Early advocates of decentralization lauded it as a strategy for strengthening democratic institutions, but later scholarship has emphasized decentralization’s negative consequences, especially for political parties. This article argues that the impact of political decentralization on established parties is shaped by the context in which the reforms occur, with poor economic performance and limited programmatic differentiation making parties more vulnerable to the challenges posed by decentralization. The article explores how decentralization under such circumstances has contributed to party decay in Latin America, where declining support for established parties has been significant, in some places undermining democratic stability and governability. The article employs cross-national time-series analysis and case studies. The quantitative evidence indicates that political decentralization weakens existing parties in contexts of poor economic conditions and little ideological differentiation in the party system. Case studies elaborate the processes through which decentralizing reforms together with economic conditions and party linkages affect party systems.

Political economy theory expects that changes in macroeconomic governance are often catalyzed by institutional factors, such as partisanship, elections, or International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionality. I challenge and contextualize this view by incorporating the role of technocratic advisors into a domestic policy-making framework. I contend that presidents from countries with crisis legacies are more likely to appoint mainstream economists that pursue budget discipline. Employing an originally constructed dataset, the Index of Economic Advisors, I conduct an econometric test of sixteen Latin American countries from 1961 to 2011. I find that politicians are most likely to appoint mainstream economists who embrace fiscal rectitude in countries with inflation-crisis legacies. Furthermore, these crisis legacies are enduring given the severity of inflationary trauma relative to other types of domestic economic volatility in Latin America. In fact, these effects hold when controlling for both historical and contemporaneous shocks to unemployment.

Coinciding with the shift to the left in Latin American politics, regional integration in Latin America accelerated during the last two decades. Yet, whereas support for European integration has been tracked systematically for decades, trend analyses of public opinion on Latin American integration are still missing. Combining data from eight Latinobarometer surveys on 106,590 respondents from seventeen South and Central American countries, this article provides the first longitudinal analysis of Latin Americans’ support for their continent’s economic and political integration. Using multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression, we reveal intra- and intersocietal trends and cleavages. Our results show that support rates are generally declining from high initial levels. Furthermore, while gender and educational gaps in public opinion remained stable over time, considerable shifts occurred with regard to political orientation: starting from the lowest initial values, the left surpassed the right—and, at least in the case of support for political integration, also the center—to become the political wing favoring integration most highly. This finding shows, contrary to prevailing ideas, that the political center is not necessarily the primary supporter of integration. When regionalism is increasingly driven by left-wing governments, public support for regional integration may also swing to the left.

O presente artigo se insere na linha de estudos sobre a baixa presença de mulheres na política brasileira. Nesse trabalho, testamos se a eleição de uma prefeita aumenta o número de mulheres disputando o próximo pleito para a prefeitura no mesmo município. A análise deste efeito contágio dialoga com outros trabalhos cujo foco é o momento da apresentação e seleção de candidatas como um dos filtros decisivos para viabilizar a eleição de mais mulheres em disputas eleitorais. Esse estudo tem como base de dados as eleições municipais para prefeito no Brasil entre 2000 e 2012. Chegamos à conclusão de que nos municípios em que houve a eleição de uma prefeita a probabilidade de ter candidatas lançando-se pela primeira vez na próxima eleição é 1,8 vezes maior em comparação com a última disputa eleitoral. Outra constatação é a de que os homens que concorrem ao pleito reagem de forma diferente à eleição de uma mulher. A pesquisa sugere também que, além de fatores mais conhecidos, como arranjos institucionais ou condicionantes socioeconômicos, eventos chaves, como a vitória de mulheres em eleições majoritárias, desencadeiam mecanismos de retroalimentação que resultam na ampliação do espaço das mulheres na política.

Desde o início do presente século, mudanças significativas ocorreram em relação à distribuição de renda na sociedade brasileira, que recentemente apresentou queda das desigualdades e crescimento das faixas intermediárias de rendimento. Com base nesta informação, junto ao crescimento econômico ocorrido no período, a interpretação mais conhecida a respeito dessas recentes mudanças no Brasil é aquela que afirmava estarmos diante do crescimento da classe média. O objetivo deste artigo é aprofundar essa discussão, através do prisma sociológico. Procuramos, por meio dos microdados das Pesquisas Nacionais por Amostra de Domicílios de 2002 a 2013, verificar a relação entre as recentes mudanças na distribuição de renda e a estrutura de classes no Brasil. Buscamos, assim, analisar se é possível encontrar modificações significativas no que se refere à desigualdade de rendimentos entre categorias sócio ocupacionais. Como resultado, apresentamos evidências de que, em vez de crescimento das camadas médias, seria mais correto falarmos em fortalecimento das classes assentadas no trabalho.

In the context of increasing prosecution by victims of domestic violence, this article compares professionals’ responses to specific cases in two different institutional settings in São Paulo, women’s police stations and hospital emergency services. The article focuses on the first encounter of victims with policewomen and health care popular legal advocates. We take “interpretive relativism” (Geertz 1983) as a fundamental framework for comparing, ethnographically, two contrasting cognitive methods for adjudicating truth to the events narrated by the victims: the skeletonization of facts, typical of police officials, and the schematization of social action, typical of human rights practitioners. We conclude that while policewomen are ambivalent regarding women’s capacity to decide for themselves how to use the legal resources offered to them, popular legal advocates, in contrast, seek to empower women by improving their capacity to make well-informed decisions.

