In recent years, socio-political crises have challenged democracy across South America. Social movements that succeeded in mobilising marginalised sectors are at the forefront of this turbulence, Ecuador's indigenous movement and the organisations of unemployed workers in Argentina being paradigmatic cases. Recent developments point to an intrinsic weakness of both indigenous and unemployed movements, in that democratic regimes have proved highly successful at ‘taming’ them. By comparing the two movements, in terms of their internal dynamics and interactions with the political system, this article argues that common characteristics that were crucial for successful mobilisation in the first place, at the same time, help explain their vulnerability to division and clientelist integration.

Bringing together diverse scholars such as Arthur Ramos, Édison Carneiro and Gilberto Freyre, Brazil's First Afro-Brazilian Congress of 1934 encapsulated a pivotal transition in the history of the social sciences and race in Brazil. The Congress, organised by Freyre, represented an attempt by many scholars to break with racial determinism and to emphasise the importance of culture rather than race. This approach seemed to offer increased potential for social equality. However, the new focus on culture reproduced the same hierarchies that scholars were trying to escape. As this article demonstrates, scholars at the Congress redeemed the black race through the use of a new cultural framework, but the role ascribed to African culture was still bound by the same concepts of superiority and inferiority.

In Brazil, black women are symbolically and practically associated with domestic work. The article examines feminist responses to black women's place in the socio-economic hierarchy of the city of Salvador, Bahia. These include proposals to introduce affirmative action and a ‘politics of presence’, involving the election of black women to represent the city's black female constituency. It describes the racial dynamics at work between black and white feminists in Bahia, signalling the contradictory tendencies that structure their relationship. Arguing against the view that a ‘politics of identity’ necessarily supports a new essentialism of race or culture, the article describes the diverse ideological and political influences upon the ideas and proposals of Bahian feminists. Black feminists construct racial difference as experiential and structural in origin. They adapt academic concepts and language in order to discuss their own lives and the specific social and cultural context of Salvador. The ethnographic and micro-historical perspective adopted here provides insight into ‘native’ understandings of affirmative action and a ‘politics of presence’ and suggests that criticisms of these measures on the grounds that they represent imported, non-Brazilian views of race are misplaced.

This article focuses on trends in the adult heights of various sectors of Mexican society between 1850 and 1950 as a proxy for their biological and material standards of living. The evolution of biological standards of living is an alternative way to assess whether or not economic development after 1850 was beneficial to the population, using a proxy that relies on a basic natural characteristic, adult height. The recruitment records of the Mexican rural and federal militia provide us with information on the secular trends of heights of the Mexican labouring classes, while a database of passport applications allows us to compare the evolution of living standards across social classes. It is argued that the benefits of industrialisation and improved economic performance fostered by the Díaz regime (1876–1910) did not have a favourable impact on the biological wellbeing of the labouring population. There are, however, signs of improvement in living standards with the launching of welfare programmes at the end of the Cárdenas administration. In contrast, the average height of the elites increased throughout the period, suggesting that there was a growing disparity in the evolution of living standards between social classes.

This article examines the unusual public security reform process that took place in Panama in the wake of the US military invasion of December 1989. The changes to the Panamanian security forces that ensued were in equal part a ‘demilitarisation’ process, a police reform and an (imposed) transition to democracy where the political domination of the Panamanian security forces came to an abrupt end. Deploying the concepts of demilitarisation, professionalisation and depoliticisation, the article evaluates the political role and activities of police forces and the nature of their relationship with the main Panamanian political actors through to the present Torrijos administration. It then assesses the implications for wider political processes, suggesting that explanations for the success or failure of reform are unlikely to be found in the examination of the design and implementation of the reform itself, but that broader political processes must be analysed in order to understand the dynamic that underpins it.

This essay, written in September 2006, considers the first months of the MAS government headed by Evo Morales in the light of the virtually constant political crisis in Bolivia since 2000. The first part asks why the turbulent course of public life in Bolivia has proved so difficult to explain. It seeks to show that the recent period has been depicted in rather narrow interpretations that stress institutional failings, poverty and oppression, or civic heroism, but do not try to find the linkages between these phenomena. The second section proposes an alternative approach, treating the recent experience of conflict as a revolutionary episode in which the idea of ‘Two Bolivias’ needs to be qualified by appreciation of past revolutionary experiences. The final sections suggest that the ardour and complexities of the current conflict might seem more comprehensible if the MAS and its supporters are viewed as essentially plebeian in both condition and ideological disposition. Such a classical and early modern allusion provides a fuller analytical palate for understanding the current conjuncture and the socio-political propositions being made in a ‘semi-modern’ environment.