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"Mestizaje, Racial Discrimination, and Inequality in Latin America" published on by Oxford University Press.

Reviews numerous changes, developments, and highlights in Latin American internal politics, society, and economy within a perspective of overall improvement and stability in the region as well as increasingly promising relations with Russia. The questions of political stability, national and regional security, economic growth, United States relations with the region, Cuba's changing status, the future relationship with the European Union, and developing connections with Russia are assessed in detail. Concludes that the future of Russian-Latin American relations is bright given that previous barriers to cooperation including geographical distance, short-sighted Russian foreign policy, and Cold War ideology have become of little consequence.

"Party Members and Activists in Latin America" published on by Oxford University Press.

"The feeling of insecurity is a little known phenomenon that has been only partially explored by social sciences. However, it has a deep social, cultural and economic impact and may even contribute to define the very structures of the state. In Latin America, fear of crime has become an important stumbling block in the region's process of democratization. After long spells of dictatorships and civil wars, violence in the region was supposed to be under control yet crime rates have continued to skyrocket and citizens remain fearful. This analytical puzzle has troubled researchers and to date there is no publication which explores this problem. Based on a wealth of cutting edge qualitative and quantitative research, Lucia Dammert proposes a unique theoretical perspective which includes a sociological, criminological and political analysis to understand fear of crime. She describes its linkages to issues such as urban segregation, social attitudes, institutional trust, public policies and authoritarian discourses in Chile's recent past. Looking beyond Chile, Dammert also includes a regional comparative perspective allowing readers to understand the complex elements underpinning this situation. Fear and Crime in Latin America challenges many assumptions and opens an opportunity to discuss an issue that affects everyone with key societal and personal costs. As crime rates increase and states become even more fragile, fear of crime as a social problem will continue to have an important impact in Latin America"--Provided by publisher

"Scholars and intellectuals, like human beings in other walks of life, need to interpret and come to grips with the crises plaguing the contemporary global political and social system. Indeed, their obligation to do so may be a particularly special and important one." This credo might properly be etched on the minds of all those who study the politics of Latin America. Scholarship is not restricted to an academic preserve in which the principal, even sole commitment must be the intellectual task at hand. Rather, the study of Latin American politics requires a heightened sense of self-consciousness, which is linked in turn to the parameters and strictures of the several professional disciplines involved.

Through the application of an analytical model categorized as 'missionary,' this article examines the cultural and political-religious frames that sustain the leadership of Hugo Chavez. It demonstrates that missionary politics is a forceful presence in today's Venezuela, and should be understood as a form of political religion characterized by a dynamic relationship between a charismatic leader and a moral community that is invested with a mission of salvation against conspiratorial enemies. The leader's verbal and nonverbal discourses play an essential role in the development of such a missionary mode of politics, which seeks to provide the alienated mass of underprivileged citizens with an identity and a sense of active participation in national affairs. This study argues that purely utilitarian and materialistic explanations of Chavez's leadership fail to capture these soteriological dynamics in his movement. Adapted from the source document.

Political exile is a major constitutive feature of Latin American politics. It has contributed to the establishment of the rules of the political game on a transnational basis, both before and after the consolidation of the states. It is linked to the tension between the hierarchical structure of these societies and the political models that predicated participation, the process of fragmentation and conflictive territorial boundaries, the evolution of factions into modern politics, spurring civil wars, political violence, and polarization. This article analyzes exile as a selective mechanism, its transformation into a mass phenomenon, and the creation fo communities of Latin American exiles and expatriates, influential in the framework of transnational politics. References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2007.]