ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to critically engage the Latin American social movements literature regarding two main strands of political practice since the neoliberal turn in the 1980s. These two main strands are the autonomists or the ‘social left’ that has taken form primarily as a complex of NGOs that make up ‘civil society’, and a ‘political left’ fundamentally concerned with electoral politics. The central focus of the chapter is on the case of Mexico, where the left-leaning Morena (National Regeneration Movement), whose candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the presidential elections by a landslide in 2018. The chapter analyses the meaning and actual as well as likely consequence of this electoral victory, with reference to a recent ‘progressive cycle’ in Latin American politics followed by a pendulum swing in electoral politics towards the Far Right and the restoration of neoliberal authoritarianism.
