LAPIS Travel Grants

Two grants of $1000 each will be offered to members of the Section to present their research at the Rio Congress. Priority will be given to graduate students and colleagues residing in Latin America. All applicants must be listed on the program as presenters and must be members of LAPIS at the time of the application. The selection committee will be formed by Todd Eisenstadt (Chair, American University), Flavia Freidenberg (Universidad de Salamanca), and Gabriel Negretto (CIDE).

To apply for the travel grant, please request an application form from: eisensta@american.edu, flavia@usal.es, gabriel.negretto@cide.edu

The deadline for grant applications is May 11, 2009. Decisions will be announced on May 29.

LAPIS Best Paper Award

An award of $300 will be offered to the best paper on political institutions presented at the Montreal conference. The award committee will be formed by Cynthia McClintock (Chair, George Washington University), Ryan Carlin (Georgia State University), and Patricio Navia (Universidad Diego Portales).Please e-mail the proposed paper, together with a short note of nomination, to: mcclin@gwu.edu, polrec@langate.gsu.edu, patricio.navia@udp.clThe deadline to nominate papers is May 11, 2009. The selection will be announced on June 5.

Paper on Mexico's PRD by LAPIS member in LAPS

Tina Hilgers (2008), "Causes and Consequences of Political Clientelism: Mexico's PRD in Comparative Perspective", Latin American Politics and Society 50 (4): 123-153.

Abstract:
PRD politicians and officials widely use clientelism to structure their relationships with citizens. This is due not only to the entrenchment of clientelism in Mexican politics or to high rates of poverty and inequality, but also to the limited institutionalization of democratic rules inside the party. The last stems largely from the party's electoral strategy in its formative years, and has resulted in uncontrolled factional battles that play out through clientelism. The Brazilian PT faced external and internal conditions quite similar to those of the PRD, but its early focus on organization building and policy change allowed it to avoid clientelism to a greater degree. This analysis problematizes the trend of using minimalist definitions that assume clientelism to be nondemocratic because these approaches result in conceptual stretching and decreased explanatory power.

Information on the Peruvian Congress

César Delgado, who is a professor at the Catholic University in Lima and also an official in Congress, has posted his materials on the Peruvian Congress:

"In the papers, books and presentations you may find not only analysis on the current performance of the Peruvian parliamentary institutions, but you will also obtain some historical and cultural explanations to the development of parliamentary behaviour, which I think could be properly considered sources for further academic enquiries."

In case you are interested you may check

http://arrugasparlamentarias.blogspot.com

http://arrugasparlamentarias.blogspot.com

Posdoctoral Opportunity at Bentley

The Jeanne and Dan Valente Center for the Arts and Sciences at Bentley College, a four-year private university in greater Boston is pleased toannounce that it is accepting applications for its 2009-2010postdoctoral fellowship. The Center seeks postdoctoral students fromany discipline in the arts and sciences who are working within the broadtheme identified below. The 2009-10 theme, "Behaving Ourselves:Motivation and Agency Across the Disciplines," is described at theValente Center's website,http://www.bentley.edu/arts-sciences-center/index.cfm, as is theapplication process. The Valente Center encourages interdisciplinaryprojects and work that connects the arts and sciences to businessdisciplines. Candidates must have PhD in hand by June 30, 2009, maynot have received their doctoral degree earlier than September 2006, andmust be in residence at Bentley College during the fellowship period.The postdoctoral fellow will receive a total stipend of $40,000 for thenine-month residency as well as office space and borrowing privileges atBentley and research libraries in the Boston area, as needed. A c.v.,project title and one-page abstract, 10-page project description,article-length writing sample, brief description of teaching interests,and two letters of recommendation should be submitted no later than December 1st, 2008.

