Abstract Latin America is characterised by the existence of a large number of overlapping regional international organisations (RIOs). From the late 1990s onward, a ‘Pink Tide’ brought many left-wing governments into office. This development also manifested itself in the creation of new ‘post-liberal’ or ‘post-hegemonic’ RIOs, including ALBA, CELAC and UNASUR, and the transformation of existing organisations. Once the ‘Pink Tide’ began to ebb in the mid-2010s, left-leaning RIOs encountered contestations through exit threats and actual withdrawals. This paper explains the observed pattern and argues that when right-leaning governments ideologically clash with the RIO while not being able to induce change to match their own aspirations, severe dissatisfaction arises. This can culminate in exit threats and – when the RIO is not deemed as highly important by the state in question – lead to withdrawals. The paper concludes with insights into the consequences of these challenges for RIOs.
This article examines the historical process from environmental to climate activism in Chile, showing how it has occupied an intermediate and dynamic position that connects the local and the global, often ahead of national policies. Through an ethnographic approach and a genealogical and historical methodology (reviewing primary newspaper sources and administrative records), complemented by nine in-depth interviews, this research analyses the trajectories, organisations and knowledge of activists in relation to national institutions and international governance. The study highlights processes of professionalisation, diversification of strategies and the creation of transnational networks, consolidating activism as a key actor in climate governance, although constrained by limited resources and the restrictions of the neoliberal model.
This paper analyses living standards in the capital cities of southern Latin America during the First Globalisation and the post-export-led period. It examines whether well-being in these cities - relative to London - improved and whether the gap in living standards between these cities narrowed or persisted. To address these questions, we constructed a new series of purchasing power parity (PPP) converters to adjust real wages and analyse their evolution in comparison to London. The findings highlight two key points: first, relative living standards in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago de Chile were higher in the pre-World War I period than in the post-export-led era, during which real wages significantly declined, falling well below those of London; second, notable disparities in real wages persisted among the cities of the Southern Cone.
Labour contractors (enganchadores) were key figures in capitalist modernisation in northern Peru after 1880. Via overlapping networks of monetary, moral and coercive mechanisms, they shaped circuits of accumulation by linking highland labour to coastal sugar plantations. The reliance of coastal sugar planters on highland enganchadores for guaranteeing labour supply highlights the failure of an independent national state to consolidate in this period beyond local and regional hegemonies. Therefore, an examination of enganchadores and the hybrid markets they embodied challenges both linear narratives about the rise of modern economies and conceptual binaries between market and non-market, state and non-state and centre and periphery in Peru and globally.
This paper traces the history of Chinese migration to Venezuela from 1875 onward, leading to the Chinese expulsion orders of 1938 and 1941. It highlights the shifting phases of acceptance and discrimination by Venezuela's state and society, emphasising the agency of the Chinese community in resisting exclusion through transnational networks and diplomatic advocacy. Additionally, it examines the unique characteristics of this migrant group, the discrepancies between legal frameworks and their enforcement, and the influence of racial and ethnic ideologies in shaping immigration policy and public sentiment. Ultimately, this paper demonstrates how international dynamics shaped the well-being of Chinese Venezuelans and advocates for a more transnational approach to understanding migration to Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
This article explores the interplay between business elites and the Argentine state in shaping social policy from the late nineteenth century until 1943, focusing on the sugar industry in Jujuy. It asks why sugar industrialists introduced welfare measures in their mills during the 1930s and what social conditions shaped their choices. We argue that limited assistance initiatives, introduced following the Great Depression, allowed mill owners to justify tariff protection while reinforcing their dominance over workers and curbing union influence. These measures, rooted in the sugar elites' control of provincial politics and sustained intervention in the state apparatus, exemplify early forms of private-public cooperation in welfare provision. By tracing the evolution of state-business interaction in social provision, the article demonstrates how local industries shaped welfare regimes before the rise of Peronism, offering new insights into the diversity of policy responses and social realities in Argentina and Latin America.
Why do governments engage in public negotiations with criminal groups, which can be politically costly? I argue that three conditions are necessary for elected authorities to support public negotiations. First, elected authorities support negotiations when the relative conditions of criminal power make it easier to portray negotiations as superior to repression (repression failure frame) or as means to support disaffected youth (marginalisation frame). Second, dialogue brokers - that is, key individuals within government and civil society with know-how about criminal groups - shape government support by inserting concrete negotiation proposals into these frames. Third, electoral security for executive authorities incentivises them to support negotiations. I substantiate this argument by comparing cases in cities with contrasting state capacity and criminal sophistication, Belize City and Medell & iacute;n.
This article examines the crucial yet underexplored role of indigenous peasant women in the struggle for agrarian reform and peasant liberation during the second half of the twentieth century in Latin America. Focusing on and re-examining the peasant movement of La Convenci & oacute;n (Peru) and employing historical and anthropological methods, it argues that these women were far from peripheral actors. They actively engaged in unions, collective actions and even armed militias, performing both traditional and non-traditional gender roles to challenge the exploitative hacienda system and gender hierarchies. The article also analyses the impact of the Cold War on their rhetoric, alliances and broader struggle for social justice.
