Although the 35-year military dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954–1989) ended in 1989, the transition to democracy in Paraguay—depicted by many observers as “a transition in search of democracy”—has been a fragile process, marked by multiple and deep political crises. This truncated democratization process has included: three bouts of military instability (in April 1996, March 1999, and May 2000); the assassination of a vice president, Luís Argaña (in 1999); the indictment of two former presidents, Juan Carlos Wasmosy (1993–1998) and Raúl González Macchi (1999–2003), on corruption charges; a “parliamentary coup” against Fernando Lugo (in 2012), instigated by the landlord class; the occupation and burning of the National Congress building in 2017 in protest of Horacio Cartes’s (2013–2018) attempt to modify the constitution to allow for presidential re-election; and, most recently, a political scandal sparked by the unearthing of a secret deal Mario Abdo Benítez (2018–present) had struck with Brazil over the sale of the extra volume of energy produced by Itaipu hydroelectric dam, leaving the government on the brink of impeachment.

Following the election of two political outsiders—Fernando Lugo (2008–2012), a former Catholic bishop, and Horacio Cartes (2013–2018), a businessman—the 2018 election of Mario Abdo Benítez brings the country’s truncated transition to democracy full circle: Abdo’s father, also named Mario Abdo Benítez, was Alfredo Stroessner’s private secretary. Subsequently, Paraguayans have consistently scored amongst the lowest of all countries in the region on almost all rating of attitudes toward democracy. Figures from the 2018 Latinobarómetro survey reveal that a full 26 percent of Paraguayans would prefer an authoritarian regime, the highest share in all of Latin America, and almost double the regional average of 15 percent (Latinobarómetro 2018, 18).

This montage of political turmoil has produced a wide-reaching theoretical landscape of interpretations, ranging from the “predatory state” (Richards 2008), “neo-sultanism” (Riquelme 1994), “defective democracy” (Merkel 2004; Lambert 2011), “neo-feudalism” (Vuyk 2015), Caesarism (González Bozzolasco 2009, Ezquerro-Cañete and Fogel 2017) and the Oligarchic state (González Bozzolasco 2012)

This special issue of Latin American Perspectives calls for theoretically grounded, empirically rich papers from any disciplinary field working on the politics, society and culture of Paraguay. We particularly encourage work by Paraguayan scholars and analyses that address the core issues of power, social structure, political economy, class, ethnic and other conflicts, and the key factors that have advanced and undermined democracy. Given the multiple theoretical frameworks already noted, we seek contributions that engage with this literature. Submissions may focus on a specific regime or examine issues such as oligarchy or social movements over a longer time period.

We welcome articles on these and other relevant topics on Paraguay:

• The structural legacies of the Stronato and the political hegemony of the Colorado Party
• The oligarchy and the Paraguayan state
• Paraguayan political economy and alternative economic models
• The structural foundations and evolution of the Paraguayan oligarchy
• Intersectionality (class, ethnicity, gender, etc.) and the composition of Paraguayan political and social movements
• The unresolved land question and the role of the campesino movement
• Geopolitics: dynamics of US imperialism and Brazilian sub-imperialism
• The prevalence of clientelism and its problems for democratization
• Religion, politics and democracy in Paraguay
• Education, culture, and/or media, politics and democracy in Paraguay
• Immigration, politics, and democracy in Paraguay
• Corruption and/or crime/drug trafficking, politics and democracy in Paraguay

SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS

To avoid duplication of content, please contact the issue editors to let them know of your interest in submitting and your proposed topic. We encourage submission as soon as possible, preferably by September 30, 2022, but this call will remain open as long as it is posted on the LAP web site.

Manuscripts should be no longer than 8,000 words of paginated, double-spaced 12 point text with 1 inch margins, including notes and references, using the LAP Style Guidelines available at www.latinamericanperspectives.com under the “Submit” tab where the review process is also described. Manuscripts should be consistent with the LAP Mission Statement available on the web site under the “About” tab.

Manucripts may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. If you do not write in English with near native fluency, please submit in your first language. LAP will translate manuscripts accepted in languages other than English. If you are not submitting in English, please indicate if you will have difficulty reading reviews and/or correspondence from the LAP office in English.

Please feel free to contact the issue editors with questions pertaining to the issue but all manuscripts should be submitted directly to the LAP office, not to the issue editors. A manuscript is not considered submitted until it has been received by the LAP office. You should receive acknowledgment of receipt of your manuscript within a few days. If you do not receive an acknowledgment from LAP after one week, please send a follow-up inquiry to be sure your submission arrived.

E-mail Submissions: send to lap@ucr.edu

Subject Line: Author name – Manuscript for Paraguay issue

Please attach your manuscript as a Word Document (doc or docx)

Include: Abstract (100 words), 5 Keywords, and a separate cover page with short author affiliations (less than 130 words) and complete contact information (e-mail, postal address, telephone).

Postal correspondence may be sent to: Managing Editor, Latin American Perspectives¸ P.O. Box 5703, Riverside, California 92517-5703.

For an article with more than one author, provide contact information for all authors but designate one person as the Corresponding Author who will receive correspondence from the LAP office. If any contact information changes while your manuscript is under consideration, please send the updated information to LAP promptly.

Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal. Authors should not submit a manuscript that has been previously published in English in identical or substantially similar form nor should they simultaneously submit it or a substantially similar manuscript to another journal in English. LAP will consider manuscripts that have been published in another language, usually with updating. Prior publication should be noted, along with the publication information.

Issue editor contact information:

Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete, Saint Mary’s University and the Autonomous University of Zacatecas (arturo_ezquerro@hotmail.co.uk)

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