Venezuelas Bolivarian Democracy

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Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy

Author : David Smilde
Publisher : Duke University Press Books
ISBN 13 : 9780822350248
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy by : David Smilde

Download or read book Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy written by David Smilde and published by Duke University Press Books. This book was released on 2011-08-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy brings together a variety of perspectives on participation and democracy in Venezuela. An interdisciplinary group of contributors focuses on the everyday lives of Venezuelans, examining the forms of participation that have emerged in communal councils, cultural activities, blogs, community media, and several other forums. The essays validate many of the critiques of democracy under Chávez, as well as much of the praise. They show that while government corporatism and clientelism are constant threats, the forms of political and cultural participation discussed are creating new discourses, networks, and organizational spaces—for better and for worse. With open yet critical minds, the contributors seek to analyze Venezuela’s Bolivarian democratic experience through empirical research. In doing so, they reveal a nuanced process, a richer and more complex one than is conveyed in international journalism and scholarship exclusively focused on the words and actions of Hugo Chávez. Contributors Carolina Acosta-Alzuru Julia Buxton Luis Duno Gottberg Sujatha Fernandes María Pilar García-Guadilla Kirk A. Hawkins Daniel Hellinger Michael E. Johnson Luis E. Lander Margarita López-Maya Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols Coraly Pagan Guillermo Rosas Naomi Schiller David Smilde Alejandro Velasco

The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela

Author : Jennifer L. McCoy
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801884283
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (842 download)

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Book Synopsis The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela by : Jennifer L. McCoy

Download or read book The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela written by Jennifer L. McCoy and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-03 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For four decades, Venezuela prided itself for having one of the most stable representative democracies in Latin America. Then, in 1992, Hugo Chávez Frías attempted an unsuccessful military coup. Six years later, he was elected president. Once in power, Chávez redrafted the 1961 constitution, dissolved the Congress, dismissed judges, and marginalized rival political parties. In a bid to create direct democracy, other Latin American democracies watched with mixed reactions: if representative democracy could break down so quickly in Venezuela, it could easily happen in countries with less-established traditions. On the other hand, would Chávez create a new form of democracy to redress the plight of the marginalized poor? In this volume of essays, leading scholars from Venezuela and the United States ask why representative democracy in Venezuela unraveled so swiftly and whether it can be restored. Its thirteen chapters examine the crisis in three periods: the unraveling of Punto Fijo democracy; Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution; and the course of "participatory democracy" under Chávez. The contributors analyze such factors as the vulnerability of Venezuelan democracy before Chávez; the role of political parties, organized labor, the urban poor, the military, and businessmen; and the impact of public and economic policy. This timely volume offers important lessons for comparative regime change within hybrid democracies. Contributors: Damarys Canache, Florida State University; Rafael de la Cruz, Inter-American Development Bank; José Antonio Gil, Yepes Datanalisis; Richard S. Hillman, St. John Fisher College; Janet Kelly, Graduate Institute of Business, Caracas; José E. Molina, University of Zulia; Mosés Naím, Foreign Policy; Nelson Ortiz, Caracas Stock Exchange; Pedro A. Palma, Graduate Institute of Business, Caracas; Carlos A. Romero and Luis Salamanca, Central University of Venezuela; Harold Trinkunas, Naval Postgraduate School.

Dismantling Democracy in Venezuela

Author : Allan R. Brewer-Carías
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139492357
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis Dismantling Democracy in Venezuela by : Allan R. Brewer-Carías

Download or read book Dismantling Democracy in Venezuela written by Allan R. Brewer-Carías and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-20 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the process of dismantling the democratic institutions and protections in Venezuela under the Hugo Chávez regime. The actions of the Chávez government have influenced similar processes and undemocratic manoeuvrings in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Honduras. Since the election of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela in 1998, a sinister form of nationalistic authoritarianism has arisen at the expense of long-established democratic standards. During the past decade, the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution has been systematically attacked by all branches of the Chávez government, particularly by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, which has legitimized the Chávez-ordered constitutional violations. The Chávez regime has purposely defrauded the Constitution and severely restricted representative government, all in the name of a supposedly participatory democracy controlled by a popularly supported central government. This volume illustrates how an authoritarian, nondemocratic government has been established in Venezuela.

Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution

Author : Barry Cannon
Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 1847797199
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (477 download)

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Book Synopsis Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution by : Barry Cannon

Download or read book Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution written by Barry Cannon and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-19 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela has revived analysis of one of Latin America’s most enduring political traditions – populism. Yet Latin America has changed since the heyday of Perón and Evita. Globalisation, implemented through harsh IMF inspired Structural Adjustment Programmes, has taken hold throughout the region and democracy is supposedly the ‘only game in town’. This book examines the phenomenon that is Hugo Chávez within these contexts, assessing to what extent his government fits into established ideas on populism in Latin America. The book also provides a comprehensive and critical analysis of Chávez’s emergence, his government’s social and economic policies, its foreign policy, as well as assessing the charges of authoritarianism brought against him. Written in clear, accessible prose, the book carries debate beyond current polarised views on the Venezuelan president, to consider the prospects of the new Bolivarian model surviving beyond its leader and progenitor, Hugo Chávez.

Communes and the Venezuelan State

Author : Anderson Bean
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781793640840
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (48 download)

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Book Synopsis Communes and the Venezuelan State by : Anderson Bean

Download or read book Communes and the Venezuelan State written by Anderson Bean and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis, Anderson Bean examines the communal movement in Venezuela, its origins, contradictory relationship to the state, and the challenges it faces amid Venezuela's largest economic and political crisis.

Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective

Author : Kirk A. Hawkins
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 052176503X
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (217 download)

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Book Synopsis Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective by : Kirk A. Hawkins

Download or read book Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective written by Kirk A. Hawkins and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the populist movement of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and argues that populism is primarily a response to widespread corruption. It defends a definition of populism as a set of ideas and measures populism across Venezuela and other countries. It also explores the influence of populist ideas on political organization and policy.

Venezuela, the Present as Struggle

Author : Cira Pascual Marquina
Publisher : Monthly Review Press
ISBN 13 : 1583678654
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (836 download)

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Book Synopsis Venezuela, the Present as Struggle by : Cira Pascual Marquina

Download or read book Venezuela, the Present as Struggle written by Cira Pascual Marquina and published by Monthly Review Press. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals the revolutionary power of the Chavista grassroots movement Venezuela has been the stuff of frontpage news extravaganzas, especially since the death of Hugo Chavez. With predictable bias, mainstream media focus on violent clashes between opposition and government, coup attempts, hyperinflation, U.S. sanctions, and massive immigration. What is less known, however, is the story of what the Venezuelan people – especially the Chavista masses – do and think in these times of social emergency. Denying us their stories comes at a high price to people everywhere, because the Chavista bases are the real motors of the Bolivarian revolution. This revolutionary grassroots movement still aspires to the communal path to socialism that Chavez refined in his last years. Venezuela, the Present as Struggle is an eloquent testament to their lives. Comprised of a series of compelling interviews conducted by Cira Pascual Marquina, professor at the Bolivarian University, and contextualized by author Chris Gilbert, the book seeks to open a window on grassroots Chavismo itself in the wake of Chavez’s death. Feminist and housing activists, communards, organic intellectuals, and campesinos from around the country speak up in their own voices, defending the socialist project and pointing to what they see as revolutionary solutions to Venezuela’s current crisis. If the Venezuelan government has shown an impressive capacity to resist imperialism, it is the Chavista grassroots movement, as this book shows, that actually defends socialism as the only coherent project of national liberation.

