The Politics of Exile in Latin America

The Politics of Exile in Latin America provides a systematic analysis of exile as a mechanism of institutional exclusion and its historical development.

Mario Sznajder (Author), Luis Roniger (Author)

9781316501122, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 December 2015

386 pages
23.6 x 15.7 x 2 cm, 0.6 kg

'This book shows how a familiar and commonplace image (the Latin American president who flees as protestors surge into his palace) can be converted from an anecdote into an empirically robust and theoretically well-grounded social-scientific general principle. In place of broad assertions about the 'political culture' of an entire subcontinent, it provides a sharply focused and historically informed analysis of one key regularity in the political behavior of national leaders across this large and diverse region. Exile politics offers an alternative to the gulag and to uncontrollable civil conflict. This pattern is deeply rooted in Latin America but almost entirely absent from the Anglophone world. It is recognized and taken into account by the entire political community and persists after democratization as well as under authoritarian rule. Professors Sznadjer and Roniger have made a real breakthrough in the study of comparative political behavior.' Lawrence Whitehead, Nuffield College, Oxford

The Politics of Exile in Latin America addresses exile as a major mechanism of institutional exclusion used by all types of governments in the region against their own citizens, while they often provided asylum to aliens fleeing persecution. The work is the first systematic analysis of Latin American exile on a continental and transnational basis and on a long-term perspective. It traces variations in the saliency of exile among different expelling and receiving countries; across different periods; with different paths of exile, both elite and massive; and under authoritarian and democratic contexts. The project integrates theoretical hindsight and empirical findings, analyzing the importance of exile as a recent and contemporary phenomenon, while reaching back to its origins and phases of development. It also addresses presidential exile, the formation of Latin American communities of exiles worldwide, and the role of exiles in shaping the collective identities of these countries.

1. Defining the Exilic Condition
2. Forceful Displacement, the Construction of Collective Identities and State Formation
3. The Format of Exile
4. Sites of Exile
5. Widening Exclusion and the Four-Tiered Structure of Exile
6. Exile Communities, Activism and Politics
7. Presidents in Exile
8. Is Return the End of Exile?

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Comparative politics [JPB]