Special Issue of Latin American Politics and Society
Guest Editors/Organizers: Lindsay Mayka (Colby College) and Amy Erica Smith (Iowa State University)
After a decade of leftist governments, the Latin American right is resurgent. While rightist and center-rightist politicians and parties have come to power in a number of countries, the shift is most significant at the grassroots. This special edition will be dedicated to understanding the “grassroots right”: the diverse citizens, civil society associations, and religious groups supporting right-wing issues, politicians, and identities. Their causes range from restricting abortion, affirmative action, and LGBT rights, to expanding gun rights and violently repressing crime.
We know too little about these groups. Recent work on civil society in Latin America has mostly focused on left-leaning groups mobilizing for social and economic rights. Meanwhile, the right has been seen as an elite-level phenomenon organized within party organizations. This special issue turns the lens to the grassroots right in both public opinion and civil society. It will analyze the public-opinion foundations, ideological schema, and diverse mobilizational strategies undergirding Latin America’s right turn.
The editors of a special issue of Latin American Politics and Society request proposals for articles that will help address three sets of questions.
- First, how should we conceptualize “the right,” and how does it vary? What do supporters want? Along what fault lines do various groups’ goals and methods conflict? Are there varieties of the grassroots right? And finally, how does Latin America’s new grassroots right compare to the right in other arenas, eras, and regions?
- Second, what are the strategic repertoires, tactics, and linkages of the grassroots right? How is it tied to political parties, state actors, the media, and international groups? How does it develop and employ new organizational forms, including via social media?
- Third, what is its impact? How have shifts in public opinion and mobilizing influenced political parties, the media, public policy, culture, and other social phenomena?
Procedures and Resources
- Proposal Submission: By March 15, 2019, authors should submit a 500-word overview of their paper to LRMayka@colby.edu. These proposals should review the paper’s questions, methodological approach, empirical analysis, and relationship to the issue’s core themes.
- Paper Invitations from Guest Editors: The editors will notify all authors by March 31, 2019 whether a full paper is requested for consideration.
- Full Article Preparation and Review: The authors of selected proposals will submit full papers for review by the guest editors by July 15, 2019.
- Peer Review by LAPS: After revision based on feedback from the guest editors, all papers will undergo LAPS’s normal process of blind peer review; being selected by the editors offers no guarantee of acceptance to LAPS.
- Guidelines: See LAPS’s Instructions for Contributors for information on length requirements, formatting, and other details.
- Please contact either Lindsay Mayka (LRMayka@colby.edu) or Amy Erica Smith (aesmith2@iastate.edu) with any questions.
Timeline
| November 1, 2019 | Papers submitted for peer review at LAPS |