Report presented at the meeting of the Executive Council of the Latin American Studies Association in Lima, Peru, April 27, 2017.

En los contextos post-descentralización, las relaciones intergubernamentales (RIGs) central-locales adquieren gran relevancia para comprender los procesos de asignación territorial de recursos públicos. La elevada autonomía local en la Provincia de Córdoba, Argentina, hace de ésta un caso apropiado para examinar la complejidad de factores involucrados en la distribución de recursos a municipios y, de este modo, generar aproximaciones heurísticas sobre estos procesos a nivel regional. Este estudio (a) da cuenta de la coexistencia de dos subsistemas de RIGs, a través de los cuales los gobiernos locales procuran acceder a recursos públicos de decisión discrecional, uno conformado por redes políticas formales y otro por una diversidad de redes políticas informales; (b) se observa un efecto sistemático de ambos tipos de redes sobre las chances de acceso de los gobiernos locales a recursos de decisión discrecional del gobierno provincial; (c) se advierte que los gobiernos locales adoptan una estrategia combinada de vinculación a ambos tipos de redes, priorizando el mecanismo de la cohesión en las redes formales y la intermediación en las redes informales.

Se presenta un análisis temático de tres debates parlamentarios claves para el tema de la libertad de expresión en el ámbito mediático en Chile desde la vuelta a la democracia: la discusión en torno a la Ley de Prensa 1993–2001, el Informe de la Comisión Especial sobre las Libertades de Pensamiento y Expresión 2007–2010 y el debate de la Ley de Televisión Digital 2008–2014. En todos ellos, la batalla principal se ha librado por el significado mismo de la libertad de expresión, por su contenido meramente negativo —como la libertad de “injerencia” estatal— o el positivo que supone un Estado activo. Los ganadores de los debates argumentaron en contra de la regulación viéndola como una intromisión estatal limitante para el mercado, y reduciendo así la noción de la libertad de expresión a la libertad de empresa.

In 2014, Chile introduced a tax reform on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that began to be collected in 2017; the reform is restricted to large industrial and power generation sources with thermal power greater than 50 megawatts (MW). Therefore, this study evaluates each industrial source’s option to reduce its taxes by switching to cleaner fuels (investing in new combustion equipment, such as boilers and dual burners). The results show that a tax of US$5 per ton of CO2 for industrial sources of more than 50 MW of thermal power is wholly ineffective in reducing emissions. If a carbon tax is applied to all independent sources of power, only a few industrial sources are predicted to change their current fuel, mainly changing coal to biomass. The conclusion is that the carbon tax serves to raise tax revenues rather than reduce emissions.

El uso de Recursos Forestales No Maderables (RFNM) puede crear oportunidades de desarrollo para poblaciones locales; pero ello requiere de determinadas condiciones. En México, el uso de RFNM considerados oficialmente como “amenazados” es regulado por Unidades de Manejo para la Conservación de la Vida Silvestre (UMA), un instrumento que busca conciliar la conservación biológica con desarrollo local. Sus resultados varían en función de las características del contexto en que se aplica. La mayoría de las UMA del sur del país, especialmente de RFNM, muestran resultados poco alentadores, pues no consideran en su diseño e implementación, la complejidad y diversidad de condiciones presentes en los espacios rurales de esta región. Aquí analizamos la implementación de una UMA de palma camedor en dos comunidades rurales de la Selva Lacandona, Chiapas, México, a través de registro etnográfico, entrevistas a profundidad y cuestionarios socioeconómicos. Argumentamos que las UMA de palma parten de una concepción simplificada de la realidad compleja de las comunidades en donde se implementan y trastocan su equilibrio de poder; su diseño burocrático y sobre-regulatorio fomenta discrecionalidad, simulación y corrupción, lo que acentúa la exclusión y favorece a las élites locales.

Municipalities in nineteenth-century Brazil bore the responsibility for providing public services that enhanced economic exchange, particularly physical infrastructure that facilitated the circulation of goods and services. Therefore, the question of whether the resources to pay for these services were abundant or scarce matters greatly to our understanding of Brazil’s history of economic development and socioeconomic inequality. Although ex ante budgets regularly predicted financial abundance, ex post financial statements repeatedly reported chronic deficits and financial instability. In the face of unanticipated revenue shortfalls, municipalities cut investments in essential public infrastructure, thereby dampening domestic economic exchange and perpetuating municipal poverty.

