Countering democratic backsliding driven by powerful executives is as relevant as eliminating corruption, the deficit of the rule of law and the scourges of inequality and violence that plague Latin America’s democracies. Yet the latter issues still dominate public debate.
Since the mid-nineties, a majority of established democracies have fallen victim to an autocratic wave. And while each country’s trajectory to autocracy is different, the tactical model of the aspiring dictator is evident in all of them.
Aspiring autocrats in Latin America and around the world are increasingly taking pages from the playbooks of the Chávez/Maduro regime in Venezuela and Vladimir Putin in Russia.
As the standoff continues without much sign of a plan B from the White House, the Maduro government is threatening to arrest President Juan Guaidó. It’s time for the other members of the 50-plus international coalition to put some muscle into the game.
Latin America needs to forge alliances in a complex, changing world, but betting on extra-continental autocracies will not bring greater social equity and respect for human rights to the Americas.
Though often neglected in coverage of the political battle between Guaidó and Maduro, restrictions to digital freedoms have become an important means for Maduro to silence his critics.
Rarely has the region seen such an undiluted diplomatic fiasco as what occurred on the Colombia-Venezuela border. But then, perhaps that was the point. Stagecraft has replaced statecraft.
The European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean have laid the groundwork to place the low-carbon and climate-resilient agenda at the heart of their relationships.
The use of military force to bring about regime change in Latin America would set U.S.-Latin American relations back decades. The U.S. needs to follow a more pragmatic and ultimately productive approach.
The 2018 elections in Mexico and Brazil turned on its head the investment norm driving Latin America’s two largest economies.
