Comparing from and for Latin American Politics

From the 1980s to the 2010s, interpretations of Latin American politics were carried out through 'waves' or 'periods' such as the third wave of democratization, the Washington Consensus, the left turn and the conservative (re)turn. While existing theories and concepts have improved our understanding of different phenomena, these interpretations have often been applied uniformly across the region, occasionally deploying analytical frameworks developed in and for the West that were either stretched to include Latin American countries, or led to rendering the region as an ‘outlier’. For example, O’Donnell’s studies of bureaucratic authoritarianism evidenced Latin American countries’ own political logics, and showed that the ‘modernization’ theory’s democratic path was conceived by and for the particular historic trajectories of Global North countries. Even within the region, the emphasis on its largest countries in terms of territory and population (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico) has frequently overshadowed the study of other countries, which are not sufficiently and adequately analysed or end up as components in larger comparative studies. The past decade has witnessed major challenges for Latin American democracies, including the rise of the far-right, mass mobilizations against constituted orders, migratory and climate emergencies, and the deterioration and even plain attacks on democratic institutions. This Section encourages reflections on these issues that develop context-based and context-responsive theories and methods, to promote a comprehensive understanding of the region. We invite scholars and practitioners to share Latin American perspectives; we especially welcome case studies, regional and cross-case comparisons of Latin American countries, but also conceptual and theoretical proposals with focal attention to the region.