Politics and Society in Latin America

Latin American political science examines how power is organized, contested, and maintained across a region where democratic institutions coexist with deep inequalities and persistent informal arrangements like clientelism, in which politicians exchange material goods or services for political loyalty. Decades of neoliberal reform have reshaped state capacities and altered who governs and on what terms, while the growing political mobilization of Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities has forced scholars to reckon with how ethnicity and identity shape access to power. Researchers are actively debating whether decentralization genuinely transfers authority to marginalized groups or simply relocates elite control to subnational levels, and how fragile democratic norms hold—or erode—under economic stress and polarization.

Works

56,889

Total citations

311,279

Keywords

ClientelismLatin AmericaPolitical PowerNeoliberalismDemocracyIdentity