In the image, the body loses its corporeal reality; in the rite, the non-corporeal becomes flesh.

Octavio Paz (1969: 120)

How are images constructed from one of Ecuador's political discourses? This article analyses: (1) the transition in 1857 from a state-centred form of administration of indigenous populations (the tribute system) to a decentralised form in the hands of private and local powers which effectively rendered these populations invisible; (2) the ensuing power-game between Conservatives and Liberals which aimed to forge a symbolic analogue of the indian and create a political field; (3) the manner in which the Liberal Revolution (1895) implanted a ‘ventriloquist's’ political representation which became a channel for indian resistance; (4) the research problems which ‘invisibility’ of the indians and the ‘ventriloquist's’ voice pose for historians.

This article examines changes in gender relations in an Indian pueblo in south-western Nicaragua between Independence and the coffee revolution, when the nation-state was weak and municipal governments exercised considerable power. It analyses landed property, household headship and public control over so-called private morality, and considers how these were influenced by the coffee economy. First, it argues that public regulation of domestic life was important in the consolidation of municipal authority. It legitimated the power of the ladino peasant elite, a key aspect of state formation at the local level. Second, the article examines how the rise of private property altered gendered arrangements. It analyses the relationship between expansion in female land rights and the incidence of female headed households and argues that peasant women's acquisition of land accentuated a pre-existing tendency towards non-marrying behaviour. The study is based on archival sources.

An examination of the evolution of Rómulo Betancourt's views in the 1930s and 1940s shows how he came to look for a close relationship with the United States just as the State Department, and later the Central Intelligence Agency, were coming to view reformist movements such as Betancourt's Acción Democrática as the best possible bulwark against communism in Latin America. The resulting international relationship during the three years of democratic government in Venezuela known as the trienio was cordial and potentially durable. Its failure is indicative of both the importance of local political leadership in the maintenance of democratic openings and the strength of nationalist notions of political legitimacy in US policy.

The way in which ruling elites originally responded to pressures for increasing mass participation in the polity is one of the most crucial variables in the path to democracy. In the case of Uruguay, the first two decades of the century – a period dominated by the historical figure of José Batlle y Ordoñez, – were crucial in the setting up of democratic institutions. During this period, because of its late consolidation as much as its early modernisation, the institutionalisation of the political order coincided with its phase of democratic incorporation. This article argues that it was Batlle's strategy for advancing his political project, as much as the substantive aspects of the policies themselves, that would crystallise the working of Uruguay's democratic politics. While the article focuses mainly on Uruguay, a comparative analysis with similar historical developments in Argentina is used to illustrate some specific aspects of the Uruguayan case.

The truth commissions in El Salvador and Honduras attempted to offer the transitional civilian governments a way to balance their moral and legal obligations with practical political constraints; namely to reconcile calls from different sectors of society to either punish or forgive those responsible for past human rights violations; and to establish new and independent institutions without precipitating a backlash from vested interests which could derail the whole democratic transition. This paper examines the parameters in which these truth commissions operated, and evaluates the role they played in trying to facilitate the democratisation processes in Honduras and El Salvador.

Political change in Mexico since the crisis of 1994 has been characterised by the breakdown of centralised hierarchies and the dispersion of power across geographical regions. We examine the changing relations between regional officials of the National Solidarity Programme (PRONASOL) and local PRI politicians in four Mexican states: Puebla, Nayarit, Tamaulipas, and Baja California. Although PRONASOL was dismantled after 1994, the influence of anti-poverty bureaucrats has varied across geographic regions, depending on whether they had been authorised to engage in grass-roots mobilisation and/or party politics under Salinas. We emphasise the importance of regional politics in transitions from dominant-party regimes, and the impact of conflicts within the political hierarchies of the old regime.

This article looks at the construction of the Indian by government officials and intellectuals during the Estado Novo (1937–45), and the efforts of indigenous peoples to engage these images. State officials – concerned with national consolidation, territorial defense, and racial pedigree – upheld the Indian as an icon who had made invaluable contributions to Brazilian historical and cultural formation. The proto-patriot, however, could only be fully redeemed through government tutelage. Confronted by an ambiguous state project, indigenous groups demonstrated varied responses.