Open research questions in Politics and Society in Latin America
92 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 5,424 Politics and Society in Latin America papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.
What the literature leaves open
200 As was described in “The Importance of Transformative Reparations” section, reparative justice is also transformative, elevating victims beyond their prior socioeconomic conditions since repair is insufficient when those conditions were themselves marked by structural injustice.
FROM RABINAL TO GUATEMALA'S HIGH RISK COURT: MAYA A'CHI WOMEN'S JOURNEY TO LEGAL JUSTICE · 2026 · DOIDrawing on archival research on the PS and the Internationals, the article shows how Argentine socialists actively translated and contested European norms, ultimately contributing to the historiography of international socialism by addressing the underexplored role of non-European parties.
Forging a Peripheral Inter-nationalism: The Argentine Socialist Party’s Relationship with the Internationals (1889–1940) · 2026 · DOIFar from a passive ally, Brazil emerged as a pivotal, if under-recognised, actor in the continental polarisation that led to democratic collapse in Venezuela (1948), Cuba (1952) and Guatemala (1954).
‘ <i>Cúmplices da sua política tirânica</i> ’: The Arming of a Tyrant and Brazil’s Role in the Military Escalation of the Latin American Cold War, 1944–54 · 2025 · DOIAiming to address this gap in the literature, the different contributions in this special issue revise the conceptualization, measurement, and theory of a multidimensional phenomenon such as polarization, including both its ideological and affective dimensions, as well as perspectives at the elite and mass levels of analysis.
Building on different readings of Lins’s work (Schwarz, Fitzgibbon, and Lorenz) and on the work of other anthropologists and historians (Alves, Segato, and Dawson), this article provides a close reading of the novel, focusing on an understudied aspect: the intersections between precariousness, gender, and the political, specifically, the relationship between masculine brutality and state sovereignty.
This article analyses the political campaign of the rather under-researched Bancada Ativista, a prefigurative progressive experience comprised of nine co-candidates running for a single seat in the State Chamber of Sao Paulo during the 2018 Brazilian elections.
Collectivizing political mandates: A discursive approach to the Brazilian <i>Bancada Ativista</i> ’s campaign in the 2018 elections · 2021 · DOIAbstract Does social background affect legislators’ behavior in office? Do individuals with specific social ties tend to be mainly concerned with representing their group of reference, beyond partisanship? This article deals with these questions by analyzing bill-drafting patterns by representatives in the Argentine Congress who belong to an understudied group: workers.
Division or Union of Labor? Analyzing Workers’ Representation in the Argentine Congress · 2018 · DOIIt then pivots off the 2016 election to highlight three additional lines of inquiry that are either understudied or where the findings in the literature remain conflicted: the effects of threat on Latino mobilization, the entry of new Latino voters into American politics, and Latino conservatism.
The data strengthens the miscegenation tendency on its epistemological and paradigmatic aspects, which underlines a lack of consensus over the structure of American dominance over the discipline of International Relations in Latin America, especially if one observes the most numerous and structured group in the region: the Brazilian International Relations community.
Is International Relations still an American social science discipline in Latin America? · 2017 · DOIIn this paper, the territory is fundamentally seen (as a first approximation) as a space defined and delimited by and through power relations , and it is important to see that power (both heteronomous and autonomous power) is exerted only with reference to a territory and, very often, by means of a territory.
Lessons from Praxis: Autonomy and Spatiality in Contemporary Latin American Social Movements · 2015 · DOIIf that 20-year-old volume was notable for its argument that state formation could be studied from a cultural and popular perspective emphasizing the “negotiation of rule,” the book presently under review illustrates the multiplicity of approaches and perspectives employed by scholars today.
While the Bolivian ‘post’ consultation about the contested construction of a highway through the TIPNIS has received a lot of attention, very little is known about the 27 prior consultations that have been concluded between June 2007 and February 2012 in its hydrocarbon sector.
Prior Consultations in Plurinational Bolivia: Democracy, Rights and Real Life Experiences · 2013 · DOIThis article highlights poorly understood but relatively successful aspects of the import substitution industrialization (ISI) strategy on technological advancement in the state-led era.
It argues that the dichotomy between Peru as a commodity-providing periphery and China as a core manufacturing centre is insufficient to explain the ways in which power is embedded in the international economic system, and particularly inadequate to identify winners and losers in the international division of labour.
Yet, what if “culture” is insufficient, even an inadequate notion, to think the challenge that indigenous politics represents? Drawing inspiration from recent political events in Peru—and to a lesser extent in Ecuador and Bolivia—where the indigenous–popular movement has conjured sentient entities (mountains, water, and soil—what we call “nature”) into the public political arena, the argument in this essay is threefold.
The emergence of indigenous movements has created an international regime on the rights of indigenous peoples, the adoption of a new jurisprudence with regard to indigenous peoples, and the creation of autonomous territories, though there is still no agreement on the best way to articulate these territories.
The Emergence of Indigenous Movements in Latin America and Their Impact on the Latin American Political Scene · 2010 · DOIAbstract Based on ethnographic reanalysis and on current qualitative research on poor people's politics, this article argues that routine patronage politics and nonroutine collective action should be examined not as opposite and conflicting political phenomena but as dynamic processes that often establish recursive relationships.
