Christian Democracy swept across parts of Latin America, gaining influence in Venezuela in the 1940s, Chile in the 1950s, El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1960s, and Costa Rica and Mexico in the 1980s. This book offers an overview of Christian Democracy in the region— underscoring its remarkable diversity—and examines the Christian Democratic organizations of Chile and Mexico, which are still major parties today. The concluding section analyzes the demise of formerly significant Christian Democratic parties in El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela. Christian Democracy in Latin America provides the definitive stufy of the nature, rise, and decline of Christian Democracy in Latin America. The book enriches the broader theoretical literature on political parties by highlighting the distinctive strategic dilemmas parties face, and the distinctive objectives they pursue, in contexts of fragile democracy or of authoritarian regimes.

"This is a volume which will become invaluable to those attempting to guide the neophyte through the maze of politics in Latin America" - Journal of Latin American Studies Politics Latin America examines the role of Latin America in the world and its importance to the study of politics with particular emphasis on the institutions and processes that exist to guarantee democracy and the forces that threaten to compromise it. Now in its second edition and fully revised to reflect recent developments in the region, Politics Latin America provides students and teachers with an accessible overview of the region’s unique political and economic landscape, covering every aspect of governance in its 21 countries. The book examines the international relations of Latin American states as they seek to carve out a role in an increasingly globalised world and will be an ideal introduction for undergraduate courses in Latin American politics and comparative politics.

His vivid and plain-spoken account of life among the Maya during the war between guerrillas and the army in the 1980s and 1990s offers detailed descriptions of the atrocities committed by both sides and brings the reader into a Mayan world richly textured with indigenous beliefs and practices.

This is a book about the role of culture in social change and the Spanish transition to democracy after Franco. Laura Desfor Edles takes a distinctively culturalist approach to the 'strategy of consensus' deployed by the Spanish elite and uses systematic textual interpretation (with a particular focus on Spanish newspapers) to show how a new symbolic framework emerged in post-Franco Spain which enabled the resolution of specific events critical to the success of the transition. In addition to uncovering underlying processes of symbolization, she shows that politico-historical transitions can themselves be understood as ritual processes, involving as they do phases and symbols of separation, liminality and re-aggregation.

Ard examines Mexico's long transition to democracy and the vital role played by the National Action Party, an opposition system party inspired by Catholic social doctrine and dedicated to democratic values. Ard examines the problem of democratic transitions by focusing on Mexico's National Action Party (PAN), a democratic opposition party based on Catholic social doctrine. The 2000 defeat of Mexico's long-time ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party was more than the displacement of one ruling clique by another. More profoundly, Fox's stunning victory closed the book on a persistent political-religious conflict—a great party conflict—that had dogged Mexico since its break with the Spanish Empire. The 2000 election represented the end of a long conversion process, a reconciliation between Mexico's Catholic and Revolutionary political traditions, and the forging of a new national political consensus. Ard examines Mexico's long transition to democracy in which the PAN, an opposition system party inspired by Catholic social doctrine and dedicated to democratic values, played a vital role. The book begins with a theoretical framework to understanding the Mexican transition, with an emphasis placed on the importance of conciliation, political liberties, and the democratic opposition party. Ard then addresses the fundamental church-state cleavage and how it shaped Mexico's great parties. He then looks at the founding of the National Action Party, a reforming system party that broke the great party mold. The bulk of his analysis centers on the details of the political transition and the challenges ahead for Mexican democracy. This book is of particular importance to scholars, students, and researchers involved with Mexican politics and history, and Latin American Studies in general.