The scholarship seeking to explain the ineffectiveness of violence against women (VAW) laws has focused on the lack of resources or will to implement these laws. Less attention has been given to how these laws are crafted and positioned in the legal hierarchy, which may undermine them from the start. This article focuses on four cases from Central America, a region where fifty-five laws to protect women from violence were passed between 1960 and 2018, yet VAW continues. It finds that the legal positioning and language of these laws prioritize family unity while undermining women’s rights to protection; thus, these laws fail by design. The article identifies four legal placements that delay (El Salvador), undermine (Honduras), diminish (Nicaragua), or render abstract (Guatemala) the effectiveness of VAW laws in the context of penal and judicial codes. This work has direct policy implications and broader relevance beyond the cases examined here.

From 2016 to 2019, the backlash in Brazil against so-called gender ideology framed gender dissidence as a reason for the country’s perceived decline, playing a central role in the rise of Bolsonarismo, a movement increasingly identified as fascist. In this gender-hostile environment, I examine Brazil’s first trans men’s soccer team, the Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB), and its use of nudity as a response to the political shift rightward and to tell a story about the precarity of minoritized groups across the Americas. The team’s changing approach to trans representation exposes the period as a watershed in Brazilian politics. The MBB’s naked protest during this time of governmental change reveals resistance to the machinations of Brazilian fascism, including censorship, backlash, and shaming. By asserting that the MBB were never just about futebol, the team uses the national sport to enact trans politics and to claim belonging beyond the bounds of normative citizenship.

Same-sex marriage has risen to the top of political agendas across Latin America, but it is still illegal in many countries. Public support about the issue varies greatly, and the roles of the courts, presidents, and legislatures have also differed. This article focuses on legislators because they are charged with representing the public and converting demands into policy. Although many legislatures have now voted on the issue, the literature has not intensively examined the policy makers’ attitudes toward same-sex marriage. This study applies a theoretical framework that extends theories considering context and social contact and uses a survey of the region’s legislators to study the correlates of support for same-sex marriage. Although the study also tests for individual-level variables (e.g., gender and ideology), the models focus on the contextual role of religiosity. The results show that having more secular colleagues encourages even pious legislators to support same-sex marriage.

A substantial amount of scholarly work has been conducted on considerations (or lack thereof) of gender in the context of peace negotiations. While gender-specific concerns, particularly those focused on women’s empowerment, are now emphasized in the language of international and national organizations involved in peacebuilding (e.g., UN Security Council Resolution 1325), many times this language is just “talk.” Often, on-the-ground practice and policy does not reflect the lived experiences of women in post-accord or transitional contexts. This article analyzes the change in roles and the roles available to women in pre-negotiation and framework-setting negotiation processes between the Colombian government and nonstate armed actors. The study examines the negotiations between the Colombian government under the Juan Manuel Santos administration and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia (FARC) in 2012–2016 to interrogate the ways that women, feminist groups, and women’s organizations play a role in pre-negotiation processes.

This study explores the evolution of individual attitudes toward homosexuality in Chile during the period 1998–2018. Based on microdata from the International Social Survey Programme, it finds evidence of a significant rise in the share of people accepting homosexual relationships, from 5.4 percent to 38.5 percent of the population. Observable individual-level socioeconomic characteristics are responsible for only 3.6 percentage points of this shift. In particular, the increase in educational attainment and generational replacement help to explain this trend and account for an increase of 2.6 percentage points (roughly 45 percent of the initial level of acceptance). Nevertheless, the bulk of this shift is due to structural changes in Chilean society, which may have increased acceptance across all the demographic subgroups considered in the analysis.

Affect-based studies consider that peoples’ lives and behaviors cannot be entirely grasped and understood by rational choice models. The main goal of this article is to understand how factors like sexuality and migration affect the relations between people and spaces. Following Spinoza’s Ethics and subsequent interpretations, the article considers that bodies are influenced by previous interactions and act accordingly, and that space is a relational mode of substance perceived through attributes and modes affecting individuals and articulating the relationship of space, sexuality, and migration. This research studies same-sex-attracted men who moved to Tijuana, Mexico. Results show that affects (expressed through actions and passions) inform people’s relations to space based on their valorization of life events and expectations; that the meanings of space are personally constructed, relational, volatile, and invisible to others; and that most interviewees didn’t feel comfortable avowing to the gay identity but identified themselves as such, since, to some extent, gayness can escape from the moral stigma of male-male interaction in Latin America.

