In Recent Years Andean Ethnohistory Has Benefitted From Four new developments:

First, is the greater accessibility of the classical chronicles, particularly since the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles in Madrid decided in 1956 to reprint Bernabé Cobo's Historia del Nuevo Mundo which had gone out of print decades before. The BAE has since reprinted at reasonable prices many other titles, among them the indispensable Relaciones geográficas de Indias. Anyone who had tried to study pre-European Andean institutions in the libraries at Cuzco, Cuenca or Sucre even ten years ago knows how difficult it was then to check any claim or hypothesis at the source. Students were forced to use third-hand and incomplete references; many others in the Andes were discouraged from pursuing such studies because of the unavailability of the eyewitness or other early accounts.

Liberty was in their hearts, but the old bondage was nevertheless perpetuated in their habits and, moreover, they were not united among themselves. Juan Bautista Alberdi

A number of recent publications have added to our knowledge of the century in which Argentina seems to have been transformed from a traditional colonial society into a modern and prosperous nation. Most of these new studies lean toward socioeconomic and sociopolitical analysis, testimony to the influence of Tulio Halperin Donghi's work on the Independence period and James Scobie's work on Buenos Aires. Because these two studies of the mid-1970s are so well known, this article will review only the literature that has appeared since. All modern scholars agree that the economy since 1820 expanded at least in the littoral region and that the century ended in an upsurge of technological innovation and export-led growth that extended even into the interior. Most also concur that the benefits of economic progress were not shared equally. The critical questions seem to be who got what and why?

Scholars of developing nations recognize the importance of education in the socialization process that takes place in every culture. While some students have examined the impact of education on the masses, fewer, especially for Latin America, have examined the impact of education on the political leadership. Mexico, one of the most frequently studied countries in Latin America, has never been the subject of a study that examines its university system as an institution for both socialization and recruitment of political leaders. Nevertheless, it is an ideal country for investigation because the majority of its high-level office-holders have university degrees from a single institution, the National University of Mexico.

The relationship between capitalism and democracy has been a focal question in political science for years. Compelling arguments have been advanced on all sides of the debate. Democracy promotes capitalism. Capitalism promotes democracy. The two are correlated but are caused by other variables, including everything from a given country's political culture to its position in the world economy. Now the recent turn toward neoliberal economic strategies in Latin America has revitalized the question of whether any one form of capitalism is more compatible with democracy than others.

This article analyzes new forms of distinction and inequality generated within Uruguayan squatter settlements as a result of neoliberal policies, class polarization, and the downward mobility of previously integrated populations that have migrated to the informal urban periphery. Based on ethnographic research in Montevideo, this article shows how newly impoverished Uruguayans have dealt with their new spatial proximity and ever-increasing socioeconomic proximity to chronic poverty through the maintenance of symbolic boundaries between themselves and the chronic poor. This boundary work is dependent on the reproduction of a series of moral oppositions, highly reminiscent of hegemonic discourses on the culture of poverty, which cast the chronic poor as dirty, lacking in values, apathetic, disorganized, and responsible for their own poverty.

Utilizando los datos de las encuestas de Eduardo Hamuy realizadas en Chile antes del quiebre de la democracia de 1973, cuestionamos la supuesta rigidez ideológica del centro. Mostramos que después de 1964, aumentó la identificación con la izquierda, pero la identificación con el centro y con la derecha no varió. Además, mostramos que el Presidente Frei tuvo un apoyo alto y estable, igual que Allende. Evidenciamos que por cada chileno optimista sobre la realidad del país, había tres pesimistas. El pesimismo aumentó en los meses anteriores al golpe. No obstante, los que creían que el futuro sería mejor sistemáticamente superaban a los que pensaban que sería peor, incluso en los meses anteriores a septiembre de 1973. Si bien los de izquierda eran más optimistas, uno de cada tres derechistas o centristas también era optimista sobre el futuro. La población chilena estaba menos polarizada que la elite.

This essay examines the Responsible Procreation campaign of Acción Cultural Popular (ACPO) within the context of “zones of crisis” characterized not only by the legacy of long-standing violence but by tensions experienced within the Catholic Church and Colombian society at large during the tumultuous decades of the 1960s and 1970s. ACPO centered its Responsible Procreation campaign on a radical critique of authoritarian and exclusionary gender relations that could only be remedied by guaranteeing women's access to education and their participation as equals in household and community decision making. As a Catholic-affiliated organization, ACPO enjoyed legitimacy many secular organizations did not, enabling it to provide spaces where rural Colombians, especially women, could experiment with voice and agency and explore alternative visions of citizenship and community development without fear of reprisal or social ostracism. Christian social activism, the essay concludes, often laid the basis for the proliferation today of social movements spearheaded by rural women.

Afro-Brazilian communities (quilombos) hold rights to a collective territory where they live and that supports their livelihoods. Historically, Afro-Brazilian smallholders have been subjected to contradictory programs and policies that either restrain traditional practices such as shifting cultivation or aim at empowering these communities. This is the first attempt to adopt the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) theoretical framework to study the historical transformation of the institutional structure in Afro-Brazilian territories of the Ribeira Valley, São Paulo, Brazil. Our results reveal a history of long-term, continuous relationships between locals and external groups, sometimes combative and at other times cooperative, reflecting tensions and contradictions. As a result, quilombo communities have gradually emerged as leaders in an institutional arrangement that is moving toward co-governance or partnerships. We believe that if these communities achieve full economic and political autonomy, they might be able to self-govern their territories and reconcile the dual goals of local development and environmental conservation.