En el presente artículo vamos a trazar un recorrido crítico a través de dos grandes corrientes de pensamiento, a saber, la teoría de la dependencia y todos los estudios vinculados al problema de la colonialidad. Esa colonialidad, que constituye la forma última de la subyugación material y de la violencia epistémica ejercidas sobre los pueblos sojuzgados, también compondrá un cuerpo de relatos hegemónicos que constituirán la matriz misma en la que se insertan los regímenes coloniales del saber y del poder. Colonialidad que, por cierto, debería ser pronunciada en plural, toda vez que múltiples son los ámbitos que ella vertebra y determina. Dependencia y colonialidad, por otro lado, constituyen dos desarrollos teóricos que evidencian un gran potencial a la hora de desentrañar las diferentes dimensiones de esos complejos procesos políticos, económicos y culturales que conforman la dominación neocolonial.

In the film Coronel Delmiro Gouveia (1978), Brazilian director Geraldo Sarno uses historical fiction about “the coronel of coronéis” to negotiate the limits of government censorship and discuss the domestic and international policies of the military dictatorship, including its relationship to the state cinema enterprise Embrafilme, through a portrayal of a progressive but authoritarian businessman of the sertão who died in Brazil’s first global war of the twentieth century. The film is one of the few Brazilian films about the country’s oft-overlooked role in World War I. Close analysis of the work reveals Sarno’s deft use of allegory for social commentary on class conflict and the film industry.

This article focuses on how two Spanish American Creole writers perceived their port city as a symbol of national prestige, devoted patriotism, and utilitarian significance, at a time when the military and economic status of the port was undergoing transformational changes. It centers on the works of two eighteenth-century Cuban writers, José Martín Félix de Arrate’s Llave del Nuevo Mundo, antemural de las Indias Occidentales: La Habana descripta (1761) and Ignacio José de Urrutia y Montoya’s Teatro histórico, jurídico y político-militar de la Isla Fernandina de Cuba y principalmente de su capital La Habana (1791), to show the ways in which these authors articulated their love for their country while endowing the port and the port city with local political power and cultural prestige. This sense of “topophilia,” a concept described by geographer Yi-Fu Tuan as the “affective bond between people and place,” is what guided the aforementioned authors’ geographic view of the port.

This essay reviews the following works:

Native Wills from the Colonial Americas: Dead Giveaways in a New World. Edited by Mark Christensen and Jonathan Truitt. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 276. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781607814160.

Strange Lands and Different Peoples: Spaniards and Indians in Colonial Guatemala. By W. George Lovell, Christopher H. Lutz, with Wendy Kramer and William R. Swezey. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 339. $34.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780806143903.

Indians and the Political Economy of Colonial Central America, 1670–1810. By Robert W. Patch. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 284. $36.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780806144009.

The Mixtecs of Oaxaca: Ancient Times to the Present. By Ronald Spores and Andrew K. Balkansky. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Pp. xvi + 328. $45.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780806143811.

Emotions and Daily Life in Colonial Mexico. Edited by Javier Villa-Flores and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 257. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780826354624.

This essay reviews the following works:

Connections after Colonialism: Europe and Latin America in the 1820s. Edited by Matthew Brown and Gabriel Paquette. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2013. Pp. vii + 328. $54.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780817317768.

Frontiers of Possession: Spain and Portugal in Europe and the Americas. By Tamar Herzog. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. i + 377. $35.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780674735385.

Imperial Portugal in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions: The Luso-Brazilian World, c. 1770–1850. By Gabriel Paquette. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. vi + 445. $140.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781107028975.

Revolutions without Borders: The Call to Liberty in the Atlantic World. By Janet Polasky. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016. Pp. 392. $25.00 paper. ISBN: 9780300219845.

Crisis in an Atlantic Empire: Spain and New Spain, 1808–1810. By Barbara H. Stein and Stanley J. Stein. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 773. $89.95 cloth. ISBN: 9781421414249.

Empire’s End: Transnational Connections in the Hispanic World. Edited by Akiko Tsuchiya and William G. Acree Jr. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 223. $34.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780826520777.

This essay reviews the following works:

Political Landscapes: Forests, Conservation, and Community in Mexico. By Christopher R. Boyer. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Pp. xix + 337 pages. $27.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822358329.

Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1938–1968. Edited By Paul Gillingham and Benjamin T. Smith. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 444. $28.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822356370.

The War Has Brought Peace to Mexico: World War II and the Consolidation of the Post-Revolutionary State. By Halbert Jones. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 296. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780826351302.

Mexico’s Once and Future Revolution: Social Upheaval and the Challenge of Rule since the Late Nineteenth Century. By Gilbert M. Joseph and Jürgen Buchenau. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. $23.95 paper. Pp. x + 252. ISBN: 9780822355328.

