Chapter 1 introduces the book’s central puzzle: why some electoral management bodies earn public trust and develop real autonomy while others remain vulnerable to manipulation. It argues that formal institutional design alone cannot explain cross-national variation. Instead, de facto autonomy emerges through political negotiation, transparency, accountability practices, and structured partisan engagement. Drawing on fieldwork, elite interviews, and archival research across Latin America and Africa, the chapter outlines a new theoretical framework centered on partisan inclusion within administrative processes that can foster legitimacy, reduce uncertainty, and strengthen electoral integrity. The chapter also introduces the book’s cross-regional comparative strategy, explains case selection, and previews how the empirical chapters illustrate the mechanisms through which party consultation, institutional sequencing, and administrative practices jointly shape election quality. The chapter positions the book within broader debates on democratic resilience, institutional trust, and the conditions under which electoral authorities acquire real independence.

In recent years, and especially, after the pandemic, policymakers in Latin America and the Caribbean have become increasingly interested in promoting the principles of the circular economy as a core component of the region’s sustainable development. Under the banner of sustainability, the national and regional markets for circular economy items have grown and consumer preference for them has been attracted. However, the debate on the impact of IPRs on the upcycling of goods, which could be protected by an IPRs system, is still very young. This chapter examines whether IP laws interfere with the production and distribution of goods by analyzing national and regional regulations in selected countries in the region, where there is growing interest in circular economy products. In addition, an analysis of the legal defences available within the IP system for the relevant stakeholders will also be undertaken. In particular, the IP systems concerning trademarks, industrial designs, and copyright will be discussed. Finally, the chapter examines whether creating distinctive signs specific to the goods produced under these practices exist and whether this seems desirable.

The conclusions distill the key findings of this book’s encounter with theory, cross-national statistical models, and case studies. A prediction-centered multi-method approach demonstrates how case studies fill in the causal gaps of cross-national statistical models to explain the rise and fall of the Coup Trap. And the conclusions identify the mechanisms that kept most political systems submerged in chronic instability – and allowed half a dozen to consolidate stable democratic or authoritarian political orders.

This chapter charts Alejo Carpentier’s connection with Mexico, from his momentous first visit in 1926, when he traveled to Mexico City as editor of Carteles, to his later friendships with major Mexican intellectuals, and including his publishing choices in the early and late phases of his career, (EDIAPSA; Fondo de Cultura Económica; Siglo Veintiuno). It focuses particularly on Carpentier’s friendship with Diego Rivera and his circle, as well as on his depictions of Mexicans living in 1920s Havana. This chapter describes Carpentier as part of a transnational community of intellectuals bonding over shared ideas on avant-garde art and politics. It argues that Mexican literary, visual and musical culture and the Mexican Revolution impacted Carpentier’s life deeply and shaped his vision of Latin America.

Chapter 3 statistically tests implications of my theory of the coup trap. I try to disconfirm my hypotheses by using event history or duration models of instability on a database of military coups, economic variables, political system characteristics, and levels of instability for eighteen countries between 1900 and 2014. While controlling for economic and political variables, statistical models show that autocracies are more unstable than democracies and that instability breeds coups. The likelihood of a successful military coup, in other words, remains high in the wake of the overthrow of a president, especially in non-democratic political orders and during election years. Logit models comparing golpes that manage and do not manage to overthrow governments also confirm a key implication of my theory of the coup trap: that military conspiracies are much more likely to prosper if they count upon the support of the opposition. These findings cement my argument that the overthrow of governments is a function of military as well as civil coalitions that reflect the unstable nature of political competition in less institutionalized political systems.

The first of this chapter’s three goals is to unveil a new catalog of more than 320 military coups, slightly less than half of which succeeded in overthrowing the executive. A second goal is to remind ourselves that elections were an integral part of constitutional or quasi-constitutional political orders – regimes best described as electoral autocracies because their incumbents ran the risk of losing regularly scheduled elections. This chapter concludes by combining data on military coups and regimes to produce a typology of political trajectories – and whose origins and persistence the rest of this book explores, documents, and explains.

Chapter 5 of The Coup Trap in Latin America examines the political systems of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay, the three most unstable of the region. The model anticipates 89 percent of the years of instability in these systems. It presents qualitative evidence that false positive predictions tell us something important: that conditions can be ripe for a military coup for decades at a time. What I call an atmosphere of crisis – that conflicts between pro- and anti-government supporters are severe enough so that it is increasingly certain that the president’s survival is uncertain – can, in other words, persist for decades. To explain when assaults on the executive take place requires analyzing micro-political factors, which the statistical model cannot easily grasp. This chapter also begins to explain what makes T such a powerful predictor of instability; it turns out to be a proxy for factional strife, which, among other things, disseminates the practical knowledge necessary to organize and execute a military coup d’état.

