Abstract: Varieties of Developmentalism: A Critical Assessment of the PT Governments

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Varieties of Developmentalism: A Critical Assessment of the PT Governments

by Daniela Magalhães Prates, Barbara Fritz, and Luiz Fernando de Paula

To what extent did the PT governments follow developmentalist policies? A critical assessment reveals that they combined two varieties of developmentalism in different ways over time, with a surprisingly high frequency of policy changes, and that orthodox policies played a prominent role in part of this time span.

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Abstract, From Victims to Beneficiaries: Shaping Postconflict Subjects through State Reparations in Peru

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From Victims to Beneficiaries: Shaping Postconflict Subjects through State Reparations in Peru

by Ivan Ramirez Zapata and Rogelio Scott-Insua

The political and institutional coordinates that appear in official classifications of the victims of the Peruvian armed conflict (1980–2000) affect their subsequent recognition as beneficiaries of reparations programs. A review of the conceptual bases of the Comprehensive Reparations Program calls attention to the tension in the design and implementation of this program between a strictly reparative approach and another that addresses the structural disparities present in the aftermath of the war. Examination of the effects of that tension in two cases shows that the early stages of implementing housing reparations equated the concept of “victim” with that of “poor” and later made poverty a prerequisite for receiving housing reparations and points to the difficulty of making an appropriate offer of reparations for displaced persons, whose specific problems are not properly addressed by the traditional agenda of transitional justice.

Abstract, Constructing Indigenous Autonomy in Plurinational Bolivia: Possibilities and Ambiguities

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Constructing Indigenous Autonomy in Plurinational Bolivia: Possibilities and Ambiguities 
by Aaron Augsburger and Paul Haber 


The municipality of Charagua recently became the first autonomía indígena originaria campesina (autonomous indigenous peasant community) in Bolivia under the 2009 plurinational constitution. A coalition of indigenous leaders backed by a majority of voters embraced the change as a vehicle for bolstering local control over key decisions, thereby advancing local preferences for indigenous forms of governance, values, and control over the development model with special attention to natural resources. The possibility remains, however, that it may operate to incorporate the indigenous community into the governing apparatus, thus making it more legible to the state and open to new forms of regulation, management, and control. Examining the state as a historically contingent and socially determined relationship helps make sense of this situation.

Abstract, From the Neoliberal State to a Neo-National Development in Northwestern Argentina

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From the Neoliberal State to a Neo-National Development in Northwestern Argentina
by Marina Weinberg      

While much has been written on indigenous policy in Bolivia and Ecuador, the indigenous presence in the Argentine experience has been largely overlooked, perhaps because of the strong state-led homogenizing tradition that has obscured the country’s multiethnic character. A study of state formation and indigenous policy in northwestern Argentina focused on the Programa Social Agropecuario, launched during the 1990s, and its replacement, the Secretaría de Agricultura Familiar, established in 2006 under a new political model, shows an opening up of opportunities for indigenous organizations. At the same time, a private sector with excessive power persists. Strategies targeting the indigenous as a group have been useful for reversing the devastating effects of 1990s neoliberalism, but the formal incorporation of indigenous people into the state’s structure risks the loss of their political and historical particularities.

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, Everyday Crafting of the Bolivarian State Lower-level State Officials and Grassroots Activism in Venezuela

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Everyday Crafting of the Bolivarian State
Lower-level State Officials and Grassroots Activism in Venezuela
by Iselin Åsedotter Strønen


Venezuela’s communal councils are legally sanctioned organs for popular participation implemented mostly in poor communities since 2006. The promotores integrales, lower-level state employees who assist the communal councils in their everyday work, serve as mediators between state policies and community politics, and study of their roles and perspectives provides important insights into the complexities of implementing policies of popular participation and transforming state practices in the context of radical social change. While the cultural politics and knowledges of the popular sectors have become imprinted on the Venezuelan state, attempts to change the state in accordance with Bolivarian ideology are subject to intense contestation and struggle.

