Democracy And The Public Space In Latin America

Author : Leonardo Avritzer
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 202 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0691090874

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Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America by Leonardo Avritzer Pdf

Unlike many theorists, Avritzer builds his case empirically. He looks at human rights movements in Argentina and Brazil, neighbourhood associations in Brazil and Mexico and election-monitoring initiatives in Mexico. Contending that such participation has not gone far enough, he proposes a way to involve citizens even more directly in policy decisions. For example, he points to experiments in "participary budgeting" in two Brazilian cities. Ultimatley, the concept of such a space beyond the reach of democratic possibility, of the cultural transformation that spurred it, and of the tensions that persist, in a region where democracy is both new and different from the Old World models.

Author : Clara Irazábal
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2008-01-17
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9781134326242

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Ordinary Places/Extraordinary Events by Clara Irazábal Pdf

Clara Irazábal and her contributors explore the urban history of some of Latin America’s great cities through studies of their public spaces and what has taken place there. The avenues and plazas of Mexico City, Havana, Santo Domingo, Caracas, Bogotaì, SaÞo Paulo, Lima, Santiago, and Buenos Aires have been the backdrop for extraordinary, history-making events. While some argue that public spaces are a prerequisite for the expression, representation and reinforcement of democracy, they can equally be used in the pursuit of totalitarianism. Indeed, public spaces, in both the past and present, have been the site for the contestation by ordinary people of various stances on democracy and citizenship. By exploring the use and meaning of public spaces in Latin American cities, this book sheds light on contemporary definitions of citizenship and democracy in the Americas.

Author : Leonardo Avritzer
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2009-01-10
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1400825016

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Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America by Leonardo Avritzer Pdf

This is a bold new study of the recent emergence of democracy in Latin America. Leonardo Avritzer shows that traditional theories of democratization fall short in explaining this phenomenon. Scholars have long held that the postwar stability of Western Europe reveals that restricted democracy, or "democratic elitism," is the only realistic way to guard against forces such as the mass mobilizations that toppled European democracies after World War I. Avritzer challenges this view. Drawing on the ideas of Jürgen Habermas, he argues that democracy can be far more inclusive and can rely on a sphere of autonomous association and argument by citizens. He makes this argument by showing that democratic collective action has opened up a new "public space" for popular participation in Latin American politics. Unlike many theorists, Avritzer builds his case empirically. He looks at human rights movements in Argentina and Brazil, neighborhood associations in Brazil and Mexico, and election-monitoring initiatives in Mexico. Contending that such participation has not gone far enough, he proposes a way to involve citizens even more directly in policy decisions. For example, he points to experiments in "participatory budgeting" in two Brazilian cities. Ultimately, the concept of such a space beyond the reach of state administration fosters a broader view of democratic possibility, of the cultural transformation that spurred it, and of the tensions that persist, in a region where democracy is both new and different from the Old World models.

Author : Olivier Dabène
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2019-09-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9783030269135

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Street Art and Democracy in Latin America by Olivier Dabène Pdf

This book explores street art’s contributions to democracy in Latin America through a comparative study of five cities: Bogota (Colombia), São Paulo (Brazil), Valparaiso (Chile), Oaxaca (Mexico) and Havana (Cuba). The author argues that when artists invade public space for the sake of disseminating rage, claims or statements, they behave as urban citizens who try to raise public awareness, nurture public debates and hold authorities accountable. Street art also reveals how public space is governed. When local authorities try to contain, regulate or repress public space invasions, they can achieve their goals democratically if they dialogue with the artists and try to reach a consensus inspired by a conception of the city as a commons. Under specific conditions, the book argues, street level democracy and collaborative governance can overlap, prompting a democratization of democracy.

Author : Carlos A. Forment
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 485 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2013-07-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780226112909

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Democracy in Latin America, 1760-1900 by Carlos A. Forment Pdf

Carlos Forment's aim in this highly ambitious work is to write the book that Tocqueville would have written had he traveled to Latin America instead of the United States. Drawing on an astonishing level of research, Forment pored over countless newspapers, partisan pamphlets, tabloids, journals, private letters, and travelogues to show in this study how citizens of Latin America established strong democratic traditions in their countries through the practice of democracy in their everyday lives. This first volume of Democracy in Latin America considers the development of democratic life in Mexico and Peru from independence to the late 1890s. Forment traces the emergence of hundreds of political, economic, and civic associations run by citizens in both nations and shows how these organizations became models of and for democracy in the face of dictatorship and immense economic hardship. His is the first book to show the presence in Latin America of civic democracy, something that gave men and women in that region an alternative to market- and state-centered forms of life. In looking beneath institutions of government to uncover local and civil organizations in public life, Forment ultimately uncovers a tradition of edification and inculcation that shaped democratic practices in Latin America profoundly. This tradition, he reveals, was stronger in Mexico than in Peru, but its basic outlines were similar in both nations and included a unique form of what Forment calls Civic Catholicism in order to distinguish itself from civic republicanism, the dominant political model throughout the rest of the Western world.

