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Populism often emerges with a strong homo- and transphobic orientation. This is the result of an alliance between populism and conservative religion. Populist movements have incentives to reach out to religious voters and vice versa. We argue that the alliance between populism and religion is both a marriage of convenience and inconvenience. Populists can offer attacks on pluralism and liberal social policies (e.g., pro-LGBTQ laws), which conservative religious groups often welcome. In return, religious groups can deliver loyal acolytes across classes, which populists also welcome. Religion enables populist movements to expand their constituency beyond their base of economically anxious and nationalist voters. That said, this alliance works best only where the conservative religious electorate is growing (or, at least, not declining). Even then, this union can still incite internal frictions within populist coalitions. These frictions tend to be more salient within left-wing populist coalitions than right-wing ones. This explains why the populist-religion nexus is more resilient among right-wing populist movements, as cases from the Americas and Europe illustrate.

The first section of this Element reviews the history of LGBTQ rights in the region since the 1960s. The second section reviews explanations for the expansion of rights and setbacks, especially since the mid 2000s. Explanations are organized according to three themes: (1) the (re-)emergence of a religious cleavage; (2) the role of political institutions such as presidential leadership, political parties, federalism, courts, and transnational forces; and (3) the role of social movement strategies, and especially, unity. The last section compares the progress on LGBTQ rights (significant) with reproductive rights (insignificant). This Element concludes with an overview of the causes and possible future direction of the current backlash against LGBTQ rights.

Attitudes towards homosexuality and same-sex marriage in the Americas and Europe have been found to be tightly related to religion, and especially, how religion is practiced. However, religious individuals are not consistent in their rejection of homosexuality. We explore how religions and religious individuals differ among each other in attitudes towards not just homosexuality, but also other policy areas they consider sins, such as marihuana consumption, abortion, euthanasia, use of contraceptives, and pre-marital sex. Using data for Colombia, we find that Evangelicals are the most reliable opponents of LGBT rights in the country and reject homosexuality more deeply than other sins. They thus target homosexuality distinctively. We also find that attitudes toward homosexuality among Evangelicals seem unresponsive to education. Because of this more pronounced homophobia among Evangelicals, we thus conclude that countries like Colombia that are experiencing increases in the population and levels of organization of Evangelicals are likely to face greater backlash against the expansion of LGBT rights.

Ultrasound is a reliable non-destructive method commonly used to evaluate the state of a piece of wood. The effect of the moisture content (MC) on the timber wave velocity, which is different depending on the wood species, must be considered. MC adjustment factors are important if accurate and comparable results are to be achieved. Thus, the goal of this study is to define a model that allows obtaining the adjustment factor to predict the standard velocity (12% of MC (V12) from velocity obtained at different MC for two Costa Rican commercial species: Tectona grandis L.F (teak) and Cupressus lusitanica M. (cypress). This effect was studied on small clean specimens during the desorption stages, from the fiber saturation point to the oven-dry state, controlling the specimen’s mass and MC on 62 specimens. With this data, the rate of change in ultrasound velocity per MC was modeled. Thus, the applicability of already published moisture adjustment models for conifers and hardwood tropical species was proved. The results showed that the proposed model coefficients adjust better than the ones obtained from the wood science literature, which makes them suitable to describe ultrasound velocity in different moisture conditions (VH).

After two and a half decades of progress, the struggle for LGBT rights in Latin America started to experience a new form of backlash in the mid-2010s. Backlashes against LGBT progress are not new, but the current backlash in Latin America has a new element: the entry of evangelical churches as powerful veto players. This chapter discusses how religious groups, in particular evangelicals, are taking advantage of institutions of liberal democracy to block progress on LGBT rights. It applies theories of collective action and social movement to demonstrate how evangelicals have become the most powerful actors blocking progress.

Since the late twentieth century, numerous Latin American nations have launched efforts to relax presidential term limits, often successfully. This article discusses the conditions under which countries succeed in relaxing term limits. Drawing from bargaining models and reviewing 36 cases, it makes three arguments. First, actors' preferences are fairly predictable on the basis of officeholding: presidents are the most prominent actors pushing for expansion of term limits; opposition parties lead the resistance. Second, power asymmetry, measured by presidential approval ratings, is the best predictor of success, better than ideology or share of seats in Congress. Third, the only hope for stopping popular presidents rests with ruling parties and the courts, but only when the latter are sufficiently independent.

