Non-governmental organisations operate as nodes in networks of ‘managerialism’ – bundles of often Northern, corporate-inspired knowledge and practices that promote ‘good governance’ under neoliberalism. Managerialism is double-sided: it can guard against corruption and help ensure accountability, but it can also be culturally disjunctive, reinforcing North–South power imbalances while diffusing the political potential of NGOs. In this paper we present a framework for studying managerialism's global circulation and discuss a series of empirical findings from a multi-year study of NGOs in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. We conclude by commenting on managerialism's influence on NGOs during the social upheavals of 2006, highlighting its differential and contingent impact on social and political change in Oaxaca.

This article examines the collective action frames that civil societal actors in Argentina have used while engaging in advocacy. It argues that by devising effective framing strategies, members of civil society organisations increase their chances of participating in the agenda-setting, formulation and adoption phases of policy-making. The relationship between framing and participation is supported by a comparative analysis of two cases of advocacy: the campaign for a freedom of information law and the struggle for child protection legislation. The evidence suggests that civil societal actors often rely on the strength of their ideas and their persuasive power to achieve political relevance, which is analytically distinct from political outcomes.

This article analyses the protracted process by which democratised Uruguay has come to terms with its legacy of human rights violations. Central to this process has been the nature of Uruguayan transitional policies and their more recent partial unravelling. Due to the negotiated transition to electoral democracy, civilian political elites approached the transitional dilemma of balancing normative expectations and political contingency by promulgating legal immunity, for years avoiding initiatives to pursue trials or launch an official truth commission, unlike neighbouring Argentina. A constellation of national and transnational factors (including recurrent initiatives by social and political forces) eventually opened up new institutional ground for belated truth-telling and accountability for some historical wrongs – and yet, attempts to challenge the blanket legal impunity failed twice through popular consultation and in a recent parliamentary vote. Each time, the government officially projected a narrative that sacralised national consensus and reconciliation, now enshrined in two sovereign popular votes, and the adoption of a forward-looking democratic perspective.

This article analyses how the Brazilian Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (Movement of Dam-Affected People, MAB) has been represented in the press, in the context of networks of resistance to large hydroelectric dams in Latin America. We analyse how the press deploys linguistic-discursive resources in producing and constructing meaning and focus in its presentation of news about anti-dam protests. The study analyses print media reporting on anti-dam protests in Minas Gerais between 1998 and 2005, and shows how, at different moments and in different political contexts, representations of social protest have changed and newspaper reports have either ignored, criminalised or provided visibility to MAB in this region.

Literature published a decade ago reflected a pessimistic view of the market-oriented reforms that Latin America carried out in the 1980s and 1990s, and many politicians have attacked these reforms openly. Indeed, the atmosphere is so negative that it would be reasonable to assume that many of the reforms have been reversed. This paper will take a new look at the situation ten years later. Our argument is that the reforms have generally not been reversed. The reversal that has occurred has been with respect to privatisation in a few countries; negative public opinion is also concentrated on privatisation; and the reforms helped to enable Latin America to take advantage of favourable conditions leading to high growth in the 2004–8 boom period and a relatively strong performance during the 2008–9 crisis. While much remains to be done to raise growth and improve distribution, objective information about the reforms is needed when policies for the future are made.