The LASA 2026 Call for Papers invoked the republican tradition and its revolutionary implications as a way to foreground the underappreciated contributions of Latin America and the Caribbean to global transformations that have occurred over several centuries. These transformations, which continue to shape the contemporary world, entail what Guillermo O’Donnell (1998, 113) called an “uneasy synthesis” of republican, liberal, and democratic thought and action. Although each taps into pre-modern undercurrents, springing from ancient Greek, republican Roman, and medieval sources, they nonetheless crystallized in the institutions and practices that emerged out of the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the insurrection of Tupac Amaru II, and Hispanic-American struggles for independence.

Los modos de gobernar que se entrecruzan en la historia continental crean híbridos con tintes oligárquicos y democráticos. Como tales, representan pujas entre sectores, pudiendo transicionar a formas más estables con coaliciones duraderas que sostienen una articulación de lo social, lo político y lo económico (véanse los excelentes análisis de Cameron 2020 y Foweraker 2021).

He liked to be referred to as Carlos “H.” Acuña (for his middle name, Hugo), convinced that otherwise people might confuse him with the many other Carlos Acuñas around.