Although the US preserves a dominant position in Latin America, China’s rise poses economic and political challenges and has set up a potential battle for the hearts and minds of the Latin American populace. To explore this theme, this article considers the level of support among Latin Americans toward China and the United States at the country and individual levels, the causes of variance thereof, and whether the views of China, the newcomer, covary with views about the region’s traditional power broker. We provide evidence that the views do not covary, either positively or negatively, largely because while attitudes toward the United States are structured by ideology and other factors, attitudes toward China are relatively unstructured. This lack of structure appears to be the result of China’s success in appealing to diverse sectors of Latin American society, which, in turn, should positively influence its future trajectory.

This study focuses on a dimension of partisanship overlooked by most comparative studies on campaign effects: individual-level stability, a measure of short-term partisanship. Some voters in young democracies are able to develop partisanship as a screen through which they observe the political world, leading them to interpret new information in a manner that reinforces their political predispositions. However, some voters lack long-term partisan attachments, enabling them to update their party identification as the campaign unfolds. These voters have a harder time reinforcing their precampaign dispositions and are more likely to change their vote intention. The findings suggest that for some voters, partisanship and vote choice are empirically intertwined.

By using innovative microlevel data from Colombia’s civil war, this article examines protests, one of many actions that civilians employ to resists peacefully armed actors during civil war. By using a cost-benefit analysis, the author argues that inhabitants can mobilize and solve their collective action problem when the costs of migrating or supporting one side in a war are too expensive. By examining the civil conflict on Colombia between 1988 and 2010, the author finds that civilians are likely to protest armed actors under three conditions. First, autonomous communities, which enjoy benefits associated with their territory, are likely to protest because migration would be costly; moreover, the institutional strength of these communities can decrease the costs of mobilization against armed actors. Second, foreign aid distributed through nongovernmental associations can empower individuals to take action by providing selective incentives for mobilization, thus decreasing costs. Last, high levels of violence, up to a certain threshold, increase the costs of nonparticipation and induce civilian action.

Does national media news coverage affect the behavior of legislators when deciding foreign policy matters? This article aims to disentangle the relationship between the media and legislative behavior in foreign policy, using Paraguay as a case study. We analyze the level of public debate on international affairs, measured by the frequency of news in the newspaper ABC Color in the six months before the roll-call votes on the Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay. The literature on Latin American studies finds a lack of parliamentary interest in foreign affairs due to low voter attention to this subject, and therefore a low impact on reelections. We find the relationship between parliamentary polarization and public interest in a bill to be mediated by mass media. After estimating a Tobit model, we observe a significant and positive relationship between the news coverage a law receives and the degree of polarization among parliamentarians. Thus, our empirical evidence contradicts the idea that there is a lack of electoral interest in foreign policy. We confirm this finding through qualitative data gathered from in-depth interviews.

The widespread violence in Mexico by state and nonstate actors since the government launched a military strategy against drug cartels in 2006 has generated demands for justice, including spaces of mourning and commemoration that recognize hundreds of thousands of Mexican nationals and migrants from other countries who have been killed or disappeared. Creating memorial spaces for ongoing forms of violence whose perpetrators and victims are hard to define has proven difficult from a bureaucratic, political, and aesthetic perspective. This article examines and contrasts three commemorative and transformative memorial interventions to show that in a context that lacks a clear transition and access to justice, memory activists respond to the state in a playing field that is not simply concerned with a politics of memory—who gets to decide how to remember the past—but with delineating the past from both the present and the future in the first place: a politics of time.

Este artigo examina os impactos do neoliberalismo global e do capitalismo racial em comunidades pesqueiras do Recôncavo da Bahia, sobretudo, na Comunidade Remanescente de Quilombo de São Braz. Mais particularmente, buscou-se entender como homens e mulheres têm sido afetados de forma distinta por empreendimentos transnacionais que incidem em seus territórios, suas atividades produtivas e processos identitários; e como, em consequência, estes têm desenvolvido formas de organização política que correspondem a demandas específicas de cada gênero. Os dados para este artigo foram coletados por meio de trabalho de campo realizado com o apoio do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPQ) e do Ministério do Desenvolvimento Agrário (MDA), entre os anos de 2010 a 2012, e, depois, de forma intercalada, até 2015.

