Contemporary Left‐wing Populism in Latin America: Leadership,Horizontalism, and Postdemocracy in Chávez's Venezuela

Critical engagement with the case of Chavismo in Venezuela can offer valuable insights for a fuller understanding of contemporary populism in Latin America. While for some scholars Chávez's populism has fostered popular empowerment, others dwell on the newly confirmed tensions between populism, liberal rights, and democratic proceduralism. This article embraces both positions but moves beyond their one‐sidedness to cast Chavista populism as an inherently contradictory phenomenon that has constituted an ambivalent and transitory process in response to the gradual closure of liberal (post)democracy. Chavista “caesaro‐plebeian” populism is construed as a site of tension and contention, which entails both promises and dangers for democracy. To make these points, the article draws on the discursive analysis of populism and on a new, productive shift in the study of populism in Venezuela, which pursues ethnographic field research on social movements instead of focusing exclusively on the figure of the leader.     

Outsiders and Executive‐Legislative Conflict in Latin America

One of the most significant developments in Latin American democracies since the beginning of the Third Wave of democratization is the rise to power of political outsiders. However, the study of the political consequences of this phenomenon has been neglected. This article begins to fill that gap by examining whether the rise of outsiders in the region increases the level of executive‐legislative confrontation. Using an original database of political outsiders in Latin America, it reports a series of logistic regressions showing that the risk of executive‐legislative conflict significantly increases when the president is an outsider. The likelihood of institutional paralysis increases when an independent gets elected, due to the legislative body's lack of support for the president and the outsider's lack of political skills. The risk of an executive's attempted dissolution of Congress is also much higher when the president is an outsider.     

Client‐ship and Citizenship in Latin America

This article explores the development of political relationships between people and politicians since around 1820 in Latin America. In particular, it develops the idea of client‐ship as a form of political agency and contrasts it to citizenship, linking both to 'natural' and 'historical' interpretations of inequality. The piece claims that client‐ship has dominated political relations and that its twin tools of charisma and votes‐for‐goods allows it to thrive today in the form of neo‐populism. In contrast, citizenship has been thwarted by the efforts of parties which control political agency by imposing norms of intellectual superiority and hierarchies of disdain. Throughout, I argue that issues of race, gender and class are central to political relationships which are the cultural terrain of power, and conclude that parties must begin to take citizens – and citizenship – seriously if they wish to avert a crisis of democracy.     

Corporation‐based Parties: The Present and Future of Business Politics in Latin America

Throughout Latin America, particular business conglomerates have begun to sponsor their own political parties, building those parties on their own corporate assets. These “corporation‐based parties” represent a new wave of highly particularized conservative representation in the region. Indeed, corporation‐based parties have become a regular—though largely unrecognized—feature of contemporary Latin American party systems. This article develops a theory of how and why particular business conglomerates sponsor their own parties, provides substantial evidence for the existence of corporation‐based parties across much of Latin America, and uses a case study of a party built on a Panamanian supermarket chain to demonstrate how such parties are organized. In closing, it discusses the possible future for these parties in the region.     

Politics of Trade in Post‐neoliberal Latin America: The Case of Bolivia

Deploying a two‐level perspective, this article analyses the regional and domestic space that the Morales administration has in which to implement the vision of trade articulated in its Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (PND; National Development Plan). Regionally the Morales administration has attempted to combine the solidarity principles of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA; Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) with the market‐oriented growth possibilities provided by more orthodox integration projects such as the Comunidad Andina de Naciones (CAN; Andean Community of Nations) and the Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur; Southern Common Market). Domestically the Movimiento al socialismo (MAS; Movement Toward Socialism) government must negotiate the destabilising effects of its trade strategy in a polarised national context where business and civil society actors are critiquing from their respective positions both the solidarity principles and market‐oriented elements of the PND trade strategy.     

九一一事件后美国对拉丁美洲的政策与拉美的反美主义

本文对九一一以来美国对拉丁美洲的政策及拉美地区出现的反美主义情绪进行了探讨。文章认为,单边主义是美国长期以来对拉美政策的突出特点。九一一后,由于反恐而进行政策调整的需要,布什政府对拉美的单边主义倾向更加明显,不仅表现在国际事务上以美国的意愿行事,而且在外交上有意忽视拉美国家。这种单边政策是激起拉美国家和人民反美主义的最重要根源之一。拉美国家的公众反美情绪不仅表明了其对美国的态度,而且激励了本地区的领导人挑战美国,甚至导致一些国家发生了政治转向。文章还以古巴为特例,分析了美国对西半球这个唯一的社会主义国家的政策,认为布什政府在很大程度上保持了美国对古巴政策的连续性,其主调仍然是强硬的,但另一方面,由于反恐的需要和国内利益集团的促动,美古关系也出现了松动的迹象。     

Democratic Values,Religiosity, and Support for Same‐Sex Marriage in Latin America

Latin America has been at the forefront of the expansion of rights for same‐sex couples. Proponents of same‐sex marriage frame the issue as related to human rights and democratic deepening; opponents emphasize morality tied to religious values. Elite framing shapes public opinion when frames resonate with individuals’ values and the frame source is deemed credible. Using surveys in 18 Latin American countries in 2010 and 2012, this article demonstrates that democratic values are associated with support for same‐sex marriage while religiosity reduces support, particularly among strong democrats. The tension between democratic and religious values is particularly salient for women, people who live outside the capital city, and people who came of age during or before democratization.     

Pluralism and the Churching of Latin America

Reliable data on Protestant and Catholic membership in 18 Latin American nations show that Protestants have recruited a larger percentage of the population in many nations than previously estimated. Analysis of these data shows that, as predicted by the theory of religious economies, the Catholic Church has been invigorated by the Protestant challenge: Catholic mass attendance has risen to unprecedented levels, and is highest in nations where Protestants have made the greatest gains.     

Latin America and the Dollar Bloc in the Twenty‐first Century: To Dollarize or Not?

The choice of exchange rate regime is a continuing challenge to Latin American policymakers, who currently face pressure to dollarize their economies. The constraints imposed by the "dollar bloc," the informal but powerful currency bloc that ties Latin America to the dominant currency, are central to that choice. Current weak economic performance has called the bloc's norms and principles into question and has made the exchange rate an open issue. Ecuador's full official dollarization is one possible strategy for countries with political stability but poor economic performance to gain access to needed dollar resources. Most of Latin America, however, will continue with variants of managed floating exchange rates, and the periodic foreign exchange crises will provide access to official dollar resources and facilitate renegotiation of the terms of outstanding debt.