Instituting Nature: Authority, Expertise, and Power in Mexico’s Forests. Andrew S. Mathews. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011. Pp. xii + 304. $32.00 paper. ISBN: 9780262516440.

The Logic of Compromise in Mexico: How the Countryside Was Key to the Emergence of Authoritarianism. By Gladys I. McCormick. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. xiv + 284. $32.95 paper. ISBN: 9781469627748.

Myths of Demilitarization in Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1920–1960. By Thomas Rath. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Pp. vii + 256. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780807839294.

This essay reviews the following works:

Side Effects: Mexican Governance under NAFTA’s Labor and Environmental Agreements. By Mark Aspinwall. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 209. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780804782302.

Toxic Injustice: A Transnational History of Exposure and Struggle. By Susanna Rankin Bohme. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 343. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520278998.

Rubble: The Afterlife of Destruction. By Gastón R. Gordillo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 315. $26.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822356196.

Unearthing Conflict: Corporate Mining, Activism, and Expertise in Peru. By Fabiana Li. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 265. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822358312.

Engineering Mountain Landscapes: An Anthropology of Social Investment. Edited by Laura L. Scheiber and María Nieves Zedeño. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 201. $45.00 paper. ISBN: 9781607814337.

This essay reviews the following works:

Upriver: The Turbulent Life and Times of an Amazonian People. By Michael F. Brown. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 321. $29.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780674368071.

In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of Region. By Seth Garfield. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 343. $26.96 paper. ISBN: 9780822355854.

Rainforest Cowboys: The Rise of Ranching and Cattle Culture in Western Amazonia. By Jeffrey Hoelle. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. viii + 196. $45.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780292761346.

Tracks in the Amazon: The Day-to-Day Life of the Workers on the Madeira-Mamoré Railroad. By Gary Neeleman and Rose Neeleman. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 195. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9781607812753.

Amazonian Routes: Indigenous Mobility and Colonial Communities in Northern Brazil. By Heather F. Roller. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 342. $70.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780804787086.

This essay reviews the following works:

Private Wealth and Public Revenue in Latin America: Business Power and Tax Politics. By Tasha Fairfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. viii + 333. $99.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781107088375.

Evo’s Bolivia: Continuity and Change. By Linda C. Farthing and Benjamin H. Kohl. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 227. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780292758681.

The State and the Private Sector in Latin America: The Shift to Partnership. By Mauricio A. Font. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. vii + 291. $100.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780230111400.

Partisan Investment in the Global Economy: Why the Left Loves Foreign Direct Investment and FDI Loves the Left. By Pablo M. Pinto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 288. $34.99 paper. ISBN: 9781107617360.

Enduring Reform: Progressive Activism and Private Sector Responses in Latin America’s Democracies. Edited by Jeffrey W. Rubin and Vivienne Bennett. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. Pp. xi + 261. $15.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822963165.

Reinventing the Left in the Global South: The Politics of the Possible. By Richard Sandbrook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 294. $34.99 paper. ISBN: 9781107421097.

Democratic Chile: The Politics and Policies of a Historic Coalition, 1990–2010. Edited by Kirsten Sehnbruch and Peter M. Siavelis. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2014. Pp. vii + 375. $69.95 cloth. ISBN: 9781588268730.

This essay reviews the following works:

Earth Politics: Religion, Decolonization, and Bolivia’s Indigenous Intellectuals. By Waskar Ari. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 262. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822356172.

Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds. By Marisol de la Cadena. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Pp. xxvii + 349. $26.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822359630.

Governing Indigenous Territories: Enacting Sovereignty in the Ecuadorian Amazon. By Juliet S. Erazo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 237. $23.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822354543.

Singing for the Dead: The Politics of Indigenous Revival in Mexico. By Paja Faudree. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. xiii + 315. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822354314.

Multiple Injustices: Indigenous Women, Law, and Political Struggle in Latin America. By R. Aída Hernández Castillo. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 330. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780816532490.

We Are the Face of OAXACA: Testimony and Social Movements. By Lynn Stephen. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. vii + 344. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822355342.

Politicized Ethnicity: A Comparative Perspective. By Anke Weber, Wesley Hiers, and Anaïd Flesken. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. ix + 187. $95.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781137359032.

This essay reviews the following works:

In Harm’s Way: the Dynamics of Urban Violence. By Javier Auyero and María Fernanda Berti. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. xi + 239. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780691164779.

Violence at the Urban Margins. Edited by Javier Auyero, Philippe Bourgois, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 323. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780190221454.

Bruno: Conversations with a Brazilian Drug Dealer. By Robert Gay. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 219. $23.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822358497.

The Spectacular Favela: Violence in Modern Brazil. By Erika Robb Larkins. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. Pp. xi + 231. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520282773.

Cities, Business, and the Politics of Urban Violence in Latin America. By Eduardo Moncada. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 219. $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780804794176.

Living with Insecurity in a Brazilian Favela: Urban Violence and Daily Life. By R. Ben Penglase. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 2014. Pp. ix + 197. $26.95 paper. ISBN: 9780813565439.