Abstract, "Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights" by Juan Cruz Esquivel

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Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights 
by Juan Cruz Esquivel

The interactions between the state and religious institutions in Argentina are expressed on the municipal, provincial, and national levels, in the sphere of legislation and public policy, and in a wide range of undefined informal relationships. Politics and religion have historically been intertwined, and their relationship can be described as subsidiary laicism, in which the recognition of civil rights coexists with significant intervention of the Church in the implementation of public policy and in which state support of religion at an intermediate level is considered legitimate. Religious institutions and convictions influence votes in the Congress on laws expanding sexual and reproductive rights, and under such influence provincial and municipal governments delay the implementation of those laws.

Abstract, "Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights" by Juan Cruz Esquivel

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Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights 
by Juan Cruz Esquivel

The interactions between the state and religious institutions in Argentina are expressed on the municipal, provincial, and national levels, in the sphere of legislation and public policy, and in a wide range of undefined informal relationships. Politics and religion have historically been intertwined, and their relationship can be described as subsidiary laicism, in which the recognition of civil rights coexists with significant intervention of the Church in the implementation of public policy and in which state support of religion at an intermediate level is considered legitimate. Religious institutions and convictions influence votes in the Congress on laws expanding sexual and reproductive rights, and under such influence provincial and municipal governments delay the implementation of those laws.

Abstract, "Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights" by Juan Cruz Esquivel

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Religion and Politics in Argentina: Religious Influence on Legislative Decisions on Sexual and Reproductive Rights 
by Juan Cruz Esquivel

The interactions between the state and religious institutions in Argentina are expressed on the municipal, provincial, and national levels, in the sphere of legislation and public policy, and in a wide range of undefined informal relationships. Politics and religion have historically been intertwined, and their relationship can be described as subsidiary laicism, in which the recognition of civil rights coexists with significant intervention of the Church in the implementation of public policy and in which state support of religion at an intermediate level is considered legitimate. Religious institutions and convictions influence votes in the Congress on laws expanding sexual and reproductive rights, and under such influence provincial and municipal governments delay the implementation of those laws.

Abstract, "Legal Dualism and the Bipolar State: Challenges to Indigenous Human Rights in Brazil" by Cecília MacDowell Santos

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Legal Dualism and the Bipolar State: Challenges to Indigenous Human Rights in Brazil 
by Cecília MacDowell Santos/span>

The Brazilian state has contradictory laws, policies and practices with regard to the rights of indigenous peoples. Despite the adoption of a democratic Brazilian constitution in 1988 that incorporated a multicultural conception of indigenous rights and the subsequent ratification of new international norms of human rights for indigenous peoples, the practices of the courts and of the various sectors of the state reflect a legal cultural dualism and a “bipolar” state. The case of the Xucuru people sent to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights shows the conflicts between legal and political cultures characterized, on one hand, by an individualistic and colonial approach to indigenous civil rights and, on the other hand, a collectivist and multicultural perspective on the human rights of indigenous peoples.

Abstract, "State-Society Dynamics in Contemporary Brazilian Land Reform" by Wendy Wolford

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State-Society Dynamics in Contemporary Brazilian Land Reform 
by Wendy Wolford

Over the past 15 years, land reform has returned from the “dustbin of history” to serve again as a viable policy option. Much has been written about its resurgence, with the research tending to focus narrowly on the role of prices, policies, and politics in shaping the design and outcome of distribution. While these are necessary elements to understand, their reification neglects the critical element of process. Land reform programs are implemented by an array of government actors and negotiated on the ground by beneficiaries, social movement activists, large farmers, and the general public. A messy assemblage of actors and interests shapes both the design and the outcome of distribution. Qualitative analysis of the federal agency in charge of land reform in Brazil, the Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform—INCRA), reveals that, in the context of increased citizen participation and reduced funding, the agency must work together with social movement activists to perform its task. The analysis suggests that the study of state-society relations today requires a new vocabulary that highlights substance and process rather than form.