Democratic Institutional Design

Author : Brian F. Crisp
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804735704
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (357 download)

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Book Synopsis Democratic Institutional Design by : Brian F. Crisp

Download or read book Democratic Institutional Design written by Brian F. Crisp and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the policy-making structures of Venezuelan government, this book examines the constitutionally allocated powers of the executive and legislature and shows how the powers of each branch are exercised given the incentives established by the electoral system and changing partisan strengths. Several institutional characteristics have led to a passive legislature and an activist chief executive. The advantages presidents enjoy as a result of their constitutional and partisan powers are demonstrated by a wealth of empirical evidence, including records of votes of censure, initiation of legislation, and the use of decree authority. Because of its dominance, the Venezuelan executive branch is the focus of interest-group pressure, which is institutionalized through consultative commissions and a decentralized public administration. The author analyzes memberships of more than 300 advisory commissions and governing boards, revealing the preponderance of posts filled by umbrella agencies for business and labor. The interaction of this limited version of civil society with policy makers in the executive branch has led to a highly protectionist development strategy and excessive government subsidies. The strategy and the political process that made it possible were both exhausted by the end of the 1980s. Venezuela was in political and economic crisis. The author places Venezuela in a comparative context with other Latin American states on three issues: the likelihood that executives will receive disciplined, majority support in the legislature; the constitutional powers of presidents; and the degree to which business and labor are formally incorporated through single peak associations. Participation and policy-making processes vary significantly across Latin American democracies, with few others reaching the level of centralization that has characterized Venezuela. At the other end of the spectrum, some Latin American institutional designs are characterized by diffusion and fragmentation. In conclusion, the author offers a blueprint to modify some of the counterproductive patterns associated with Venezuela, one of the longest-lived but now troubled democracies in Latin America.

Barrio Rising

Author : Prof. Alejandro Velasco
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520959183
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis Barrio Rising by : Prof. Alejandro Velasco

Download or read book Barrio Rising written by Prof. Alejandro Velasco and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-07-24 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the late 1950s political leaders in Venezuela built what they celebrated as Latin America’s most stable democracy. But outside the staid halls of power, in the gritty barrios of a rapidly urbanizing country, another politics was rising—unruly, contentious, and clamoring for inclusion. Based on years of archival and ethnographic research in Venezuela’s largest public housing community, Barrio Rising delivers the first in-depth history of urban popular politics before the Bolivarian Revolution, providing crucial context for understanding the democracy that emerged during the presidency of Hugo Chávez. In the mid-1950s, a military government bent on modernizing Venezuela razed dozens of slums in the heart of the capital Caracas, replacing them with massive buildings to house the city’s working poor. The project remained unfinished when the dictatorship fell on January 23, 1958, and in a matter of days city residents illegally occupied thousands of apartments, squatted on green spaces, and renamed the neighborhood to honor the emerging democracy: the 23 de Enero (January 23). During the next thirty years, through eviction efforts, guerrilla conflict, state violence, internal strife, and official neglect, inhabitants of el veintitrés learned to use their strategic location and symbolic tie to the promise of democracy in order to demand a better life. Granting legitimacy to the state through the vote but protesting its failings with violent street actions when necessary, they laid the foundation for an expansive understanding of democracy—both radical and electoral—whose features still resonate today. Blending rich narrative accounts with incisive analyses of urban space, politics, and everyday life, Barrio Rising offers a sweeping reinterpretation of modern Venezuelan history as seen not by its leaders but by residents of one of the country’s most distinctive popular neighborhoods.

Building the Commune

Author : Geo Maher
Publisher : Verso Books
ISBN 13 : 1784782246
Total Pages : 145 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (847 download)

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Book Synopsis Building the Commune by : Geo Maher

Download or read book Building the Commune written by Geo Maher and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Latin America’s experiments in direct democracy Since 2011, a wave of popular uprisings has swept the globe, taking shape in the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, 15M in Spain, and the anti-austerity protests in Greece. The demands have been varied, but have expressed a consistent commitment to the ideals of radical democracy. Similar experiments began appearing across Latin America twenty-five years ago, just as the left fell into decline in Europe. In Venezuela, poor barrio residents arose in a mass rebellion against neoliberalism, ushering in a government that institutionalized the communes already forming organically. In Building the Commune, George Ciccariello-Maher travels through these radical experiments, speaking to a broad range of community members, workers, students and government officials. Assessing the projects’ successes and failures, Building the Commune provides lessons and inspiration for the radical movements of today.

