How valuable is a cabinet position? While the current literature does not ignore the reality that ministries differ from one another, it does not offer either theoretical or methodological procedures to assess such differences. This article introduces a refined measure of coalescence degree that considers several characteristics ministries may have, as well as politicians’ preferences about cabinet appointments. We estimate the effect of this alternative measure of coalescence on the president’s legislative success using large Brazilian datasets from 1995 to 2014 and an elite survey conducted with 62 Brazilian legislators. Controlling for other coalition management variables (coalition size and ideological heterogeneity), our refined coalescence metric turns out to be a more appropriate tool to assess the president’s performance in Congress.

It has normally been argued that because compulsory voting systems present higher turnout rates relative to voluntary voting systems, they do not generate as many biases between different groups of voters. This article qualifies that view. It argues that in cases in which compulsory voting does not ensure near-universal participation, there is no certainty that switching to voluntary voting will increase inequalities. This issue is examined by looking at Chile, a democracy that moved from compulsory voting to voluntary voting in 2012. The research finds that while the reform generated class bias in urban districts, it also substantially reduced age bias and, in national elections, equalized participation between small and large districts. The conclusion is that abandoning compulsory voting does not necessarily increase turnout biases, since much depends on the structure of preexisting biases and how these are conditioned by particular electoral institutions.

The adoption of proportional representation in Western Europe has been portrayed as either a defensive or an offensive competition strategy used by established parties to deal with the rise of new parties under majoritarian electoral rules. Neither explanation accounts for PR reform in other regions of the world, where the change took place in the absence of increased party competition. Analyzing the history of electoral reform in Latin America, this article argues that in a context of limited party competition, the initial adoption of PR was part of a strategy of controlled political liberalization promoted by authoritarian rulers. Subdividing this general reasoning, the article shows that PR reform followed different paths depending on the nature of the authoritarian regime and the events that called into question the existing majoritarian electoral system. This argument is supported with a comparative historical analysis of cases within and across each route to reform.

The pattern of Latin American regional cooperation has changed greatly during the past five years. New organizations, such as SELA (Latin American Economic System) and OLADE (Latin American Energy Organization), have been formed, while other groups, such as CACM (Central American Common Market), have become moribund. These changes in regional organizations are primarily the result of changes occurring in the developmental orientations and governmental capabilities of the member governments. In this study, two quite different organizations, the Andean Pact and the Amazon Pact, are examined to shed light on the dynamics of contemporary Latin American international relations and to explore new theoretical approaches in the study of regional cooperation schemes.

Brazil’s comunidades eclesiais de base (CEBs) forged a generation of women leaders from poor communities who helped rebuild civil society and spurred the democratic transition. Fifteen years later, the CEBs and their women leaders have largely disappeared from politics. This study examines the reasons for their eclipse and the chances for their reemergence. New alliances with other Catholic progressives, Pentecostals, and feminist groups may enable these women to resume their activist role and may again help revitalize Brazilian civil society.

Most of the countries in the New World were created by economically motivated European colonizers who invaded this hemisphere and defeated the resident populations. The dominant cultural life of these areas is based on the institutions, values and expressions carried by these seekers after empire, as modified by conditions and cultures encountered in the new lands. This is as true of the West Indies as it is of the various larger regions of the two Americas, but the modifying factors are more numerous in these small Caribbean islands. Rarely is there just one European tradition affecting the culture of each of these islands; as European possessions during this era of large-scale wars in Europe, most of them changed hands repeatedly. More important, the establishment of the plantation system and the resultant waves of imported field workers from alien, non-European societies created a cultural conglomerate of incredible variety.

Recent scholarly work on Latin American religion reflects the pluralism and fragmentation of both religion and civil society. What effect will religious practice at the local, “micro” level have on institutions and structures at the “macro” level-namely, the process of democratization? A deeper, simultaneously more foundational and more encompassing definition of democratic politics might be involved. In an increasingly global context, the study of religion and social change in Latin America and among U.S. Latinos needs to take a comparative, truly interamerican approach.

