The art of letting go: A dispatch to Ecuador
Soon Rafael Correa will be an ex-president. Will he go calmly into presidential retirement or noisily wait in the wings for a future return?
admin
March 29, 2017
OAS and Venezuela: Another contested vote but with recommendations
The March 28 OAS Permanent Council discussion on Venezuela was a not-so-subtle rebuke to the failed efforts at dialogue. Instead of acknowledging shifting international opinion, though, the next day Venezuela Supreme Court gave the OAS its sharpest example yet of an “interruption in the constitutional process.” Now what?
admin
March 29, 2017
Fourteen (plus four) principled governments in the hemisphere
In the strongest language so far, a joint statement signed by 14 states (and supported by 4-more Caribbean states) condemns Venezuela under the Inter-Democratic Charter. And it asks other member states to follow up if Venezuela doesn’t comply.
Jimena Galindo
March 27, 2017
Maduro’s three-card monte: Keep your eye on the (OAS) card
Don’t be fooled. President Maduro’s call for UN help in addressing Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis—of the government’s own making—is just another in a long line of distracting tactics.
Christopher Sabatini
March 26, 2017
Counting political prisoners in Venezuela
A careful review of the data reveals an increase in political detention and imprisonment in Venezuela—often without trial—and illustrates the justifications the government uses to silence its opponents.
admin
March 23, 2017
Honduras: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
A reform that permits sitting president Juan Orlando Hernández to run for re-election and the divisions among opposition leaders make it likely that November 26th elections will produce little political change.
admin
March 22, 2017
Trump’s victory in Florida wasn’t because of his newfound hardline Cuba policy
Myths about Trump’s victory in Florida persist. Will the false narrative of Cuban-American voters shape the anticipated changes to U.S.-Cuba policy?
admin
March 6, 2017
The left/right and new/old electoral divides in Chile
The spectacular collapse of President Michelle Bachelet’s popularity and generational divisions among Chilean voters have opened up the 28-year democracy’s party system with unknown consequences for this year’s presidential elections.
Patricio Navia
February 15, 2017
Pink tides, pendulums, and presidents: political and economic change in Latin America
Conventional wisdom is that the pendulum has swung away from the left and back to the right. Such a view, though, misses the complex positions politicians, governments and voters are taking across the political spectrum.
Greg Weeks
January 19, 2017
Let the people rule directly? It’s not always a good idea.
Drawing from recent research, a new book argues that the flurry of recent innovations for “direct democracy”—from recall referenda to plebiscites—despite positive potential, also pose new risks to democratic governance.
admin
January 12, 2017