In its first generation, the literature on the resource curse typically posited that resource dependence shapes a country's economy and politics. More recent work posits that the effects are mediated by institutions. We take this newer approach further by arguing that economic and political institutions not just mediate but actually shape resource dependence. Our focus is on performance across national oil companies (NOCs) in Latin America. We explain performance variation by invoking variations in regime and market features. NOCs that operate in contexts of greater independence from the Executive Branch (stronger checks and balances within and outside the sector) and greater market forces—though not necessarily private actor dominance—exhibit better performance. Institutions thus influence sector conditions, rather than the other way around. We advance this argument using original data from Colombia and Venezuela, and supplementary data from Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. Our study focuses on the oil boom-bust cycle of 2003–2016.

This chapter looks at Bolivia in the 2000s to illustrate what happens when power asymmetry ends up being significantly lower than expected. The result is a negligible expansion of presidential powers. In addition, this chapter expands on the concept of power asymmetry by adding a different—more structural—type of power asymmetry: ethno-demographic and economic resource differences. When political cleavages follow ethnic or economic divisions, it matters how those assets are distributed. In Bolivia, the Opposition was able to counter the rise of the Incumbent’s power by mobilizing its own ethno-demographic and economic assets. The equal matching between the Incumbent and the Opposition forces nearly led Bolivia to civil war. Conflict was averted with the adoption of a final constitutional draft, which realigned table and at-large asymmetries.

The chapter presents a summary of main findings and discusses their implications. The book’s main finding is that extreme power asymmetry on behalf of the Incumbent creates the conditions for institutional change that empowers mostly the executive branch. A large power differential between the Incumbent and the Opposition encourages the Incumbent to seize the advantage to initiate bold, self-serving institutional change, sometimes even a constitutional overhaul. If the latter gets underway, and power asymmetry stays pro-Incumbent, chances are the new constitution will expand the powers of the Executive branch. This outcome, in turn, can spread discontent across Opposition forces and sometimes encourage the Incumbent to govern more unilaterally. This presents a potential threat to democracy. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of this finding for different literatures: democratization, constitution-making, presidential powers, and government-Opposition relations.

This chapter provides the broadest evidence on behalf of my power asymmetry argument. It begins by discussing my index of presidential powers (the dependent variable), which draws heavily from Shugart and Carey and other scholars. It then creates a measure of power asymmetry (the main independent variable): the difference between the share of seats held by Incumbent versus Opposition forces at the constituent assembly. I call this “table asymmetry.” Finally, it compares all the new constitutions to those replaced. Evidence is provided that variations in outcome are strongly correlated with variations in power asymmetry. The chapter also shows how changes in constitutions contributed to changes in regime conditions (liberal democracy declined in cases where constitutions granted presidents more power).

Chapter 2 lays out the book’s main argument on the importance of power asymmetry. It draws from three strands in the literature. From the literature on democratization, this chapter borrows the notion of constitutions as pact-making. From bargaining theory is borrowed the notion of self-dealing: Incumbents will seek to advance the powers of the office that they hold. And from the literature on elite theories of regime formation, the chapter develops the argument that power asymmetries among elite actors are the fundamental drivers of balanced constitutions. This book also seeks to explain the origins of an important institution: constitutions. It takes seriously the insight from institutionalists that institutions emerge from actors’ de facto power and bargaining outcomes. Yet, this book does not assume that actors’ preferences are exogenous, or exclusively ideological, and partisan; rather, those who negotiate a constitution have preferences that depend on whether they are Incumbents or Opposition forces, often regardless of their ideologies and partisan orientation.

This first case study offers more proof of the book’s argument for power asymmetry by controlling for country (while testing the argument across time). Three major constituent assemblies and an aborted case in Venezuela are compared. In all, the best predictor of resulting presidential powers is power asymmetry. Furthermore, this chapter draws on the Venezuelan experience to offer two additional insights about the politics of constitution-making. First, inclusionary processes are crucial for constitutional legitimacy. Second, refined measurements of inclusion are needed to determine the effects of power asymmetry on stability. It is important to measure not just how much the Incumbent wins in terms of formal presidential powers, but also whether the Opposition’s pivotal issues are accommodated. The Opposition can accept a high degree of presidentialism if some of its pivotal issues are accommodated. However, the Opposition will feel threatened if formal presidential powers expand and pivotal issues are rejected.

This chapter explains the conditions under which constituent assemblies emerge. As others have argued, more than one condition seems necessary, mostly having to do with pressures on the state to address a governance crisis. And yet, new constituent assemblies are more likely to emerge when the Incumbent feels he or she has the power advantage. The chapter makes two points. First, compelling structural conditions (exceptional circumstances) triggered constitutional assemblies in combination with the rise of the Opposition. Second, a strong desire by the Incumbent to seek new powers also triggered constituent assemblies, but only when the Incumbent anticipated a large power. This chapter offers as well a discussion of several cases of aborted constituent assemblies to further illustrate the role of power asymmetry as an explanatory factor.

