Los pueblos indígenas son colectivos que han sufrido y sufren como pocos graves privaciones de sus derechos civiles, políticos, económicos, sociales y culturales debido a una condición la de indígena que ha funcionado socialmente como causa de discriminación. Desde este punto de vista, plantearse una especifi cación de los derechos para estos pueblos resulta plenamente pertinente.

The role of the indigenous population in the formation of the Bolivarian constitution is one of Latin America’s most important untold stories. Considered a beacon of twenty-first century socialism by many, Venezuela is witnessing the paradoxical emergence of ‘indigenous capitalisms’ as the government and various indigenous actors are driven by notions of development and enfranchisement grounded in the ideology of multiculturalism. Venezuela Reframed shows that a considerable part of indigenous activism, aligned with the Bolivarian governments, has paved the way for development in classical, social-democratic terms. It looks at how, in opposition to sectors of the indigenous population fighting for effective autonomy, many legitimate claims are being usurped to consolidate capitalist relations. Boldly arguing that romanticized notions of cultural indigeneity hide growing class struggle, this book is essential reading not just for those interested in Venezuela, but all those interested in the prospects of democracy, contemporary states and alternatives to capitalism worldwide.

The "Law & Anthropology Yearbook" brings together a collection of studies that discuss legal problems raised by cultural differences between people and the law to which they are subject. Volume 10 of "Law & Anthropology" includes eight studies that discuss various forms in which the rights of indigenous people are violated. Topics include: the way in which the seemingly neutral criminal justice system of Canada discriminates against aboriginal people; the fact that land rights issues of indigenous peoples cannot be separated from political rights; the conceptual differences between the human rights concepts underlying the modern international system, and the concepts behind human rights as these are understood in the Guatemalan Highlands; and the relationship between the rights of indigenous peoples and upcoming new standards of environmental law.

Emergency Politics in the Third Wave of Democracy aims to make an important contribution to the study of emergency politics by offering an up-to-date study of how it works in practice. Specifically, it studies the uses given to the “regime of exception” mechanism in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru in the first decade of the 21st century and analyzes potential incompatibilities with the two pillars of democratic governability: efficiency and legitimacy. This book offers a thorough review of existing literature on emergency politics, offering conceptual clarification, identifying three types or paradigms of emergency politics (repressive, administrative, and disaster) and pointing to regimes of exception as a useful route to their study. It also provides an overview of emergency politics in Latin America throughout history, pointing to the predominance of regimes of exception and the repressive paradigm. The book describes the continuity of the repressive paradigm in Peruvian emergency politics to deal with both social protest and the apparent threat of organized crime and terrorism, as well as how Bolivia has shifted from a repressive to a disaster paradigm in the face of pressure to deal with climate change. It also analyzes the predominance of an administrative paradigm in Ecuadorian emergency politics in the context of weak institutions and difficulties in implementing policy as well as a populist style of leadership. Ultimately, the book offers some “best practices” in relation to the design and use of regimes of exception in democratic contexts. Other studies on emergency politics tend to focus on legal or formal issues in the context of the United States War on Terror. This study is decidedly political and empirical in focus, offering analysis and interpretation as a result of intensive fieldwork carried out by the author in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Consequently, this volume offers important contributions to our understanding of emergency politics in general (with evidence from the periphery) as well as to our understanding of democratization processes in the Third Wave.