Catching Up on Latin America - As it Backslides

Reader Larwyn sent me a link to a good New York Times Op-Ed, "The Return of Latin America's Left" by Alvaro Vargas Llosa.  Some of the key paragraphs are below, but I highly recommend you read it in its entirety:

"The left is in power in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. With this month's inauguration of Tabaré Vázquez as president of Uruguay, this trend will likely continue. The year 2006 could bring a similar leftward shift in Mexico and Peru, while in Bolivia the Socialist opposition has been setting much of the political agenda since the fall of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003. Although this movement is hardly homogeneous (there are major differences between Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Chile's Ricardo Lagos and Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva), the continental pattern is clear.

Behind this tilt is popular frustration with the failures of the 1990's, a decade of reform under governments of the right that were supposed to catapult the region toward development. Despite the success of many of these governments in curbing inflation, that development failed to happen. Instead of decentralization and the creation of a free, competitive economy and strong legal institutions open to all, crony capitalism and authoritarianism grew..."

As the Soviet Premier Kruschev declared at the 20th Party Congress in 1956, "There are many roads to socialism [communism]."  So too are there many roads to democracy.  However, the opinion piece above discusses the lack of economic and political reform and overall stagnation of the leftist governments. 

As a follow-up in the future to this post, DEL will look at the role of China in Latin America.  While I don't have the research done now, I will hypothesize that China is politically and diplomatically asserting itself in the politics of the above-mentioned Latin American countries.

Comments

[Doug]

While you are doing your research, you should also consider that Tony Blair's leftist British Labour Government looks like walking back into power. This must be a Chinese inspired plot too!