This article advances several arguments about scientific and diplomatic collaboration on peaceful nuclear energy technologies between Argentina and Brazil. First, although 1972–1980 is generally viewed as an acrimonious period in the neighbors’ bilateral relationship, nuclear energy officials in these South American countries made significant and unexpected progress toward technical cooperation, motivated by a shared geopolitical position. Furthermore, technological differences between the two nuclear energy programs, and experts’ ideas on their potential implications for agreement between key officials, opened potential avenues for diplomatic cooperation. Finally, this article illuminates a surprising quality of diplomatic behavior of the military dictatorships in Brazil and Argentina. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, Argentina and Brazil shared nearly identical stances on the unfettered right to pursue advanced nuclear technology. In combination with increased technical cooperation, this ideological alignment supported a landmark bilateral presidential summit in 1980 on nuclear energy collaboration.

Although the knotted cord texts known as khipus have been created in the Andes for over a millennium (ca. AD 950–1950), their historical philology has been little understood. This study, based on original archival and ethnographic research, analyzes hybrid khipu/alphabetic texts known as “khipu boards,” examining their development in colonial Peru, and their role in twentieth-century Andean rituals. Particular attention is paid to a previously unknown sacred manuscript, the Entablo, from the community of San Pedro de Casta, Peru, which describes how villagers used khipu boards in their annual religious ceremonies until the 1950s. This study reveals new insights into the social and symbolic nature of post-Inka khipus as texts, particularly with reference to gender, place, and knowledge.

Taking as a starting point the ontological differentiation between animal and human as a fundamental mechanism of biopolitical violence, I analyze the ambiguity of the imaginaries of flesh and animality in the contexts of revolutionary Cuba and Venezuela. I demonstrate how the dynamics of power marked by an ontological division between human and not human, often ascribed to neoliberalism, paradoxically operate in socialist regimes. I examine several instances of visual arts, performance, literature, and public demonstrations, to reveal, on the one hand, sacrificial state power over the population’s bodies and, on the other, examples of disobedience against the state.

This article proposes the concept of nationness to explore the nuances and complexities that permeate the symbolic and material efforts to remember, imagine, and re-present the nation among the diasporic community of Venezuelan artists. Focusing on Deborah Castillo’s exhibition RAW (2015) and Violette Bule’s installation REQUIEM200≤ (2018), it analyzes how the two artists engage in a form of crafting that re-presents the nation as raw matter (wood, nails, clay) that never achieves a state of completeness or stability. I argue that this act of crafting is interactive and critical. It does not simply remember Venezuela and reproduce it as a spectacle to be passively consumed abroad; it provides the possibility to intervene in systems of power and representation that determine which bodies are visible and which are not, which bodies have power and which do not, which bodies are mourned and who should mourn them. In crafting what I call “Venezuelanness,” the artists’ work offers the space and the means to think (about) the country differently, beyond the spatial boundaries of its territory, beyond the icons that monopolize its collective imaginary, and beyond the extreme polarization of its politics.

Achieving global fame in 1927, Nicaragua’s General Augusto César Sandino came to symbolize and unite international solidarity movements against US imperialism by cultivating a sophisticated transnational intellectual network that encompassed communications, public relations, intelligence, provisions, volunteers, and fundraising. The participation of male public intellectuals in Sandino’s strategic communications is well documented, but the roles of intellectual women in the rebellion have not been appreciably explored to date. Bringing to light new archival research on the Nicaraguan poets and journalists Carmen Sobalvarro and Aura Rostand, this article examines how their gendered writing and public personae propagated both Sandino’s war and his legacy after his 1934 assassination. As part of an informal network of women intellectuals, Sobalvarro and Rostand played integral roles in Sandino’s public relations in Nicaragua and abroad. As Sandino has once again become a contested figure in light of Nicaragua’s oppressive Ortega-Murillo government, this recuperative cultural study also bears on present-day Nicaraguan political discourse.

