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<i>Participatory Innovation and Representative Democracy in Latin America</i>

A new book published by the Woodrow Wilson Center Press examines participatory institutions in five Latin American democracies.

WASHINGTON—Woodrow Wilson Center Press has published a new book, Participatory Innovation and Representative Democracy in Latin America, edited by Andrew Selee and Enrique Peruzzotti. It is copublished with The Johns Hopkins University Press.

This empirically grounded collection examines the growth of participatory institutions in Latin American democracy, focusing on how such channels affect representative government. While most existing literature concentrates on model cases of participatory budgeting in Brazil, this volume investigates cases in Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina in which conditions for innovation have been far less favorable. The contributors, while recognizing the important differences and potential clashes between participatory and representative forms of democracy, ultimately favor participation, emphasizing its capacity to enhance and strengthen representative democracy.

"The sophisticated yet accessible conceptual framework is excellent, transcending widely held assumptions about the dichotomy between participatory and representative democracy. And in an area where most works focus specifically on one city, or one country, the cross-national comparative approach stands out as distinctive. This book is clearly a significant contribution."—Jonathan Fox, University of California, Santa Cruz

Andrew Selee is Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute. Enrique Peruzzotti is a Professor of Political Science at Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires and was a Fellow at the Wilson Center in 2003–4.

Participatory Innovation and Representative Democracy in Latin America is distributed by The Johns Hopkins University Press, accessible online at www.press.jhu.edu or by telephone at 1-800-537-5487. The list price is $49.95 for hardcover and $24.95 for paperback.