By analyzing women's and feminist mobilizations from 1968 to 2009, this article offers a periodization of how women have affected institutions during the transition to democracy in Mexico. We argue that such transition remains fragile but visible, as it results from wide social mobilization; at the same time, we show that multilayered connections between democratic change and gender transformation characterize women's mobilization in favor of gender demands.

Recent studies of the history of Mexican cinema continue to speak of the complex relations between the state and the film industry, and the most frequently analyzed aspects tend to be the same: the reach and forms of censorship, as well as the financial dependence on the state. To broaden this perspective, I propose a classification of cinematic discourses that represent the relations between film characters and state powers. I discuss four basic modes of representation that, determined by historical and economic circumstances, reflect and mediate the attitudes and dispositions of viewers toward the political regime. For each mode, I discuss a sequence in a paradigmatic film, analyzing visual and ideological aspects in relation to the political moment at the time of the film's release. Finally, I argue that, despite the resurgence of the Mexican cinema and a more critical tone in its approach to state institutions, fictional films still rest on indirect and allegorical representations of recent events. This is due to the uncertainty of the prolonged and still-incomplete transition to institutional democracy in Mexico.

Produced along the Río de la Plata during the nineteenth century, shipped to Havana, and consumed by African slaves, the salt-cured beef known as tasajo affected both of those places and, to some degree, the Atlantic world in general. Initial exploration of the tasajo trail that connected Buenos Aires and Cuba employs primary sources such as nineteenth-century descriptions and shipping records to characterize the landscapes, places, routes, and agents of the largely unexplored research territory of that anomalous commodity: one that, unlike others such as sugar, slaves not only produced but also consumed; one that underpinned more prominent, latitudinal transatlantic flows such as the slave trade, yet itself flowed meridionally; one that, like all those flows, had an oceanic component that comprised an actively lived space of flows rather than a dead space of separation; and one that might be mundane, yet helped fuel major transformations of two of the principal nodes of Hispanic Atlantic.

Grounded in literature review and an ethnographic study, this article examines contemporary Brazilian domestic life. Relations among women (employers and maids) and between women and men are analyzed with a focus on the home as a space in which gender, race, and class inequalities are constantly reproduced. The article argues that what happens in domestic life is constitutive of wider social divisions and that the domestic is a universe integral to the national social context. A case in point is the connection between the widespread use of paid domestic labor and the naturalization of black women as subservient, complementing the pairing of whiteness and class entitlement. Another case is the buffering role of maids in the development of gender conflicts in well-off homes, thus blurring gender hierarchies at a broader scale. Locating the domestic within the recent discussion on global domestic labor, the article compares particularities of Brazilian domestic life to those elsewhere.

El artículo analiza los movimientos indígenas de México, los cuales exigen del gobierno central y de la sociedad en general el reconocimiento de México como una nación cultural y lingüísticamente plural. El municipio, implantado inicialmente en México por los españoles como instrumento de conquista, ha sido esculpido por los indígenas como un espacio desde el cual pueden defender su derecho a ser diferentes y a contrarrestar las políticas estatales. En espacios locales, independientemente de las posiciones políticas y las discusiones ideológicas, los indígenas han mantenido, recreado o elaborado formas de gobierno que se distinguen de aquellas localidades consideradas mestizas o no-indígenas. También las comunidades, localidades, en distintos momentos históricos se han valido de esta institución como un medio de defensa, resistencia e impugnación de las políticas del Estado.

Today women in Guatemala are killed at nearly the same rate as they were in the early 1980s when the civil war became genocidal. Yet the current femicide epidemic is less an aberration than a reflection of the way violence against women has become normalized in Guatemala. Used to re-inscribe patriarchy and sustain both dictatorships and democracies, gender-based violence morphed into femicide when peacetime governments became too weak to control extralegal and paramilitary powers. The naturalization of gender-based violence over the course of the twentieth century maintained and promoted the systemic impunity that undergirds femicide today. By accounting for the gendered and historical dimensions of the cultural practices of violence and impunity, we offer a re-conceptualization of the social relations that perpetuate femicide as an expression of post-war violence.

Now that racism has been officially recognized in Brazil, and some universities have adopted affirmative-action admission policies, measures of the magnitude of racial inequality and analyses that identify the factors associated with changes in racial disparities over time assume particular relevance to the conduct of public debate. This study uses census data from 1950 to 2000 to estimate the probability of death in the early years of life, a robust indicator of the standard of living among the white and Afro-Brazilian populations. Associated estimates of the average number of years of life expectancy at birth show that the 6.6-year advantage that the white population enjoyed in the 1950s remained virtually unchanged throughout the second half of the twentieth century, despite the significant improvements that accrued to both racial groups. The application of multivariate techniques to samples selected from the 1960, 1980, and 2000 census enumerations further shows that, controlling for key determinants of child survival, the white mortality advantage persisted and even increased somewhat in 2000. The article discusses evidence of continued racial inequality during an era of deep transformation in social structure, with reference to the challenges of skin color classification in a multiracial society and the evolution of debates about color, class, and discrimination in Brazil.

