This article suggests a re-interpretation of human rights accountability taking into account the globalization process, the crisis of the modern nation-state and the new role-played by transnational, national and local actors in implementing and developing human rights law. The focus on impact and accountability is meant to demonstrate the importance of, and the legal basis for, broadening human rights advocacy in addressing additional actors. Non-state actors contribute to the production, interpretation and implementation of international human rights norms either directly or indirectly. They have also contributed toward underlining a core of basic values and common concerns on which to build a new normative people-centered framework. To counteract the limits and weakness of the Nation-State, it is imperative to strengthen the transnational advocacy of promotion and protection of human rights, which can create a “cosmopolitan consciousness of human rights" in the global world.

This article addresses the 'coloniality of gender' in relation to rearticulated indigenous Aymara gender notions in contemporary Bolivia. While female indigenous activists tend to relate the subordination of women to colonialism and to see an emancipatory potential in the current process of decolonisation, there are middle-class advocates for gender equality and feminist activists who seem to fear that the 'decolonising politics' of the Evo Morales administration would abandon indigenous women to their 'traditional' silenced subordination within male-dominated structures. From the dynamics of indigenous decolonial projections, feminist critiques, middle-class misgivings and state politics, the article explores the implications of these different discourses on colonialism, decolonisation and women's subordination.

El miedo de las elites a la revuelta popular ha llevado a innumerables masacres de indígenas, campesinos y trabajadores a lo largo de la historia colonial y republicana de América Latina. El presente artículo analiza las distintas formas y variaciones que éste ha asumido desde la independencia de las naciones latinoamericanas

Jakten på El Dorado rasade som värst i Sydamerikas vildmark under1500-talet. Ett fyrtiotal expeditioner i spanska kronans regi sökte efterdet mytomspunna riket. Expeditionsdeltagarna kom från Europas allahörn. Uppsatsen syftar till att visa vad som föranledde jakten på El Dorado.

Uppsatsen är litteraturbaserad. Jag har endast använt svensk- och engelskspråkigakällor.

Eurocentriska projiceringar, exploateringsstrategi och stabiliseringspolitiskahänsyn samverkade i ett mångfacetterat skeende. Medeltidsmänniskanhade ingen klar bild av fjärran regioner. Spanien var krigshärjat,isolerat och eftersatt. Statsmakten ville till varje pris stärka landets ekonomi.De mest explosiva ur befolkningen sökte rikedom i den Nya Världen.Efter plundringstågen under erövringsfasen blev de ett samhällsproblem.Detta kunde avhjälpas med en expedition mot El Dorado.Företag i vildmarken hade uppemot hundraprocentig dödlighet.

Jakten på El Dorado sammanföll med den geografiska upptäckten avSydamerika. Vid 1530-talets början var kontinentens inland en vit fläckpå kartan. Jakten på El Dorado klingade av i takt med att allt mer avnorra Sydamerikas vildmark blev utforskad av européer.

Many Latin American countries have during the past decades experienced an increase in violence (Howard et al 2007:716). The expansion of youth gangs and drug cartels in many countries of the region, and the states policy to fight these groups with a strong fist, has created a situation bearing the characteristics of an un-proclaimed civil war, that has come to affect all social classes (ibid:719). This expansion of the problem of violence, and the notion of insecurity it brings, has resulted in an increase in talk about the matter. As a way of trying to grasp control over a seemingly out of control issue, people automatically try to pin down characteristics of the potential perpetrators. Already socially excluded people and minorities on the bottom of the social hierarchy are the ones that have to suffer the stigmatization of criminality as they are seen as more prone to assort to crime and violence due to their economical desperate and unjust living situations (Caldeira 2000:92). These people that are the most exposed and vulnerable to the effects of economic development become personified with the problems that social exclusion and economic inequality creates, such as crime and violence (Howard et al 2007:716). As these groups of people become criminalized, the question of solving these issues becomes not a question of solving the root causes such as the economic inequalities, but the government’s ability to keep these social groups at bay (Caldeira 2000:90). An increase in violence and crime is therefore not perceived as a result of inequality in income and opportunity, but rather as the result of a weak state (ibid).

