Donna Lee Van Cott is associate professor of political science and Latin American studies at Tulane University. She is author of The Friendly Liquidation of the Past: The Politics of Diversity in Latin America (2000), editor of Indigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America (1994), and has published more than a dozen articles on related topics. She has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship as well as a residential fellowship from the Helen Kellogg Institute of International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Van Cott is the founding chair of the section on Ethnicity, Race, and Indigenous Peoples of the Latin American Studies Association.

1. Introduction: toward a comprehensive theory of ethnic party formation and performance; 2. Institutions, party systems, and social movements; 3. 'A reflection of our motley reality': Bolivian Indians' slow path to political representation; 4. 'We are the government': Pachakutik's rapid ascent to national power; 5. 'It is not a priority': the failure to form viable ethnic parties in Peru; 6. Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela: unlikely cases of ethnic party formation and success; 7. Conclusions and Implications.

"Innovatively blending institutional analysis with social movement theories, Van Cott highlights the importance of access to new constitutional rights, the maturity and unity of indigenous social movements, cross-country diffusion, and indigenous participation in the constitutional reform process. It is at this conjunction of institutional and social movement theories that the author's thesis is most original and strong....Van Cott's work presents an impressive cross-national comparison of the timely issue of indigenous movements, politics, and their intersection with the decline of political parties, democratic opening, and protests against neoliberalism."