Search

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including the expansion of men's rights movements, the emotions of femicide perpetrators in Latin America, and the feasibility of using the United Nations Statistical Framework to identify femicide.

Copyright of International Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper provides a critical review of existing studies about bow migration alters women's position in the course of social change. Two major goals are accomplished. First, the conceptual and methodological issues that bear on the assessment of changing gender relations are distilled from the existing literature. Second, for heuristic purposes we delineate three alternative outcomes for migrant women using the distribution-redistribution analytical framework, although we acknowledge the difficulty of distinguishing among them empirically. Finally, we provide a selective review of case studies illustrating alternative outcomes for migrant women in Africa and Latin America. The concluding discussion summarises the major findings in an attempt to distinguish issues that cross-cut social settings from those which are country-specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to examine the validity of Max Weber's theory of domination as applied to Latin America and its social and political structures.The article concentrates on the advantages and risks involved when using the concept of patrimonialism to explain the authoritarian regimes of Latin American societies. To do this, the author examines how this concept has been applied for the study of the political organisation in different countries during various periods of time: the colonial era, the nineteenth century and contemporary societies.Focused on terminological analysis, the paper shows the conceptual problems of classical sociological theory when used for the study of social realities that were not at all central preoccupations for the original European writers. The author points out two main causes for the ambiguities and multiple meanings of concepts 1) the partial and fragmented reception of Weberian sociology in Latin America and 2) certain confusion already present in Weber's studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the 1980s, the 'lost decade' for Latin America, the tide of democratisation and of tentative economic liberalisation seems to have coincided with the discredit of neo-Marxist theories, most notably the so-called dependency school. In their stead, cultural interpretations have been rekindled and renewed, in the very throes of the region's economic predicament. Richard Morse's Prospero's Mirror is a brilliant instance of this, with its influential stress on an organicist-patrimonialist substratum allegedly intrinsic to the Iberian collective consciousness besides representing, to a certain extent, a positive challenge to the values of late industrial modernity. Conceived as a short exercise in historical sociology, this paper takes issue with both the descriptive and the normative levels of the Morse thesis. While trying to qualify the 'identity' issue in the subcontinent, the author claims that the best way to deeper development and social redemption in Latin America does not lie in any principled resistance to capitalism and modernity; rather, it promises to require integration policies inside as well as outside the area - able to produce actual breakthroughs towards a fuller market economy and a badly needed reform of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes, compares, and explains the corporate elite networks formed by interlocking directorates across five Latin American economies in order to comprehend why corporate elites are interconnected by cohesive networks in some countries and not in others. Results show cohesive elite networks in Mexico, Chile, and to some extent in Peru, but not in Brazil and Colombia. After testing and rejecting the hypotheses from existing theories, the author identifies complementarities among cohesive corporate elite networks, state–business relations through strong encompassing business associations, and market openness. In economies where state–business relations are mediated by strong encompassing business associations and open up to free trade with developed economies, corporate elites form cohesive networks, whereas in economies with weak encompassing business associations and low trade openness, corporate elites do not form cohesive networks. These novel explanations are useful to understand corporate elite networks in emerging economies, and a benchmark for future studies on corporate elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how some current transnational relations between global agents and indigenous peoples' organizations in Latin America impress the representations of identities and associated ideas of these organizations in combination with being useful in the achievement of these organizations' goals for their peoples. Such a discussion serves two main purposes: (1) to contribute to the development of a theory of social change in the current age of globalization through criticizing the established scholarly practice of studying 'local' cases as if they actually exist, or as if they may at least be detached from the world orders in which they take part without any significant consequence; and (2) to criticize the colonial legacy of area studies, anthropology and other academic disciplines of studying 'the Other' - very often indigenous peoples - which, independently of researchers' intentions, contribute to informing agents of the colonial or post-colonial powers and trying instead to produce knowledge that is potentially useful to 'local' agents about 'global' agents, their practices and the impact they may have on 'local' agents' practices. A few illustrative examples taken from the author's field and documentary research about some current experiences in Latin America are used to show how transnational networks of 'local' grassroots organizations and diverse kinds of 'local' intermediary non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and 'global agents' (i.e. international agencies, bilateral cooperation agencies, the multilateral banks, transnational foundations, as well as transnational social movements and NGOs) play significant roles in the social making of representations of indigenous peoples' identities and associated ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a comparative review of two mutually exclusive approaches to the study of democratization in Latin America, i.e. regime analysis and cultural studies, showing that they make important contributions to the understanding of elite behavior during institutional changes (regime analysis) and to the evaluation of cultural changes in society (cultural studies). They also converge around central problems of democratization, such as clientelism, but fail to present a comprehensive interpretation of political, social and personal changes. A broader perspective is required, both from a comparative and a universalist standpoint, in order to overcome these problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]