LAUSR

party leaders, backbenchers, and others) take into account. In response, legislators anticipate actions and decide their strategies in accordance with the incentive structure that confronts them. Yet this aspect of legislative bargaining is only vaguely present in the volume. In sum, this edited volume is evidence of the advancement of Latin American legislative studies. It should be commended for enabling the contributors of the country chapters to reach balanced assessments regarding the nature and constraints of the lawmaking process in each case. As a whole, Legislative Institutions and Lawmaking in Latin America transcends the common sum-ofprerogatives approach to assessing actors’ legislative power, delivering instead a nuanced judgment of each country’s range of lawmaking possibilities: In order to prevail in the agenda-setting process, actors are subject to institutional, partisan, and preference-driven considerations.