Suchergebnisse

"Agrarian Elites and Democracy in Latin America after the Third Wave" published on by Oxford University Press.

"Subregional Powers of Latin America: Colombia and Venezuela" published on by Oxford University Press.

After the close of the 2003 World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, United States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick unleashed a stinging attack on Brazil and its Latin American partners in the G-20 trade negotiating coalition. Lamenting the failure to reach agreement on the US/EU proposal to conclude the Doha round, Zoellick (2003) bemoaned Brazil's 'tactics of confrontation', refusal to compromise, and insistence on a 'massive list of required changes' to the chairperson's discussion text. These tensions between the Brazilian-led G-20 negotiating coalition and the US offer a highly illustrative entry point to understanding the key elements of contemporary Latin American diplomacy, the subject of this chapter. In order to grapple with the practice and precepts of Latin American diplomacy we will draw out five points embedded within post Cancun rhetorical fracas and amplify them through reference to other cases and the conceptual thinking of scholars and analysts based in the region. The approach we take in our analysis of Latin American diplomacy is predominantly at the state level, examining the patterns and habits of interaction exhibited by governments in the region.

"Zapatistas and New Ways of Doing Politics" published on by Oxford University Press.

AbstractUnlike indigenous social movements in several other Latin American countries, Mayan movements in Guatemala have not formed a viable indigenous-based political party. Despite the prominence of the Mayan social movement and a relatively open institutional environment conducive to party formation, indigenous groups have foregone a national political party in favor of a more dispersed pattern of political mobilization at the local level. This article argues that the availability of avenues for political representation at the municipal level, through both traditional political parties and civic committees, and the effects of political repression and violence have reinforced the fragmentation and localism of indigenous social movements in Guatemala and prevented the emergence of a viable Mayan political party. The result has been a pattern of uneven political representation, with indigenous Guatemalans gaining representation in local government while national political institutions remain exclusionary.

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.

The initial interest in womens studies arose in the sixties from a desire to rectify the fact that women, whether as actors or subjects, had been ignored in the evolution of knowledge. It soon became clear, however, that this had been more than a fault of omission for, because of lack of information, women had often been misunderstood and misrepresented. Several modernisation studies, for example, have concentrated on interviewing men and yet produced generalisations about levels of modernisation for the population as a whole. Joseph Kahi in TheMeasurement of Modernismmade numerous statements about modernisation in Brazil and Mexico and its relationship to institutions in society, but his 1,300 interviews were all with men.1The few studies which do include women show that they lag behind men in educational achievement and social mobility.2This suggests that had Kahi included women in his samples his results might have been rather different.