Description
The Triumph of Politics offers a comparative and historical interpretation of Venezuela's Chavez, Bolivia's Morales and Ecuador's Correa - South America's most prominent ‘21st century socialists'. It argues that the claims of these 21st century socialists should be taken seriously even though not necessarily at face value.
The authors show how the consensual market oriented policymaking that characterized almost all of South America in the 1990s has now given way to something quite different. Polarization and intense political conflict have returned to much of the region. Although the Left has not always been the beneficiary of this changed pattern, the ‘21st century' governments of Chavez, Morales and Correa have been agenda setters. The questions raised by their emergence, style of governance and policy orientations resonate across Latin America and beyond. It is likely that the kind of politics with which they have been associated will be influential in the region for quite some time to come.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements vi
List of Abbreviations vii
Introduction: The Triumph of Politics in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador 1
1 The Military and the Rise of the Left 13
2 The Politics of Mass Protests 41
3 Populism and the Return of the Political 68
4 Personalism, Plebiscites and Institutions 102
5 The Politics of Oil and Gas: Twenty-First Century
Socialism in Practice 123
6 The Fault Lines of Latin American Integration 149
Conclusion 174
Notes 185
References 194
Index 215
