The Americas Archive

The protests and unrest that have wracked Venezuela over the past month, resulting in the deaths of at least 22 people, represent a sudden change from the malaise and passivity that had settled over the Venezuelan opposition from December to March. Through mid-March, there was a heavy sense of pessimism and fatalism on the streets of Caracas and other cities. President Nicolas Maduro’s government seemed to be consolidating its power; people were disillusioned with the opposition leadership; and the international community seemed unable to act. A few things are behind this recent surge in opposition activity. First, Latin American countries […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about education policy in various countries around the world. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, came to power on the strength of support from indigenous language-speakers who trusted him to combat their longstanding marginalization. However, the president has not always been a stalwart backer of educational reforms intended to expand indigenous language instruction in the country’s schools. In an email interview, Aurolyn Luykx, associate professor of anthropology and teacher education at the University of Texas at El Paso, describes Morales’ evolution on the issue as well as the implementation […]

On Sunday, April 2, Ecuadoreans returned to the polls to elect their president in a second round of voting after a highly contentious campaign season. During the first-round ballot, former Vice President Lenin Moreno won 39.2 percent of the vote, just shy of the 40 percent required to avoid a runoff. His challenger in the second round was banker Guillermo Lasso, who won approximately 28 percent of the first-round vote. The campaign for the second round was divisive and at times became a referendum on controversial outgoing president, Rafael Correa. Voters struggled to muster excitement for either candidate. In fact, […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about education policy in various countries around the world. Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, has made education reform a central component of her strategy to combat inequality. But her approach has been a frequent source of controversy, and with a presidential election later this year, it is likely to become a central issue in the campaign. In an email interview, Kirsten Sehnbruch, director of the Institute of Public Policy at the Universidad Diego Portales, research associate of the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion and affiliated lecturer at the University […]

It is perhaps apt that the man who brought a desperately needed reprieve to Latin America’s left is named Lenin. Lenin Moreno, the winner of the April 2 presidential election in Ecuador, now has the daunting task of not only moving his country forward, but salvaging the once-promising but now crumbling project of the left in South America. Moreno, to be sure, is no Bolshevik, but his victory is being hailed by anxious socialists in the region as the start of a comeback. The outgoing Ecuadorean president, Rafael Correa, declared that his protégé’s win marked an “end to that change,” […]

A year ago, Jamaican voters, tired of years of severe austerity measures, unexpectedly ushered in a new government. The left-leaning People’s National Party (PNP), which had held power for much of the past 25 years, was widely predicted to win. Instead, the conservative Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) won by a slim margin, buoyed by a campaign platform of “prosperity for all,” in part through a promised tax break for a large swath of lower-income workers. The biggest concern at the time was that the JLP would derail Jamaica’s hard-won gains in repaying debts to the International Monetary Fund for short-term […]

As world leaders gather this Sunday in Dakar, Senegal, for the 2019 Summit for Global Cooperation, U.S. President Donald Trump will be spending the weekend alone at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Though Trump proclaimed on Twitter that he’d rather be golfing than listening to “windbags” deliver “meaningless speeches,” according to numerous reports he was not even invited to the gathering. Two years ago, Trump took office promising to upend the world order, famously putting “America First” to make the country “great again.” Given how irrelevant he has since become on the global stage, it’s hard to recall the degree to which […]

Last month, Bolivia passed new coca and drug control laws that marked another milestone in the independent—but to his critics, controversial—drug policy fashioned by President Evo Morales’ government. A decade in the making, the laws “were an essential step because the former drug law was imposed by the U.S.,” the vice minister for social movement coordination, Alfredo Rada, told the local press. He was referring to a 1988 law pushed by the United States that limited the production of coca—the main ingredient in cocaine—and carried harsh penalties for illegal cultivation. The new coca law nearly doubles the area for legal […]

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — A resident in Rio de Janeiro’s largest favela, Rocinha, Jose Martins is worried. Earlier this year, Rio’s city council voted to sell the state-owned water and sanitation company, CEDAE, a move that Martins believes puts access to water and sanitation at risk for almost 50,000 residents in Rocinha alone. “The state has a social obligation, so many of us here pay a symbolic price,” he says. “I don’t imagine that a business will allow people to pay as little. If this happens, people won’t be able to pay. If they can’t pay, the company will […]

On a recent visit to Buenos Aires, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, foreign affairs minister for the United Arab Emirates, signed several agreements with his Argentinian counterpart, Susana Mabel Malcorra, while talking enthusiastically about the potential for the two countries “to enhance cooperation, explore opportunities and overcome challenges” as they continue to develop their relationship. Yet attempts to deepen ties between Latin American and Gulf countries have long run into geographic, political and cultural obstacles. In an email interview, Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, discusses the slow process of trying to bring the two regions closer together. […]