MPSA: Panel on Campaigns

Joy Langston and I (Allyson Benton) would like to put a panel together forthe Midwest on political campaigns in Latin America. We currently have aproject on campaign visit strategies in Mexico and would love papers onMexico or other nations. Papers could be on campaign visits, spending,spots, etc…. at any level of government. Is there anyone working on thistopic that might be interested in participating? If you are, please emailAllyson Benton (allyson.benton@cide.edu). Thanks,Allyson Benton Dra. Allyson Lucinda BentonProfesor-InvestigadorDivisión de Estudios PolíticosCentro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, A.C.Carretera México-Toluca 3655Colonia Lomas de Santa FéMéxico, D.F. C.P. 01210Tel.: (52) 55-5727-9800, ext. 2408Fax.: (52) 55-5727-9871E-Mail: allyson.benton@cide.edu

Call for Papers on Executive-Legislative Relations

Colombia International, a refereed journal published by Political Science Department of the University of the Andes in Bogotá, is inviting interested parties to submit articles for a special edition on the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government, more specifically related to the allocation of public investment. This edition will be published in December, 2008. We are seeking original articles that explore and broaden current debates pertaining to the following themes:

- Decentralization and fiscal policy
- Political process and public investment
- Electoral influences and public investments
- Pork barrel allocations
- Budgeting and the political cycle
- Political economy of clientelism
- Political economy of populism

Articles should not exceed 9,000 words (Times New Roman, 12) including graphs, tables, footnotes and bibliography. The bibliography must be placed at the end of the text. Book references must include: author's first and second names, title, place of publication, publisher, year of last edition, and pages cited; references must include: author's first and second names, title in quotation marks, name of journal, magazine or newspaper, volume, year of publication (if it is a daily newspaper, include full dates and cite specific pages).

Occasionally, documents in English and Portuguese will be considered for the publication. Articles, including an abstract, should be sent electronically (in Word or rtf) by August 1, 2008 to the following recipient:

Luis Bernardo Mejía
Assistant Professor
Political Science Department
Universidad de los Andes
Bogotá, Colombia
e-mail: luimejia@uniandes.edu.co

Salamanca - Convocatoria de Cátedras de profesores invitados 2008-2009

El Instituto Interuniversitario de Iberoamérica de la Universidad de Salamanca ha acordado lanzar una nueva convocatoria del programa de cooperación científica con América Latina en elmarco de su Posgrado Oficial en Estudios Latinoamericanos. El objetivo es reforzar los lazos académicos que ya viene manteniendo con la comunidad latinoamericana. Por ello, en el curso académico 2007-2008, el Instituto creó tres cátedras en los campos de Literatura, Ciencia Política y Economía, a partir de los cuales, docentes e investigadores especialistas en el área latinoamericana formarán parte del programa docente del Master Oficial en Estudios Latinoamericanos. Las Cátedras son las siguientes:

Cátedra de Ciencia Política Federico Gil
Cátedra de Economía Tomás de Mercado
Cátedra de Literatura Latinoamericana Miguel de Unamuno

Las propuestas para el curso universitario 2008-2009 pueden enviarse por correo electrónico
o por correo postal, deben llegar antes del 30 de mayo de 2008 y deben dirigirse a:

Cátedras de Profesores Invitados
Instituto Interuniversitario de Iberoamérica
Universidad de Salamanca
C/ Fonseca, 2
37002 Salamanca
España

o al correo electrónico: mel@usal.es

Para solicitar cualquier información complementaria, pueden dirigirse a:

Flavia Freidenberg
Coordinadora Académica del Máster en Estudios Latinoamericanos
flavia@usal.es

La Comisión Académica del Posgrado realizará la selección de las candidaturas y comunicará
su decisión antes del 1 de julio de 2008 a través de la página web del Instituto y en carta
personalizada a los beneficiarios seleccionados

New book on courts & policy in Brazil

Judging Policy: Courts and Policy Reform in Democratic Brazil (Stanford University Press, 2008), by Matthew M. Taylor, University of São Paulo.

Drawing on the experience of the Brazilian federal courts since the transition to democracy, Judging Policy examines the judiciary's role in debating and formulating public policy in Latin America’s largest democracy. During a period of energetic policy reform, the high salience of many policies and a judicial structure conducive to policy contestation ensured that Brazilian courts would become an important institution at the heart of the policy process. Through a study of the full federal court system, this book develops a framework with cross-national implications for understanding how courts influence policy actors' political strategies and the distribution of power in new democracies.

