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Celebrating its bicentennial period, many Latin American countries are experiencing conflicting political issues, some promising and others alarming. Virtually all of the Latin American political life takes place under democratic conditions. This process, begun three decades ago, has reduced the role of militarism and political violence. There are also positive economic integration projects and sub-national and regional policies, which are indispensable to meet the challenges of the economic, technological, communication and cultural globalization process.

Paradoxically, in these thirty years of a more or less successful transition to political democracy, the entire Latin American region showed a significant increase in social inequality with dire consequences: increased poverty and destitution in most countries and the deepening of social polarization. This leads gradually to the increase of the harms of underdevelopment: violent crime, illegal trafficking of various kinds, political corruption, electoral patronage, migratory phenomena and erratic spread of terrorism, among other forms of political violence.

In this unstable situation, the community of Latin American political scientists meets at the V Congress of the Latin American Association of Political Science in accounting for the political phenomena described and discusses controversial theoretical and methodological approaches to contribute to the solution of identified problems and strengthen the democratic development. The bicentenary is an opportunity for reflection from political science on political processes in the region and the challenges and tomorrow's prospects.