This essay reviews the following works:

Legislative Institutions and Lawmaking in Latin America. Edited by Eduardo Alemán and George Tsebelis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xvii + 266. $90.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780198777861.

Democratization by Institutions: Argentina’s Transition Years in Comparative Perspective. By Leslie E. Anderson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 292. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780472053230.

Political Institutions and Party-Directed Corruption in South America: Stealing for the Team. By Daniel W. Gingerich. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xviii + 282. $34.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107040441.

Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change. By Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman. New Jersey Princeton University Press, 2016. Pp. xxii + 396. $32.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780691172156.

Institutions on the Edge: The Origins and Consequences of Inter-Branch Crises in Latin America. By Gretchen Helmke. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. xvii + 183 pp. $28.99 paperback. ISBN: 9780521738408.

How Democracies Die: What History Reveals about Our Future. By Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. New York: Penguin, 2018. Pp. 320. $16.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781524762940.

En abril del año 2015 se promulgó la ley que creó el acuerdo de unión civil en Chile. Este artículo investiga las principales ideas discutidas en el debate legislativo y del rol que cumplieron profesores de derecho de familia invitados como expertos al mismo. Proponemos que la participación de estos abogados fue marginal dentro y fuera del Congreso. Como consecuencia, la ley que creó el acuerdo de unión civil presentó serias falencias. En este artículo proponemos considerar las batallas intra-profesionales por el reconocimiento de un saber experto, como un factor clave en la formulación de políticas en materia de género y sexualidad. Y de paso, esperamos abrir un debate desde una perspectiva interdisciplinaria que reimagine al derecho de familia desanclado de relaciones diádicas, centradas en la atracción sexual y orientadas a la procreación.

On the basis of data collected by the RETTRANS survey (2011–2012) on Bolivian migrants living in Spain, this article aims to identify the influence of the 2008 economic crisis on the determinants marking the migrants’ return intention. In this regard, there is a need to incorporate the concept of double embeddedness based on migrants’ social networks (meso level), the way migration is imbricated in persons’ lives (micro level); and how, at a macro level, economic and social transformations of different contexts affect these decisions. The article highlights that unexpected changes in living conditions trigger a reconfiguration of these mixed factors that condition return intentions.

This essay reviews the following works:

Medicine and Nation Building in the Americas, 1890–1940. By José Amador. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 219. $39.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780826520210.

Medicine and Public Health in Latin America: A History. By Marcos Cueto and Steven Palmer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 306. $32.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781107633018.

A History of Family Planning in Twentieth-Century Peru. By Raúl Necochea López. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Pp. xii + 234. $37.50 paperback. ISBN: 9781469618081.

Progressive Mothers, Better Babies: Race, Public Health, and the State in Brazil, 1850–1945. By Okezi T. Otovo. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Pp. x + 273. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477309056.

The recent return of peace to El Salvador is providing increasingly favorable conditions for scholarly research. This encouraging climate will help Salvadoran and guest researchers make up for years of difficult and repressive conditions. Some researchers may begin by examining contemporary questions related to the recent revolutionary process, but historical research should also be greatly facilitated. Entrepreneurial searches for archival materials on the period preceding the mid-twentieth century can be surprisingly successful when one combines a national outlook with careful regional probing. This research note will provide a guide to archival and other historical materials available in the United States and El Salvador and will place these sources in the context of major questions left unanswered by the historiography covering 1700 to 1940.

Gendering Legislative Behavior: Institutional Constraints and Collaboration. By Tiffany D. Barnes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 274. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316507650.

Women, Politics, and Democracy in Latin America. Edited by Tomáš Došek, Flavia Freidenberg, Mariana Caminotti, and Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. v + 243. $87.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781349950089.

Inclusion without Representation in Latin America: Gender Quotas and Ethnic Reservations. By Mala Htun. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. x + 226. $26.68 paperback. ISBN: 9780521690836.

Women in Mexican Politics: A Study of Representation in a Renewed Federal and Democratic State. By Fernanda Vidal Correa. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016. Pp. ix + 122. $75.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781498534390.

Gender, Institutions, and Change in Bachelet’s Chile. Edited by Georgina Waylen. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. ix + 244. $101.64 hardcover. ISBN: 9781137501974.