This book explores the origins of presidential powers in new constitutions. Much is known about the effects of different presidential powers—less on the conditions that lead to their emergence. The book focuses on the origins of these powers. It argues that the most important predictor of whether a new constitution will expand (instead of restrict) presidential powers is power asymmetry, or more specifically, the difference in power assets between the Incumbent and the Opposition. These power assets can include electoral results, seats at key institutions such as the negotiating table, and even approval ratings. This argument draws from bargaining theories on self-dealing. Power asymmetry is a more powerful variable in explaining variations in presidential powers than others, such as the president’s ideology, class differences, or overall economic conditions. To make the case for this argument, the book reviews all the constituent assemblies from Latin America since the late 1980s, as well as several failed assemblies, and thereby provides one of the most comprehensive reviews of constitutional overhaul in Latin America thus far. The book also examines constitutional amendments that affect presidential powers, especially term limits. The conclusion is that to get more balanced constitutions (i.e., those that strengthen checks on presidential powers), neither side of the debate should have a huge power advantage over the other.

The case-study chapters looked at all presidential powers within a given constitution. This looks at one presidential power—term limits—across all constitutions to provide one final test for the book’s power asymmetry argument. I conduct a statistical test to show how power asymmetry, this time measured by approval rates, lead to presidential success in relaxing term limits. Across Latin America since the 1980s, term limits became one of the most active and contentious areas of constitutional change. The chapter reveals, first, that not all popular presidents pursue efforts to change term limits, but those who do have a higher chance of prevailing the more popular they are. Second, the only political actors capable of preventing the expansion of term limits, other than the courts, is the ruling party. Popular presidents interested in expanding presidential power thus face incentives to weaken the same political machine that brought them to office.

This chapter introduces the book’s two central puzzles: what explains Latin America’s obsession with fixing democracy via constituent assemblies, and what explains variations in outcomes of constituent assemblies? It introduces the key argument: power asymmetries between Incumbents and Opposition forces—in the form of variations in the relative strength of the Incumbent vis-à-vis the Opposition, more so than other factors such as economics, ideology, or partisanship—lead to constitutions that offer weaker checks and balances. Power asymmetries, the book argues, influence to some extent the incidence of constitutional change and to a large extent the content of resulting constitutions. The book illustrates these points by examining twenty-four constitutional moments in Latin America since the 1980s, including eleven drafted new constitutions and thirteen aborted constituent assemblies. Finally, this chapter offers a justification for the book’s case selection and explains the research design pursued therein.

This paper contributes to the literature on dynamics of hybrid regimes, i.e., whether these regimes stay stable, or instead, turn more democratic or more autocratic with time. Venezuela since the mid-2000s is an example of the latter. I first focus on how this happened in Venezuela. I posit that the turn toward greater authoritarianism occurred through autocratic legalism. This refers to the use, abuse, and disuse of the law to disempower veto players. I then focus on the “why” question. The main cause of Venezuela’s regime dynamics is a combination of external factors (increasing tolerance from abroad) and the ruling party’s declining electoral competitiveness at home and institutional path dependence.

Javier Corrales is Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Sci- ence at Amherst College. Michael Penfold is professor of public policy at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores en Administracion (IESA) in Caracas, and specializes in public policy, political economy, and in- ternational business in Latin America. Together they are the authors of Dragon in the Tropics: Hugo Chavez and the Political Economy of Revolution in Venezuela (2011). The debate about democratic consolidation in Latin America has evolved into a debate about the quality of democratic institutions in the region. In assessing the region's democratic institutions, many scholars have focused on the political consequences of constitutional design, par- ticularly its impact on the separation of powers. Few studies, however, have focused on one of the most important constitutional trends in Latin America in recent times: the relaxation of presidential term limits. 1 The scant attention to this topic is surprising given that, in other regions, the trend toward presidential reelection has been deemed inauspicious for democratic development by some scholars, 2 and in Latin America, it tends to be polemical, with many voters finding looser term limits to be highly objectionable. Reelection bans and term limits were pioneered in the nineteenth century by Latin American democrats seeking to prevent caudillismo, continuismo, and the concentration of power in the executive branch. 3 In the last two decades, however, a number of countries in the region have broken with this constitutional legacy by introducing, through leg- islation, constituent assemblies, judicial rulings, or referenda, consti- tutional changes to permit or expand reelection. In some cases, these changes have been modest, allowing presidents to serve a consecutive term (where either reelection had been banned altogether or incumbents were required to sit out for at least one term). In a few cases, the changes have enabled presidents to run for office indefinitely.

