Political Cultures in the Andes, 1750–1950 ed. by Nils Jacobsen, Cristóbal Aljovín de Losada (review)

174 The Latin Americanist Fall 2006 Though the selection of cases is well documented and explained, one may argue that problematic democratic cases like Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Paraguay should also have been included, or at least an explanation of why there were excluded. The first two countries complement the argument that democracy “can and has lasted in hard times and inauspicious places” (p.5). Ecuador is a case of political instability through constitutional means, while Paraguay is a case of missed opportunities in the era of globalization. Furthermore, despite the fact that the volume intends to have a coherent structure and narrative, given the nature of individual authors working on different cases of problematic democracies, the reader may find some inconsistencies in terms of structure and presentation of the case studies. For example, some chapters place heavy emphasis on statistical analysis (i.e. Venezuela), while others rely on pure narrative (i.e. Mexico, Bolivia), while still others adopt an actor-oriented approach (i.e. Peru). Nevertheless,this is a worthwhile book to be read by anyone interested in understanding the third wave of democratization in Latin America and the politics of a number of low quality democracies . Overall, this book demonstrates the recurrent problems of edited volumes. It has the virtue that it can be read as a whole to give a broad sense of current trends in democratization among “problematic” cases of democracy, while at the same time, it can be read in pieces according to the reader’s interests. And methodologically ,it is a step in the right direction of triangulation. Jairo Acufia-Alfaro Queen Elizabeth House & St. Antony’s College University of Oxford Political Cultures in the Andes, 1750-1950. By Nils Jacobsen and Crist6bal Aljovin de Losada (ed.). Durham: Duke University Press, 2005, p. 400, $24.95. Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the idea of political culture and its usefulness in the field of Latin American history. This edited volume-which forms part of the series Latin America Otherwise: Languages, Empires, Nations--explores variousAndean expressions of elite and popular political cultures during the formative period, spanning the late-colonial period through the mid-twentieth century. The authors include some of the more prominent and innovative scholars currently working in Book Reviews 175 the central Andean region (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru). The idea for the volume emerged from a conference held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000 in which many of the authors participated as panelists. There is a relative cohesivequality to this collection. Unlike many edited volumes that contain a series of disjointed essays bound by a historicalevent ormethodological approach,the essays within this collection fit together reasonably well. This cohesive quality is in part due to the work of editors, Nils Jacobsen and Cristdbal Aljovin de Losada, who organized the contents into thematic sections. Each section explores a particular dimension of Andean political culture: popular and elite attempts at nation building, gender and ethnic constructions of power, and localized expressions of political ethos and citizenship. In the opening essays preceding each section,the editors introducethe essays and contrast them to each other as well as examples from Latin American and hemispheric trends at large. Of particular value is the essay by Mexicanist historian Alan Knight, wherein he critiques the utility of political culture as an explanatory notion, comparing it to the “empirical” and “muddled waters” of the “new cultural history” (p. 25). Knight warns against overstating the importance of localized inflectionsof political culture and their role in nationbuilding projects. The editors, in turn, respond to Knight’s concerns and provide parameters for the pragmatic utility of political culture as a key to unlocking the multifaceted processes that characterize Latin America’s political tradition. They point out that “what is most relevant for the configuration of a given society’s political culture may not be the surface issues or political projects but the norms, ideologies, and rituals embedded within them or expressed through routines of the political process itself’ (p. 66). In defining their understanding of political culture they defer to a processual approach: “...processes of change and continuity in any human polity or its component parts which privileges...