Autocracy Rising

Author : Javier Corrales
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
ISBN 13 : 0815738080
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (157 download)

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Book Synopsis Autocracy Rising by : Javier Corrales

Download or read book Autocracy Rising written by Javier Corrales and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2023-02-06 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Nicolás Maduro reinvented authoritarianism for the twenty-first centurVenezuela, which once enjoyed periods of democratically elected governments in the latter half of the twentieth century, has descended into autocratic rule, coupled with economic collapse. In his new book, Autocracy Rising, veteran scholar of Latin American politics Javier Corrales explores how and why this happened. Corrales focuses on two themes: party systems and institutional capacity. He argues that Venezuela’s democratic backsliding advanced when the ruling party obtained far too much electoral clout while the opposition fragmented. The state then took control of formerly independent agencies of the state. This allowed the ruling party to use and abuse of the law to favor the president—which in turn generated a permanent economic crisis. After succeeding Hugo Chávez in 2013, Nicolás Maduro confronted, unexpectedly, another change in the party system: a rising opposition. This triggered deeper autocratization. To survive, the state was compelled to modernize autocratic practices and seek alliances with sinister partners. In short, Maduro concentrated power, paradoxically, by sharing power. Autocracy Rising compares what occurred in Venezuela to twenty other cases throughout Latin America where presidents were forced out of office. Corrales illuminates the depressing cycle in which semi-authoritarian regimes become increasingly autocratic in response to crisis, only to cause new crises that lead to even greater authoritarianism.

Dragon in the Tropics

Author : Javier Corrales
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 0815705026
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (157 download)

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Book Synopsis Dragon in the Tropics by : Javier Corrales

Download or read book Dragon in the Tropics written by Javier Corrales and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since he was first elected in 1999, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías has reshaped a frail but nonetheless pluralistic democracy into a semi-authoritarian regime—an outcome achieved with spectacularly high oil income and widespread electoral support. This eye-opening book illuminates one of the most sweeping and unexpected political transformations in contemporary Latin America. Based on more than fifteen years' experience in researching and writing about Venezuela, Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold have crafted a comprehensive account of how the Chávez regime has revamped the nation, with a particular focus on its political transformation. Throughout, they take issue with conventional explanations. First, they argue persuasively that liberal democracy as an institution was not to blame for the rise of chavismo. Second, they assert that the nation's economic ailments were not caused by neoliberalism. Instead they blame other factors, including a dependence on oil, which caused macroeconomic volatility; political party fragmentation, which triggered infighting; government mismanagement of the banking crisis, which led to more centralization of power; and the Asian crisis of 1997, which devastated Venezuela's economy at the same time that Chávez ran for president. It is perhaps on the role of oil that the authors take greatest issue with prevailing opinion. They do not dispute that dependence on oil can generate political and economic distortions—the "resource curse" or "paradox of plenty" arguments—but they counter that oil alone fails to explain Chávez's rise. Instead they single out a weak framework of checks and balances that allowed the executive branch to extract oil rents and distribute them to the populace. The real culprit behind Chávez's success, they write, was the asymmetry of political power.

