Tulchin and Espach (both are at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars) have collected ten essays on the place, choices, dangers, and options of Latin America in the context of economic globalization. The contributors are political scientists, scholars on international affairs, and specialists in Latin America. Three essays feature Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico separately; the rest consider Latin America as a whole, particularly in terms of its foreign and economic policies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
The anthology presents the lectures given on the symposium »From Dictatorship to democracy« at the House of the Wannsee Conference on 13–14 September 2021. The aim of the organizers was to show what problems existed during the transition from dictatorship to democracy in several countries around the world. They all enacted laws or other measures to ensure that fundamental rights and the rule of law would resist anti-democratic ideologies, anti-Semitism, racism, and war crimes in the future. However, the legal system and law in these countries themselves often had their origins in dictatorship. Thus, there were and are obvious and hidden anti-democratic continuities that influence law and the legal system up to the present. Scientifics and jurists from Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, South Africa, and Germany examine these continuities in their contributions.
This is an authoritative large-scale history of the whole of Latin America, from the first contacts between native American peoples and Europeans in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries to the present day.
In this thought-provoking book, Paulo Ravecca presents a series of interlocking studies on the politics of political science in the Americas. Focusing mainly on the cases of Chile and Uruguay, Ravecca employs different strands of critical theory to challenge the mainstream narrative about the development of the discipline in the region, emphasizing its ideological aspects and demonstrating how the discipline itself has been shaped by power relations. Ravecca metaphorically charts the (non-linear) transit from “cold” to “warm” to “hot” intellectual temperatures to illustrate his—alternative—narrative. Beginning with a detailed quantitative study of three regional academic journals, moving to the analysis of the role of subjectivity (and political trauma) in academia and its discourse in relation to the dictatorships in Chile and Uruguay, and arriving finally at an intimate meditation on the experience of being a queer scholar in the Latin American academy of the 21st century, Ravecca guides his readers through differing explorations, languages, and methods. The Politics of Political Science: Re-Writing Latin American Experiences offers an essential reflection on both the relationship between knowledges and politics and the political and ethical role of the scholar today, demonstrating how the study of the politics of knowledge deepens our understanding of the politics of our times.
The study of civil-military relations in Latin America produced a rich debate and research agenda prior to 2000. But this agenda was largely abandoned during the past decade as the spectre of military dictatorship has virtually disappeared, with the political role of the military in many countries dramatically diminished. Indeed, in no country that has initiated a process of holding the military accountable to civilian control has the military openly rebelled. Yet, the institutions and public attitudes that guarantee democratic civilian control of the military exist in a general context of political polarisation, citizen insecurity and in many countries a sense of developing ungovernability. The military coup in Honduras (2009), the military response to the police rebellion in Ecuador (2010), and the speculation concerning the Venezuelan military's behaviour in the event that Hugo Chavez is incapacitated or dies (2013), demonstrates the relevance and importance of the civil-military relationship today. In this volume leading scholars from Latin America, the U.S. and Spain debate the ability of contemporary Latin American civil-military relationships to weather these challenges. The authors examine new types of regimes (the rise of participatory democracy), new political orientations (the renaissance of the Left in Latin America), and new missions for the military. Debate centres on the indicators to evaluate the level of consolidation of civilian control, the manner in which these indicators are measured, and the empirical ambiguities that arise. These challenges must be confronted in order to effectively address the question of how much progress has been made in the region in subordinating the military to civilian control, which countries are lagging behind, and why. Published in association with CILAS, University of California, San Diego.
This book highlights the necessity of analyzing Latin American society and politics within broad comparative frameworks. It explores methodological strategies for regional comparison and offers new approaches to the study of women, state power, corporatism, and political culture.
Since the first edition of the acclaimed Constructing Democratic Governance was published in 1996, the democracies of Latin America and the Caribbean have undergone significant change. This new, one-volume edition, edited by Jorge I. DomA-nguez and Michael Shifter, offers a concise update to current scholarship in this important area of international studies. The book is divided into two parts: Themes and Issues, and Country Studies. Countries not covered by individual studies are discussed in the introduction, conclusion, and thematic chapters. In the introduction, Michael Shifter provides an overview of new developments in Latin America and the Caribbean, with particular emphasis on civil society and problems of governance. The conclusion, by Jorge I. DomA-nguez, ties together the themes of the various chapters and discusses the role of parties and electoral politics. Contributors: Felipe AgA1/4ero, University of Miami; John M. Carey, Washington University in St. Louis; Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, Universidad de los Andes; Michael Coppedge; University of Notre Dame; Javier Corrales, Amherst College; Carlos IvAn Degregori, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos; Rut Diamint, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Denise Dresser, University of Southern California; Mala N. Htun, New School University; Marta Lagos, LatinobarA3metro; BolA-var Lamounier, Augurium: AnAlise; Steven Levitsky, Harvard University; M. Victoria Murillo, Yale University
In this fascinating account of the master social scientist and policy innovator, Gino Germani, written by his daughter, the reader will find a rich social and intellectual history. Germani's life traversed Italy under Mussolini's fascism, Argentina under Peronism, and North America during the glorious days of the social sciences' postwar expansion. With high irony, the biography concludes with Germani's return to Naples, Italy, as what Ana Germani correctly calls "an outsider in the homeland." This is a volume that should be uniquely appealing to area specialists, social psychologists, and those concerned with the cross-currents of politics and society. From his youth in Italy, which he left as a result of persecution by the Fascist authorities, through his long and distinguished career in international social science, and a career carved out in a series of exiles, Germani maintained a unity of purpose based on a liberal world outlook in political terms and a struggle against totalitarianism. Social science was the cement that bound Germani's affirmations of democracy and his opposition to dictatorship. In Argentina, Germani is recognized as the founder of modern scientific sociology. There as elsewhere, his work was grounded on the presumption that a biometric society was the ground on which all science develops. Living and working during one of the most fertile periods in the development of social research in Argentina, Germani was the central protagonist of its most fertile period. Argentina served as a central focal point for discussion and debate on the practices of modern societies and the cultural forms. Whether in Italy, Argentina, or the United States, German's work took seriously the individual and transpersonal events that helped form social structures of modernization. The book is rich in details, providing a full bibliography of the works of Germani, his relationships with foundations, universities and personnel, and brief profiles of individuals who worked with and knew him.
Designed to evaluate the paradigmatic view of the Spanish transition as an ideal model for political and social change, this new and innovative volume appraises Spain's movement to democracy from a variety of important perspectives.
