Latin America's Radical Left

For the last two decades, Latin America has presented us with the opportunity to delve into the realities, and not just the conceptual or utopian fantasies, of the Left in power. As is to be expected from a Latin American Perspectives publication, this collection seeks to challenge or even reverse the mainstream assessment that the Latin American Left can be divided into the “good Left”—the institutionalized, neoliberal cases not much discussed here, such as Chile and Brazil—and the “bad Left”—the radical experiments that are the subject of this volume.Historians will be happy to know that this collection is not unmoored from twentieth-century experiences; contributors offer comparisons with past social democratic and communist regimes, although principally to illuminate contrasts. In the introduction and general analysis of part 1, Steve Ellner, Roger Burbach, Diana Raby, and Marcel Nelson characterize the differences, finding this current wave to be less ideologically rigid, dependent on extractivist economies anchored to global trade, focused on social development over economic productivity, accepting of an electoral path to power and rule, and engaged in a long “war of position” rather than a seizure of the state. Moreover, there has been a displacement of the twentieth-century vanguard. This Left is not led by your mother's working class: instead, the socially heterogeneous protagonists include those historically excluded on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, and gender. As a result, the central challenge of radical Left governance in Latin America has been how to use democratic processes to respond to such claimants while engaging with critics from across the ideological spectrum.As Raby and Nelson insist, what has been dismissed as unmediated populist demagoguery is instead an ongoing process of socialist development. Raby argues that courageous and charismatic leaders are an asset rather than a liability when intimately connected to a “popular democratic insurgency” (p. 54). Nelson responds to the criticism that the radical Left rejects institutionalization by arguing for state transformation. Using the example of Venezuela's negotiations over the Free Trade Area of the Americas, he shows that “the state is a highly fragmented and conflictive strategic field” in which it is necessary to create parallel loci of power to build new centers of control (p. 62).Part 2 offers a comparison of the three cases where “constituting” (social movement) power has resulted in a reformulation of “constituted” (state) power: Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador (p. 228). Each chapter contextualizes the complexity of the Left state-society relationship, profiling approaches and noting conflicts. Ellner reminds us that Venezuelan radicalization has not always been ideologically driven but has often responded to historical events, particularly the fierce opposition to President Hugo Chávez and his supporters. Federico Fuentes focuses on the relationship between President Evo Morales's government in Bolivia and predominately indigenous social movements. He defends the government as following the will of the people within constraints, always seeking to broker compromises among distinct forces. Marc Becker is not so sanguine about President Rafael Correa's achievements in Ecuador, where social movements do not see him as radically reorienting state and economy but rather as claiming political space that they had opened.Part 3 incorporates cases in which former revolutionary movements have taken power. In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega is attempting to build citizen power within a situation of extreme dependence on outside forces, particularly Venezuelan assistance. Although President Mauricio Funes's collaboration with the Salvadoran Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front was more moderate in approach, Héctor Perla Jr. and Héctor M. Cruz-Feliciano maintain that controlling the state, expanding redistribution, and building alliances for nondependent capitalism are important achievements on the road toward socialism. Camila Piñeiro Harnecker suggests that Cuba would do well to take its cue from the newer Left and consider a more participatory alternative to the state and market socialism currently debated on the island.Part 4 returns to contemplations of economic, social, and cultural transformation. Thomas Purcell offers a comparison of social production companies in Venezuela, George Ciccariello-Maher contends that those governments paying attention to movements rather than betraying them are in fact the “good Left,” and Kevin Young reviews US media coverage of the Latin American Left, with the unsurprising finding of imperial attitudes and bias. Ellner concludes by emphasizing the volume's themes, including one largely overlooked in the chapters: the relationship between the Left and Christianity, yet another stark difference with twentieth-century examples. While liberation theology stimulated the organization of diverse movements, the kinds of strategic alliances that Left leaders such as Correa and Ortega have made with Catholic Church hierarchy have put into sharp relief the trade-off: it is difficult to bring about a revolution in social relations with conservatives at your side.This volume is designed for classroom use. Its comparative organization, including introductory summaries for each part, makes it easy to divide up into assignments, and students will find themes echoed across both more theoretical and empirical chapters. Its overt stance in favor of these socialistic experiences would make an ideal pairing with work from other perspectives

Communism · Democracy · Ideology · Latin Americans · New Left · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America