Participatory Governance in Latin America: Promises and Limitations

Maxwell A. Cameron, Eric Hershberg, and Kenneth E. Sharpe, eds., New Institutions for Participatory Democracy in Latin America: Voice and Consequence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Tables, figures, bibliography, index; 263 pp.; hardcover $105, paperback $30, ebook $19.99. Françoise Montambeault, The Politics of Local Participatory Democracy in Latin America: Institutions, Actors, and Interactions. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. Figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index, 288 pp.; hardcover $65, ebook. Patricio Silva and Herwig Cleuren, eds., Widening Democracy: Citizens and Participatory Schemes in Brazil and Chile. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index; 379 pp.; hardcover $87, ebook $90. J. Ricardo Tranjan, Participatory Democracy in Brazil: Socioeconomic and Political Origins. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2016. Figures, tables, notes, bibliography; 288 pp.; paperback $35, ebook. Brian Wampler, Activating Democracy in Brazil: Popular Participation, Social Justice, and Interlocking Institutions. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015. Figures, tables, abbreviations, notes, bibliography, index; 312 pp.; paperback $39, ebook $39.     

Does Welfare Provision Promote Democratic State Legitimacy? Evidence from Brazil's Bolsa Família Program

Conditional cash transfer programs may boost the electoral fortunes of incumbents among beneficiary groups, but do they also influence recipient attitudes toward state legitimacy? This article examines the relationship between Brazil's Bolsa Família program and recipients’ sense of the Brazilian state's political legitimacy, from 2007 to 2014. Using AmericasBarometer data and propensity score matching, this study provides evidence that targeted cash benefits correlate with citizens’ views of the state, but that this relationship is limited to increasing trust in core state institutions, local government, and incumbent political actors. Diffuse dimensions of regime legitimacy, including recipients’ sense of political community, support for regime principles, and retrospective perceptions of national economic performance, are largely unaffected by the receipt of targeted benefits. Over time, the evidence also suggests that the impact of program receipt on these measures of support remains largely unchanged.     

Inching Toward Accountability: The Evolution of Brazil's Anticorruption Institutions, 1985–2010

This article analyzes the evolution of the network of Brazilian federal accountability institutions over the course of the past generation, between the transition to democracy and the end of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's second term. Substantively, the article charts the significant gains that have been made in accountability institutions. Theoretically, it evaluates the evolution of these institutions as a consequence of the distribution of rules, routines, roles, and resources across a larger institutional network, demonstrating that changes in the various bureaucratic agencies have mutually reinforced each other and generated autocatalytic processes of reform.     

Accessibility to infrastructure and disability rights in Nigeria: an analysis of the potential of the discrimination against persons with disability (prohibition) act 2018

A viable way to establish a sense of inclusion for the physically challenged in Nigeria like elsewhere is to provide a sustainable infrastructural plan that integrates the utility concerns of the disabled. Overcoming the difficulties faced by people with disabilities requires interventions to remove environmental and social barriers. This paper examines the right of persons with disability to public vehicular and infrastructural use. It focuses on the recently enacted Discrimination against Persons with Disability (Prohibition) Act, 2018 as well as other international human rights instruments from which Nigeria derives her international obligations. It is observed that the Nigerian society is still unfriendly to the disabled as public infrastructure is constructed without considerations for the disabled.