This timely book explores the unique challenges facing the left in Latin America today. The contributors offer clear and comprehensive assessments of the difficult conditions and conflicting forces that have brought to power the current leftist regimes in Latin American and the Caribbean and are shaping their development. Avoiding the widely accepted but simplistic dichotomy of “good” and “bad” left or democratic and antidemocratic left, the book first sets the theoretical and historical context for understanding the rise of the left in the region. It then provides case studies of the radical left in power in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador and its influence in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Cuba. Thematic chapters consider social and labor movements and debates over problems arising from the democratic transition to socialism. The book points to concrete circumstances in which theoretical issues related to reform and change have played out in nations where the left is in power. These include prioritization of social over economic objectives, the role of the state in the democratic road to socialism, and ecological as opposed to developmentalist strategies. Finally, the book examines the opposition to radical governments in power coming not only from the right but also from movements to their left. With its balanced and thorough assessment, this study 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. Contributions by: Marc Becker, Roger Burbach, George Ciccariello-Maher, Héctor M. Cruz-Feliciano, Steve Ellner, Federico Fuentes, Marcel Nelson, Hector Perla Jr., Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, Thomas Purcell, Diana Raby, William I. Robinson, and Kevin Young

This book examines a generation of leftist militants who in the 1960s advocated revolutionary violence for social change in South America.

In The Impasse of the Latin American Left, Franck Gaudichaud, Massimo Modonesi, and Jeffery R. Webber explore the region’s Pink Tide as a political, economic, and cultural phenomenon. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Latin American politics experienced an upsurge in progressive movements, as popular uprisings for land and autonomy led to the election of left and center-left governments across Latin America. These progressive parties institutionalized social movements and established forms of state capitalism that sought to redistribute resources and challenge neoliberalism. Yet, as the authors demonstrate, these governments failed to transform the underlying class structures of their societies or challenge the imperial strategies of the United States and China. Now, as the Pink Tide has largely receded, the authors offer a portrait of this watershed period in Latin American history in order to evaluate the successes and failures of the left and to offer a clear-eyed account of the conditions that allowed for a right-wing resurgence.

Over the past few years, something remarkable has occurred in Latin America. For the first time since the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua in the 1980s, people within the region have turned toward radical left governments - specifically in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Why has this profound shift taken place and how does this new, so-called Twenty-First-Century Socialism actually manifest itself? What are we to make of the often fraught relationship between the social movements and governments in these countries and do, in fact, the latter even qualify as 'socialist' in reality? These are the bold and critical questions that Latin America's Turbulent Transitions explores. The authors provocatively argue that although US hegemony in the region is on the wane, the traditional socialist project is also declining and something new is emerging. Going beyond simple conceptions of 'the left', the book reveals the true underpinnings of this powerful, transformative, and yet also complicated and contradictory process.

This book evaluates the record of the Left in Brazil and Venezuela, two key cases of the “pink tide” wave. The wave of Left governments that emerged across Latin America in the early 2000s – a process dubbed the “pink tide” – has been on the wane in recent years. The Left regimes that, at one point, seemed unbeatable have either been defeated at the ballot, ousted through coups or have had to contend with increasing economic and political conflicts which have nullified many of their achievements. This book argues – like many voices on the Left today – that the waning of the “pink tide” in the region must be viewed in the context of the Left’s inability to initiate radical structural changes in its constituencies. At the same time, however, the book makes the case for a more nuanced and balanced evaluation of the development record of the Left than is often done. In doing so, it seeks to go beyond the reform–revolution binary that has blinkered recent assessments and intends to highlight alternative paths that the Left could have taken.

This book presents a discussion of the historical developments, strategic dilemmas, concrete achievements and obstacles experienced by advocates of egalitarian change in both left parties and protest movements from the nineteenth century to the present.