Politics in the Andes: Identity, Conflict, Reform

Description

The Andean region is perhaps the most violent and politically unstable in the Western Hemisphere. Politics in the Andes is the first comprehensive volume to assess the persistent political challenges facing Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Arguing that Andean states and societies have been shaped by common historical forces, the contributors' comparative approach reveals how different countries have responded variously to the challenges and opportunities presented by those forces. Individual chapters are structured around themes of ethnic, regional, and gender diversity; violence and drug trafficking; and political change and democracy. Politics in the Andes offers a contemporary view of a region in crisis, providing the necessary context to link the often sensational news from the area to broader historical, political, economic, and social trends. Ethnic identity and politics in the Central Andes : the cases of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru / Xavier Albó -- Linking movement and electoral politics : Ecuador's indigenous movement and the rise of Pachakutik / Jennifer Collins -- Engendering Andean politics : the paradoxes of women's movements in neoliberal Ecuador and Bolivia / Amy Lind -- Dismembering and remembering the nation : the semantics of political violence in Venezuela / Fernando Coronil and Julie Skurski -- State, esprit mafioso, and armed conflict in Colombia / Ricardo Vargas -- Collateral damage : the U.S. "War on Drugs" and its impact on democracy in the Andes / Coletta A. Youngers -- State, elites, and the response to insurgency : some preliminary comparisons between Colombia and Peru / Philip Mauceri -- Human rights in the Andes : the defensoría del pueblo / Mark Ungar -- State building, state dismantling, and financial crises in Ecuador / Liisa L. North -- The struggle for hegemony in Venezuela : poverty, popular protest, and the future of democracy / Margarita López Maya and Luis E. Lander -- The tense relationship between democracy and violence in Colombia, 1974-2001 / Francisco Gutiérrez Sanin and Luisa Ramírez Rueda -- State-making against democracy : the case of Fujimori's Peru / Jo-Marie Burt.