The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America: Rethinking Participation and Representation

ISBN-13: 9780198781837 / Angielski / Miękka / 1997 / 664 str.

Douglas A. Chalmers; Katherine Roberts Hite; Carlos M. Vilas

Opis

Against a broad backdrop of globalization and worldwide movement toward democracy, the essays in this important new collection examine the unfolding relationships among such phenomena as social change, equity, and democratic representation of the poor in nine different Latin American countries and Spain. Recent shifts in the composition of inequality and increases in overall disparities of wealth have coincided with governments turning away from historic redistributive politics, and also with the general weakening of political and social organizations traditionally identified with the "popular sectors." The contributors here suggest that the region must find not just short-term programs to alleviate poverty but long-term means to ensure the effective integration of the poor into political life. The book bridges the intellectual gap between studies of grassroots politics and explorations of elite politics and formal institution-building.

Recenzje

will probably remain as a seminal work. It brilliantly embodies a highly welcomed evolution in the way the political changes in Latin America are studied

O autorze

Douglas A. Chalmers is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and Acting Dean of its School of International and Public Affairs. Chalmers has written several articles on political institutions and the state in Latin America, and he is co-editor (with Maria do Campello de Souza and Atilio Borón) of The Right and Democracy in Latin America (1992). He received his Ph.D. from Yale University. Chalmerss recent research has focused on transnational linkages and on Mexico, where he taught at El Colegio de Mexico and where he led a team of researchers investigating the role of non-governmental organizations in that country. Carlos M. Vilas is Research Professor at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including State, Class and Ethnicity in Nicaragua (1989) and Between Earthquakes and Volcanoes: Market, States and the Central American Revolutions (1995). His current research focuses on the on-going restructuring of state/market/civil society relations in Latin America and its impact on processes of democratization.