For the opposition to win, the regime must become fairer and more democratic, the ruling party must split, and the opposition must remain united.

In contrast to more pessimistic studies, the authors find evidence that civic participation in one domain of public life can lead to more participation elsewhere, what they call spillover effects. The authors’ findings are based on a large survey—among the broadest in its class—of participants in community-managed schools throughout rural Honduras and Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Despite various obstacles to spillovers, once initiated, participation can engender further participation. Many participants acquire and apply new skills, and some join new organizations. These spillover effects are stronger if participants receive state support and perceive the participatory arena to be democratic. The authors’ optimism, however, remains guarded: Even where spillovers abound, new groups’ autonomy and scope of action remain limited. In short, participatory governance is not a dead-end affair, but its capacity to strengthen civil society locally is not guaranteed.

Cuba faces a development dilemma: it promotes equity and human capital while failing to deliver economic growth. For the government, the country's equity and human capital achievements are a source of pride, a sign that its priorities are right. This essay argues instead that this “equity without growth” dilemma is a sign of malaise. Theory and evidence suggest that high levels of equity and human capital should produce high levels of economic growth. Because growth is often weak or negative, some onerous barriers to development must be present. These barriers, it is argued, are restrictions on property and political rights. By comparing Cuba and China across two sectors, the bicycle industry and Internet access, this article shows how these restrictions have hindered growth. It also assesses how Cuba's latest economic reforms, the so-called Lineamientos, will address Cuba's development dilemma. The impact may be minimal, but perhaps more lasting than previous reforms.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has achieved what no other Latin American leader has since the end of the Cold War: bringing security concerns in the Western Hemisphere back to U.S. foreign policy. Might Venezuela provoke a war against neighboring Colombia, spread weapons among insurgents abroad, disrupt oil sales to the United States, provide financial support to Hezbollah, al Qaeda or other fundamentalist movements, offer safe havens for drug dealers, invite Russia to open a military base on its territory, or even acquire nuclear weapons? 1 These security concerns did not exist less than a decade ago, but today they occupy the attention of U.S. officials. Attention to these conventional security issues, however, carries the risk of ignoring what thus far has been Venezuela's most effective foreign policy tool in challenging the United States: the use of generous handouts abroad, peppered with a pro-poor, distribution-prone discourse. While the U.S. debate revolves around ''hard power'' and ''soft power,'' 2 this other form can be called ''social power diplomacy.'' Similar to hard power and soft power, social power diplomacy allows the projecting nation to attract allies but through different means. With social power diplomacy, other nations are not necessarily cajoled into bowing to the economic or military might of the projecting nation, as is the case in the realm of traditional hard power politics. Also, nations are not necessarily attracted to the magnetic appeal of the projecting nation's ideology and values, as is the case with the realm of soft power politics. Instead, social power diplomacy attracts allies because it provides governments with far more latitude in domestic spending than is the case

‘Socialism for the twenty-first century’ is looking more and more like political suicide in the making.

Latin Americans have been voting for a surprisingly large number of ex-presidents and newcomers in presidential elections since the late 1980s. This article looks at both the demand and supply sides of this phenomenon by focusing on economic anxieties and party crises as the key independent variables. Sometimes the relationship between these variables is linear: economic anxieties combined with party crises lead to rising ex-presidents and newcomers. At other times the relationship is symbiotic: the rise of ex-presidents leads to party crises, economic and political anxieties, and thus the rise of newcomers. This article concludes that the abundance of ex-presidents and newcomers in elections—essentially, the new face of Latin America’s caudillismo—does not bode well for democracy because it accelerates de-institutionalization and polarizes the electorate. P residential elections in Latin America since 1988 exhibit an unusual trend. A large number of former presidents have been running for office and often winning. Counting only candidates who are not trivial—that is, who obtain more than 10 percent of the vote—at least one ex-president has run in roughly half the elections in which ex-presidents were constitutionally allowed to compete. They have won in almost 40 percent of the races. At the same time, the number of political newcomers—that is, candidates with virtually no political experience—is also large: nontrivial newcomers have competed in almost 20 percent of all elections. Latin Americans are displaying an electoral preference for two quite distinct candidates: ex-presidents and newcomers. This is an odd phenomenon. The electoral salience of ex-presidents and newcomers is a departure from the experience of democracies in Europe, where these types of candidates are infrequent. This trend also contradicts prominent theories about electoral choice, such as the view that electoral choice is contingent on economics and curricula vitae (Alesina 1994). In moments of economic downturn, according to this theory, voters tend to prefer candidates with resumes that combine reliability (i.e., a proven record of experience in office) with some detachment from the status quo that presumably makes the candidate more able to pursue change (Dalton and Wattenberg 1993). In Latin America