This aim of this research is to analyze how media discourses in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, contributes to the personification of the residents of the

Favelas as violent and criminal. This paper will follow the lines of critical discourse analysis theories, which argue that media discourses justify unequal power relations in society and enforces inequality and the social exclusion of minorities (Van Dijk 1988:25). It will also be argued that it is this stereotypical view of the residents of the Favela as inheritably criminal and violent which lead to dehumanization of them and the justification of the killings of civilians in these neighborhoods (Caldeira 2000:20; Goldstein 2003:205; Perlman 2010:172).

El Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados (MTD) de Lanús es una organización de la zona sur del Gran Buenos Aires (Argentina), cuyo ámbito de actuación es la localidad de Monte Chingolo. Se caracteriza por su autonomía con respeto a partidos políticos y sindicatos, por su inserción territorial y trabajo de base en los barrios, por el rechazo a las practicas clientelares enraizadas en el conurbano bonaerense, al igual que por modelos de participación y discusión horizontales. Propugnan la necesidad de un cambio social en el que las clases populares son los actores protagonistas del cambio.

Desde sus orígenes han desarrollado formulas alternativas de organización y un proyecto autogestivo, donde los talleres y micro-emprendimientos autogestionados son su máxima expresión. Este estudio pretende analizar las prácticas colectivas que representan estas experiencias en correlación con procesos de empoderamiento individuales y colectivos.

Concluimos que la participación en el MTD de Lanús ha fomentado relaciones sociales y vínculos comunitarios. La militancia tiene más herramientas para hacer oír su propia voz, sus demandas y propuestas, y cuentan con mayores recursos para el conocimiento de sus derechos como ciudadanos. Un proceso caracterizado por la dotación de poder de sujetos tradicionalmente excluidos de toda participación social y política.

Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, populismo, descentralización, Chavismo, democracia, partidos políticos.

The canton of Otavalo in the Ecuadorian Sierra has been a stronghold and intellectual cradle of the Ecuadorian indigenous movement. In the year 2000 Mario Conejo Maldonado, who represented the indigenous political movement Pachakutik, was elected as the first indigenous mayor of Otavalo. His administration has enjoyed recognition for its popular participation formula and intercultural project, integrating mestizos and indigenous citizens. In the context of local state reform challenges and the inclusion and recognition of indigenous citizens in the Ecuadorian state model this study approaches a local government led by an indigenous mayor with an intercultural banner. However, the project of ethnic integration in Otavalo has not evolved without complications and conflicts. Social and political divisions in the indigenous population have been reflected since before Conejo was ever elected. Ethnically based tensions in the local indigenous movement have been manifested throughout the period and in 2006 Conejo left Pachakutik and created a new political movement – Minga Intercultural-. The author argues that the rupture in the Otavalo indigenous movement (and local government) can be traced to the intercultural dilemma and difficulties associated with an ethnically defined political movement. Similarly, aspects of the so called “Correa effect” on the indigenous movement at the local level will be approached, since the Otavalo mayor has joined President Rafael Correa’s PAIS movement before the local elections of 2009.

In this research advancement certain theoretical and methodological challenges in social scientific research on Latin America are presented. Through the thematic, conceptual and empirical focal points of decentralization and populism, and departing in the political party systems as the core of representative democracy, different –and at times contradictory- analytical perspectives are presented in order to exemplify the possible assignments in research on the complex Latin American societies. Furthermore, the usefulness of the political opportunity structures theoretical approach is emphasized in the context of political transformations and the perspectives of social movements and political parties. Likewise, the article contributes certain methodological suggestions for scholars dealing with issues of social and political processes in Latin America.

En este artículo se analizan las raíces, así como el desarrollo y la situación actual del Movimiento político alrededor del Presidente venezolano Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (Chavismo) a través de consideraciones históricas sobre los partidos políticos izquierdistas del país. Muchos académicos han ignorado la importancia de conexiones históricas entre, por ejemplo, el Chavismo y los partidos políticos más históricos de la izquierda. Se analizarán aspectos de conflicto y cambio por dentro y fuera del Chavismo en el contexto de la democracia venezolana y los actores políticos de izquierda, tanto los que han estado asociados al movimiento de Chávez, como los de la presente y reciente oposición política. Asimismo, se consideran el carácter personalista del Chavismo y sus posibles implicaciones para el sistema partidista y los partidos políticos individuales.

