{"title":"The Politics of Temporary Protection Schemes: The Role of Mexico’s TVRH in Reproducing Precarity among Central American Migrants","authors":"Carla Angulo-Pasel","doi":"10.1177/1866802X211027886","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X211027886","url":null,"abstract":"Using Mexico’s Tarjeta de Visitante por Razones Humanitarias (TVRH) as a primary case study, this article examines how states can use temporary protection schemes as border security measures while claiming to provide protection. Although the TVRH offers a legal pathway and status to move within Mexico, it equally restricts certain rights due to its temporary nature. It becomes a form of differential inclusion by which the state has the right to be able to “exclude and define the limits” of a particular population but also claim inclusion on humanitarian grounds. Despite the claim of protecting migrants, the application of this regular status can essentially become a form of interdiction, which sustains the political framing of migration as ultimately a “threat” that needs to be governed. On the ground, migrants with these temporary regular statuses occupy a liminal space and live a precarious existence similar to those migrants who do not possess a legal status at all. This power imbalance exists more often as states prefer to grant a temporary immigration status, which ensures less responsibility and support that accompanies more rights and protections. Based on policy analysis and field work, the article will examine the TVRH, the processes for obtaining this legal status, and the consequences for irregular migrants.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"14 1","pages":"84 - 102"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X211027886","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45258604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Nicaragua Protest Crisis in 2018–2019: Assessing the Logic of Government Responses to Protests","authors":"Graig R. Klein, Jose Cuesta, C. Chagalj","doi":"10.1177/1866802X211024246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X211024246","url":null,"abstract":"Despite constant monitoring, we lack a good explanation for the 2018–2019 protest crisis in Nicaragua. The escalation of protests, repression, duration, and the death toll are surprising. Applying a novel political and economic cost framework, we benchmark Nicaragua’s historical and recent political protests and explain the Ortega administration’s responses, thus providing a rich case (with comparative data for context) that makes sense of this extraordinary period of protest. The empirical analysis buttresses our qualitative case study of protest motivations and tactics and extreme state violence that define four phases of the conflict. The combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses creates one of the first robust studies of protest–response dynamics of this protest crisis. We conclude that these protests are unique with respect to previous protests in the country and the region and that government repression was a logical response in some phases but was inconsistently applied.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"14 1","pages":"55 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X211024246","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43808595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Pandemic and the Crisis of Democracy in Brazil","authors":"L. Avritzer, Lucio R. Rennó","doi":"10.1177/1866802X211022362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X211022362","url":null,"abstract":"Some claim that an erosion of democracy is occurring worldwide. There are also questions on the scope of the crisis, which countries are affected, and how to reverse it. The Covid-19 pandemic may have fostered disagreements, deepened rifts, and contributed to the definitive crystallisation of the crisis, but it may also have engendered more moderate and compliant attitudes given the need to unify around the response to common threat. We explore the current dilemmas of democracy in the Brazilian case, focusing on how regime legitimacy, authoritarian attitudes, and support for a populist, authoritarian leader interact and are affected by the pandemic, using public opinion data from 2018 to 2020.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"13 1","pages":"442 - 457"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X211022362","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45250108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital Caudillos: The Use of Social Media in Guatemalan Presidential Campaigns","authors":"Kevin Pallister","doi":"10.1177/1866802X211010319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X211010319","url":null,"abstract":"This article contributes to the scholarship on Latin American campaigning by presenting data on the use of social media by presidential candidates in Guatemala’s 2019 election, including a content analysis of more than 2,000 Facebook posts along fifteen variables. The data show that Facebook use by presidential campaigns is ubiquitous and allows campaigns to disseminate messages in non-traditional formats. Candidates use their Facebook accounts to mention issues of concern to voters and to make promises to fix the country’s problems, but offer far more slogans and vague promises than detailed policy proposals. They also rarely attack other candidates or tout their own qualifications for the presidency. The data also reveal systematic differences in campaign messaging between frontrunner and long-shot candidates.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"13 1","pages":"269 - 283"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X211010319","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42815509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Illusion of Electoral Stability: From Party System Erosion to Right-Wing Populism in Brazil","authors":"André Borges","doi":"10.1177/1866802X211005164","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X211005164","url":null,"abstract":"Although comparative research has relied heavily on electoral volatility as a proxy for party system institutionalisation (PSI), this measure cannot account for the patterns of interparty interactions that are key to determine the degree of party system stability. I develop a new measure – the party bloc volatility (PBV) index – to account for consistency in the ideological positions and in the partisan composition of the government and opposition blocs. I demonstrate the limitations of the index of electoral volatility by analysing the case of Brazil. Although electoral volatility substantially decreased between 1994 and 2010, the patterns of interparty alliances became less and less predictable from 2002 onwards, as party fragmentation increased while interparty ideological differences decreased. In combination with a major economic and political crisis, these trends led to the discrediting of the established parties and thus favoured the rise of the extreme right in the 2018 elections.