Understanding the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico can be confusing. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, but not a state. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, yet do not have a say in presidential elections.
The election of Donald Trump caught everyone by surprise. Leaving aside the unprecedented nature of his candidacy, polling aggregators had pegged his chances at 20 percent, at the most optimistic. Exactly how Trump managed to beat the odds is still being examined and debated, but it seems clear that a substantial shift in the behavior of blue-collar and rural whites was key to his victory.
The scandalous financing of several municipal candidates by the Gulf Cartel in Reynosa and Matamoros in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas in 2012[i] have not been isolated phenomena. Many news media have reported the intrusion of narcos in local (municipal) elections by not only financing specific candidates, but also by threatening or assassinating candidates. Why have narcos been investing resources to interfere in municipal elections?
More than ten years ago I started to reflect on how sociology is seizing Latin America as an object of study. My goal was to acquire more knowledge about sociology in and about Latin America. But, perhaps at least as importantly, my goal was also to understand how sociology is representing the region and how it is participating in its transformation. At a more conceptual level, I was interested in how sociology selects social problems and suggests social change. Ultimately, this is helping me forge opinions about knowledge and social sciences.
Argentina adopted the world’s first gender quota law in 1991, mandating that political parties nominate women for 30 percent of the electable positions on their candidate lists.
