Brazilian prisons are characterised by extraordinarily high levels of imprisonment, overcrowding and understaffing. Explanations for Brazilian punitivism largely reflect those that have been associated with the global export of American penal policies. Brazil is far more than an exemplary case of contemporary global punitivism, however.

Using Buenos Aires as his case study, James Scorer traces the figure and practice of 'the commons' in Argentine cultural production to explore how communities are variously shaped and contested within urban imaginaries. Exploring a diverse set of works, including literature, film, and comics, and engaging with urban theory, political philosophy, and Latin American cultural studies, he paints a portrait of a city caught between the opposing forces of commoning and fragmentation.

As a result of the liberalising reforms of the 1990s and the commodity super-cycle that followed, Peru's business elites have accumulated very substantial political power which they have deployed through a number of mechanisms to maintain an effective control over the key workings of the state. At the same time, the country's once powerful left has been marginalised as a consequence of the economic and political debacles of the 1980s; as such Peru has seen no 'pink tide' in recent years.

Dr Ludmila Abilio (University of São Paulo) will examine 'uberisation' as a recent trend in Brazil and beyond it. These labour market trends have in fact been developing for decades, but are now visible and recognizable in a new pattern of precarisation, which will be referred to in this presentation as the uberisation of work.

Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried out throughout Latin America, Blood of Extraction examines the increasing presence of Canadian mining companies in Latin America and the environmental and human rights abuses that have resulted. By following the money, Gordon and Webber illustrate the myriad ways Canadian-based multinational corporations, backed by the Canadian state, have developed extensive economic interests in Latin America over the last two decades at the expense of Latin American people and the environment.

Venezuela today is a country mired in turmoil. But thirty years ago the story was different. Back then Venezuela stood for many as an inclusive democracy in a region where dictatorship and civil war reigned. Enlightened leaders, strong parties, powerful unions – all spoke of a stable political system that for decades managed to ensure social peace. Or so it seemed.

From the 1760 conquest of New France to the early twentieth century, a loyalist seam can be found in French Canadian thought and writing. Leading clerics and laymen expressed a sincere devotion to the Crown, to British rule, and to British institutions. They believed that the British Conquest had been providential in nature; that it had been ordained by God and that it had proven to be a fortunate event.

This paper discusses the many attempts of the United States to buy Cuba from Spain throughout the nineteenth century. Although all the bids ended in failure, each one came at a particular moment of change or crisis, and was set in a much wider global context. The bids in 1853 and 1898 were particularly crucial, coming before and after the abolition of slavery in both places, and this paper will focus on those two in discussing how this period was critical in the development of the relationship between Cuba and the United States.

Is greater political representation for women associated with better health outcomes? Previous research has linked women's legislative representation to greater public health care spending, more widespread use of basic health care services, and better health status. This event is co-organised by Kings College London Department of International Development and University College London Institute of the Americas.

This talk provides novel micro-level evidence of the relationship between two central aspects of state capacity, taxation and the provision of law and order. Drawing on an original nationally-representative survey conducted in the context of Mexico’s war on drugs, we estimate through a novel technique the size of the fiscal sacrifice citizens are willing to make to improve public safety, and investigate the determinants of attitudes towards heavier taxation for this end.