Benjamin Goldfrank

LOS PROCESOS DE "PRESUPUESTO PARTICIPATIVO" EN AMÉRICA LATINA: ÉXITO, FRACASO Y CAMBIO

Resumen es: este articulo examina intentos encaminados a introducir mecanismos de participacion en el proceso del presupuesto en gobiernos locales. la hipotesis gen...

Neoliberalism and the Left: National Challenges, Local Responses, and Global Alternatives

One of the most interesting developments in Latin America in the early twenty-first century has been the (re)appearance of important political parties and figures on the left. The arrival to power of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Lula da Silva and his Workers’ Party (PT) in Brazil, and Tabare Vazquez with the Broad Front (FA) in Uruguay delighted progressives region-wide while alarming conservatives in the United States, who see an emerging Latin American “axis of evil.” What surprised many about the left’s new-found electoral success is that until recently political parties on the left were often assumed to be moribund or irrelevant. Most scholars viewed the spread of neoliberal reforms in the 1980s and 1990s as the final nails in the coffin for left parties; some now insist that the new left-leaning presidents will not significantly alter the neoliberal market model. This chapter presents a different perspective, one rooted in the left’s experiences in city government. The local perspective helps in understanding how major parts of the left survived the neoliberal era, how many left parties changed their prior revolutionary goals of smashing the state to those of democratizing the state, and how they might still challenge neoliberalism despite multiple constraints.

From Petista Way to Brazilian Way: How the PT Changes in the Road

When Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva won Brazil’s presidency in 2002, he and his Workers’ Party (PT) had most observers convinced that this was a watershed moment for the country’s democracy. After all, the PT had built a reputation for over twenty years for good government and ethics in politics. Yet Lula’s government has been severely undermined by corruption scandals, which surprised the most cynical PT-watchers and fostered broad disillusionment among many long-time PT supporters. This article lays out four interweaving strands of explanation for the PT’s fall from grace, involving: the high cost of Brazilian elections, the strategic decisions of the party’s dominant faction, economic constraints on an eventual Lula administration, and the difficulties of multi-party presidential systems.

Church, State, and Human Rights in Latin America

Latin Americas military dictatorships in the 1970s produced some of the worst human rights abuses in the Americas in the twentieth century. The Catholic Church was positioned to denounce the repression, yet the episcopacys reaction varied by country. Why? In critiquing a prominent claim that competition from Protestant sects was the primary source of this variation, the article argues instead that the history of Church–state relations in a given country represents a path-dependent process presenting different incentives to Church episcopacies when they are faced with state violations of human rights. Where Church–state ties are close, episcopacies are not expected to publicly denounce the state. Where a strict separation between Church and state exists, denunciations of abuse are expected to be more forthcoming. This argument is illustrated with a comparison of Church–state relations in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay and re-assessed using a broader regional sample.

Sustaining Local Citizen Participation: Evidence from Montevideo and Porto Alegre

This paper examines why participatory institutions achieve and sustain substantial levels of participation by a diverse group of citizens in some cities but not in others. The paper focuses on the varying rates of participation over time and across sub-municipal districts in Montevideo and Porto Alegre. It argues that although residents of poorer districts were generally the most likely to participate, especially initially, focused spending of public resources on poor districts alone does not generate sustained participation. Instead, institutional design is crucial to explaining the higher and more sustained rates of participation by a more representative sample of citizens found in Porto Alegre.

Steve Ellner, Latin America’s Radical Left: Challenges and Complexities of Political Power in the Twenty-First Century

classifications, for example, is often seen as a guiding pattern for all viceregal societies. But according to Rappaport’s research, Nueva Granada did not experience the same hardening of racial categories during the eighteenth century as was the case in New Spain. Not only this, but there is no visual record in Nueva Granada akin to casta paintings, classificatory terminology was not as developed, and the term casta was far more fluid and generally confined to administrative documents. Rappaport’s call to leave behind a “one-size fits all model” (p. 224) of caste when approaching the archival record in Spanish America is one that should not be ignored. All too often the region – in both colonial and modern times – is approached as a unit without due consideration to its heterogeneity. The Disappearing Mestizo moves beyond standard images of mestizos as historians of the pre-Hispanic past or as depraved and illegitimate outsiders staged to subvert the colonial order. Instead, Rappaport provides a more intimate picture of unknown mestizos and mestizas working out their identities on the edges of empire, and in so doing challenges her reader to shed prefabricated frameworks to study ideas of race in the early modern Spanish world.

Reinventing the left in the Global South: the politics of the possible

unreachable’ (201). Pils’s work also contributes to our understanding of political and legal reform in China. Her account challenges the notion that the PRC is moving towards a system bounded by the rule of law. Despite formal changes to the legal system, she documents the struggle to use the law to protect rights and shows that the intimidation and repression of rights defence lawyers is not accidental but systemic. As noted previously, over the last decade the Chinese government has harassed and persecuted those associated with the weiquanmovement. Given this persecution and the political environment in China, systematic interviews with these lawyers are difficult to conduct and constitute a previously unutilized source. At the same time, this points to a minor concern that the political environment in China could potentially prevent some of the interview subjects from speaking with complete candour. Nevertheless, the content and depth of the interview material do not suggest self-censorship. Pils’s impressive book could be strengthened by a greater effort to quantify some of its findings, such as the frequency of certain methods of control and advocacy strategies. In addition to their scholarly value, both works have important policy implications. Kinzelbach’s work shows the limits of official, bilateral human rights dialogue, especially given the lack of PRC cooperation and the determination of Chinese MFA officials to manipulate the process. Similarly, Pils calls into question the bias of some funders of human rights and rule of law projects to focus on formal institutions and legislation rather than supporting the work of weiquan lawyers who are spearheading rights protection and are potential change agents. Scholars and practitioners from both the China and human rights fields should find both books worthwhile.

Book Review: Latin American Urban Development into the 21st Century: Towards a Renewed Perspective on the City

This book is both interesting and frustrating, although more the former than the latter. On one hand, the main argument of the editors is important and most of the individual chapters offer much in the way of new insights, new data and new methodologies. On the other hand, the individual chapters do not offer clear support for the editors� main argument, nor do they connect very well to each other. Thus, while readers will surely learn a lot about specific issues in individual Latin American cities, what they take away regarding Latin American urban development overall is less clear. The editors of Latin American Urban Development into the 21st Century justify the new volume as needed to counter what they consider to be the dominant approach to Latin American cities. In the introductory and concluding chapters, they characterise the currently prevailing approach as one that: views cities as divided; examines parts and processes of cities in isolation from one another; privileges a decontextualised and negative vision of shantytowns, informality and cities in general; and leads to limited, fragmented urban development policies. By contrast, their �renewed perspective� is a holistic approach that calls for analysing cities more systemically, such that geographic and sectoral connections can be revealed and local public policy can better address the problems facing Latin American cities such as crime, inequality and segregation, and inadequate infrastructure and services. The editors� brief against the �fractured cities� perspective rings true, and their alternative �whole cities� approach appears compelling. However, the chapters in the rest of the book � organised in two parts under the headings of �Reconceptualizing urban fragmentation� and �

Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador

Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador. By James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2005. 288p.

Deepening Local Democracy in Latin America: Participation, Decentralization, and the Left

90.00 cloth,