Overview
- Demonstrates anthropology’s ability to contribute to the study of democracy-making and explores how the notion of democracy can be imbued with diverse meanings
- Ethnographically examines citizens’ practices and political subjectivities in the context of a post-war, liberal market democracy
- Sheds light on the complexity of endemic violence in El Salvador and the relationship of this violence to the country’s gray domains of politics
Part of the book series: Studies of the Americas (STAM)
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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A Violent Democracy
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Toward Substantive Democracy
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
“The relationship between violence and democracy has long troubled scholars from a range of disciplines. Democracy means the end of political violence, doesn’t it? Perhaps not. Ainhoa Montoya provides a rich ethnographic look at the nature of political violence in postwar El Salvador, violence that persists and even intensifies within and alongside the development of that country’s political democracy. Beautifully written and deeply troubling, Montoya’s ethnographic account explores the multiple meanings of both violence and democracy, revealing them to be intimately entangled in the lived experience of contemporary Salvadorans. The book makes a strong case for the importance of ethnography to the study of democratization, citizenship, and peacebuilding; it demonstrates the many ways in which violence is an inescapable part of political democracy, in El Salvador and elsewhere around the world.” (Daniel M. Goldstein, Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University, USA)
“AinhoaMontoya offers a lucid analysis of a puzzling paradox: how does the site of global hope for peace transform into one of the most dangerous spots in the world? Her rigorous ethnography of both political ritual and everyday life is unmatched in post-conflict studies. This book should be required reading for those who want to understand how violence became embedded in El Salvador’s democracy, indeed in many post-Cold War, liberal market democracies.” (Ellen Moodie, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Violence of Democracy
Book Subtitle: Political Life in Postwar El Salvador
Authors: Ainhoa Montoya
Series Title: Studies of the Americas
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76330-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-76329-3Published: 28 May 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-09467-6Published: 19 December 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-76330-9Published: 12 May 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 303
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
Topics: Latin American Politics, Social Anthropology, Democracy, Conflict Studies, Violence and Crime, Terrorism and Political Violence