The acceleration of authoritarianism in Venezuela since 2004, together with Hugo Chavez's reelection in 2006, cannot be explained easily with functional theories. Instead, we focus on political opportunities: specifically, economic resources at the state's disposal together with weakened institutions of representation helped crowd out the opposition. We show how clientelism and electoral authoritarianism feed each other. Together with deliberate strategies of polarization, impunity, and job discrimination, lavish spending has allowed the state to mobilize majorities and emerge undefeatable at the polls. This invincibility is, paradoxically, the reason that the Venezuelan state has become an unreliable force for promoting democracy.

What explains the different rates of internet use across nations, otherwise known as the worldwide digital divide? Essentially, this is a question about the determinants of technology adoption, a debate that has been dominated by two schools of thought—one focuses on the characteristics of the technology itself, the other, on the characteristics of the adopting body, that is, the social and institutional context in which adopters operate. This paper attempts to integrate these two theories by focusing on the features of both information technologies and adopting entities. We confirm the well-documented findings that income, trade, infrastructure, market-oriented policies, and political liberties explain one measure of the digital divide. However, we also find a more complex relationship between political liberties and internet adoption. Differences in political liberties do not lead to uniform differences in internet use, as the literature often assumes. Specifically, not all authoritarian regimes discourage internet use similarly. High-income, market-oriented autocratic states are less draconian. Although they fear the political consequences of internet expansion, they also welcome its economic payoffs. We provide quantitative and qualitative evidence that the more authoritarian the country, the stronger the impact of income on internet expansion. This may be beneficial for economic development, but contrary to modernization theories, it may not necessarily bolster forces of democratization in these regimes.

Among the various educational models in Latin America that seek to increase parental participation in schooling, perhaps the most far-reaching is the experiment with self-managed schools. These are publicly funded schools administered by parents. Broad public powers, such as the capacity to decide the budget and make staffing decisions, are given to parents, many of whom have had very limited prior administrative experience. How does this policy innovation impact on civil society? Does parental participation in school administration empower participating citizens or strain civil society? There are various ways of answering these questions. This article looks at some possible ways to conceptualize and assess the relationship between parental participation in self-managed schools and civil society. The article draws from the experience of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, where these reforms have advanced significantly since the 1990s.

Cuba's democratic transition will be choppy because it will be led by groups not necessarily known to prefer democracy: the armed forces and expatriate businesspeople.

An epidemiologic field study was conducted in the village of Borbòn in Esmeraldas province in northern Ecuador to compare different parasitologic methods in the diagnosis of infection with the Entamoeba histolytica/Entamoeba dispar complex. The results of two stool antigen detection assays (the Prospect Entamoeba histolytica microplate assay and the E. histolytica II assay) were compared with isoenzyme characterization of the amebic isolates. Nearly all (176 of 178, 98.9%) subjects were positive for intestinal parasites on direct microscopic examination, and cysts and/or vegetative forms morphologically consistent with the E. histolytica/E. dispar complex were recorded in 48 of 178 cases (27%). Culture in Robinson's medium was positive for amebic stocks in 89 (50%) of the 178 samples tested. Of the 37 isolates successfully stabilized, cloned, and characterized by zymodeme analysis, seven (18.9%) showed isoenzyme patterns of E. histolytica, whereas 26 (70.3%) showed patterns of E. dispar. The remaining four strains were identified as Entamoeba coli (three isolates; 8.1%) and Dientamoeba fragilis (one strain; 2.7%).The immunochromatographic tests showed different degrees of sensitivity and specificity when compared with isoenzyme characterization as the reference technique. The microplate assay, which does not discriminate between E. histolytica and E.dispar, showed a sensitivity of 54.5% and a specificity of 94% for both these amebic species. In contrast, the second-generation E. histolytica II test had a sensitivity of 14.3% and a specificity of 98.4% for E. histolytica sensu stricto. Our survey clearly demonstrated that more specific and sensitive diagnostic tests, such as stool antigen detection assays and isoenzyme analysis, are needed to establish the actual worldwide distribution of E. histolytica and E. dispar.

The press is full of diagnoses of the Argentine collapse. Most blame the Argentine political class. There is surely truth in this, and it is an opinion shared by millions of Argentines. But this drama has a larger, less easily personalized setting: tax evasion, the stubborn problem of Argentine exports, and global financial volatility.