We apply our theoretical framework to two empirical cases, the Indian independence movement and the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil (known as Movimento Sem Terra or MST), and conclude with ideas for further research on political cultures of nonviolent opposition.
Rethinking Nonviolent Action and Contentious Politics: Political Cultures of Nonviolent Opposition in the Indian Independence Movement and Brazil's Landless Workers Movement · 2007 · DOI2 Given the conflicting results in the literature, and the policy significance of the issue, a brief commentary on the question of regime type, rights, and FDI in Latin America (and in other developing areas) is warranted.
Biglaiser and DeRouen's (2006) paper adds to a growing number of studies that have produced conflicting findings regarding the effects of regime type and/or rights and liberties on FDI.
The politics of ethnic names, such as ‘Latino’ and ‘Hispanic’, raises legitimate issues for three reasons: because non-political considerations of descriptive adequacy are insufficient to determine absolutely the question of names; political considerations may be germane to an ethnic name’s descriptive adequacy; and naming opens up the political question of a chosen furture, to which we are accountable.
One of the most widely accepted and widely professed facts in Latin American politics is the dominant role of the president but, curiously, most discussions of presidentialism are limited to the US and comparisons with Great Britain.
An important industrialization process was begun and, although it was insufficiently widespread, considerable accumulation in the secondary and tertiary sectors guaranteed the expansion of domestic markets, the development of a strong middle class, and Mexico's transformation into a relatively modern country.
Economic Changes and the Need for a New Federalism: Lessons from Mexico's Northern States · 1996 · DOIAt the end of 1986, when Contadora and its Support Group reduced their presence in Central America, their member countries decided to create a permanent organism for consultation and agreement, thus re-orienting and extending their working agenda, which had originally been limited to the issues of Central American policy and, in the economic area (through the Cartagena Group), to the problem of external debt.
The Rio Group: Decline or Consolidation of the Latin American <i>Concertación</i> Policy · 1991 · DOIMoreover, apart from the immediate conflicts which precipitated the two major uprisings of 1780 and 1814, little is known of the nature of social relations at local level during the interregnum of some three decades which separated those two revolts, or indeed before 1780.
Most-cited papers in Politics and Society in Latin America
- INDIGENOUS COSMOPOLITICS IN THE ANDES: Conceptual Reflections beyond “Politics” · Cultural Anthropology · 2010 · 1,223 citations
- Patronage Politics and Contentious Collective Action: A Recursive Relationship · Latin American Politics and Society · 2009 · 108 citations
- Right on Crime?: Conservative Party Politics and <i>Mano Dura</i> Policies in El Salvador · Latin American Research Review · 2013 · 96 citations
- From the Resources of Poverty to the Poverty of Resources? · Latin American Perspectives · 2001 · 96 citations
- The economic consequences of durable left-populist regimes in Latin America · Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization · 2020 · 95 citations
- Policy dismantling and democratic regression in Brazil under Bolsonaro: Coalition politics, ideas, and underlying discourses · Review of Policy Research · 2022 · 92 citations
- ‘Murderous energy’ in Oaxaca, Mexico: wind factories, territorial struggle and social warfare · The Journal of Peasant Studies · 2021 · 85 citations
- The Transaction Costs of Government Responses to the <scp>COVID</scp>‐19 Emergency in Latin America · Public Administration Review · 2020 · 75 citations
- Desigualdades raciais e a morte como horizonte: considerações sobre a COVID-19 e o racismo estrutural · Cadernos de Saúde Pública · 2020 · 74 citations
- Women Who Win: Social Backgrounds, Paths to Power, and Political Ambition in Latin American Legislatures · Politics & Gender · 2011 · 73 citations
Most recent work
- The sequencing of economic and political reforms in Latin America · Journal of Comparative Economics · 2026
- Forging a Peripheral Inter-nationalism: The Argentine Socialist Party’s Relationship with the Internationals (1889–1940) · International Review of Social History · 2026
- Social Work and Social Welfare in Latin America—Transnational Dynamics and Local Commonalities · Journal of Human Rights and Social Work · 2026
- Congresso Nacional e TSE dialogam por eleições sem riscos à saúde da população em meio a uma pandemia. · Revista Justiça Eleitoral em Debate · 2026
- Estudo mostra que candidaturas ‘outsiders’ na política brasileira são um padrão e não um sinal de crise · 2026
- Sin bancas no hay paraíso: competitividad, integración y dinámicas territoriales en las PASO legislativas multinivel en Argentina (2007–2023) · REVISTA SAAP · 2026
- FROM RABINAL TO GUATEMALA'S HIGH RISK COURT: MAYA A'CHI WOMEN'S JOURNEY TO LEGAL JUSTICE · Knowledge@UChicago (University of Chicago) · 2026
- The Paradox of Post-Independence Mexican Liberalism: José María Luis Mora and the assimilation of indigenous communities in the early nineteenth century · Open MIND · 2026
- La poligamia entre los mormones LeBarón. Un modelo político y económico en México · Alteridades · 2026
- La violencia contra las mujeres durante el terrorismo de Estado en San Juan · RUNA archivo para las ciencias del hombre · 2026
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