El clientelismo en Paraguay es generalizado y socialmente aceptado tanto por los políticos como por la ciudadanía, pero relativamente poco estudiado por la literatura comparada. Este artículo ofrece una descripción cualitativa de los principales actores y lógicas del funcionamiento en los vínculos clientelares entre políticos y la ciudadanía en Paraguay, enfocándose tanto en las relaciones de largo plazo como en las prácticas durante los períodos electorales. El artículo argumenta que el clientelismo en Paraguay está anclado en las estructuras partidarias territoriales, la identificación ciudadana con los principales partidos políticos y en las redes de brokers con vínculos con los vecinos. Durante los períodos electorales los intercambios particularistas se intensifican y culminan con la compra de participación electoral durante el día de las elecciones. El artículo muestra que la parte relacional y electoral del clientelismo en el caso paraguayo son inseparables, condicionando la primera a la segunda. La compra de participación electoral es una práctica que se deriva de relaciones cultivadas a lo largo del tiempo. La investigación está basada en entrevistas a profundidad y trabajo de campo en cuatro ciudades de la zona metropolitana de Asunción.

El tema de la justicia transicional mexicana, materializado a través de una Fiscalía Especial que funcionó entre 2001 y 2006, sigue siendo ignorado en la academia. La mayoría de los estudios existentes supone que la Fiscalía Especial fue creada para generar resultados que contribuirían a la consolidación de la democracia mexicana: particularmente, verdad y justicia. También señalan que esta institución fracasó, porque no obtuvo verdad ni justicia. No coinciden, sin embargo, sobre las razones detrás de dicho fracaso: falta de voluntad política, ausencia de personal capacitado, elaboración de estrategias jurídicas torpes. Este artículo se aleja de estas interpretaciones y rastrea la genealogía de la Fiscalía Especial. Para hacerlo, analiza críticamente el papel crucial que desempeñó en la justicia transicional la Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH), institución que hasta ahora ha sido ignorada en los estudios sobre el tema. El argumento que enmarca esta investigación es que, en México, la justicia transicional fue diseñada por la CNDH de tal manera que contribuyó a perpetuar la injusticia. Este artículo busca mostrar que no es que la Fiscalía Especial haya fracasado en la marcha, sino que desde su origen fue pensada para otorgar un indulto a los perpetradores de crímenes.

This article analyzes the role of the Colombian Council of State, the administrative court of highest level in Colombia, in cases of collective litigation (acción popular). It answers the questions: Do outcomes in these cases vary depending on the right under litigation? Do parties with more resources achieve better outcomes? Does the government hold an advantage when facing other parties? The article analyzes quantitatively an original database of collective litigation cases on environmental protection, public security, the rights of consumers, and administrative morality, and interprets these findings using interview data. Results show that parties’ success rates vary depending on the right under litigation. The national government has the highest litigation success rate, but individuals are more likely to win than stronger parties like department and local governments. The article presents implications following the literature on courts and rights protection in the Global South and party capability.

Exorcismos de esti(l)o is one of Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s least studied books. It is nevertheless of essential importance for understanding the entirety of his poetics. It is a book that condenses the pain of the ostracism and the betrayal inflicted by the revolutionary regime that Cabrera had so strongly supported. The purpose of this article is to highlight the implicit elements of the text that support this hypothesis. It considers the strategies used by the author throughout Exorcismos de esti(l)o to practice the language with which he obsessively tries to draw, in his novelas del yo, a portrait of a lost and unrecoverable Havana, the hopeful Havana preceding the Cuban Revolution. It is an impossible yet obstinate mission. This is why the texts that articulate the impossibility of representation and the anguish that this mission generates deserve special attention.

This essay reviews the following films:

Aborto en Colombia / Abortion in Colombia. Dir. Nicolás Cuenca Rodríguez and Ángela Amaya Aguirre. Prod. Nicolás Cuenca Rodríguez and Ángela Amaya Aguirre. Colombia, 2021,16 min. Film is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahjO46Hwokw.

Fly so Far. Dir. Celina Escher. Prod. Women Make Movies and Prämfilm. El Salvador and Sweden, 2021, 88 min. Film is available on Vimeo and DVD.

Las Libres: La historia después de … / Las Libres: The Story Continues. Dir. Gustavo Montaña in collaboration with Centro Las Libres. Prod. At Dusk Media. Mexico, 2014, 94 min. Film is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpW7KJblkbc.

Que sea ley / Let It Be Law. Dir. Juan Solanas. Prod. Cinesur, Les Films du Sud, and Gameland. Argentina, France, and Uruguay, 2019, 86 min.

This essay reviews the following works:

Women and the Cuban Insurrection: How Gender Shaped Castro’s Victory. By Lorraine Bayard de Volo. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 304. $25.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316630846.

Buenas al pleito: Mujeres en la rebelión de Sandino. By Alejandro Bendaña. Managua: Anamá Ediciones, 2019. Pp. 302. $25.00 paperback. ISBN: 9789992475652.

Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America. By Tanya Harmer. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. x + 384. $34.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781469654294.

Laboring for the State: Women, Family, and Work in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959–1971. By Rachel Hynson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xvii + 332. $34.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107188679.

Students of Revolution: Youth, Protest, and Coalition Building in Somoza-Era Nicaragua. By Claudia Rueda. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019. Pp. xii + 304. $45.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781477319307.

Sandinistas: A Moral History. By Robert J. Sierakowski. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019. Pp. 356. $35.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780268106898.