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"13 1","pages":"166 - 191"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X211005164","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46145114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Oiling Congress: Windfall Revenues, Institutions, and Policy Change in the Long Run","authors":"Raúl Aldaz Peña","doi":"10.1177/1866802X211003306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X211003306","url":null,"abstract":"Presidents need to craft political support to push through policy changes. But even when new policies are socially desirable, they are not always politically feasible. This article shows that in re...","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"13 1","pages":"141 - 165"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X211003306","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41588780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Coercion in Disguise? A Reassessment of Brazilian Education and Health Reforms","authors":"R. Schlegel, D. Vazquez","doi":"10.1177/1866802X21991145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X21991145","url":null,"abstract":"In federations and other regionalised arrangements, the search for co-operation may lead to a hierarchical alignment where the centre concentrates policy decision-making power. The use of conditional grants to build this kind of co-ordination can disguise its rather coercive character when opt-out clauses are counteracted by fiscal constraints that virtually force subnational adherence. Previous accounts on recentralisation in Latin America have overlooked this feature, particularly by mistakenly identifying the transfer of fiscal resources and responsibilities with authority over policies. The article adopts a configurational approach, focused on mechanisms, to reassess two Brazilian programmes redesigned in the 1990s and 2000s – the Fundamental Education Fund (Fundef) and the Basic Health Care Programme (Programa de Atenção Básica, PAB). Our evidence shows that both reforms followed hierarchical paths and received massive adherence of municipalities. We discuss how this kind of coercion in disguise is especially concerning in settings where some retrenchment of social expenditure is expected.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"13 1","pages":"243 - 268"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X21991145","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48523131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial","authors":"Rossana Castiglioni, Mariana Llanos","doi":"10.1177/1866802x211006036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802x211006036","url":null,"abstract":"[...]we commit to continuing to publish high-quality, peer-reviewed research that provides a deeper understanding of political processes, institutions, and actors of the Latin American region. [...]we renew JPLA's approach to the study of Latin American politics within a framework of methodological and theoretical pluralism. Additionally, Latin America continues to be the most violent region in the world. [...]the emergence of COVID-19 posed further challenges to the region.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"13 1","pages":"3 - 4"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802x211006036","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49070364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introverted and Closed-Minded: The Psychological Roots of Support for Autocracy in Latin America","authors":"Paula Armendáriz Miranda, Matthew Cawvey","doi":"10.1177/1866802X21991261","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X21991261","url":null,"abstract":"What activates individuals’ support for autocratic governments? Some suggest that the answer is perceptions of increased corruption and/or poor economic performance. We do not dispute this explanation but instead contend that it depends on individual differences in personality. We hypothesise that introverted and closed-minded citizens are generally resistant to democracy. When democracies appear unable to address problems, introverted and closed-minded citizens defer to authoritarian leaders for efficient solutions. We test our hypotheses with cross-national survey data from Latin America. Our findings have important implications for how we understand the roots of autocratic attitudes.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"13 1","pages":"40 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X21991261","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42590025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Institutions, Policy, and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in Latin America","authors":"Eduardo J. Gómez, C. Méndez","doi":"10.1177/1866802X20980455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X20980455","url":null,"abstract":"Research has underscored the agenda-setting and policy implementation advantages associated with the concentration of political and policy-making authority. But to what extent does this concentration of authority within health policy-making institutions determine the early timing and depth of non-communicable disease (NCD) policies? Are other factors within and outside of government more important? Comparing one Latin American country exhibiting a strong concentration of political and policy-making authority, Mexico, to one that does not, Brazil, we find that weaker, fragmented political and policy-making powers in Brazil expedited the creation and implementation of NCD programs. As seen in Brazil, our findings suggest that the factors that account for the earlier adoption of NCD policies and successful implementation are the early institutionalisation of societal interests and pressures within the bureaucracy, the “bottom-up” diffusion of early policy ideas, and international policy recommendations. This institutional, participatory, and ideational approach may provide more important predictors for explaining variation in NCD policies.","PeriodicalId":44885,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Politics in Latin America","volume":"13 1","pages":"114 - 137"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1866802X20980455","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46347426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}