The impact of the political movement of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on the indigenous movement is analyzed with a focus on the municipalities of Cotacachi and Otavalo, both recognized strongholds of the Pachakutik movement. The Correa effect is examined from different perspectives at cantonal level, with a focal point on the local political actors and their perceptions of strategies, alliances and ruptures within the indigenous organizations. Before the elections of 2009 the indigenous movement is divided, with direct connections to the PAIS Movement of Correa. Contextual particularities related to the indigenous movement in the two localities are considered to achieve a better comprehension of the political scenarios in progress. The author emphasizes the importance of studying aspects of local political processes, social structures and organizational complexities more deeply and not merely consider the possible populist trait of the president.

The article analyzes the recent phase of Venezuelan democracy, with a particular focus on the transformations and challenges related to decentralization. The development and proceedings of the movement around Chávez (Chavismo) and its connections to the political process are discussed, as well as certain aspects of populist political leadership and how these elements are related to (and in conflict with) the decentralization process. The populism and power concentration of the Chávez movement constitute a source of conflict for certain democratization principles of decentralization. The decentralization process is emphasized as both a kind of historical context and a focus of analysis. The context of the article is the Venezuelan political party system whereas decentralization constitutes the independent variable. It will be demonstrated that the Venezuelan two-party system had been undermined by the decentralization process already before the rise of Chavismo. Both Chavismo and a majority of the political opposition movements and are thus partly rooted in the decentralization process itself.

Las victorias de Rafael Correa y su Movimiento PAIS (Patria Altiva y Soberana), en las elecciones presidenciales de 2006 y 2009, han afectado duramente tanto al movimiento indígena ecuatoriano como a sus principales organizaciones. Se analiza el “efecto” Correa en Otavalo y Cotacachi poniendo atención en los actores políticos locales  sus estrategias, alianzas y rupturas organizativas. Los procesos políticos locales tienen su propia dinámica, existen raíces y relaciones históricas entre los diferentes actores sociales y políticos que incluyen antiguos vínculos con la izquierda.

In this study the processes of neo-constitutionalism and participatory democracy in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela are analyzed. Since 2006, these three countries spearhead the alleged leftist transformation of Latin America and the 21st Century Socialism. How are ideas of radical democracy reflected in the new Andean constitutions and which are the likely challenges, tensions and contradictions regarding the implementation of these measures to enhance local popular participation and social inclusion of previously marginalized groups? Additionally, an aim of this essay is to applicate a relatively novel concept for the academic debate on political development in Latin America: socialist decentralization. Therefore, the study will offer a problematization of the theoretical debate on decentralization and radical participatory democracy in the three Andean countries. Furthermore, certain challenges for the participatory political projects around presidents Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa will be identified.

This chapter outlines the probable causes of the impeachment of Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez (CAP) in 1993 by examining the role of the political actors involved in the process. Particular emphasis has been placed on the collapse of the dominant two-party system, the AD-COPEI partyarchic model. Partyarchy once guaranteed the Venezuelan political system relative stability, but it also provoked its own demise. It hindered the institutionalization of political accountability between the electorate and political leaders. There was no really effective opposition and the two dominant parties efficiently obstructed access to political society for alternative actors, which resulted in a loss of legitimacy for the system and of credibility for traditional political leaders.

It is important to look for the deeper causes of presidential breakdowns, impeachments and even political scandals. The presidential breakdown in Venezuela was the result of complex causes. After the oil bonanza years in the 1970s, the economic situation worsened throughout the 1980s, with negative social and political repercussions. From the late 1980s onwards, the hegemonic bipartisan system was undermined and challenged by new political actors, some emerging from the decentralization after 1989. The Caracazo riots of 1989, the two military coup attempts of 1992 and the popular sympathy elicited by the rebels or coup leaders provide evidence of widespread social and political discontent.

In a continental comparison, the case of Venezuela is not that typical, since the impeachment was not the direct result of a scandal. Corruption charges against CAP in 1993 (the scandal) functioned rather as an emergency exit from the acute regime crisis. The scandal helped the actors who wished to remove CAP and was an excuse to proceed with impeachment, probably much more so than in the cases of presidential breakdowns in Brazil and Paraguay. Further, officially Pérez had strong parliamentary representation, but AD chose not to support the president’s reform policies. President Pérez thus lacked party and grassroots support and suffered from the hostile relationship between the executive power and the ruling party that facilitated the judicial process. The impeachment procedures are reviewed, as some of the political consequences of presidential breakdown.

