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Objective/context: In 2019, promoted by President Martín Vizcarra, the Congress of the Republic of Peru sanctioned a law on mandatory primary elections for voters and political parties. However, the regulation was not implemented, given that it was suspended by the Legislative Branch for the general elections in 2021 and the regional elections in 2022. Methodology: This paper studies the reform process of mandatory, simultaneous, and open primaries (PASO, for its acronym in Spanish) in Peru and its counter-reform based on its suspension on two occasions (2021 and 2022). Twenty-three key actors were interviewed for this research, including congresspersons, ministers, electoral officials, and researchers, in addition to the revision of secondary sources and newspapers of legislative sessions. Conclusions: The paper concludes that PASO were a "decorative" reform, i.e., a law passed without the intention of implementing it. Its sanction was the product of a reformist coalition between civil society and the President of the nation, where the objectives of increasing popular support for President Vizcarra and the need to improve the legitimacy of the political system converged. The reform was resisted by congresspersons who formed two counter-reformist coalitions that suspended the PASO on two occasions. Originality: The research shows that these counterreform coalitions are intrinsically linked to the atomization and personalization of the Peruvian party system, characterized by hyper-personalism and a lack of party structures. In addition, it generates theoretical contributions to studying the processes of reforms and counter-reforms in the context of institutional weakness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: In 2009, the law of mandatory, simultaneous, and open primaries (PASO, for its acronym in Spanish) was enacted in Argentina. Among others, this regulation seeks to democratize party structures. From a gender perspective, this paper studies the effect of PASO on women's access to the Chamber of Deputies (2003-2023). To this end, it analyzes how the final lists are assembled, the places assigned to women candidates, the ease with which they gain access to expectable positions, and the permeability of groupings towards their participation since the implementation of PASO. Methodology: This is an exploratory and descriptive study of the effect of PASO on the allocation of seats for the category of female deputies in Argentina, considering all female legislators elected in successive elections (2011-2023). Conclusion: The findings show that PASO's objective of democratizing party structures and making their components more representative does not seem to have impacted the country's existing political and party traditions prior to implementing the law regarding the place given to women in a party. Originality: The article presents a study on the democratization effect of PASO on party structures from a gender perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: The organizational vitality of political parties is understood as their capacity to attract activists, keep them allied to the organization, and united among themselves. More vital parties promote greater participation of their activists and increase their ability to resist changing circumstances and exogenous shocks. Four conditions explain the reproduction of political party vitality: trauma, programmatic purpose, channels of ambition, and exit barriers. This paper aims to analyze the vitality levels of the Centro Democrático (CD) party from the year of its creation (2013) until 2020. Methodology: The paper examines the case of the CD. Empirical support comes, fundamentally, from in-depth interviews with (former) leaders and activists of the CD and experts in the party. Secondary sources are also explored. Conclusions: As one of its main findings, this work highlights the moderate vitality of the CD. Trauma has a positive and significant relationship with vitality, while purpose, exit barriers, and ambition channels have positive effects, but smaller than those produced by trauma. A variable that moderates the behavior of the explanatory factors of vitality is the strong personalistic leadership of the founder of the party, former president Álvaro Uribe. Originality: This work contributes to understanding the organizational structures of political parties and their impact on their performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: The paper analyzes the causes of the crisis of Latin American regionalism, seeking the reasons that determine its nature, scope, and consequences, as well as the dilemmas posed by different exit options. Methodology: Based on a definition of the concept of crisis, a model of analysis is proposed that traces significant governance processes and crisis factors at the systemic, regional, and domestic levels, using a series of indicators that allow interpreting their impact on Latin American regionalism projects and their effects in the form of crisis. Conclusions: The findings suggest the existence of structural conditioning factors that exceed the established paradigms and political dynamics that were unable to overcome their contradictions, which led to a triple crisis of results, model, and expectations, the effects of which directly affect the credibility of the projects. The crisis, therefore, does not appear as a mere question of political will but as a complex combination of multiple factors involving states and other national and international actors and social forces. Originality: The article broadens the analytical perspectives of Latin American regionalism by proposing a novel approach that helps better understand its particularities vis-à-vis other regionalisms and opens the possibility of continuing and deepening the empirical analysis of each specific regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: The paper examines the contribution of think tanks (TTs) to debating ideas and their relationship with the environment. Specifically, it analyzes the