El asesinato de setenta y dos indocumentados en Tamaulipas en agosto de 2010 parece confirmar el punto de vista oficial de que el contrabando de indocumentados entre México y los Estados Unidos ha pasado a manos de los grupos delictivos que operan en la frontera. Este artículo, a partir del uso de una metodología cualitativa que incluye la realización de entrevistas en profundidad de cuarenta coyotes, examina la estructura de las redes de contrabando de indocumentados en Tamaulipas y analiza los nexos existentes entre el coyotaje y los grupos delictivos.

El artículo analiza la movilización y autogestión de empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores en Argentina, en tanto fenómeno surgido en el contexto de la crisis socioeconómica de dicho país (2001–2002), aunque vigente hasta la actualidad. Nos centramos en aquellos procesos y mecanismos que favorecen la autogestión. Específicamente, analizamos la relación entre el proceso de movilización y el proceso de inserción económica en el mercado por parte de estas experiencias colectivas. Estudiamos, en primer término, la presencia de mecanismos como la articulación política (correduría), la atribución de oportunidades, los cambios de identidad, la certificación y la competencia dados en el contexto argentino actual y que configuran este movimiento social. En segundo término, analizamos las estrategias de autogestión que implementan los trabajadores y la manera en que las mismas están condicionadas por las características de la movilización social.

Many cross-national surveys examine the extent to which citizens of new democracies believe that democracy is always preferable to any other form of government. There is little evidence, however, regarding how such attitudes affect citizen behavior. This article examines the case of Bolivia, asking whether and how Bolivians' attitudes toward democracy affect participation, including contacts with public officials and involvement in political parties and social movements. Through analysis of nationwide survey data, I show that preferences for democracy have little effect on participation in party meetings or protests. Examining the relationship more carefully, I then show that, for Bolivians who favor institutional methods of representation, support for democracy increases attachment to the traditional political system and decreases protest; for citizens who favor popular methods of representation, it has the opposite impact. I conclude by discussing the implications for scholarship on democratization, which often conflates preferences for democracy with political stability.

State corporatist representation of organized labor interests has been an enduring characteristic of modern Latin American politics, transcending differences in national ideologies and political regimes. In recent years, much attention has been devoted to analyzing various corporatist experiments that have emerged in the region and elsewhere. As a result, it is now possible to distinguish among corporatist systems that are state or societal, Ibero-Catholic, traditional, or modern “rationalist,” inclusionary or exclusionary, bifrontal or segmental; and analysts have moved on to “disaggregate” the structure of corporatism in a variety of political contexts.

A large historiographic tradition has studied the Brazilian state, yet we know relatively little about its internal dynamics and particularities. The role of informal, personal, and unintentional ties has remained underexplored in most policy network studies, mainly because of the pluralist origin of that tradition. It is possible to use network analysis to expand this knowledge by developing mesolevel analysis of those processes. This article proposes an analytical framework for studying networks inside policy communities. This framework considers the stable and resilient patterns that characterize state institutions, especially in contexts of low institutionalization, particularly those found in Latin America and Brazil. The article builds on research on urban policies in Brazil to suggest that networks made of institutional and personal ties structure state organizations internally and insert them into broader political scenarios. These networks, which I call state fabric, frame politics, influence public policies, and introduce more stability and predictability than the majority of the literature usually considers. They also form a specific power resource—positional power, associated with the positions that political actors occupy—that influences politics inside and around the state.

On March 14, 2008, Granma started publication of a new section entitled Cartas a la dirección, which printed letters to the editor containing complaints, criticisms, and suggestions. The section rapidly grew in popularity and became the most closely read portion of the Friday paper. This essay engages with three related questions that have theoretical relevance beyond the specific case of Cuba. First, why would the flagship newspaper in a communist regime solicit citizen letters? Second, why would some of these letters be printed? And third, why would news media seek out responses to the letters and comment on unsatisfactory responses? This essay argues that in Cuba, as in other communist regimes, published complaint letters have two functions: the simple printing of select letters facilitates the collective letting off of steam, whereas the publication of responses to the letters by the authorities that were responsible for the infractions outlined in the initial complaint allows the regime to demonstrate that it takes popular input seriously. Therefore, Cartas a la dirección serves as a nonelectoral mechanism of accountability.

This article examines gender struggles surrounding two women's collectives in a Sandinista village as a way to illuminate microprocesses of gender transformation during the Sandinista period and its aftermath. It argues for an analytical approach sensitive to the specificity of gender relations in particular contexts and the ways these were affected by state policies. It demonstrates that men's opposition to women's participation was enabled by ambiguities in Sandinista gender ideology that allowed men to interpret the meanings of revolutionary masculinity in their own terms. By examining these ambiguities, the article shows that, while the revolution failed to dismantle structures of gender inequality, as critics have pointed out, its incorporation of women as class and national subjects into the nation-building project could destabilize local patriarchies.

This article reviews recent neoliberal agrarian legislation in Latin America in terms of the advances and setbacks for women's and indigenous movements. Institutional reform of the agricultural sector has been heterogenous in part because of the role of these movements. In the twelve countries studied, the new legislation favors gender equity except in Mexico. The indigenous movement scored notable successes in Ecuador and Bolivia but suffered apparent setbacks in Mexico and Peru in the defense of collective land rights. The article also explores why the slightest progress toward gender equality was made in some of the countries with large indigenous populations and strong indigenous movements.