Among the Many Obstacles that confront the government of the United States in its global battle against international drug trafficking, drug-related corruption of foreign governments ranks as one of the most troublesome. It is present in virtually every country. In many of the less developed countries in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, it is pervasive. Not just policemen and customs officials, but judges, generals, cabinet ministers and even presidents and prime ministers are implicated. Corruption in most of these countries is, of course, nothing new—although the temptations posed by the illicit drug traffic are unprecedented. Nor are US diplomats unaccustomed to dealing with foreign corruption. Their experience in this regard dates back to the origins of US diplomacy.

This article extends the analysis of political parties in electorally volatile and organizationally weak party systems by evaluating two implications centered on legislative voting behavior. First, it examines whether disunity prevails where weakness of programmatic and electoral commonalities abound. Second, it analyzes whether inchoate party systems weaken the ability of government parties to control the congressional agenda. The empirical analysis centers on Peru, a classic example of a weakly institutionalized party system, and how its legislative parties compare to those of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the United States. The results lend support to the view that lower unity characterizes weakly institutionalized settings. The agenda-setting power of government parties, however, appears to be influenced more by the majority status of the government than by the level of party system institutionalization.

Since 2002, government nationalizations and contractual breaches in general around the world have surged. South America has witnessed a wave of nationalizations of private enterprises, mostly foreign. Some analysts contend that this trend is shaped by the left-wing ideological orientation of the governments, whereas others argue that a more robust explanation is the combination of economic pressure and constraint factors. This article contributes to the debate by using a nuanced institutional analytical framework based on the concept of company versus government opportunism, applied to the recent nationalization of previously privatized companies. It examines Argentina, a country that in the last two decades has seen radical policy reversals, from sweeping privatization of state-owned enterprises in the 1990s to a renationalization effort with some of the same companies in the early 2000s.

Grassroots environmental activism among Latin America's poor has altered the debate over environmental policy, social welfare, and citizenship. Yet the question remains whether this social mobilization of the poor is part of a larger trend toward broader environmental concerns and democratic political participation, or a shortlived movement susceptible to the same pressures that have dissolved community mobilization in the past. This article compares Brazil with other Latin American and European countries in surveys of environmental awareness, concerns, and reported behavior. It finds that Brazilians residing in the urban periphery link their own local environmental concerns to more global considerations, and that concern for and activism on environmental issues is positively related to wider community involvement.

Despite the recent shift to democratic regimes and market-based economies, in many Latin American countries the military retains important economic roles as owner, manager, and stakeholder in economic enterprises. Such military entrepreneurship poses a challenge to the development of democratic civil-military relations and, by extension, to the development of liberal democracy in the region. While scholars have noted this situation with concern, they have given little attention to distinguishing the different types of military entrepreneurship, which reflect distinct historical patterns and implications. This article identifies two major types of military entrepreneurs in Latin America: industrializers, determined to build national defense capabilities and compete for international prestige; and nation builders, seeking to promote economic development that can foster social development and cohesion. Case studies of Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and Ecuador demonstrate important differences between these two types in their origins, paths, and political consequences.

International mega-events inject millions of dollars into host countries’ economies, yet few studies assess which citizens benefit from events and which do not. Governments justify their bids for mega-events by arguing that infrastructure projects, event-related jobs, and tourist spending benefit many citizens. However, researchers find mixed impacts on host economies and the average citizen. Scholars and activists argue that a few businesses benefit while high prices and event-specific laws exclude poor citizens. Under what conditions do poor citizens benefit from mega-events? This article analyzes original interview, survey, and participant observation data on street vendors in São Paulo, Brazil during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The project finds that most street vendors lost money, while a minority made record profits. Those who benefited from the event used brokers, bribes, and pockets of forbearance to circumvent FIFA’s exclusionary rules.

Over the past fifteen years the military have seized power in most major South American countries, leaving only Colombia and Venezuela with democratic regimes. The armed forces claim that only they are capable of controlling the domestic violence and social disruptions which accompanied the rapid political and economic changes of the 1960s. This process of social conflict and subsequent military intervention has been especially notable in the countries of the subcontinent region—Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Uruguay.

