In this article, I compare the attitudes to the recent democratic transition in Latin America in La fiesta del Chivo, the 2000 novel, and in its 2005 film adaptation. In the novel, Mario Vargas Llosa describes how Joaquín Balaguer, the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo's puppet president, put on the mask of a democrat, absorbed Trujillo's absolute power, and went on to serve as president for twenty-four years. In the novel, Balaguer is a stand-in for the Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori, who prepares to serve as president for a third term in a row. Why do Balaguer and the artificial democratic transition that he enacted go missing in the film adaptation? The film details instead the crimes of the dictator Trujillo and his inglorious end. I argue that the director adapts the novel's message to a changed political reality in Peru: the dictator Fujimori fled, and the newly elected president is restoring democratic institutions and government accountability.

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.

A partir de los modelos de corrientes múltiples (Kingdon 1995) y de diseño político y construcción social (Schneider y Ingram 1997), este artículo propone un modelo analítico que permite analizar el proceso de formulación de la política pública indígena en Chile en el gobierno de Patricio Aylwin Azócar (1990-1994) a través de sus coyunturas, actores, valores e intereses en juego. La evidencia muestra que existen elementos particulares del proceso cuando se trata de pueblos culturalmente diferenciados. Esta información se recoge a partir de la aplicación y análisis de entrevistas a veintidós actores claves del proceso junto con revisión y análisis de prensa y documentos oficiales. El artículo identifica, describe y explica las características que definen la política indígena para el caso chileno.

O Brasil vem experimentando nas duas últimas décadas mudanças significativas com a queda da desigualdade, estabilidade económica, ampliação das oportunidades no mercado de trabalho formal e ampliação da escolarização. O artigo procura analisar o acesso ao ensino superior dos jovens de 18 a 24 anos por raça e renda com o objetivo de provocar uma discussão sobre as desigualdades no contexto de expansão educacional e os alvos das ações afirmativas no ensino superior em vigor no país, em especial a adoção recente da reserva de vagas nas Instituições de Ensino Superior Federais. Os dados são oriundos da Pesquisa Nacional de Amostra Domiciliar (PNAD), realizada pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Estatística e Geografia (IBGE), nos anos de 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008 e 2011, anos que marcam momentos específicos das mudanças ocorridas nas desigualdades e no sistema educacional brasileiro.

Sin olvidar la importancia que el factor económico juega en el fenómeno migratorio, y sin caer en el riesgo de proyectar una visión romántica del mismo, este trabajo pretende profundizar en aquellas migraciones que se inician siguiendo determinadas “motivaciones extraeconómicas”. De ahí que, desde el intento de contribuir a visibilizar la heterogeneidad de situaciones personales que conforman las migraciones internacionales, este artículo se centra en otro tipo de factores que incitan a migrar: razones profesionales, políticas, de orientación sexual o de ampliación de horizontes vitales. Para ello se parte de diferentes relatos de mujeres migrantes cubanas y ecuatorianas en España.

In the village of Ch'umil in northern Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve, competing heritage claims to Maya archaeological sites and artifacts politicize the region's cultural and ecological landscapes. Using a geographical understanding of the production of space (Lefebvre 1991), I ethnographically unpack Ch'umil residents' definitions of cultural and ecological heritage that reflect village-level histories of living and laboring in forests and archaeology sites surrounding Ch'umil. Villagers' definitions of heritage contrast sharply with the spatial claims made by global heritage advocates who campaign to designate the region as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Analyzing the politics of scale underpinning these conservation practices reveals that when global heritage advocates speak on behalf of a universal humanity, they often render local-level heritage claims invisible and illegitimate. This article urges heritage managers and cosmopolitan theorists who debate the ethics of mitigating global and local heritage claims to reconsider this spatial binary altogether.

When studying the politics of taxation it is important to evaluate changes to the tax code in terms of rates, bases, and exemptions instead of just revenues. With that objective in mind, we have compiled a more comprehensive database of tax reforms for Latin America. In this article, we present a description of the database as well as the stylized facts. We also explore the economic and political determinants of reform such as the role of the economic and politico-institutional variables, and compare the results to the consensus. We find two interesting results. First, determinants of reforms seem to have changed over the years as democracies have solidified. Second, disaggregating reforms in various ways is a better strategy for understanding the mechanisms behind tax reforms than looking at the overall number of reforms. Having developed an exhaustive database that allows such disaggregation we provide motivation for future research on this topic.

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.

This article contributes to a growing literature on the ways in which migrants are shaping democracy back home. Its empirical lens is Mexico's “Three-for-One” (3×1) Program, in which each level of the Mexican government provides matching grants for community projects solicited and financed by migrant hometown associations (HTAs), primarily in the United States. Based on an original data set constructed from key informant interviews and household surveys in sixty Mexican communities, it uses descriptive statistics, multivariate regressions, and qualitative case narratives to explore the relationship between migrant involvement in the 3×1 Program and accountable governance at the local level. Its central finding is that migrants are most likely to act as effective agents of accountability when they are embedded in translocal networks with local residents.

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.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Latin America experienced a so-called left turn that sought either to reform or eliminate the neoliberal institutions established during the 1980s and 1990s. However, although Peru has electoral, economic, and social processes similar to those of its neighbors, the neoliberal institutions established in Peru by the 1993 Constitution remain firmly in place. This article aims to understand the mechanisms sustaining Peru's neoliberal regime since its creation. Why have these institutions survived and grown in strength in a regional environment that has been hostile to neoliberal legacies? The article answers that question, emphasizing the evolution of the balance of power between the precarious Peruvian political class and the empowered technocrats and bureaucrats within the state. The reformist politicians are too weak and amateurish to challenge the technobureaucrats within the state. Moreover, the article analyzes the different strategies deployed by technocrats and bureaucrats in order to ensure the continuity and stability of the neoliberal regime and its policies. Theoretically, the article suggests that institutional stability can arise from a daily process gradually shaped by actors and their strategies.