Author : R. Feinberg,C. Waisman,L. Zamosc
Publisher : Springer
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2006-04-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781403983244

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Civil Society and Democracy in Latin America by R. Feinberg,C. Waisman,L. Zamosc Pdf

A dense web of private associations drawn from multiple social classes, interest groups and value communities makes for a firm foundation for strong democracy. In Latin America today, will civil society improve the quality of democracy or will it foster political polarization and reverse recent progress? Distinguished theorists from the United States, Canada and Latin America explore the diverse impact of civil society on economic performance, political parties, and state institutions. In-depth and up-to-date country studies explore the consequences of civil society for the durability of democracy in three highly dynamic, controversial settings: Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.

Author : John A. Booth,Patricia Bayer Richard
Publisher : CQ Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2014-10-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781483322476

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Latin American Political Culture by John A. Booth,Patricia Bayer Richard Pdf

Latin American Political Culture: Public Opinion and Democracy presents a genuinely pan-Latin American examination of the region’s contemporary political culture. This is the only book to extensively investigate the attitudes and behaviors of Latin Americans based on the Latin American Public Opinion Project’s (LAPOP) AmericasBarometer surveys. The findings reveal a complex Latin America with distinct political culture. Authors John Booth and Patricia Bayer Richard join rigorous analysis with clear graphic presentation and extensive examples, and readers learn about public opinion research, engage with further questions for analysis, and have access to data, an expansive bibliography, and links to appendices.

Author : Scott Mainwaring,Christopher Welna
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2003-07-31
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780191531347

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Democratic Accountability in Latin America by Scott Mainwaring,Christopher Welna Pdf

This volume on democratic accountability addresses one of the burning issues on the agenda of policy makers and citizens in contemporary Latin America: how democratic leaders in Latin America can improve accountability while simultaneously promoting governmental effectiveness. Written by well-known scholars form both Latin America and the United States, the volume enhances understanding of these key themes, which are central to the future of democracy in Latin America. - ;This volume on democratic accountability addresses one of the burning issues on the agenda of policy makers and citizens in contemporary Latin America. In much of Latin America, disenchantment and cynicism have set in regarding the quality of elected governments raising the prospect of a new round of democratic erosion and breakdowns. One of the important emerging challenges for improving the quality of democracy resolves around how to build more effective mechanisms of accountability. A widespread perception prevails in much of the region that government officials are not sufficiently subject to routinized controls by oversight agencies. Corruption, lack of oversight, impunity of state actors, and improper use of public resources are major problems in most countries of the region. Dealing with these issues is paramount to restoring and deepening democratic legitimacy. The fundamental question in this volume is how democratic leaders in Latin America can improve accountability while simultaneously promoting governmental effectiveness. These issues have acquired urgency in contemporary Latin America because of heightened public concern about corruption and improper governmental actions on the one hand, yet on the other, uncertainty about the potential tradeoff between tightened accountability of officials and effective policy results. The volume enhances understanding of three key issues. First, it enriches understanding of the state of non-electoral forms of democratic accountability in contemporary Latin America. What are some of the major shortcoming in democratic accountability? How can they be addressed? What are some major innovations in the efforts to enhance democratic accountability? A second contribution of the volume is conceptual. Accountability is a key concept in the social sciences, yt its meaning varies widely form one author to the next. The authors in this volume, especially in the first four chapters, explicitly debate how bet to define and delimit the concept. Finally the volume also furthers understanding of the interactions between various mechanism and institutions of accountability. Many of the authors address how electoral accountability (the accountability of elected officials to the voters) interact with the forms of accountability in which state agencies oversee and sanction public officials. The volume provides extensive treatment of this important but hitherto under-explored interaction. -

Author : Carlos A. Forment
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 454 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Democracy
ISBN : OCLC:1062964692

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Democracy in Latin America, 1760-1900 by Carlos A. Forment Pdf

Author : Gisela Zaremberg,Valeria Guarneros-Meza,Adrián Gurza Lavalle
Publisher : Springer
Page : 211 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2017-03-06
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9783319515380

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Intermediation and Representation in Latin America by Gisela Zaremberg,Valeria Guarneros-Meza,Adrián Gurza Lavalle Pdf

This book shows how the introduction of intermediation is relevant in studying political and public policy processes, as they are increasingly accompanied by grey spaces in public and non-public arenas that cannot be categorized as purely representative or purely participative. Instead, ‘hybrid’ mechanisms are developing in the policy-making process, which bring in new actors who either are unelected while being required to represent or advocate for the common good of others or are directly elected but challenged by identity/rights-based issues of the people they are required to act in the best interest of. By proposing a conceptual frame on intermediation and addressing five different Latin American countries and a wide range of case studies —from human rights, labour relations, neighbourhood management, municipal bureaucracies, social accountability, to complex national systems of citizen participation—this volume shows the versatility and validity of a tridimensional frame, the “cube of political intermediation” (CPI) as a tool for analysing public policy and understanding contemporary democratic innovation in Latin America.

