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In this paper, I analyze the connections that occurred between the electoral offer of candidate Laura Chinchilla and the new demographic, social and sexual realities of Costa Rica, which help to understand why mainly women and older people voted for her. In addition, I explain the new challenges the Costa Rican society faces in terms of a necessary new social and sexual contract, and the prospect of its approach, or not, by the Government of the first woman President. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explore the democratic potential of direct democracy, on the basis of a case study of the referendum on CAFTA that took place in Costa Rica on October 7, 2007. Theoretically, I aspire to show how developments in the field of participatory democracy can enrich the analysis of democratic regimes. Empirically, I describe the institutional design and political practices in this first experience. I conclude that the referendum entailed reversals in terms of electoral fairness and legitimacy, as well as progress in the construction of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Comités Patrióticos emerged in the context of the historic referendum on the Free Trade agreement with the United States. This paper offers an analysis of this movement based on a year of ethnographic research. I focus on questions of spatiotemporality and political scale, in order to illuminate how this movement has attempted, during and after the referendum, to articulate a new political structure capable of acting at once on local and national scales in order to challenge the neoliberal project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]