This book combines a bottom-up and top-down approach to the study of social movements in relationship to the development of constituent and constituted power in Latin America. The contributors to this volume argue that the radical transformation of liberal representative democracy into participative democracy is what colours these processes as revolutionary. The core themes include popular sovereignty, constituted power, constituent power, participatory democracy, free trade agreements, social citizenship, as well as redistribution and recognition issues. Unlike other collections, which provide broad coverage of social movements at the expense of depth, this book is of thematic focus and illuminates the relationships between rulers and ruled as they transform liberal democracy.

Emelio Betances holds a Ph.D. in Sociology (1989) from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA, and teaches Sociology at Gettysburg College, USA. His publications include State and Society in the Dominican Republic (1995), The Catholic Church and Power Politics in Latin America: The Dominican Case in Comparative Perspectives (2007), and En busca de la ciudadanía: los movimientos sociales y la democratización en la República Dominicana (2016).

Carlos Figueroa Ibarra received his Ph.D. in Sociology and teaches at the graduate program of the Institute of Social Sciences at the Benemérita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, Mexico. His works include El Proletariado rural en el agro guatemalteco (1980), El recurso del miedo. Ensayo sobre Estado y terror en Guatemala (1980), Paz Tejada: militar y revolucionario (2001), and En el umbral del posneoliberalismo? Izquierda y gobierno en América Latina (2010).