Abstract, Between Academia and Civil Society: The Origins of Latin American Studies in the Netherlands

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Between Academia and Civil Society: The Origins of Latin American Studies in the Netherlands
by Michiel Baud


Dutch Latin American studies as a field of academic teaching and research emerged in the late 1960s and became consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s. It began as a purely academic endeavor, but in a changing Dutch and global society in the 1970s it rapidly became connected to and influenced by social and political processes in Latin America. The strong Christian and social-democratic traditions in the Netherlands allowed for strong links between academic researchers and civil society organizations. This resulted in the productive coexistence of academic and more political objectives and activities and allowed Dutch Latin American studies to grow into a dynamic field. A review of this experience calls attention to the importance of local conditions for understanding the consequences of the Cold War for academic research.

Abstract, Civil Society Reconstruction: Popular Organizations in Postearthquake Concepción

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Civil Society Reconstruction: Popular Organizations in Postearthquake Concepción
by Jeanne W. Simon and Katia Valenzuela-Fuentes                               


The Chilean province of Concepción was little prepared for the impact of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that took place on February 27, 2010. Because of the destruction of roads and bridges, the power outage, and ineffective communication, each neighborhood was essentially left to fend for itself with virtually no assistance from local and provincial authorities. Within the first 24 hours, panic hit, with stores being looted and local politicians calling for a military presence, and neighbors joined together to protect their property from looting gangs, even in the poorest neighborhoods. Most of these committees were not based on the traditional neighborhood councils that had emerged since the return to electoral democracy in 1990. In the emergency camps established by families that had lost their houses, the new leaders established a more autonomous and horizontal leadership style in their search for decent living conditions and a definitive housing solution. At first glance, these new leaders appear to be a return to the autonomous popular organizations that emerged during the dictatorship but were demobilized under electoral democracy. Ironically, the earthquake and the new center-right government seem to have offered a political opportunity for the reemergence of a more autonomous civil society.

Abstract, Deepening Demobilization: The State’s Transformation of Civil Society in the Poblaciones of Santiago, Chile

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Deepening Demobilization: The State’s Transformation of Civil Society in the Poblaciones of Santiago, Chile
by Carter M. Koppelman                                                    


Since Chile’s transition to an electoral regime in 1990, the demobilization of local organizations in Santiago’s poor and working-class neighborhoods, known as poblaciones, presents a puzzle, given the continuation of the neoliberal socioeconomic program that urban popular sectors mobilized against under the dictatorship. Ethnographic and interview data from two districts in southern Santiago reveal that the posttransition period has been characterized by increased state domination of local organizations in Santiago’s poor communities. By virtue of their dependence on material resources, local organizations have become extensions of the local state, engaged in service provision rather than contentious claims making. At the same time, the extension of state control has been masked through reinforcement in official discourse of the symbolic boundaries between state and society. This shifting and blurring of the state–civil-society boundary contributes to the deepening of the political demobilization of popular organizations.

Abstract, Deepening Demobilization: The State’s Transformation of Civil Society in the Poblaciones of Santiago, Chile

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Deepening Demobilization: The State’s Transformation of Civil Society in the Poblaciones of Santiago, Chile
by Carter M. Koppelman                                                    


Since Chile’s transition to an electoral regime in 1990, the demobilization of local organizations in Santiago’s poor and working-class neighborhoods, known as poblaciones, presents a puzzle, given the continuation of the neoliberal socioeconomic program that urban popular sectors mobilized against under the dictatorship. Ethnographic and interview data from two districts in southern Santiago reveal that the posttransition period has been characterized by increased state domination of local organizations in Santiago’s poor communities. By virtue of their dependence on material resources, local organizations have become extensions of the local state, engaged in service provision rather than contentious claims making. At the same time, the extension of state control has been masked through reinforcement in official discourse of the symbolic boundaries between state and society. This shifting and blurring of the state–civil-society boundary contributes to the deepening of the political demobilization of popular organizations.

Abstract, Conflict and Convergence between Experts and Citizens Bogotá’s TransMilenio

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Conflict and Convergence between Experts and Citizens Bogotá’s TransMilenio
by Stacey L. Hunt


TransMilenio, the mass transit system inaugurated in Bogotá at the turn of the millennium, was a technocratic development achievement. Citizens and experts alike held the system in high esteem initially. Over time, however, technocratic knowledge increasingly conflicted with citizens’ experiences, and riders grew extremely dissatisfied with the system. Some experts attempted to depoliticize policy decisions, demobilize civil society, and redefine citizenship as the consumption of services, but citizens continued to participate in myriad ways, protesting in the streets, barricading the system, organizing rider “strikes,” deploying their own expert knowledge, and seeking electoral office in order to inform policy decisions pertaining to the system. The distribution and importance of expertise in shaping the system challenges dichotomous understandings of state and society and highlights the differentiation of citizenship under neoliberal governance.