En este trabajo se analizan los procesos económicos en las dos principales unidades económicas y demográficas del territorio argentino en la primera mitad del siglo XIX. Se emplea para ello la abundante información historiográfica disponible y se analizan en detalle dos censos económicos de Córdoba en 1838 y de Buenos Aires en 1839. Por un lado se observa la divergencia creciente en esta etapa entre estas dos economías luego de la independencia, comparando sus dinámicas y sus tamaños relativos. Seguidamente se analiza la relación entre estos desempeños con los niveles de distribución de riqueza, con la intención de ponerlos en discusión con los modelos analíticos vigentes.

Using data from the National Survey of Standards of Living conducted in Guatemala in 2000, this article tests the hypothesis that Guatemalan households use child labor and reduce child schooling to cope with household shocks. First, the authors use factor analysis to estimate the latent household propensity to natural disasters and socioeconomic shocks. Then, they estimate bivariate probit models to identify the determinants of child labor and schooling, including household propensity to natural disasters and socioeconomic shocks. Results suggest that households use child labor to cope with natural disasters and socioeconomic shocks. In contrast, the authors found no evidence that suggests that households reduce child schooling to cope with shocks. Findings also indicate that poor households are more likely to use child labor and schooling reduction as strategies to cope with socioeconomic shocks.

El propósito de este artículo es contribuir al debate acerca de la cohesión social en América Latina a través de una propuesta conceptual y metodológica para su estudio. En particular proponemos la noción de trasgresión normativa como modo de entender la solidez-debilidad del vínculo social. A partir de los resultados de un estudio piloto realizado en la ciudad de Santiago de Chile, pudimos constatar que los niveles de trasgresión son generalmente bajos, lo que manifiesta la adhesión a los mecanismos sancionados como legítimos para participar en la sociedad. No obstante, los resultados reflejaron también la existencia de un grupo significativo de jóvenes que transgrede no sólo algunas sino que la mayoría de las reglas que rigen el comportamiento esperable en diversas esferas de la vida social (tanto a nivel de la vida privada como pública). Más importante aún, los resultados de nuestro estudio sugieren que tal actitud o comportamiento transgresor está relacionado con el debilitamiento del vínculo social.

The Brazilian democratization took place between 1985 and 1988. In 1985, the authoritarian power holders transferred political power to civilians, and in 1988, a new democratic constitution was enacted, thus finalizing the transition. The end of the transition triggered processes of participation in different Brazilian cities, such as São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Recife, and Rio de Janeiro. However, only in Porto Alegre could the political context in the postdemocratization period generate a process of reverting priorities, that is to say, of inverting the pattern of democratic participation and the pattern of public investment at the urban level. In this article, I show the social conditions of the poor in the city of Porto Alegre in 1985, explain the emergence of participatory budgeting in the city, and show how democracy made a difference in the living conditions of the urban poor in the city of Porto Alegre. In the second part of the article, I analyze the recent expansion of participatory budgeting in Brazil and its recent expansion to midsize cities. In the final part of the article, I show how new participatory institutions are being introduced at the federal level of government. Participation at the local and national levels is making a difference in the living conditions of the Brazilian poor.

What do technology-driven bureaucratic sectors do when their budgets are cut? In Latin America, this type of state institution has come to expect budget reductions, given recurrent economic crises, lack of coherent science policy, and more recently, state rationalization policies. On the basis of in-depth interviews I conducted with nuclear specialists of the region and drawing from network theories, I argue that bureaucratic institutions with expertise in nuclear science and technology respond strategically to decreased government spending by becoming more active in transnational policy networks. I test this argument using social network and maximum likelihood techniques to study collaborative research projects in nuclear science and technology among twenty Latin American countries over a period of twenty years (1984–2004). Study findings confirm expectations and carry implications for how science policies are adopted in Latin American states under chronic budget deficits.

This note reviews the targeting performance of Bolsa Família and its impact on inequality, poverty, consumption, education, health care, and labor force participation. Bolsa Família has several design and implementation characteristics that distance it from a pure human-capital-based conditional cash transfer model. For that reason, we compare the impact of Bolsa Família to that of other conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America, such as in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile. We show that, as have other programs, Bolsa Família has helped reduce inequality and extreme poverty and has improved education outcomes, without having a negative impact on labor force participation. Where the program has failed to have its intended impact, in health and nutrition, supply-side constraints seem to be the principal problem.

This article takes issue with influential views in Brazil that depict the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), the largest popular movement in this country, as a threat to democracy. Contrary to these assessments, it argues that a sober review of the MST's actual practice shows that it is far from an antistate or antidemocratic organization. Quite to the contrary, the MST demands that the state play an active part in reducing the nation's stark social inequities through the institution of an inclusive model of development. The MST's contentious edge has contributed to Brazil's ongoing democratization process by (1) highlighting the role of public activism in building political capabilities among the poor and catalyzing downward redistribution policies; (2) facilitating the extension of basic citizenship rights, broadening the scope of the public agenda, and strengthening civil society through the inclusion of groups representing the most vulnerable strata of the population; and (3) fostering a sense of hope and utopia through the affirmation of ideals imbued in Brazil's long-term, complex, and open-ended democratization process.

Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart's Para leer al Pato Donald (How to Read Donald Duck) is considered one of the most significant works of Latin American cultural criticism. Despite the significance of Donald Duck to the history of Latin American cultural criticism and to Dorfman's own trajectory as a writer, thus far, critical studies of Dorfman tend to gloss his essays, ignore his journalism, and focus solely on his literature, especially on his play La muerte y la doncella (Death and the Maiden). While the attention to Death and the Maiden is certainly well founded, it is worth considering how these two works complement each other in Dorfman's career, given the apparent lack of a shared aesthetic between the playful cultural criticism of Donald Duck and the sparse language of Death and the Maiden. In fact, attending to Donald Duck and Dorfman's other nonfiction texts reveals the ways that he has worked across styles and genres on a series of central issues that form the core of his work. As a complement to research on Dorfman's literary production, this article focuses on his media criticism and his journalism, two areas of his work that have received the least critical attention, to suggest that Dorfman's literary production must be understood as part of a larger project, one that includes his essays, journalism, and other cultural activities.

El objetivo del trabajo es analizar los determinantes de las políticas públicas de naturaleza social en los estados brasileños. Más específicamente, se trata de examinar el gasto público en las áreas de salud y educación y explorar las posibles causas de la variación eventualmente observada. La motivación teórica de esta propuesta adviene de una línea de investigación en la literatura que afirma que a nivel estatal el ejecutivo es una fuerza sin contraposición dentro del sistema político y que, además, la lógica de producción de políticas públicas estaría, sobre todo, vinculada a los objetivos individuales del gobernador. Entretanto, según nuestros resultados fueron descartadas las hipótesis nulas de la inexistencia de un efecto positivo de la ideología del gobernador sobre el nivel del gasto social y de la ausencia de impacto negativo del número de comisiones, aún en gobiernos controlados por la izquierda, en este mismo nivel de gasto.

Este trabajo busca evaluar las brechas de salarios entre hombres y mujeres a partir de regresiones de cuantiles, utilizando los datos de la Encuesta de Protección Social 2002–2006. Las estimaciones realizadas toman en cuenta la potencial endogeneidad de la variable educación y se incluyen controles de experiencia laboral efectiva.

Se encuentra que el efecto características es pequeño y estadísticamente no significativo hasta aproximadamente el quintil 50 (mediana), donde se hace positivo (favorable a las mujeres) y crece monotónicamente hasta llegar a 12 por ciento en el percentil 90. El efecto parámetro (o componente no explicado) es siempre negativo a lo largo de toda la distribución. Notablemente, no encontramos un efecto techo en el mercado laboral chileno una vez que controlamos por la potencial endogeneidad de la variable educación. Las estimaciones intra-ocupación revelan que las mayores brechas de salarios se encuentran entre trabajadores del comercio y obreros y trabajadores agrícolas calificados.

La presente nota de investigación aborda el tema de las representaciones sociales sobre la solidaridad, basada en una investigación recientemente realizada. El estudio intenta captar la circulación social del concepto de solidaridad, observando los discursos con que éste es construido, las prácticas que reflejan y los modos de vinculación social que promueven. Esta nota presenta las diferentes representaciones actuales sobre la solidaridad en tanto aparecen en piezas publicitarias del gobierno chileno, de empresas y de organizaciones sociales. En los llamados a la ciudadanía a ejercer la solidaridad, las diferencias entre estos discursos tienden a aminorarse y priman los valores neoliberales. Ello fundamenta la observación de una neoliberalización de la solidaridad. El estudio además concluye que este sustrato neoliberal del discurso solidario que utilizan las piezas publicitarias analizadas, pasa desapercibido al ciudadano común, que se centra principalmente en la presentación del tema, sólo muy extraordinariamente en la forma de presentación, y casi nunca en los efectos sociales de dicha enunciación.

This article reviews the state of Brazilian democracy at the close of the Cardoso-Lula era. Brazil has now completed a quarter century of competitive politics, the longest democratic period in the country's history. Although evaluations of the regime's prospects were often pessimistic in the 1985–1993 period, the performance of democracy improved markedly after the Plano Real stabilization plan in the mid-1990s, which was followed by significant policy achievements under presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Party of Brazilian Social Democracy, or PSDB) and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers' Party, or PT). Since 1995, the axis of national politics has turned on the competition between the PSDB and allies versus the PT and allies. Under this emerging bicoalitional architecture, several key policy domains have been objects of consensus between the two camps, which has led to major policy advances; however, certain policy areas remain outside the zone of consensus and pose enduring challenges. Despite the improving quality of democracy, the mass public continues to display a surprisingly high level of indifference to the regime type.