Chapter 2 provides a political theory of the origins and dynamics of the coup trap. It does not infer the behavior of pro- and anti-forces from their economic interests or their social position but instead argues that structural features of political systems – their competitiveness, how often presidents fall to military coups, and the length of their electoral cycle – explain why instability persists. At its core, the theory argues that the monopolization of power incites the opposition to form coalitions with dissident officers (the “coup coalition”) to oust governments weakened by the recent overthrow of presidents. These structural properties also explain why some coalitions of officers and politicians manage to navigate out of the coup trap, either by forging an autocratic or democratic political order.

Chapter 4 presents and interprets the core results of the prediction-centered multi-method The Coup Trap in Latin America pioneers. It converts the statistical coefficients in Chapter 3 into probability estimates of successful military coups for every country-year, which accurately predict almost 80 percent of the years with such golpes in the region. This chapter reveals that almost 98 percent of its negative predictions – that the armed forces will stay in their barracks – are accurate. Only 2 percent of its negative predictions are false (type 2 errors), which this chapter identifies and begins to analyze. This chapter also begins to explore inaccurate positive predictions of successful golpes (or type 1 errors), showing that the model warns that conditions can be propitious for the unconstitutional seizure of power for years at a time. This chapter uses a key independent variable – T, or time since the last coup – to place political systems in one of three groups, each of which subsequent chapters examine. Chapter 4 is the pivot between the quantitative and qualitative chapters of The Coup Trap in Latin America.

The introduction to The Coup Trap in Latin America outlines this book’s objectives, methods, and key conclusions. My theory, in a nutshell, suggests that the structure of political competition – its formal and informal rules – determines whether a political system sinks into or escapes from the Coup Trap. The introduction discusses the book’s two-pronged multi-method research design, which pioneers the use of statistical predictions to explain when military coups do and do not occur – and uses analytic narratives to assess their plausibility. The introduction also previews the implications of this book’s findings for theories of dictatorship and democracy, for the study of the military coup and instability more generally, and for explanations of regime development in modern Latin America.

Chapter 7 further develops the study’s critical juncture framework and justifies its extension to cases in South America. Drawing lessons from Eastern Europe, I begin by distinguishing between varying illiberal tendencies in Slovakia and Poland, based on which I offer new theoretical insights. As I elaborate sequences linking (1) illiberals’ divergent ability to be politically dominant back to whether neoliberal reform agents were social democrats or polarizing populists, and (2) contestatory versus moderate tendencies back to whether or not anti-neoliberal protest was institutionalized during critical periods of early market reform, I elaborate the argument about the durable effects of contingency associated with postcommunist junctures. I then make the case for applying the refined framework to South American cases. Here, I note some blind spots in scholarship on Latin American populism and highlight important commonalities between dynamics in Eastern Europe and the Andes. Next, I review the advantages of analyzing developments in Ecuador and Peru from a comparative perspective that is sensitive to both cross- regional and intra-regional patterns of similarity and difference. Ending with a discussion of the insufficiency of standard explanations of illiberal trends, the chapter sets the stage for the paired comparison that follows.

Chapter 1 introduces the study’s core puzzle and overall logic of inquiry. It discusses main themes, locates arguments relative to relevant scholarship, and establishes the analytical framework. Early in the chapter, the puzzle of varying illiberal electoral outcomes is presented and contextualized. Captured by two distinct yet related indicators – illiberal voting and post-neoliberal populist magnitude – illiberal electoral outcomes not only varied persistently across countries but also signaled the high salience of economic issues in postcommunist Europe. The next section establishes the rationale for explaining outcomes by drawing insights from Latin America – another semi-peripheral space that experienced consequential neoliberal junctures. Having argued, based on key economic and political parallels between the two regions, that a critical juncture approach is appropriate also for making sense of developments in Eastern Europe, I spell out the work’s central propositions and highlight theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions. The final sections discuss matters of research design and evidence – namely, the mixed method approach, case studies, and quantitative and qualitative data, including 100 interviews – as well as the book’s organization.

This chapter explores the golden era of the classical doctrine of civil war, which lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century. Its focus is on the Spanish American revolutions and the emergence of the law of neutrality in the context of civil wars. The several case examples illustrate how the familiar questions and disputes from the previous chapters persisted and developed in state practice throughout the period. In addition to the Spanish American revolutions, the chapter also discusses the impact of European and American revolutionary ideologies on international movements and illustrates the significant practical limitations of the classical doctrine: while it stemmed from the practice of the transatlantic world, elsewhere in the world it often seemed absent or selectively applied to deny the legal standing of indigenous and colonial insurgents, or to legitimise local rebellions within Oriental empires.

Chapter 10 demonstrates that a Latin American regional bloc with a common agenda focused on international legal reform emerged in the League of Nations during the 1920s and that the origins of this bloc can be traced to an important but little-known campaign spearheaded by the Uruguayan diplomat Enrique Buero. Correspondence from Buero’s recently uncovered private archives reveals the domestic, international, and bureaucratic political obstacles that had to be overcome in order to forge a coalition in Geneva. Ultimately, Uruguay and Latin America’s pivot to the League created leverage for legal reform regarding the use of force and diplomatic protection across multiple international organizations.