Latin America's Pink Tide
Breakthroughs and Shortcomings
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield
Published:9th Oct '19
Should be back in stock very soon
This timely book analyzes the governing experiences of the nine major leftist governments in Latin America. The individual country case study chapters are preceded by chapters that frame the discussion by considering the theoretical implications of the Pink Tide experience relating to globalization, the state, and neo-extractivism. The contributors examine the Pink Tide policies and rhetoric that gained widespread approval and led to the long tenure of many of these governments. These included ambitious social programs, prioritizing the needs of the poor, nationalistic foreign policy, economic nationalism, and asserting control of strategic sectors of the economy. The book continues by taking a critical look at policies that have contributed to recent setbacks, acknowledging the inability of progressive governments to overcome embedded structures holding back economic development. One such setback has come from the opposition—often supported by powerful foreign actors—pressuring the government into making concessions and carrying out policies that ultimately undermined economic and political stability. With its balanced and thorough assessment, this book will provide readers with a deep and nuanced understanding of the complexity of the political, economic, and sociocultural reality of contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean. The contributors critically examine these policies, which were politically successful in the short run but eventually backfired in the form of corruption, bureaucratic waste, and economic sluggishness. With its thorough and knowledgeable assessment, this book will provide readers with a deep and nuanced understanding of the complexity of the political, economic, and sociocultural reality of contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean.
Beginning in the late 1990s, Latin American voters elected presidents who identified as progressives and socialists. Today, the tide has turned, and the right has returned to power seeking to undo the legacy of the past twenty years. These essays, written by leading social scientists committed to the process of change in Latin America, is required reading for anyone trying to understand the rise and eventual demise of the progressive governments that dominated Latin America over the past two decades. -- Miguel R. Tinker Salas, Pomona College
In a world swept by winds of change, Latin America’s plural lefts have built windmills not walls since 1998. This volume’s contributors are not among those who sit on the mountaintop, looking down on the battlefield, to appear when the fighting is over to lecture the survivors. This stimulating collection contributes to the future of living projects by those convinced that another world is possible. -- John D. French, Duke University
Latin America’s, Pink Tide is now well in retreat. Finally, the book we’ve been waiting for: a measured, insightful, and comprehensive assessment of what worked, what didn’t, and why, by some of the sharpest analysts of Latin America’s left. Exceptional in its breadth—offering global, regional, national, and local perspectives—and impressive in its depth—anchored in rich empirical evidence underlain by convincing theoretical arguments—this book sets the standard for careful analysis of the promise and limits of the Pink Tide. Debates about the left’s accomplishments in power will long continue. But for anyone wanting seriously to engage with the legacy of those years, and what comes next, this book is a must-read. -- Alejandro Velasco, New York University, executive editor of NACLA: Report on the Americas
ISBN: 9781538125632
Dimensions: 226mm x 159mm x 23mm
Weight: 499g
364 pages