine approach can be a useful analytical and political tool to understand this group's position in Argentina and serve as a starting point to challenge the discourses that marginalize Asian Argentines as nonexistent or irreversibly foreign.