Financial Crisis Management and Democracy

Author : Bettina De Souza Guilherme
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030548953
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis Financial Crisis Management and Democracy by : Bettina De Souza Guilherme

Download or read book Financial Crisis Management and Democracy written by Bettina De Souza Guilherme and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-09 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book discusses financial crisis management and policy in Europe and Latin America, with a special focus on equity and democracy. Based on a three-year research project by the Jean Monnet Network, this volume takes an interdisciplinary, comparative approach, analyzing both the role and impact of the EU and regional organizations in Latin America on crisis management as well as the consequences of crisis on the process of European integration and on Latin America’s regionalism. The book begins with a theoretical introduction, exploring the effects of the paradigm change on economic policies in Europe and in Latin America and analyzing key systemic aspects of the unsustainability of the present economic system explaining the global crises and their interconnections. The following chapters are divided into sections. The second section explores aspects of regional governance and how the economic and financial crises were managed on a macro level in Europe and Latin America. The third and fourth sections use case studies to drill down to the impact of the crises at the national and regional levels, including the emergence of political polarization and rise in populism in both areas. The last section presents proposals for reform, including the transition from finance capitalism to a sustainable real capitalism in both regions and at the inter-regional level of EU-LAC relations.The volume concludes with an epilogue on financial crises, regionalism, and domestic adjustment by Loukas Tsoukalis, President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). Written by an international network of academics, practitioners and policy advisors, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students interested in macroeconomics, comparative regionalism, democracy, and financial crisis management as well as politicians, policy advisors, and members of national and regional organizations in the EU and Latin America.

Strong Parties and Lame Ducks

Author : Michael Coppedge
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804729611
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (296 download)

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Book Synopsis Strong Parties and Lame Ducks by : Michael Coppedge

Download or read book Strong Parties and Lame Ducks written by Michael Coppedge and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bold and comprehensive reassessment of democracy in Venezuela explains why one of the oldest and most admired democracies in Latin America has become fragile after more than three decades of apparent stability.

We Created Chávez

Author : Geo Maher
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822354527
Total Pages : 347 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis We Created Chávez by : Geo Maher

Download or read book We Created Chávez written by Geo Maher and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since being elected president in 1998, Hugo Chávez has become the face of contemporary Venezuela and, more broadly, anticapitalist revolution. George Ciccariello-Maher contends that this focus on Chávez has obscured the inner dynamics and historical development of the country’s Bolivarian Revolution. In We Created Chávez, by examining social movements and revolutionary groups active before and during the Chávez era, Ciccariello-Maher provides a broader, more nuanced account of Chávez’s rise to power and the years of activism that preceded it. Based on interviews with grassroots organizers, former guerrillas, members of neighborhood militias, and government officials, Ciccariello-Maher presents a new history of Venezuelan political activism, one told from below. Led by leftist guerrillas, women, Afro-Venezuelans, indigenous people, and students, the social movements he discusses have been struggling against corruption and repression since 1958. Ciccariello-Maher pays particular attention to the dynamic interplay between the Chávez government, revolutionary social movements, and the Venezuelan people, recasting the Bolivarian Revolution as a long-term and multifaceted process of political transformation.

The Real Venezuela

Author : Iain Bruce
Publisher : Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Real Venezuela by : Iain Bruce

Download or read book The Real Venezuela written by Iain Bruce and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2008 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A refreshing look at the meaning of socialism in Venezuela from the point of view of the country's ordinary citizens.

The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies

Author : Diana Kapiszewski
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 110890159X
Total Pages : 587 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies by : Diana Kapiszewski

Download or read book The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American Democracies written by Diana Kapiszewski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 587 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Latin American states took dramatic steps toward greater inclusion during the late twentieth and early twenty-first Centuries. Bringing together an accomplished group of scholars, this volume examines this shift by introducing three dimensions of inclusion: official recognition of historically excluded groups, access to policymaking, and resource redistribution. Tracing the movement along these dimensions since the 1990s, the editors argue that the endurance of democratic politics, combined with longstanding social inequalities, create the impetus for inclusionary reforms. Diverse chapters explore how factors such as the role of partisanship and electoral clientelism, constitutional design, state capacity, social protest, populism, commodity rents, international diffusion, and historical legacies encouraged or inhibited inclusionary reform during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Featuring original empirical evidence and a strong theoretical framework, the book considers cross-national variation, delves into the surprising paradoxes of inclusion, and identifies the obstacles hindering further fundamental change.