Postcolonial criticism and theory have been instrumental not only in showing how Western texts have constructed non-Western peoples and cultures, but also in analyzing discourse on the racialized Other in travel writings by members of formerly colonized societies and cultures who may reinscribe—consciously or unconsciously—the structural values of cultural domination. As privileged members of comparable societies that had assimilated and been assimilated into dominant ideologies of European cultural and biological superiority, Spanish American visitors to the United States during the segregation era uniquely exemplify such discourse and thus merit scholarly attention. Examining—within their respective cultural and historical contexts—selected texts by six Spanish American writers who visited or lived in the United States during the period 1880-1947, this paper analyzes their observations of, experiences with, and reactions to the realities of racial separation and the attendant violence against African Americans in order to determine the extent to which the writers resisted or participated in the “othering” process that represented African Americans as different and inferior.

Scholars have recast debates on globalization by emphasizing both national actors’ selective appropriation of transnational practices and their hybrid reinvention in national settings. Drawing on Nestor García Canclini’s concepts of “global communities “ and “hybrid cultures, “ I explore these debates by comparing gay and lesbian activists’ first experiments in electoral activism in Mexico and Brazil, both occurring in 1982. The different electoral strategies that prevailed in each country drew on the transnational arena in different ways. To explain these differences, I consider the relative strength of competing sectors within heterogeneous social movement fields and their variable participation in competing global communities. The relative influence of these sectors and thus the relative salience of specific transnational practices, in turn, reflected each movement’s embeddedness in broader opposition movements to authoritarian regimes. Finally, I argue that these practices should be read contextually, with attention given to their transformation and limitations in national settings.

This article evaluates postelector al conflicts in Mexico’s Oaxaca state before and after the state government legally recognized usos y costumbres—local leader selection via traditional practices (rather than parties and secret ballots). Assessing usos y costumbres within the normative debate between multiculturalists and pluralists on incorporation of ethnic minorities, the article compares the level of postelectoral conflict in usos y costumbres and non-usos y costumbres municipalities. It argues that since such conflicts have increased in Oaxaca over the last decade while simultaneously diminishing dramatically in Mexico’s other 31 states, the cause is probably unique to Oaxaca. Conflict may be at least partially attributed to perverse implementation incentives created by the law’s provocation of conflicts requiring mediation (rather than judicial verdicts). While further research is needed to test normative claims that usos y costumbres increase governing institutions’ credibility and foster positive group identities, the article concludes that while the customary practices “experiment” has failed at least by one criterion, it may warrant reconsideration if customary elections can be viewed as a set of evolving, instrumental processes, rather than as fixed, static, and essentialist conditions.

Political parties are crucial for democratic politics; thus, the growing incidence of party and party system failure raises questions about the health of representative democracy the world over. This article examines the collapse of the Venezuelan party system, arguably one of the most institutionalized party systems in Latin America, by examining the individual-level basis behind the exodus of partisans from the traditional parties. Multinomial logit analysis of partisan identification in 1998, the pivotal moment of the system’s complete collapse, indicates that people left the old system and began to support new parties because the traditional parties failed to incorporate and give voice to important ideas and interests in society while viable alternatives emerged to fill this void in representation.

This paper demonstrates that in Latin America a significant portion of the increased legislative party system fragmentation since the 1980s is explained by the recent political incorporation of ethnic populations. Until now, scholars have likely not identified this relationship because they have not used the nuanced measures of ethnic fractionalization that account for internal diversity of indigenous populations and race, and because they have not focused on the time period when ethnic peoples were politically incorporated. In addition to demonstrating this relationship statistically, we use two case studies from Bolivia and Ecuador to illustrate how in recent years the dynamic relationship between ethnic groups and political parties in Latin American legislatures has changed and resulted in the statistical association between ethnic fractionalization and party system fragmentation that we observe.

A growing percentage of international aid is distributed through local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Scholarship is divided on how that aid affects domestic politics. One side argues that aid to NGOs reinforces the status quo. As NGOs become dependent on external funding, they lose sight of their original goals. The other side contends that channeling funds to NGOs generates associational activity; producing political change by empowering previously marginalized groups. We test these competing hypotheses in Rondonia, Brazil, measuring the impact of internationally funded NGO activity on voting behavior. We find that the impact of aid varies with the institutional environment. At the state level, more votes for the conservative governor came from municipalities whose NGOs received project money. In contrast, the same municipalities registered a significant shift to leftist candidates at the presidential level. The findings have broad implications for the impact international aid has on political competition, political change, and democracy.