This article is a close reading of Salvador Elizondo’s “Grünewalda, o una fábula del infinito” (1969), a short story from the collection El retrato de Zoe y otras mentiras. Elizondo purposely mirrors in “Grünewalda” a turbulent chapter in the history of mathematics—the turn of the nineteenth century—when this discipline went through a profound crisis. The article shows how Elizondo skillfully crafts a literary version of a process of arithmetization of writing, as taken from the basics of set theory, and how this process helps to discern the level-changing operators in “Grünewalda” and in all of Elizondo’s texts. Given that mathematical knowledge is merely verbal knowledge, Grünewalda’s life and death problems are syntactic and semantic in principle. Thus, beyond ascribing his rhetoric to a metaphysical sphere, a metamathematical realm is presented as a more adequate depiction of Elizondo’s writing.

During the almost constant political turmoil of the 1970s up to Raúl Alfonsín’s election in 1983, classical music in Buenos Aires was arguably one of the most stable domains of cultural life in Argentina. If this applies to public institutions such as the Teatro Colón, it is even truer of private concert associations like the Mozarteum Argentino, whose president Jeannette Arata de Erize remained in charge from 1955 until her death in 2013. Under the dictatorship of 1976–1983, the Mozarteum concerts were supported by leading economic groups like Techint, whose CEO, Roberto Rocca, was a member of the board of directors, as was the minister of Economy, José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz. Politics, though, were totally absent from the association’s life. This apoliticism, derived from the Romantic era, strengthened the cohesion of the upper classes while converging with the alleged apolitical nature of the military regime itself.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Lords of Tetzcoco: The Transformation of Indigenous Rule in Postconquest Central Mexico. By Bradley Benton. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. viii +195. $99.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107190580.

Polygamy and the Rise and Demise of the Aztec Empire. By Ross Hassig. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 186. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780826357120.

Pueblos within Pueblos: Tlaxilacalli Communities in Acolhuacan, Mexico, ca. 1272–1692. By Benjamin D. Johnson Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 252. $31.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781646420148.

The Aztecs at Independence: Nahua Culture Makers in Central Mexico, 1799–1832. By Miriam Melton-Villanueva. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 249. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816533534.

Portraying the Aztec Past: The Codices Boturini, Azcatitlan, and Aubin. By Angela Herren Rajagopalan. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018. Pp. 212. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477316078.

When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History. By Matthew Restall. New York: Ecco Press, 2018. Pp. 526. ISBN: 9780062427267.

Dressing the Part: Power, Dress, Gender, and Representation in the Pre-Columbian Americas. Edited by Sarahh E. M. Scher and Billie J. A. Follensbee Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2018. Pp. vii + 497. $125.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780813062211.

The Woman Who Turned into a Jaguar: And Other Narratives of Native Women in Archives of Colonial Mexico. By Lisa Sousa. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 404. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780804756402.

The Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs. By Camilla Townsend. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. xiii + 336. $29.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780190673062.

This essay reviews the following works:

An Aqueous Territory: Sailor Geographies and New Granada’s Transimperial Greater Caribbean World. By Ernesto Bassi. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Pp ix + 360. $26.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822362401.

Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia’s First Drug Paradise. By Lina Britto. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020. Pp. 352. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520325470.

Crafting a Republic for the World: Scientific, Geographic, and Historiographic Inventions of Colombia. By Lina del Castillo. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. Pp. 402. $30.00 paper back. ISBN: 9781496205483.

Guerrilla Marketing: Counterinsurgency and Capitalism in Colombia. By Alexander L. Fattal Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 304. $27.50 paperback. ISBN 9780226590646.

1892: Un año insignificante; Orden policial y desorden social en la Bogotá de fin de siglo. By Max S. Hering Torres. Bogotá: Critica y Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2018. Pp. 245. COP$50.000 hardcover. ISBN: 9789584266606.

Makers of Democracy: A Transnational History of the Middle Classes in Colombia. By A. Ricardo López-Pedreros. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. Pp. 360. $28.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781478002857.

Sorting Out the Mixed Economy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare and Developmental States in the Americas. By Amy C. Offner Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. Pp. 400. $39.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780691190938.

No Limits to Their Sway: Cartagena’s Privateers and the Masterless Caribbean in the Age of Revolutions. By Edgardo Pérez Morales. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 248. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780826521927.

The Politics of Taste: Beatriz González and Cold War Aesthetics. By Ana María Reyes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. Pp. 328. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781478003977.

