A recent World Bank report notes that Latin America is the only region where income inequality declined during the last decade. This significant and hopeful finding cannot hide, however, a complex situation: Latin America is the most urbanized and most unequal continent in the world. Against this backdrop, this article seeks to reflect on the

Studying social inequality in Latin America requires a perspective that considers not only economic inequalities, but also those which have permanently affected the political sphere, and more specifically the consolidation of Latin American democracy. For a long time the tension between inequality and democracy has been disregarded. The questions addressed in this article imply a

The presidential candidates depicted Mexico’s July 2012 elections as a crucial test in which the country was at stake. Although this warning was heard in other presidential elections there is no doubt this time seemed to acquire a much more vivid and real meaning, both due to the current conjuncture (War on Drugs) and the

Inequality in Latin America has several peculiarities. Inequality is a persistent character, which has its roots in the colonial time and finds continuity in the subsequent construction and consolidation of the national state. During this time, there have been cultural elements that reproduce inequalities, giving legitimacy to the interactions between unequal subjects. In that sense,

Inequality constitutes a broadly debated phenomenon in Latin America. Analysis conducted from spheres as diverse as education, health or housing –among others– frequently deduce that extreme disparities between social groups, affect both the access to and the quality of several goods and social services. As a result, large differences in opportunities and life experiences of

Representation, both in presence and in ideas is still a matter of utmost need in countries where sometimes women’s participation in politics is still questioned or limited. In the case of Mexico, both women’s presence and women’s interest are being limited, among other issues, by the institutional design. Two key situations are directly affecting women’s

Last July 1 there took place presidential and parliamentarian elections in Mexico. Enrique Peña Nieto was elected, the candidate of the formerly hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that after eighty years in power (1920-2000) and two alternation governments in charge of the right wing National Action Party (PAN) (2000-2006 and 2006-2012) is back on the

When something as rock-solid as a national stereotype changes, something profound is surely going on. The traditional (and stupid) Mexican stereotype had been that of the guy wearing a funny and large hat comfortably sleeping next to a cactus. Nowadays, apart from or instead of that we now hold a Kalashnikov under our poncho, eager