In the Renaissance, colonization and exploitation followed soon after travel and discovery. Spaniards and Portuguese were the vanguard of this movement in the Atlantic world, and it is not surprising that the city was among the institutions brought by them as part of their cultural heritage. What makes the story of the urban conquest of Latin America particularly interesting are the specific configurations of society in the cities of empire and the conscious use of the city as a symbol of imperium.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the functions and social organization of two of these cities, Mexico City and Salvador da Bahia, and to demonstrate that despite a variety of often striking differences, the social structures of both reflected similar solutions to the common problem of integrating newly-created groups into an already structured society.

Under what conditions do collaborations between informal workers and the state in public service provision lead to socially beneficial synergies, and when might they intensify inequalities? This article, based on 14 months of ethnographic research, addresses this question through a comparative case study of two attempts to co-produce recycling services in São Paulo. The first, a grassroots organizing effort in the 1980s and 1990s, improved the incomes and conditions of hundreds of waste pickers and inspired a national upsurge of waste picker organizing. The second, an ambitious overhaul of waste management in the early 2000s, generated about 1,500 jobs but functionally excluded the very population of street waste pickers it was designed to benefit. The findings suggest that co-production is most likely to lead to pro-poor outcomes if concerted efforts are made to level inequalities between poor constituents and more powerful stakeholders during processes of policy design and implementation.

In recent years Latin America has become the principal source of narcotic drugs on the illicit United States market. Five of the nine countries granted top-priority status in State Department narcopolitics are located in Latin America. Mexico, having earlier supplied 80% of the heroin used by American addicts, is currently the source of approximately 40% of the drug. Coca grown primarily in Bolivia and Peru, shipped through Ecuador, and processed into cocaine in Colombia monopolizes the world market. In the wake of Mexico's highly successful herbicide campaign, Colombian marijuana has come to dominate the American pot scene. And again in response to U.S. demand, Colombia has become the world's foremost manufacturer of illicit methaqualone.

Recent violence, civil war, revolution, and economic crises have focused attention on Central America. Analyses of these crises vary widely. Class struggle, Soviet or U.S. imperialism, geopolitical balance of power, the energy crisis, and the general malaise of the West all contribute to the turmoil on the isthmus. Yet the bitter political and economic realities of contemporary Central America are deeply rooted in the past. The present conflicts are neither recent in origin nor conducive to short-term military, economic, or political solutions. This article offers a historical interpretation of modern Central America as an explanation of the current crises. The hypothesis of this overview is that the current crises all represent the inevitable collapse of political, economic, and cultural structures erected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to serve the interests of the elites who commanded the Liberal Reforms or Revolutions of that era, but that fail to meet the demands of the societies they created.

Although Poland and Mexico differ in many important respects, certain notable similarities in their historical patterns of development and in their geopolitical contexts have invited several attempts to compare the two systems (Hughes, 1986; Croan, 1970; Gentleman and Zubek, 1992 forthcoming). Despite the substantial economic potential of each country, each has had only uneven success in economic development. Each has undergone repeated economic setbacks in spite of having undertaken epic initiatives, particularly in the area of industrialization. In the political realm, although both countries have manifested a passionate nationalist ethos in the past, neither society has proved able to develop a modern democratic system.

Many Latin American countries have passed laws intended to address femicide and other forms of violence against women. Yet the implementation of these laws has been inconsistent at best. This article analyzes the case of Nicaragua, which passed a comprehensive law on gender-based violence (Law 779) in 2012. While celebrated by local women’s organizations, Law 779 was subsequently weakened through a series of legislative reforms and executive decrees. This article seeks to explain why state actors in Nicaragua initially supported Law 779 and later sought to undermine it. It argues that in contexts characterized by a high concentration of political power like Nicaragua, transnational governance structures are insufficient to ensure the success of gender violence legislation. Through an analysis of Law 779, this article contributes to broader debates about the nature of state legitimacy and the potential of legal advocacy to address violence against women.