Latin American Politics: History, Race, Inequality, and Regime Theory

Vocabulary flashcards covering historical development, racial hierarchies, inequality models, and political regime theory across Latin America.

Political Regime

A system of rules and practices that determine who has political rights, how they can be exercised, and with what effects for control over the state (Przeworski et al. 2000).

State (Hardware Analogy)

The enduring structure of power and authority, consisting of the coercive and bureaucratic apparatus that enforces order and laws.

Government (User Analogy)

The temporary group of elected officials occupying state branches who operate the state machinery under the rules established by the political regime.

Substantive View of Democracy

A conceptual framework that classifies political regimes based on the substantive outcomes or goals they produce, such as realizing the common good.

Minimalist (Procedural) View of Democracy

A conceptual framework that classifies political regimes based strictly on their institutional rules and procedures, such as competitive elections for government office.

Contestation

An electoral arrangement where an opposition has a real opportunity to win office, characterized by ex-ante uncertainty, ex-post irreversibility, and repeated elections.

Polyarchy

A concept coined by Robert Dahl to describe real-world political regimes that approximate the democratic ideal through specific institutional guarantees.

Public Contestation (Liberalization)

One of Robert Dahl's two core dimensions of polyarchy, measuring the extent to which institutional guarantees and political opposition are permitted.

Inclusiveness (Participation)

One of Robert Dahl's two core dimensions of polyarchy, measuring the proportion of the population entitled to participate in political contestation.

Closed Hegemonies

Regimes in Robert Dahl's typology that rank low in both public contestation and inclusiveness.

Competitive Oligarchies

Regimes in Robert Dahl's typology that rank high in public contestation but low in inclusiveness.

Inclusive Hegemonies

Regimes in Robert Dahl's typology that rank low in public contestation but high in inclusiveness.

Civilian Control of the Military

A prerequisite for democracy emphasized by Mainwaring & Pérez-Liñán (2023) requiring armed forces to remain subordinate to elected civilian leadership.

Clasismo

The default explanation in Mexican social science and government holding that socioeconomic status, rather than language or physical appearance, limits individual life chances.

Ethnolinguistic Explanation

An explanation for inequality recognized since the 1990s stating that individuals are disadvantaged by the specific language they speak and the community to which they belong.

Peninsulares

Whites born in Spain who occupied the top stratum of the colonial social and political hierarchy in New Spain.

Criollos

Whites born in Mexico during colonial rule who possessed socioeconomic privilege but were shut out of the top political offices.

Castas

Dozens of mixed-race groups in colonial New Spain ranked hierarchically based on ancestry and skin tone.

Miscegenation

One of three nineteenth-century official elite strategies to address the "indigenous problem" in Mexico by encouraging racial mixing to whiten the population.

Mestizaje

The process and ideology of racial and cultural mixing, historically used in post-revolutionary Mexico as a nation-building project that unified identity while obscuring ongoing racial hierarchies.

Clientelism

A form of political redistribution where private targeted gifts are offered to voters during elections, disproportionately directed at citizens at the bottom of the skin color ranking.

Middle-Income Trap

An economic condition affecting countries with average yearly per capita incomes between $5,000 and $15,000, where transitioning to a high-wage, high-tech economy becomes stalled.

Rentier States

Countries whose state revenues rely heavily on resource rents (such as oil or gas) rather than broad-based internal taxation.

School of the Americas

An institution established in Panama in 1946 to expand U.S. military influence and combat leftist or communist movements throughout Latin America during the Cold War.

Washington Consensus

A set of ten policy prescriptions for economic reform—including fiscal discipline, privatization, deregulation, and trade liberalization—summarized by Rodrik (2006).

Pardos

A Brazilian census category used to describe individuals of mixed racial ancestry.