This article examines two cases of folklorization led by teachers in Peru between 1939 and 1971, and characterized by the participation of the indigenous and mestizo subjects whose local cultures were transformed into folklore. These cases show teachers as active agents of cultural change in Andean schools, who were responding to de-Indianization by promoting a serrano (pertaining to the Sierra) regional identity among their students. In this fashion, teachers were reinventing “local traditions” to produce a new popular identity based on a common regional bond, through which indigenous and mestizo populations could negotiate new waves of cultural interaction with modernity and national society. The first case analyzes the projects of José María Arguedas and Emilio Barrantes to bring local folklore to the school curriculum and to promote an Andean popular culture. The second case explores school folklore competitions organized autonomously by provincial teachers, in which traditional dances were folklorized and turned into a popular spectacle. While framing both folklorization cases within the study of teachers as local intellectuals, the article also highlights the importance of a magisterial culture in Peru that, drawing from the progressive education movement, viewed teachers as agents of sociocultural change and nationalism.

Trade in consumer electronics and household appliances in Bolivia operates mainly from popular marketplaces. Multinational corporations enter these once informal, now enhanced economies. This article analyses the expansion of global brands into urban street markets, together with the local branding of electronics and the advancement of popular traders along transnational commodity chains. I argue that these socio-spatial transitions offer a counterintuitive articulation between the informal and the formal. Looking at specific localities along the commodity chain from East Asia to Chile and Bolivia, one sees not mere formalization of informal economies as often expected nor a rampant informalization as attributed to current economic globalization, but piecemeal formalization of traders as much as a partial informalization of all actors involved.

In order to analyze the gender performance and empowerment of Brazilian female drug traffickers, this article compares the character of Marta in Patrícia Melo’s novel Inferno (2000) with the testimonies of four real female drug traffickers collected in MV Bill and Celso Athayde’s book Falcão: Mulheres e o tráfico (2007). It argues that while female drug traffickers highlight their experience and use their kinship relations, Marta’s access to power and gender transgression are temporary because her community and other drug traffickers do not support her. The article also proposes the term “the most desired positions” to replace “hegemonic masculinities” because of the prominence that cisgender and trans women have begun to have in the world of drug trade.

El artículo estudia los argumentos para crear una historia alternativa de las representaciones del paramilitarismo en México. Retrocediendo a la novela Astucia, de Luis G. Inclán, quien desarrolló un modelo del hombre de su tiempo: el Coronel Astucia. Este personaje participó en la formación de un cartel y actividades paramilitares con el propósito de buscar justicia a través del bandidaje social. Inclán fabula el lado oscuro de México en su primer siglo, ofreciendo un rechazo de las narrativas de creación de estado que los conservadores y liberales proveían. Podemos observar la naturaleza circular del bandidaje en México y cómo sirve de contrapunto a las narraciones tradicionales de soberanía. Ante el nuevo levantamiento armado en Michoacán, que ha producido grupos de autodefensa, este ensayo compara el discurso de Astucia con el de Nazario Moreno, difunto líder de la Familia Michoacana. Se argumenta que la necesidad de limitar el crecimiento del capital empuja a los bandidos sociales a producir discursos que ensamblan una política del consumo, como una forma de producir la imagen de que el bandido confrontara la desigualdad económica.

This article reviews the historical and theoretical foundations of communication for development and, in particular, communication for social change, a recently coined concept that remains anchored to an anthropocentric and unsustainable perspective of development. Based on the review of literature, we would like to open a dialogue between the field and Latin American contemporary debates, with a special focus on a number of theoretical frameworks that share a radical critique of modernity and stand for a biocentric turn in social sciences: the so-called modernity/coloniality research program, critical ecology, and indigenous epistemologies. We propose approaching communication theories from the indigenous worldview of “good living” (buen vivir) and quote several inspiring participatory projects that apply the new epistemologies to the field.

The article argues that today’s media characters may be understood through a typology. As models of acting, these character types appear in programs that raise ordinary people to the heights of media visibility through reality shows. Our article presents a proposal for mapping the characters in Big Brother Brasil, seasons 4 and 10, and discusses what the character types say about the protagonist syndrome and Brazilian culture.

New book review editor’s introduction.

This essay reviews the following works:

Ancient Maya Pottery: Classification, Analysis, and Interpretation. Edited by James John Aimers. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2013. Pp. vii + 293. $79.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780813042367.

The Huasteca: Culture, History, and Interregional Exchange. Edited by Katherine A. Faust and Kim N. Richter. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 241. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780806147048.

Excavations in Residential Areas of Tikal: Group 7F-1. By William A. Haviland. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2015. Pp. xi + 133. $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781934536810.

Politics of the Maya Court: Hierarchy and Change in the Late Classic Period. By Sarah E. Jackson. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 248. $29.95 hardback. ISBN: 9780806143415.

The Ancient Maya Marketplace: The Archaeology of Transient Space. Edited by Eleanor M. King. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 325. $60.54 cloth. ISBN: 9780816500413.

The Spectacle of the Late Maya Court: Reflections on the Murals of Bonampak. By Mary Miller and Claudia Brittenham. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 285. $54.05 cloth. ISBN: 9780292744363.