Celia Sánchez Manduley: The Life and Legacy of a Cuban Revolutionary. By Tiffany A. Sippial. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. xxi + 288. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781469654607.

Revolution and Reaction: The Diffusion of Authoritarianism in Latin America. By Kurt Weyland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 310. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781108728836.

This essay reviews the following works:

Women’s Empowerment and Disempowerment in Brazil: The Rise and Fall of President Dilma Rousseff. By Pedro A. G. dos Santos and Farida Jalalzai. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2021. Pp. 213. $91.05 hardcover. ISBN: 9781439916179.

A Horizon of (Im)possibilities: A Chronicle of Brazil’s Conservative Turn. Edited by Katerina Hatzikidi and Eduardo Dullo. London: University of London Press, 2021. Pp. 195. $35.00 paperback. IBSN: 9781908857897.

Cynical Citizenship: Gender, Regionalism, and Political Subjectivity in Porto Alegre, Brazil. By Benjamin Junge. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 304. $64.70 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826359445.

Precarious Democracy: Ethnographies of Hope, Despair, and Resistance in Brazil. Edited by Benjamin Junge, Sean T. Mitchell, Alvaro Jarrín, and Lucia Cantero. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021. Pp. 238. $39.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781978825659.

O Brasil dobrou à direita: Uma radiografia da eleição de Bolsonaro em 2018. By Jairo Nicolau. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2019. Pp. 144. $23.04 paperback. ISBN: 9788537818886.

Dilma’s Downfall: The Impeachment of Brazil’s First Woman President and the Pathway to Power for Jair Bolsonaro’s Far-Right. By Peter Prengaman and Mauricio Savarese. New York: Associated Press. Pp. 274. $14.52 paper. ISBN: 9781735845999.

Gender and Representation in Latin America. Edited by Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xv + 352. $38.95 paper. ISBN: 9780190851231.

Democracy against Parties: The Divergent Fates of Latin America’s New Left Contenders. By Brandon Van Dyck. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021. Pp. 288. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780822946946.

This essay reviews the following works:

Rebellion in Patagonia. By Osvaldo Bayer. Chico, CA: Edinburgh AK Press, 2016. Pp. 425. $21.95 paperback. ISBN: 1849352216.

Anarchism in Latin America. By Angel J. Cappelletti. Baltimore: AK Press, 2017. Pp. 429. $20.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781849352826.

Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States. Edited by Christopher J. Castañeda and Montse Feu. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2019. Pp. xvi + 305. $30.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780252084577.

155: Simón Radowitzky. By Agustín Comotto. Madrid: Nórdica Libros, 2018. Pp. 269. $46.00 paperback. ISBN: 8417281525.

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire and Revolution in the Borderlands. By Kelly Lytle Hernández. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2022. Pp. 384. $24.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781324004370.

For a Just and Better World: Engendering Anarchism in the Mexican Borderlands, 1900–1938. By Sonia Hernández. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2021. Pp. xxiv + 222. $28.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780252086106.

El anarquismo y la emancipación de la mujer en Chile, 1890–1927. By Manuel Lagos Mieres. Santiago de Chile: Centro de Estudios Sociales Lombardozzi, 2017. Pp. 436.

Anarchists of the Caribbean: Countercultural Politics and Transnational Networks in the Age of US Expansion. By Kirwin R. Shaffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xiv + 318. $49.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781108489034.

The World in a City: Multiethnic Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century Los Angeles. By David M. Struthers. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2019. Pp. 310. $28.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780252084256.

This essay reviews the following works:

Constitutional Change and Transformation in Latin America. Edited by Richard Albert, Carlos Bernal, and Juliano Zaiden Benvindo. Chicago: Hart Publishing, 2019. Pp. 304. $96.72 hardcover. ISBN: 9781509923502.

The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America. Edited by Daniel M. Brinks, Steven Levitsky, and María Victoria Murillo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. 359. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781108702331.

Constituents before Assembly: Participation, Deliberation, and Representation in the Crafting of New Constitutions. By Todd A. Eisenstadt, A. Carl LeVan, and Tofigh Maboudi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xxii + 200. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316619551.

A Revolution in Fragments: Traversing Scales of Justice, Ideology, and Practice in Bolivia. By Mark Goodale. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. Pp. 320. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781478006527.

Only the People Can Save the People: Constituent Power, Revolution, and Counterrevolution in Venezuela. By Donald V. Kingsbury. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2018. Pp. xix + 210. $32.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781438469645.

Paths for Cuba: Reforming Communism in Comparative Perspective. Edited by Scott Morgenstern, Jorge Pérez-López, and Jerome Branche. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. Pp. 408. $$37.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822965497.

Chile Constitucional. By Juan Luis Ossa Santacruz. Santiago de Chile: Fondo de Cultura Económica Chile and Centro de Estudios Públicos. Pp. 133. $12.00 paperback. ISBN: 9789562892056.

Assessing the Left Turn in Ecuador. Edited by Francisco Sánchez and Simón Pachano. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Pp. 403. $149.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9783030276249.