This study analyses the Ecuadorian Evangelical Indigenous movement with a particular focus on the tensions between ethnicity and religion in political mobilization processes in the Chimborazo province. Chimborazo has been a traditional stronghold both of the Catholic Church and later of Evangelical churches, which makes the province exceptional and has triggered the formation of different political movements. The focus is placed on the social movement Ecuadorian Federation of Evangelical Indians (FEINE) and its political-electoral movement Amauta Jatari, as well as their complex relationships to the broader Indigenous movement. As for the theoretical-methodological approach, the article leans on ideas on Intersectionality – originally emerging from women´s studies – on relationships between socio-cultural identities and categories, which will be integrated into a sociological-political scientific analytical framework. This approach is valuable for problematizing, as well as better comprehending the complex mixture of identities that influence collective and individual behavior in society. Is there a certain hierarchic order between ethnic and religious identification among ethnically defined peoples with specific religious beliefs? Is this imaginable hierarchy persistent, or does it change according to differing social and political contexts?

In this article the roots, development and the current situation of the political movement around Venezuelan President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (Chavismo) are analyzed through historical reconsiderations regarding the main Leftist political parties of the country. Many scholars have tended to neglect important historical connections between, for instance, Chavismo and Venezuelan historical Leftist parties. Conflict and change in and around Chavismo principally from the early 1990´s onwards are factors to be explored in a context of Venezuelan democracy and leftist political actors, both those associated with Chávez and those actors of the present and recent political opposition. Likewise, the personalistic character of Chavismo and its possible implications for the party system and individual parties are considered.

The indigenous movement in Ecuador has combined social mobilization with political institutionalization. The organic relation between the social movement CONAIE and the political party (or movement) Pachakutik has been successful, but also complicated, giving rise to internal conflicts and fragmentation. In this study the relations between Pachakutik and CONAIE are analyzed at the local level in Otavalo and Cotacachi. The authors argue for the importance to analyze the organizational structures locally, since the indigenous movements has been strongest at this level. In Otavalo the ethnic tensions have been clearly manifested through rupture of the mayor, Mario Conejo who left Pachakutik and created a new political movement – Minga Intercultural-. The case of Cotacachi is likewise particular since an alliance is established between the mayor Auki Tituaña and the peasant movement, UNORCAC (with links to the Socialist Party). Drawing on an analytical framework of collective action and decentralization the authors argue that it is impossible to draw an exact line between what is the social and the political movement.

This article highlights the relationship between the Ecuadorian indigenous movement and the progressive government of Rafael Correa and his PAIS Movement.The objective is to examine why the indigenous movement has decided to oppose the Correa government, despite initial common political concerns. To explain this paradox, both the recent political history of the indigenous movementas well as the attitudes and politics applied by the Correa administration are analyzed. Five fields of political discrepancy and differentiation are offered as probable explanations for the conflictive relationship between the indigenous organizationsand the Correa government. These interconnected themes that seek to explain the distancing are: an intercultural dilemma, opposition to extractivism,different attitudes toward social mobilization, agrarian policies and finally, the state policy labelled de-sectorization.

Brazilian telenovelas are broadcast throughout Brazil six days a week during prime time. Everyday, they attract an audience of more than forty million viewers. They also attract millions of dollars of advertising revenue and promote a range of commodities and desires that are made available for television viewers. Several studies on the reception of Brazilian telenovelas have considered viewers’ reactions to and interpretations of the plots of telenovelas. Having decided to research about the impact these programs have on people’s lives, I was confronted with a crucial question: how to proceed in order to obtain qualitative information about the reception of telenovelas? In this article, I discuss and reflect on some methodological questions with which I had to deal during my research process. Here I argue that a complete analysis of viewers’ reception of telenovelas should take into account the way telenovelas are integrated and implicated within other media and within events of daily life. Ethnographic fieldwork makes such an approach possible.

Brazil is a country with one of the most unequal income distributions in the world. Even so, Brazilians’ preoccupation with the body and beauty is remarkably palpable and present in contemporary everyday life. The country occupies a leading position when it comes to cosmetic interventions and consumption of cosmetic products. Beautiful bodies are being produced, maintained and cared for not only by plastic surgeons but also by the work of nurses, facial- and body-therapists, hairdressers, manicurists, pedicurists, maids, sellers of beauty products and of an enormous variety of treatments that combine grooming with caring. In this article, I argue that the context of social inequality that so pervasively characterizes Brazilian society sets the stage for the production of bodies and beauty. By focusing on the ways women, acting from distinct socioeconomic contexts, relate to and participate in the production of beautiful bodies, I explore the dynamic entanglements of beauty, vanity, visibility and social inequality. As will be shown, different forms of body work are used to gain visibility and to stress and/or erase social differences.