Abstract, Indigenous Peoples, Social Movements, and the Legacy of Hugo Chávez’s Governments

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Indigenous Peoples, Social Movements, and the Legacy of Hugo Chávez’s Governments
by Luis F. Angosto-Ferrández


The unprecedented enfranchisement of Venezuela’s indigenous population is partly a result of the formation of a state-sponsored indigenous movement. This movement prioritizes access to social services, economic development, and political participation in state structures over certain goals of free determination. Other forms of collective action with different priorities are evidence of the existence of diverging interests and goals among indigenous people. These divergences are a reflection of the way in which the indigenous population partakes in the shaping of contemporary Venezuelan politics.

Abstract, "Strategies of Self-Proclaimed Pro-Life Groups in Argentina: Effect of New Religious Actors on Sexual Policies" by José Manuel Morán Faúndes and María Angélica Peñas Defago

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Strategies of Self-Proclaimed Pro-Life Groups in Argentina: Effect of New Religious Actors on Sexual Policies 
by José Manuel Morán Faúndes and María Angélica Peñas Defago

Over the past few decades political processes recognizing and broadening sexual and reproductive rights have produced a reaction from conservative sectors seeking to block those gains. Although the Catholic Church hierarchy and some Evangelical churches have led the opposition to these rights, various sectors of civil society have begun to foment resistance to pluralist sexual politics. In Argentina self-proclaimed pro-life nongovernmental organizations have become important in the local context, using channels legitimized by contemporary democracy. While they initially devoted themselves primarily to the issue of abortion through activities associated with assistencialism and cultural impact, their actions since the 1990s have diversified, entering into the politico-institutional field and aiming at other issues associated with the country’s sexual policy. The movement and religion overlap at many levels and are separate in others. The complexity of the relationship between them requires rethinking of the normative frameworks through which progress on sexual and reproductive rights in Latin America is usually theorized. The separation of religion and politics under the paradigm of laicism can be insufficient to guarantee sexual pluralism in our societies.

Abstract, "Strategies of Self-Proclaimed Pro-Life Groups in Argentina: Effect of New Religious Actors on Sexual Policies" by José Manuel Morán Faúndes and María Angélica Peñas Defago

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Strategies of Self-Proclaimed Pro-Life Groups in Argentina: Effect of New Religious Actors on Sexual Policies 
by José Manuel Morán Faúndes and María Angélica Peñas Defago

Over the past few decades political processes recognizing and broadening sexual and reproductive rights have produced a reaction from conservative sectors seeking to block those gains. Although the Catholic Church hierarchy and some Evangelical churches have led the opposition to these rights, various sectors of civil society have begun to foment resistance to pluralist sexual politics. In Argentina self-proclaimed pro-life nongovernmental organizations have become important in the local context, using channels legitimized by contemporary democracy. While they initially devoted themselves primarily to the issue of abortion through activities associated with assistencialism and cultural impact, their actions since the 1990s have diversified, entering into the politico-institutional field and aiming at other issues associated with the country’s sexual policy. The movement and religion overlap at many levels and are separate in others. The complexity of the relationship between them requires rethinking of the normative frameworks through which progress on sexual and reproductive rights in Latin America is usually theorized. The separation of religion and politics under the paradigm of laicism can be insufficient to guarantee sexual pluralism in our societies.

Abstract, "Sanitaristas, Petistas, and the Post-Neoliberal Public Health State in Porto Alegre" by Christopher L. Gibson

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Sanitaristas, Petistas, and the Post-Neoliberal Public Health State in Porto Alegre 
by Christopher L. Gibson

Scholars of the post-neoliberal state in Latin America commonly trace universal social policies to ruling left parties and deepened democracy. Yet, such accounts often overlook how subnational politics in highly decentralized democracies like Brazil’s can mediate this relationship. Examining such politics in the Brazilian município of Porto Alegre since 1988 suggests that structural constraints and competing programmatic agendas of Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—PT) governments complicated expansion of the public health sector. The município’s surprisingly modest delivery of such services is traceable to enduring deemphasis on critical dimensions of state building in this sector by several PT administrations and the integration of civil society actors into multiple participatory governance institutions with little power over this process. Even in such contexts, far-reaching participatory democratic institutions are no panacea for fulfilling the universal social policy ambitions of local post-neoliberal states that depend heavily upon high-level political appointees for their effectiveness.