The article seeks to add to the growing contribution of discursive approaches to the study of political institutions by analysing the possibilities for cross‐fertilisation between discursive institutionalism and post‐structuralist discourse theory. Analysing Vivien Schmidt's version of discursive institutionalism, it argues that Schmidt's concept of discourse results in a model of explanation of institutional change that overlooks questions about the relations between power, politics and discourse. It further argues that while post‐structural discourse theory has made important contributions to the understanding of the discursive nature of social practices, it has so far failed fully to take on board the institutional dimension of politics. It concludes that an integration of Schmidt's insights on discursive institutionalism with post‐structuralist discourse theory allows a more rounded analysis of the political dimension of institutions and of the institutional dimension of politics, as well as a better understanding of institutional change. To illustrate our arguments we draw on our own research to analyse the relations between discourse and institutions in the 2002 presidential electoral campaign in Brazil and in Argentina's poverty reduction policies in the 1990s.

P araphrasing Karl Marx, a specter is haunting Latin America-the specter of ''populism.'' This label has been attached to a wave of radical left leaders in the region, including Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. The term is normatively charged. The Mexican politician and scholar Jorge Castañeda contrasts radical populist leaders (such as Chávez and Morales), whom he characterizes as less convinced of the intrinsic value of democracy and human rights, with moderate left-wingers (such as Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay), who embrace representative democracy and respect human rights. 1This division of the Latin American left between ''good'' social democrats and ''bad'' populists is open to challenge. But Castañeda is right to draw attention to the fact that democracy and populism are engaging with similar challenges of political order. Moreover, it is important to recognize that democracy and populism also have compatible normative grounds, both seeking to enact the sovereign rule of the people. Nevertheless, democrats and populists diverge over how to respond to such challenges as how to manage majority-minority relations, safeguard individual rights, and establish a just and enduring political order. The coexistence of these two political logics within Latin American societies generates significant political fault lines, reflective of the incomplete nature of democratic order in the region.

This article seeks to contribute to the study of the 1970s dictatorships in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay by looking at one specific aspect of those regimes: exile. It considers exile in the UK, a host country on which research is limited, and claims that the fundamental political ideas that had inspired these exiles did not vanish but were variously reshaped, depending on changing political circumstances, how the exiles interacted with local forms of solidarity, and how they lived through the personal challenges that they experienced during exile.

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Following the 2008 economic crisis, many Spaniards left their country in search of jobs and opportunities abroad. By 2014, of the more than two million Spaniards living abroad, the majority of those outside the European Union and the United States of America – 400,000 of them – were living in Argentina. By focusing on testimonies published in Argentine and Spanish newspapers and complementing them with an analysis of selected life histories, this article explores whether those migrating from Spain to Argentina were in search of a new home or, rather, of a temporary solution while ‘weathering the storm’. The article argues that the answer is to be found beyond economic factors and shows how these migrants’ decisions and experiences were also strongly shaped by non-economic factors, especially the social networks that had developed out of previous migration waves between Spain and Argentina.