variations introduced by the electoral campaign in the political positions of TTs and the role of ideology and party affiliation as possible determinants. Methodology: The content of the web pages of ten TTs is monitored before and during the electoral campaign for the 2021 presidential elections in Chile, where numerous TTs have become protagonists. For each TT, attention to socio-political issues is analyzed, and the trend of their positions is recorded. Conclusions: The analysis shows that TTs adapt their communicative agenda to the electoral campaign and that their ideology is a principal variable in this strategy. Originality: Evidence is provided on the entry of TTs in electoral campaigns with differences between conservatives and progressives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: The objective of this paper is to build a definition of the concept of the political in Marx as a third way between the autonomy and the heteronomy of the political. Methodology: This paper suggests a hermeneutical and philosophical methodology, which consists of interpretation of arguments and concepts of theoretical texts. Primary sources -hereupon: Marx's texts-will be preferred, although they will be connected with other scholars. Conclusions: The paper arrives to a double conclusion. On the one hand, the essential connection (as championed by Marx) between the political and the world of material production does not involve a reductionist, mechanistic or heteronomous understanding of the political, for material production and the political are for him two distinct, albeit jointed, forms of human freedom. On the other hand, the concept of the political in Marx has two souls: the plasticity of the human second nature and the ideal of self-transparency of the philosophy of history. Facing this dilemma, the paper claims for an open and finite Marxism. Originality: Reflections on this topic are not new, but the thesis of the political and the production as two distinct, albeit jointed, forms of human freedom seems to be a relative new contribution to the theoretical and political discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: The year 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), the first organization established in Colombia to fight for territorial and identity rights of Indigenous Peoples. From a historical perspective and proposing an approach related to the concept of resistance, this paper focuses on how this latter has been expressed through this indigenous movement since its inception. Methodology: The information and reflections presented here are based on a corpus of bibliographical and documentary sources, as well as on a follow-up of the political mobilizations of indigenous peoples in situ, in the media, digital social networks, official minutes, and other statements. Conclusions: The analysis reveals the persistence of indigenous resistance and an expansion of the project that accompanies it, from a struggle for land and territory to efforts carried out along with other actors and social organizations to create a "better world." Originality: The originality of the article consists of an analysis of the political dimensions of the resistance of Indigenous Peoples, which are still little known. In addition, it offers a novel approach to stress the intersection of (sub) national and global dynamics in which the demands of Indigenous Peoples and issues related to Colombia's society and the whole world converge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: This article analyses the causes and consequences of the transition from Marxism to post-Marxism in Ernesto Laclau's work by establishing four permanent themes throughout his oeuvre that are scenarios of this shift: the question of the constitution of society, a theory of the political subject, the issue of political strategy and the question of the project. Methodology: The research strategy envisages genealogical archaeology. On the one hand, archaeology allows a synchronic analytical procedure to study the different stages in the author's work. On the other hand, genealogy enables a diachronic study of the treatment of the four major themes in the successive theoretical interventions. Conclusions: This paper shows how the ontological rupture affects the theory of the subject, the strategic conception, and the position of the future. The category of hegemony and discourse intervene in a new conceptual matrix that admits the infinity of the social as a historical and theoretical condition. From this movement, developments in rhetoric and psychoanalysis offer tools for investigating the three theoretical problems, and the change of epoch opens up a reflection on the horizon of the democratic future. Originality: The article contributes to the knowledge of Ernesto Laclau's proposal, explaining the conditions of his post-Marxist evolution and establishing conditions for a dialogue in the field of critical theory that focuses on the four problems: order, subjects, strategy, and the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: To advance in the conceptualization of the Statebourgeoisie relationship, the paper returns to a classic debate in the Marxist tradition on the capitalist State. Methodology: In methodological terms, we carry out a critical analysis of the works of Ralph Miliband and Nicos Poulantzas --especially on the distinction of class power and State power, relative autonomy and State intervention in the economy-- and we revisit the criticism of John Holloway. With this, we seek to understand the relationship between State and bourgeoisie, to explain the economic and political crisis of the forms of the capital relationship in Argentina, in 1998-2001. Conclusions: We conclude that there is a crisis of a specific form of State intervention in the economy, based on the expansion of market discipline, and, with it, both State power and capital power erodes. Originality: The article analyzes the Miliband-Poulantzas debate and, based on this, builds an explanation of the Argentinean crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]