This essay reviews the following works:

Politicized Enforcement in Argentina: Labor and Environmental Regulation. By Matthew Amengual. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. vii + 285. $110.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107135833.

Walmart in the Global South: Workplace Culture, Labor Politics, and Supply Chains. Edited by Carolina Bank Muñoz, Bridget Kenny, and Antonio Stecher. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018. Pp. ix + 280. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477315682.

Continuity Despite Change: The Politics of Labor Regulation in Latin America. By Matthew E. Carnes Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014. Pp. viii + 256. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780804789431.

Precariedad y desaliento laboral de los jóvenes en México. Edited by Dídimo Castillo Fernández, Jorge Arzate Salgado, and Silvia Irene Arcos Sánchez. Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores, 2019. Pp. 5 + 167. $10.00 paperback. ISBN: 9786070310041.

Redeeming the Revolution: The State and Organized Labor in Post-Tlatelolco Mexico. By Joseph U. Lenti Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 402. $70.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780803285590.

Labor Politics in Latin America: Democracy and Worker Organization in the Neoliberal Era. By Paul W. Posner, Viviana Patroni, and Jean-François Mayer. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2018. Pp. vii + 253. $80.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781683400455.

Living and Working in Poverty in Latin America: Trajectories of Children, Youth, and Adults. Edited by María Eugenia Rausky and Mariana Chaves. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Pp. v + 187. $97.13 hardcover. ISBN: 9783030009007.

Made in Baja: The Lives of Farmworkers and Growers behind Mexico’s Transnational Agricultural Boom. By Christian Zlolniski. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. Pp. ix+ 255. $29.70 paperback. ISBN: 9780520300637.

This essay reviews the following works:

Health Equity in Brazil: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Policy. By Kia Lilly Caldwell. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 226. $28.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780252082474.

State of Health: Pleasure and Politics in Venezuelan Health Care under Chávez. By Amy Cooper. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. Pp. 216. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520299290.

Social Policies and Decentralization in Cuba: Change in the Context of 21st Century Latin America. Edited by Jorge I. Domínguez, Maria del Carmen Zabala Argüelles, Mayra Espina Prieto, and Lorena G. Barberia Cambridge, MA: David Rockefeller Center Series of Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2017. Pp. 282. $24.99 paperback. ISBN: 9780674975309.

Movement-Driven Development: The Politics of Health and Democracy in Brazil. By Christopher L. Gibson Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019. Pp. 328. $30.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781503607804.

A Right to Health: Medicine, Marginality, and Health Care Reform in Northeastern Brazil. By Jessica Scott Jerome. Austin: University Press of Texas, 2015. Pp. 192. $21.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477311318.

Uneven Social Policies: The Politics of Subnational Variation in Latin America. By Sara Niedzwiecki. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xvii + 256. 256 pp. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781108454896.

Banking on Health: The World Bank and the Health Sector Reform in Latin America. By Shiri Noy. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. 241. ISBN: 9783319617657.

This essay reviews the following works:

Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence–and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets. By Thomas Abt. New York: Basic Books, 2019. Pp. 304. $30.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781541645721.

MS-13: The Making of America’s Most Notorious Gang. By Steven Dudley. New York: Hanover Square Press, 2020. Pp. 352. $28.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781335005540.

Mortal Doubt: Transnational Gangs and Social Order in Guatemala City. By Anthony W. Fontes Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018. Pp. 332. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520297098.

El Niño de Hollywood: Cómo Estados Unidos y El Salvador moldearon a un sicario de la Mara Salvatrucha 13. By Óscar Martínez and Juan José Martínez. Mexico City: Debate, 2018. Pp. 272. $16.95 paperback. ISBN: 9786073169004.

La tropa: Por qué mata un soldado. By Daniela Rea and Pablo Ferri. Mexico City: Aguilar, 2018. Pp. 336. MXN339.00 paperback. ISBN: 9786073177795.

Gangs of the El Paso-Juárez Borderland: A History. By Mike Tapia. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. Pp. 200. $45.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826361097.

Carta desde Zacatraz. By Roberto Valencia. Madrid: Libros del K.O., 2018. Pp. 381. $20.00 paperback. ISBN: 9788416001866.

State of War: MS-13 and El Salvador’s World of Violence. By William Wheeler. New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2020. Pp. 150. $15.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781733623728.