Maya Lords and Lordship: The Formation of Colonial Society in Yucatán, 1350–1600. By Sergio Quezada . Translated by Terry Rugeley. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 248. $34.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780806144221.

Place and Identity in Classic Maya Narratives. By Alexandre Tokovinine. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection/Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 180. $39.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780884023920.

This essay reviews the following works:

Dreaming of Dry Land: Environmental Transformation in Colonial Mexico City. By Vera S. Candiani. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014. Pp. xxix + 376. $60.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780804788052.

Return to Aztlan: Indians, Spaniards, and the Invention of Nuevo México. By Danna A. Levin Rojo. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014. Pp. xii + 307. $34.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780806144344.

Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala: A Historical Geography of the Cuchumatán Highlands, 1500–1821. By W. George Lovell. 4th ed. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015. Pp. xviii + 306. $34.95 paper. ISBN: 9780773545274.

The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City. By Barbara E. Mundy. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 246. $75.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780292766563.

Maya Ideologies of the Sacred: The Transfiguration of Space in Colonial Yucatan. By Amara Solari. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 212. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780292744943.

This essay reviews the following works:

Rethinking Race in Modern Argentina. Edited by Paulina Alberto and Eduardo Elena. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xviii + 373. $120.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781107107632.

Reimagining Black Difference and Politics in Brazil: From Racial Democracy to Multiculturalism. By Alexandre Emboaba Da Costa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. vii + 233. $105.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781137386335.

Racial Subordination in Latin America: The Role of the State, Customary Law, and the New Civil Rights Response. By Tanya Katerí Hernández. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. vii + 247. $35.99 paper. ISBN: 9781107695436.

The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families. By Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 311. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9781477307885.

Blackness in the Andes: Ethnographic Vignettes of Cultural Politics in the Time of Multiculturalism. By Jean Muteba Rahier. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. ix + 243. $110.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781137272713.

Land of the Cosmic Race: Race Mixture, Racism, and Blackness in Mexico. By Christina A. Sue. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 234. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780199925506.

Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America. By Edward Telles and the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Pp. xiii + 320. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9781469617831.

This essay reviews the following works:

Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman. By Jeremy Adelman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. Pp. xv + 740. $39.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780691155678.

Kalman Silvert: Engaging Latin America, Building Democracy. Edited by Abraham F. Lowenthal and Martin Weinstein. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2016. Pp. vii + 195. $24.50 paper. ISBN: 9781626375550.

Disciplinary Conquest: U.S. Scholars in South America, 1900–1945. By Ricardo D. Salvatore. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 329. $94.95 cloth. $26.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822360957.

This essay reviews the following works:

Mobilizing Democracy: Globalization and Citizen Protest. By Paul Almeida. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 191. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9781421414096.

Nicaragua: Navigating the Politics of Democracy. By David Close. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2016. Pp. vii + 254. $59.95 cloth. ISBN: 9781626374355.

The Politics of Modern Central America: Civil War, Democratization, and Underdevelopment. By Fabrice Lehoucq. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. viii + 193. $29.99 paper. ISBN: 9780521730792.

A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America. By Óscar Martínez, translated by John B. Washington and Daniela Ugaz. London: Verso, 2016. Pp. xv + 257. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9781784781682.

Enabling Peace in Guatemala: The Story of MINUGUA. By William Stanley. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013. Pp. xx + 325. $25.00 paper. ISBN: 9781588266811.

Women in War: The Micro-Processes of Mobilization in El Salvador. By Jocelyn Viterna. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. xvi + 288. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780199843657.

Captured Peace: Elites and Peacebuilding in El Salvador. By Christine J. Wade. Athens, OH: Ohio University Research in International Studies, 2016. Pp. ix + 273. $27.96 paper. ISBN: 9780896802988.

This essay reviews the following works:

Reflections on Uneven Democracies: The Legacy of Guillermo O’Donnell. Edited by Daniel Brinks, Marcelo Leiras, and Scott Mainwaring. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Pp. viii + 422. $34.95 paper. ISBN: 9781421414607.

Problems Confronting Contemporary Democracies: Essays in Honor of Alfred Stepan. Edited by Douglas Chalmers and Scott Mainwaring. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. Pp. xii + 487. $75.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780268023720.

The Resilience of the Latin American Right. Edited by Juan-Pablo Luna and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 377. $34.95 paper. ISBN: 9781421413907.

Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America: Emergence, Survival, and Fall. By Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán. Pp. xiv + 353 pages. $35.99 paper. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780521152242.

Democracy in Latin America: Between Hope and Despair. By Ignacio Walker. Translated by Krystin Krause, Holly Bird, and Scott Mainwaring. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013. Pp. xvi + 262. $38.00 paper. ISBN: 9780268019723.