Greenleaf Library Fellowships

The Latin American Library at Tulane University is pleased to announce the Richard E. Greenleaf Library Fellowships to support research at the library. These fellowships are made possible through the generosity of Tulane emeritus professor and distinguished historian Richard E. Greenleaf. Their purpose is to offer researchers who permanently reside in any country of Latin America or the Caribbean short-term residential fellowships to use the resources of the Latin American Library at Tulane to conduct research in any field of the humanities or social sciences.

Up to three fellowships will be granted every year, beginning in 2007. Each fellowship will cover the cost of round-trip airfare as well as housing and living expenses, for a period of one to three months. Fellowships are available to any qualified scholar--including independent researchers and advanced graduate students--who resides permanently in any country in Latin America or the Caribbean. Applications from scholars of any nationality who are permanent residents of any country in the region will be considered, but preference will be given to citizens of Latin American or Caribbean nations. Fellowship winners will be expected to relocate to New Orleans for the duration of the fellowship and to give a public presentation at Tulane of their work-in-progress during their stay. Fellowships may be held at any time between July 20, 2008 and June 30, 2009.

The application deadline for fellowships for 2008-2009 is 5pm Central Time, April 18, 2008.

Aside from the residential requirement, criteria for selection include:

* The merit of the research project and proposal, which should be in any field of the humanities or social sciences.

* The relevance to the project of the resources of the Latin American Library.

* The scholarly achievements and merit of the candidate, and the significance of his/her project.

For more information: http://lal.tulane.edu/programs/greenleaf/index.htm

New book by Steve Ellner

Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chavez Phenomenon

Steve Ellner

Lynne Rienner, January 2008/260 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-58826-560-9 HC $55.00

In this fresh look at Venezuelan politics, Steve Ellner emphasizes the central significance of the country s economic and social cleavages. Ellner's journey through modern Venezuelan history—observing popular masses and social actors as much as political elites and formal institutions—fundamentally informs his analysis of Hugo Chávez's presidency and the "Bolivarian Revolution" at its core. Perhaps equally important, as he explores the rise of Chávismo, opposition within the country and abroad, internal tensions in the Chávista movement, and the trajectory of the Chávez government domestically and on the international stage, he sheds new light not only on Venezuela, but also on the recent political turmoil elsewhere in Latin America.

CONTENTS:
Foreword—Kenneth Roberts.
Introduction: Rethinking Venezuelan Politics.
From the Colonial Period to 1958: A Brief Overview.
Venezuela's "Model" Democracy, 1958-1989.
Neoliberal Reforms and Political Crisis, 1989-1999.
The Four Stages of the Chávez Presidency.
Conflicting Currents in the Chávez Movement.
The Chávez Movement's Top-Down and Grassroots Approaches.
The Chávez Government in the International Arena.
Conclusion.

U of Maryland - Post-Doctoral Fellowships

Post-Doctoral Fellowships 2008-2009

The Latin American Studies Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, is pleased to announce the competition for residential fellowships for Fall 2008 and Spring 2009. For this round, the Center will particularly welcome proposals that address culture and democracy, governance and civil society, literature and ethnicity, and migration from Asia to Latin America.

Fellows (one for Fall and one for Spring) are required to be in full-time residence at the University of Maryland during the period of award (Fall: late August-mid December, Spring: end of January-mid May). They will be asked to teach a seminar within the unit appropriate to the Fellows' discipline.Resident fellowships are limited to post-doctoral applicants (Ph.D. or equivalent). Senior and junior scholars from any country are eligible. Applicants do not need to be affiliated to an academic institution. Fellows receive $20,000 for one semester.

LASC is committed to affirmative action and equal employment opportunity.Applications for resident fellowships must include: 1) The Application Form 2) A description of the proposed research (2,500 words approximately) that defines the project to be carried out while in residence 3) Samples of pertinent publications if available (non returnable) 4) Curriculum Vitae 5) Three letters of reference.

Complete applications are due March 15, 2008. Announcement of awards will be made in April, 2008.

For further information and applications contact: The Latin American Studies Center 0128-B Holzapfel University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742. Phone: (301) 405-6459 / Fax: (301) 405-3665 E-mail: lasc@umd.edu

To download the application form and for more information, please visit: http://www.lasc.umd.edu/