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This article questions the widely held view that indigenous movements in Latin America during the last decades of the twentieth century were caused by globalization. The author reviews several bodies of literature and concludes that, although globalization may be a fit descriptor for some of the actions and narratives of indigenous movements, it cannot be understood as a causal determinant. Many indigenous movements emerged long before the neoliberal current started, others coincide with it, and yet others lag significantly. The author proposes an alternative framework that gives primary significance to state-society relations. Contrary to the idea that national states may have lost prominence in the age of globalization. I contend the opposite, suggesting also that indigenous movements have emerged where there are (1) challenges to pre-existing corporate identities, (2) transcommunity networks to provide the resources for mobilization, and (3) associational spaces to facilitate collective expression. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2007 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]

This article questions the widely held view that indigenous movements in Latin America during the last decades of the twentieth century were caused by globalization. The author reviews several bodies of literature and concludes that, although globalization may be a fit descriptor for some of the actions and narratives of indigenous movements, it cannot be understood as a causal determinant. Many indigenous movements emerged long before the neoliberal current started, others coincide with it, and yet others lag significantly. The author proposes an alternative framework that gives primary significance to state–society relations. Contrary to the idea that national states may have lost prominence in the age of globalization I contend the opposite, suggesting also that indigenous movements have emerged where there are (1) challenges to preexisting corporate identities, (2) transcommunity networks to provide the resources for mobilization, and (3) associational spaces to facilitate collective expression.

A review essay on books by (1) Margaret E. Keck & Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press, 1998); (2) Dani Rodrik, Has Globalization Gone Too Far? (Washington, DC: Instit International Economics, 1997); & (3) Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal, Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe (Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1994). Globalization studies have sparked lively debates about how the changing international environment has catalyzed collective action. This review of three agenda-setting books concludes that globalization's impact on collective action is more indeterminate than current scholarship suggests. Future research needs to parse out descriptive treatments of globalization from globalization as a causal framework & to pay greater attention to causal mechanisms, relevant cases, & politicization of identities to address better the structured & contingent relations among international processes, the state, & collective action. Adapted from the source document.

Scholars of democratic consolidation have come to focus on the links between political institutions and enduring regime outcomes. This article takes issue with the conceptual and analytical underpinnings of this literature by highlighting how new political institutions, rather than securing democratic politics, have in fact had a more checkered effect. It delineates why the theoretical expectations of the democratic consolidation literature have not been realized and draws, by example, on the contemporary ethnic movements that are now challenging third-wave democracies. In particular, it highlights how contemporary indigenous movements, emerging in response to unevenly institutionalized reforms, pose a postliberal challenge to Latin America's I newly founded democracies. These movements have sparked political debates and constitutional reforms over community rights, territorial autonomy, and a multiethnic citizenry. As a whole, I they have laid bare the weakness of state institutions, the contested terms of democracy, and the I indeterminacy of ethnic accommodation in the region. As such, these movements highlight the need to qualify somewhat premature and narrow discussions of democratic consolidation in favor I of a broader research agenda on democratic politics.