Over at the Washington Post, Juan Forero has an article up declaring the “Radical Left at crossroads in Latin America.” It’s not a particularly innovative or informative article, using Argentina’s move to nationalize oil production as a platform say that the left has centralized power but is now falling apart. Naturally, in an article dealing with the “left” in the entire region, it and relies on a definition of “populism” that has become de rigueur but that effectively perpetuates anachronistic Cold War understandings of the region in which you’re either with the US, or you’re an existential threat to some obscure definition of democracy. Indeed, substitute “populism” for “communism,” and you pretty much get Cold War rhetoric on the region as one homogeneous unit: it’s decreasingly democratic; there’s limited freedom of expression; it’s economies are doomed. All of these characterizations gloss over major differences between countries’ international, economic policies, ignores regional competition and diplomacy, simplifies complex domestic processes, and disregards any cultural, social, or demographic variations that might prompt different responses from governments (“leftist” or otherwise) from one country to the next. Greg Weeks calls it ”simplistic,” and that’s probably being charitable.
Who’s “Left” in Latin America? Leer más