Feminist foreign policy (FFP) provides a policy framework for government action and for processes and structures within ministries. The introduction of such a framework is linked to a change in policy that is intended to help reduce discriminatory asymmetric relations of power. FFP is a new...

Debates about the production and use of biofuels are emotionally charged and often one-sided, with one group presenting them as a cure-all, the other condemning them out of hand. Assessments of the social and ecological repercussions of biofuel production diverge enormously, and putatively...

Since the 1970s a religious change has occurred in Latin America. As a proportion of the population, Catholics have greatly diminished, and Evangelicals rapidly increased. These developments are causally linked. In the course of this demographic transformation, the Catholic Church has lost its...

If proof had ever been needed that the United States' Latin America policies had failed, it was provided by the latest Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata. Washington only just managed to get its prestige Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) project onto the meeting's final statement at...

In present-day Latin America 'election activism' is widespread. Elections are held with growing frequency and increasingly serve differing aims. In many cases, however, they do not go along with a strengthening of democracy. A current example is Argentina, where early congressional elections...

Jair Messias Bolsonaro, the former army captain and recently elected Brazilian presi­dent from the Social Liberal Party (PSL) with the campaign slogan 'Brazil above every­thing; God above everyone', is a paramount example of the linkage between politics and Evangelical values, interests, and...

Since Nicolás Maduro took over as Venezuela's president in 2013, the country's gross domestic product and oil production have fallen by more than 50 percent. Political institutions, on the other hand, have doubled: there are two legislative bodies, two Supreme Courts and, since Juan Guaidó's...

The protests in Chile, which began in October 2019, have resulted, among other things, in a constitutional initiative, which citizens had been demanding for a long time. Government and opposition parties have now agreed to it. It is supposed to begin with a referendum on whether a new...

During his election campaign, Jair Bolsonaro promised economic recovery, the fight against corruption, and an iron hand against violent crime – today, these tasks rep­resent the weak spots of the President: Brazil has become an epicentre of the Covid‑19 pandemic. Even though Bolsonaro...