Expulsion from the homeland is an ancient and universal form of political exclusion and punishment, the resultant exile possibly a crucible for the transformation of defeat and alienation into a formidable creative force. In exile, Dante helped shape the Christian imaginary and Machiavelli modern government. Exile can also be the prelude to a dramatic last act. During his first exile, Napoleon reinvigorated his sense of destiny, clandestinely returned to France, and then rallied the French for the military campaign that dismally ushered in Waterloo. Exile can be dangerous, too. Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico by a Stalinist undercover agent. And, of course, exile can be sorrowful. The last shah fled Iran already ridden with cancer; the man who had crowned himself king of kings died bereft of glory in Cairo. His youngest son, haunted by loss and dislocation, committed suicide years later in Boston.

Not surprisingly, volumes have been written on the topic of exile, both forced and self-imposed. These include memoirs by exiled leaders, case studies of the role of exile in intraelite conflict, meditations on the existential condition of exile, cultural investigations of diasporas, and psychological explorations of the displacement experience. The book under review represents a broader effort than most extant single works. Eclectic in approach, it draws on sociology, anthropology, and politics. Ambitious in scope, it links national, regional, and international dynamics. Historical in perspective, it focuses on Latin America, a region with a particularly turbulent political past.

In Latin America, as the book demonstrates, the political use of exile dates back to the colonial era, and became recurrent and widespread after independence. Indeed, the authors argue that exile helped shape regimes and states in the region. In countries as varied as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, and Peru, authoritarian actors—and even formal democratic regimes—have resorted to the exclusionary practice of exile. The structure of exile, however, has not remained static. Throughout the nineteenth century, the interplay among the expelling state, the exiles, and the host countries developed into an impactful dynamic for regime and state formation, and then expanded in the twentieth century to include the international public sphere.

The authors systematically identify the factors that have rendered exile a salient practice in the repertoire of the region's political actors. During the critical juncture of the early national period, a personalistic political culture and fragile institutions combined with the violent contestation for power and uncertain national boundaries to make exile recurrent across partisan and ideological lines. Whether conservative or liberal, power holders used expulsion from the homeland to exclude crucial rivals and foes from the political arena; and quite often, if these exiles were able to return, they too resorted to expulsion for exclusionary purposes. For the length of the nineteenth century, countries whose power holders used exile nevertheless served as hosts to exiles from other countries. The book, in fact, lays out in interesting detail the political, economic, and cultural conditions that first made particular countries frequent destination points for exiles. The key cases within the region are Chile under the conservative Portalian Republic and Mexico under the authoritarian regime of Porfirio Díaz. Outside the region, France, where Díaz himself would die in exile, remained an important refuge throughout the twentieth century.

Importantly, the authors also trace the mechanisms that made exile relevant to political development in the region. Here, the focus is dual, one on communities of exiles, the other on exiled presidents; the case studies are derived preponderantly from the authoritarian episodes of the 1960s–80s in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Several clear findings emerge, including the variation among the cases and the changing character of exile. But arguably, the major finding, both from an analytical and normative perspective, is the transformative potential of exile. The book persuasively demonstrates how a practice deleterious to democratic institutionalization can open up new possibilities for antiauthoritarian forces. Exile can offer political actors the opportunity for political learning and for redefinition of political identity. Exiled political actors can also reassess the costs and benefits of their tactics, as well as the validity of their strategic goals. Moreover, they can gain access to existing political, social, and intellectual networks and/or develop new ones. They even can transcend nationalist mistrust, and expand their geopolitical visions and loyalties. In brief, in exile, political actors can rethink the meaning of politics and alter its practice.

The political impact on the homeland, in turn, depends on the degree of politicization, activism, and effectiveness of exiles: their capacity to represent translocated compatriots (to give them a voice on the international stage and to leverage the importance of diasporas to home states), to energize solidarity networks, and so forth. On this front, the book uncharacteristically provides a less than complete account of the institutional, economic, and political mechanisms involved in the loopback effect of exile activism on the home state and regime. On another front, however, the book succeeds resoundingly in demonstrating that exile, though a legacy of authoritarianism, is neither static nor inescapable precisely because exile means not the end of politics but, rather, a new starting point. At stake in the politics of exile is the utility of exile itself as an instrument of exclusion, as well as the costs and benefits of undemocratic practices more broadly. The authors cogently argue that exiles can affect both.

The eclecticism and micro-macro scope of The Politics of Exile in Latin America are a source of strength. Borrowing from anthropology, for instance, the book identifies the ways in which exiles acquire and deploy social and cultural capital; and drawing on sociology, it contends with the internal alignments and cleavages of exile communities. Not unrelated to its strength, however, is its weakness. The book engages, in sustained fashion, with definitional discussions of exile, but links only tenuously its own theoretical insights and rich empirical findings to broader theoretical debates. Most notably, the book correctly emphasizes the institutional implications of exile for the development of citizenship and democracy, but fails to address institutionalist approaches to the study of the state and democratization.

Omissions notwithstanding, this book ought to be of interest to scholars working on the role of authoritarian legacies and political learning in the construction of regimes and states in Latin America. It should also command the attention of scholars who work outside the region, especially those who seek to understand the relationship between the (re)construction of collective identity, political allegiances, and political action. No single book can do it all. The Politics of Exile is no different. But what it does, it does extremely well.