Can the Latin American Progressive Governments Outlive Their Success?

Abstract

Surrounded by an overwhelming support from the popular classes and the nationalist left; Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, the Kirchners in Argentina, and Lula in Brazil confronted openly the elites, the press monopolies, the right-wing destituent force, and in doing so, detached themselves from the governmentality that intensified inequality and poverty in the neoliberal 1990s. The year 2015 was the annus horribilis of the Latin American progressive cycle. This was the year in which governments were defeated on their own terms, that is, through massive electoral participation that included the poor popular sectors. It is in this context that the discourse on the exhaustion of the progressive cycle begins to take shape. At the same time, understanding it as a narrative of “closure” is insufficient and full of traps, since it seems to point to a defeat of what previously was a golden age of progressive usurpation of power. This article explores the narratives associated with this process and the ambiguous results that are now emerging.