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Abstract
In some Latin American nations, policy change occurs frequently, while in others it is stable, less prone to shifts with the prevailing political climate or shocks. The conditions under which institutional rules and the powers of key actors influence the capacity for governance vary, and this variation is seldom addressed in the literature. This project examines the effects of the interactions between key policymakers (the executive and the legislature) in Latin America on policy stability across different institutional frameworks. Countries with simultaneously strong executives and weak legislatures are shown to have unstable policy environments, as are countries with a history of unified government and, to a lesser extent, candidate-centered electoral systems.

AbstractBrazil has an "African-origin" population that is proportionally more than four times larger that of African Americans in the United States, but white Brazilians mostly dominate electoral politics. How do ordinary citizens explain this phenomenon? Drawing on a large-sample survey of public opinion in the state of Rio de Janeiro, this article explores perceived explanations for nonwhite underrepresentation in the political arena. It also examines attitudes toward a particular black candidate, Benedita da Silva, to discern the state ofnegroidentity politics. Most Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro cite racial prejudice to explain nonwhite exclusion, although whites do this less than nonwhites. Indicators of a racial undercurrent in political preferences suggest the importance of allegiances based on perceived common racial origins. Class is robustly associated with voting preferences, suggesting that, in contrast to the United States, class differences among nonwhites in Brazil could attenuate the success ofnegroidentity politics.

Latin American studies in Germany from the 1960s on developed in two waves with (partial) crises and periods of stagnation in between. Whereas in the communist GDR they were affected by the limited scope of academic endeavors and their instrumentalization for state and party politics and policies, in the Federal Republic interdisciplinary Latin American studies had two tiers (within the universities and outside as independent research institutes) and were shaped by the particular structure of funding schemes and agencies and by "triggers" such as the Cuban Revolution, the Chilean coup, the arrival of exiles, and the presence of the Latin American revolutionary experience in the debates of the West German student movement after 1968. While many of the West German features were shared with other Western countries, significant differences emerged because of Germany's short colonial tradition, the Cold War rivalry between the Federal Republic and the GDR, and the fact that political foundations such as the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation played a key role not only in designing and implementing government-financed development aid projects in Latin America but also in helping to promote and shape a new takeoff for Latin American studies (a uniquely German constellation). A partir de la década de 1960, los estudios alemanes sobre Latinoamérica se desarrollaron en dos oleadas, con crisis (parciales) y períodos de estancamiento en el proceso. En la RDA comunista, la investigación se vio afectada por el alcance limitado de los esfuerzos académicos y su instrumentalización para políticas estatales y partidarias. En la República Federal, los estudios interdisciplinarios latinoamericanos se desarrollaron en dos ámbitos (universidades además de lugares externos como institutos de investigación independientes) y obedeciendo a estructuras y agencias de financiamiento particulares, así como "factores detonantes" (por ejemplo, la Revolución Cubana, el golpe de estado en Chile, la llegada de exiliados y la presencia de la experiencia revolucionaria latinoamericana en los debates del movimiento estudiantil de Alemania Occidental después de 1968). Mientras que muchas de las características de la República Federal eran compartidas por otros países occidentales, surgieron diferencias significativas a partir de la corta tradición colonial alemana, la rivalidad entre la República Federal y la RDA durante la Guerra Fría, y el hecho de que patronatos políticos como la Fundación Konrad Adenauer y la Fundación Friedrich Ebert desempeñaron un papel clave no solo en el diseño e implementación de proyectos gubernamentales de ayuda al desarrollo en Latinoamérica, sino también en promover y encaminar los estudios latinoamericanos (en una constelación exclusivamente alemana).

From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of
Ethnic Politics, Donna Lee Van Cott, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004,pp. 300.During the 1980s and 90s the English literature on Latin American
politics in the Anglo North American and Anglo European academic worlds
roughly evolved from works centrally concerned—and discursively
interconnected—with various models of transitions to democracy to
the necessary processes that the new electoral democracies had to undergo
and the policies they needed to implement to advance in the process of
consolidation of democracy. For scholars who essentially viewed these
processes either as largely completed in institutional terms or on their
way to institutional maturity and stability, the focus of scholarly
attention then shifted to more subtle questions of democratic quality.
Donna Lee Van Cott's From Movements to Parties in Latin America:
The Evolution of Ethnic Politics is a work that not only fits into
the category of works fundamentally concerned with the issues and
challenges associated with either the consolidation of democracy
literature or the quality of democracy literature, but it is also a work
that helps to develop the literature by highlighting a central variable of
Latin American culture and politics, namely, indigenous ethnic movements
and politics.

Once upon a time, pluralist (Dahl 1961) and modernization theories (Lipset 1959) described liberal democracy as a political regime that tended to exclude violence, insurgency, and corruption. A few decades later, Francis Fukuyama (1992) argued that in the long run, liberal democracy would triumph over other political alternatives, and about the same time Samuel Huntington (1991) revealed a massive wave of democratization (or redemocratization) in different parts of the world.

AbstractInstitutional effectiveness varies widely across Chile's 346 municipalities. Whereas some local governments seem to work with impeccable precision, others struggle to deliver basic services and welfare benefits to the population. This article seeks to explain why such variation exists; it combines quantitative and qualitative evidence to show how mayors can play a crucial role in building institutional effectiveness. The study focuses on the administration of Chile's municipal job placement offices. It finds that municipalities where mayors have held office for three or more consecutive terms exhibit stronger institutional capacity than those localities where electoral turnover is the norm. The analysis, therefore, underscores an interesting finding: electoral competition has the potential both to improve and to undermine administrative capacity.