In 1998, many North American and European intellectuals hailed the emergence of a new Latin American left when Hugo Chávez ascended to the presidency of Venezuela. When Evo Morales became president of Bolivia in 2006, and Rafael Correa won the …
Fidel Castro cloaked himself in protean myths. But learning from his life and the Cuba he governed requires looking past the mythologies to squarely face both the powers arrayed against him and the costs of the decisions he made to confront them.
Dilma and Lula have been refashioned as leftists in defeat. But for the Workers’ Party, it might be too late.
In a country where left politics has been marred by decades of sectarian strife and a devastating civil war, can a new coalition of socialists, feminists, and greens point a more democratic way forward—and win?
In her new book, Our Sister Republics, Caitlin Fitz exhumes a forgotten moment in the history of the Americas, a time when residents of the newly formed United States came to see Latin Americans as partners in a shared revolutionary experiment.
As Latin America’s “pink tide” appears to ebb, Patrick Iber, Javier Buenrostro, Sujatha Fernandes, Bryan McCann, and Thea Riofrancos examine its lessons for democratic socialists in the region and abroad.
Populism is extremely limited if it is not coupled with highly organized grassroots movements with the ability to shape politics from the ground up.
Targeted use of revenue from commodities can be an immediate and necessary salve against brutal levels of poverty and inequality, but Chavismo’s “extractivist” model has left Venezuela as vulnerable as ever to the whims of the international market.
The central protagonists of Latin America’s profound shift away from the neoliberal policies of the 1980s and ‘90s were not strong leaders but social movements.
If there is any positive aspect to Brazil’s current crisis, it is the reemergence of non-partisan, civil-society mobilization in response to impeachment and its fallout.
Democratic socialism cannot emerge exclusively, or even primarily, from the grassroots—it implies the structuring of social resources in ways that require government action.
Struggles for democratization are always local struggles: the first thing their protagonists want is a state governed by the people who live in it. We must relearn how to support them.