Ethnographic research has established the centrality of markets to Andean rural livelihoods, but understandings of fairness and different market actors' power relations in these markets are less clear. Using ten months of ethnographic research in Bolivia's Altiplano, this case study reveals strategies and moral narratives of peasant producers and market traders in an emerging pea market. While traders attempt to deceive producers, the latter have their own means of exploiting competition between traders and advancing their own moral narratives about how the market should operate. Thus, the market is an economic field and a moral one, and traders can be punished for excessively prioritizing profit maximization. The moral nature of the pea trade should be viewed not as a quirk of Andean culture but as an illustration of the embeddedness of all markets and the need for critical examination of the moral economies of market interactions across the capitalist world.

Este artigo examina a atuação do escritor Jorge Amado como redator chefe no jornal literário Dom Casmurro (1937-1946). Conhecido e consagrado por sua produção literária iniciada ainda em 1931, o escritor baiano também foi figura atuante na vida política e cultural nacional. Embora estudiosos considerem a importância de Jorge Amado como literato e militante neste período, a atuação em Dom Casmurro tem recebido pouca atenção. Ao assumir em 1939 a redação deste periódico, num momento marcado por perseguições e censura do Estado Novo, Jorge Amado já militava no Partido Comunista além de ter publicado seis romances de sucesso. Por sua vez Dom Casmurro se constitui em um relevante periódico de literatura e cultura, desenvolvendo em suas páginas intenso debate sobre qual era efetivamente seu papel. Era ele veículo de expressão literária ou representante de uma determinada corrente política? Interessa neste artigo compreender as tensões que marcaram as relações entre os intelectuais, a imprensa e a política durante o Estado Novo através deste jornal e da atuação de Jorge Amado.

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.

While political polarization may lead to gridlock and other negative policy outcomes, representation is likely to be enhanced when parties differentiate themselves from each other and make it easier for voters to see the connection between their personal ideologies and the electoral offerings. These differences between parties may be especially important in developing democracies, where voters are still learning parties' priorities and where parties do not always emphasize issues when campaigning. To test this proposition, I develop a measure of elite polarization in Latin America since the early 1990s based on legislative surveys. Individual-level voting patterns from mass survey data confirm that the connection between voters' self-placement on the left-right scale and their electoral choice is stronger in polarized party systems, even when controlling for other party system factors like the age of the party system or electoral fragmentation. This effect on voting behavior is not immediate, however, as voters take time to recognize the new cues being provided by the changing party system.

This article analyzes the image of Brazilian Indigenous minority groups as a figurehead in media discourse, which is based on racializing logics that celebrate historical performances of Indigeneity but minimize attention to the political activity and grassroots movements of the existing population. Using cultural studies as a starting point, this study draws on Diana Taylor's understanding of identity and on postcolonial thinker Homi Bhabha's theorizing on nation to conduct a reading of discourses and performances of Indigeneity as part of cultural memory. I propose an analysis of the limited scenarios allowed in this construction of a nation in Brazilian media outlets, which often claim there is political motivation for identity and are incapable of dealing with contemporary Indigenous groups. Overall, this analysis highlights the need to rethink the way we discuss ethnic identity so as to foster a larger dialogue about identity, heritage, and minority cultures in such a way that we avoid falling into a paradigm of modernization and acculturation when discussing ethnicity, and to promote better understanding of the different ongoing political and cultural movements in contemporary Brazil.

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.

Research surrounding political institutions and credible commitment to the rule of law is integral to recent efforts to tie democracy to economic development. I identify the determinants of rule-of-law perceptions in Latin America and argue that constraining elected officials facilitates a commitment to democracy that makes government policies credible. I also argue that aspects of politics leading to deadlock might have a hidden upside in generating policy credibility. I test my arguments against pooled cross-sectional time series data for twenty Latin American countries between 1996 and 2012. Ultimately, my research demonstrates the benefits of functioning checks and balances among elected officials for the rule of law and provides a uniform framework linking democratic inputs to legal and economic outcomes.

Este artículo discute la relación entre el Fondo Común Municipal (FCM) y la convergencia de ingresos municipales en Chile entre 2001 y 2011. Utilizando cuasi experimentos y ecuaciones dinámicas, se demuestra que este instrumento no tiene un efecto significativo en la velocidad de convergencia. El débil desarrollo de la descentralización y los bajos incentivos de las municipalidades para obtener fuentes propias de financiamiento, podrían promover diversos comportamientos estratégicos que distorsionarían el efecto redistributivo del FCM en las municipalidades, disminuyendo su impacto en la reducción de las disparidades territoriales en Chile.

This article examines the implementation of Peru's new water law and discusses how it produces new forms of water citizenship. Inspired by the global paradigm of “integrated water resources management,” the law aims to include all citizens in the management of the country's water resources by embracing a “new water culture.” We ask what forms of water citizenship emerge from the new water law and how they engage with local water practices and affect existing relations of inequality. We answer these questions ethnographically by comparing previous water legislation and how the new law currently is negotiated and contested in three localities in Peru's southern highlands. We argue that the law creates a new water culture that views water as a substance that is measurable, quantifiable, and taxable, but that it neglects other ways of valuing water. We conclude that water citizenship emerges from the particular ways water authorities and water users define rights to access and use water, on the one hand, and obligations to contribute to the construction and maintenance of water infrastructure and pay for the use of water, on the other.