Rethinking Latin America’s Left Turn

A Reexamination of the Pink Tide That Swept Across Latin America in the Early Twenty-First Century

Posner identifies the shortcomings in the conceptualizations used to understand this pink tide, provides the conceptual and empirical basis for challenging the established thinking regarding leftist governance in Latin America, and constructs the foundation for rethinking what an authentic left turn in Latin America might look like.

Around the turn of the century, a wave of leftist governments spread across Latin America. Paul W. Posner revisits this movement and diagnoses the reasons for its failure to achieve traditional leftist goals, such as reducing inequality, increasing inclusion of marginalized groups, and strengthening social solidarity. He investigates two sets of paired comparisons of paradigmatic cases: the moderate leftist regimes of Chile and Uruguay and the radical leftist regimes of Ecuador and Venezuela. He then compares their rhetoric with their actual practices and policies. Too often, these governments betrayed their self-avowed principles. Posner identifies the shortcomings in the conceptualizations used to understand this pink tide, provides the conceptual and empirical basis for challenging the established thinking regarding leftist governance in Latin America, and constructs the foundation for rethinking what an authentic left turn in Latin America might look like.