This paper analyzes how activist-created texts and images were assessed and handled by four major Argentinean and Uruguayan newspapers during a longstanding protest against the construction of pulp mills and the monoculture of trees from 2005 until 2009. Based on interviews with the journalists in charge of reporting this protest during four years, as well as with nine activists belonging to the main opposing civil society groups, this paper argues that even though new communication channels managed by activists tended to facilitate activist-created content addressed to the mainstream news media on the protest ­– which in itself challenges the media ecology of this region – the new communicational circumstances also nurtured conventional event-focused journalism, normalizing potentially disrupting forces.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second biggest city is both seen as a leisurely paradise and a dangerous drug-warzone at the same time, two contra-dictory spatial images. In Rio de Janeiro, the urban conflict between the rich, formal city and the favela and the police and the favela has produced an abstract spatial image of the favela and its residents as being violent. In the same way in which the formal city and police have produced their abstract spatial image and social space of the fa-vela, those in the favela has produced their own abstract spatial imag-es of the police, the formal city and of themselves. This development in Rio de Janeiro is juxtaposed with the similar development in Los Angeles during their drug war in the 1980’s.This study analyzes, through narratives, how the spatial images in both Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles have been constructed and shaped their urban landscapes into a fortified and exclusionary one.

Desde abril 2011 miles de estudiantes chilenos han salido a las calles para protestar contra el actual sistema educacional que se basa en las reformas neoliberales de Pinochet. Los estudiantes están luchando por una educación gratuita, estatal y de calidad para todos. El objetivo es entender mejor las causas de las protestas y analizar los discursos de los dos lados oponentes de la sociedad chilena, el del gobierno y el que apoya a la causa estudiantil.

La primera pregunta de investigación pretende encontrar las principales razones y motivos de la movilización de los estudiantes. Se trata de entender cómo las políticas neoliberales del gobierno militar de Pinochet han afectado el actual sistema educativo.

Existen principalmente dos posiciones diferentes al respecto del tema educacional en Chile, uno promueve la privatización, otro reclama por la estatización del sistema educativo. En relación con esto, la segunda pregunta investiga cómo los discursos dominantes del gobierno y los discursos alternativos que respaldan el movimiento estudiantil perciben al conflicto y a la sociedad. Los discursos son encontrados en material recogido en tres periódicos chilenos entre septiembre y diciembre 2011. Mediante la teoría del análisis del discurso de Laclau y Mouffe se analiza si el movimiento puede ser entendido como un intento de construir un discurso hegemónico alternativo. En las conclusiones se afirma que los discursos alternativos están desafiando los discursos hegemónicos del gobierno, dado que están creando una contra-hegemonía ya que han desarrollado demandas que reflejan una visión de la sociedad distinta a la visión hegemónica neoliberal.

Despite sharing common initial political concerns, the relationship between the Ecuadorian Indigenous movement –mainly represented by the CONAIE confederation- and the Leftist government of Rafael Correa and his PAIS movement has been characterized by conflicts and disagreements. This is the central contradiction behind this article. The objective of the study is to analytically explore particular reasons behind this conflictive relationship since the establishment of the Correa government from 2007 onwards. Four interconnected thematic fields are emphasized as likely explanations to the disagreement and distance between the indigenous organizations and the government. These programmatic differences are: opposition against resource exploitation, attitudes towards social mobilization, agrarian politics, and lastly, the state policy we label de-sectorization.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the implementation process of Law 11.340/06, commonly known as the Maria da Penha Law, through a macro-study conducted in the Contagem–Belo Horizonte metropolitan area. Law 11.340/06 was created in 2006 by the Brazilian government to curb and prevent domestic violence in the country. This newly created law is important because domestic violence accounts for 70 % of all homicides against women in Brazil.  In order to conduct this study, the researcher traveled to Brazil during the month of November 2011, to collect data from interviews, seminars, events, newspapers, published reports, a questionnaire, and field observations.  The researcher discovered that several agencies from all three levels of the government formed the Network against Domestic Violence to enforce Law 11.340/06 and to assist abused women.  However, despite many positive changes, the agencies continue to face strong resistance.  The lack of political will is the major factor driving the performance of these agencies and the implementation of Law 11.340/06.