Politics of Latin America: The Power Game ed. by Harry E. Vanden, Gary Prevost (review)

Book Reviews Guatemala, Ecuador Bolivia, and Peru indigenous people constitute a significant percentage of the total population, whereas in others, like Chile and Colombia [...] this figure is significantlylower” (147),but never explains why this information is relevant, and most importantly when we check the statistics as he suggests, we see that Mexico’s indigenous population (7.5%)is not really a “significant percentage” compared with Peru’s 36.8% or Bolivia’s 59.2%, or if we consider that it has only 1.3%more than Chile (5.7%),a country that does not have, in Godezzi’s argument, a Significant percentage of indigenous population. The obvious question here is what is significant? A follow up one is: significant for what? I mention this because that is one of the most stereotypical views of Latin Americaand seemsout of place in abook that repeats often that it isinterested in creative ways of explaining the interaction between cultural production and interpretation, looking for an answer ”based on situational thought and unconventional premises for politics” (8). Similar issues are raised by Alcida Rita Ramos who does make a point that complements Godezzi’s and can be applied to the entire continent: In Argentina, she explains, ”before [minorities] aspire to their alterity legitimated, they must make it visible” (233). The third part of the book contains four essays that serve as a summary of the volume’s arguments (my copy has many pages misplaced and parts of Ramos’s essay appear by mistake in the third part of the book). Despite that serious mistake and the fact that it is too early to say if Cultural Agency succeeds in validating a discipline, this book represents a confirmation that culture matters, that art has a purpose, and that a relationship between creators and intellectuals could be rich and promising. R. Hernandez Rodriguez Department of Foreign Languages Southern Connecticut State University POLITICS OF LATIN AMERICA: THE POWER GAME. Edition. By Harry E. Vanden and Gary Prevost (Eds.) Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006, p. 580, $42.95. With the reelection of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, few can doubt that Latin America has made a marked shift to the Left. For those wishing to understand the causes and implications of the leftward momentum, one can consult the second edition of Politics of Latin America: The Power Game. This edited volume is a valuable contribution to the formal study- and analysisof Latin American politics. Vanden and Prevost follow the model of other standard works in the literature (suchas those of Wynia and Kline & Wiarda) by dividing the volume between thematic chapters and country studies.The first ten chapters set out the terms of debate. Three key themes are important to understanding the ”politicalgame” in LatinAmerica:(1)the importance of 121 The Latin Americanist, Fall 2007 history, (2) the centrality of economics,and (3) the pivotal ways that politics in Latin America ”are dictated by power and the powerful” (xix).The editors are right to stress the importance of Latin America’s history in the unfolding of the political processes in Latin America. The authors maintain that an understanding of Latin American politics cannot be undertaken without knowledge of the region’s history. Additionally, the driving force of history, as Marx contends, are external economicforces. Few can deny the ways that economicshave shaped political structures and polices in Latin America. The third, and perhaps most important, theme (the pivotal role of the powerful) is highly problematic in light of the historical scholarship with which the authors supposedly ask students of Latin American politics to familiarize themselves. Historians have shown how the popular classes (artisans, farmers, and landless peasants) have influenced larger political systems. If politics is indeed a ”power game” as declared in the subtitle of this work, than both teams (elites and popular classes) need to be included in the analysis. Teasing out the dualisms between rural/urban and elite/ popular complicates the rather simplistic portrayal of politics the editors present in this otherwise fine collection. This criticism is not meant to discredit the work, but rather to show how the work under review can spark further debate. One field of debate is which conceptual tools scholars can use to...