Labour contractors (enganchadores) were key figures in capitalist modernisation in northern Peru after 1880. Via overlapping networks of monetary, moral and coercive mechanisms, they shaped circuits of accumulation by linking highland labour to coastal sugar plantations. The reliance of coastal sugar planters on highland enganchadores for guaranteeing labour supply highlights the failure of an independent national state to consolidate in this period beyond local and regional hegemonies. Therefore, an examination of enganchadores and the hybrid markets they embodied challenges both linear narratives about the rise of modern economies and conceptual binaries between market and non-market, state and non-state and centre and periphery in Peru and globally.

This paper traces the history of Chinese migration to Venezuela from 1875 onward, leading to the Chinese expulsion orders of 1938 and 1941. It highlights the shifting phases of acceptance and discrimination by Venezuela’s state and society, emphasising the agency of the Chinese community in resisting exclusion through transnational networks and diplomatic advocacy. Additionally, it examines the unique characteristics of this migrant group, the discrepancies between legal frameworks and their enforcement, and the influence of racial and ethnic ideologies in shaping immigration policy and public sentiment. Ultimately, this paper demonstrates how international dynamics shaped the well-being of Chinese Venezuelans and advocates for a more transnational approach to understanding migration to Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This article explores the interplay between business elites and the Argentine state in shaping social policy from the late nineteenth century until 1943, focusing on the sugar industry in Jujuy. It asks why sugar industrialists introduced welfare measures in their mills during the 1930s and what social conditions shaped their choices. We argue that limited assistance initiatives, introduced following the Great Depression, allowed mill owners to justify tariff protection while reinforcing their dominance over workers and curbing union influence. These measures, rooted in the sugar elites’ control of provincial politics and sustained intervention in the state apparatus, exemplify early forms of private–public cooperation in welfare provision. By tracing the evolution of state–business interaction in social provision, the article demonstrates how local industries shaped welfare regimes before the rise of Peronism, offering new insights into the diversity of policy responses and social realities in Argentina and Latin America.

Why do governments engage in public negotiations with criminal groups, which can be politically costly? I argue that three conditions are necessary for elected authorities to support public negotiations. First, elected authorities support negotiations when the relative conditions of criminal power make it easier to portray negotiations as superior to repression (repression failure frame) or as means to support disaffected youth (marginalisation frame). Second, dialogue brokers – that is, key individuals within government and civil society with know-how about criminal groups – shape government support by inserting concrete negotiation proposals into these frames. Third, electoral security for executive authorities incentivises them to support negotiations. I substantiate this argument by comparing cases in cities with contrasting state capacity and criminal sophistication, Belize City and Medellín.