Author : Eduardo Canel
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2010-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780271037332

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Barrio Democracy in Latin America by Eduardo Canel Pdf

The transition to democracy underway in Latin America since the 1980s has recently witnessed a resurgence of interest in experimenting with new forms of local governance emphasizing more participation by ordinary citizens. The hope is both to foster the spread of democracy and to improve equity in the distribution of resources. While participatory budgeting has been a favorite topic of many scholars studying this new phenomenon, there are many other types of ongoing experiments. In Barrio Democracy in Latin America, Eduardo Canel focuses our attention on the innovative participatory programs launched by the leftist government in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the early 1990s. Based on his extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Canel examines how local activists in three low-income neighborhoods in that city dealt with the opportunities and challenges of implementing democratic practices and building better relationships with sympathetic city officials.

Author : Ignacio Walker
Publisher : University of Notre Dame Pess
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2013-04-30
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780268096663

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Democracy in Latin America by Ignacio Walker Pdf

In 2009, Ignacio Walker—scholar, politician, and one of Latin America’s leading public intellectuals—published La Democracia en América Latina. Now available in English, with a new prologue, and significantly revised and updated for an English-speaking audience, Democracy in Latin America: Between Hope and Despair contributes to the necessary and urgent task of exploring both the possibilities and difficulties of establishing a stable democracy in Latin America. Walker argues that, throughout the past century, Latin American history has been marked by the search for responses or alternatives to the crisis of oligarchic rule and the struggle to replace the oligarchic order with a democratic one. After reviewing some of the principal theories of democracy based on an analysis of the interactions of political, economic, and social factors, Walker maintains that it is primarily the actors, institutions, and public policies—not structural determinants—that create progress or regression in Latin American democracy.

Author : Jorge I. Domínguez,Michael Shifter
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2013-07-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781421409795

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Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America by Jorge I. Domínguez,Michael Shifter Pdf

After more than a century of assorted dictatorships and innumerable fiscal crises, the majority of Latin America's states are governed today by constitutional democratic regimes. Some analysts and scholars argue that Latin America weathered the 2008 fiscal crisis much better than the United States. How did this happen? Jorge I. Domínguez and Michael Shifter asked area specialists to examine the electoral and governance factors that shed light on this transformation and the region's prospects. They gather their findings in the fourth edition of Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America. This new edition is completely updated. Part I is thematic, covering issues of media, constitutionalism, the commodities boom, and fiscal management vis-à-vis governance. Part II focuses on eight important countries in the region—Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Already widely used in courses, Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America will continue to interest students of Latin American politics, democratization studies, and comparative politics as well as policymakers.

Author : Françoise Montambeault
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2015-10-14
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780804796576

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The Politics of Local Participatory Democracy in Latin America by Françoise Montambeault Pdf

Participatory democracy innovations aimed at bringing citizens back into local governance processes are now at the core of the international democratic development agenda. Municipalities around the world have adopted local participatory mechanisms of various types in the last two decades, including participatory budgeting, the flagship Brazilian program, and participatory planning, as it is the case in several Mexican municipalities. Yet, institutionalized participatory mechanisms have had mixed results in practice at the municipal level. So why and how does success vary? This book sets out to answer that question. Defining democratic success as a transformation of state-society relationships, the author goes beyond the clientelism/democracy dichotomy and reveals that four types of state-society relationships can be observed in practice: clientelism, disempowering co-option, fragmented inclusion, and democratic cooperation. Using this typology, and drawing on the comparative case study of four cities in Mexico and Brazil, the book demonstrates that the level of democratic success is best explained by an approach that accounts for institutional design, structural conditions of mobilization, and the configurations, strategies, behaviors, and perceptions of both state and societal actors. Thus, institutional change alone does not guarantee democratic success: the way these institutional changes are enacted by both political and social actors is even more important as it conditions the potential for an autonomous civil society to emerge and actively engage with the local state in the social construction of an inclusive citizenship.

Author : Roderic A. Camp
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : History
ISBN : 0842025138

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Democracy in Latin America by Roderic A. Camp Pdf

Events such as the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement have made it imperative for students to grasp the history and possible directions of Latin American political change. This title gives readers both the background and the analytical models necessary for an accurate understanding of this area's political past and future. To examine the problems posed by political development, Professor Camp has divided this volume into four parts. The first section sets the tone, with two introductory essays providing an overview of the problems and dilemmas posed by democratization. The other three parts explore important aspects of this overall process.