ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the crisis of neoliberalism and the rise of authoritarianism in Latin America, highlighting the backdrop of a sharp global swing to the right toward populist nationalism driven by a concern over the waves of immigrant refugees seeking to escape crisis conditions of political and environmental violence in their home countries. It is argued that this right-wing populism, and the associated rise of authoritarian regimes and political parties, are predominant features of European and American politics. But there is another apparently related but in fact quite different political dynamic that can be associated with the recent economic history of Latin America—the macro-region of the world capitalist system that has experienced the brunt of the neoliberal policy agenda that has shaped and dominated world politics over the past three decades. While this neoliberal policy agenda has continued to be implemented elsewhere to this day, it was challenged in Latin America in the 1990s by powerful social movements in the countryside. The outcome was the unfolding of a progressive cycle of regimes oriented toward left-wing populism and inclusionary state activism—a development that corresponded to a ‘primary commodities boom’ on the capitalist markets in the first decade of the new millennium. However, by 2012, both this boom and the progressive cycle came to an end with another pendulum swing in Latin American politics—toward the far right and the restoration of a trend toward neoliberal authoritarianism. Exploring the political implications of this development, the chapter highlights the underlying dynamics of the authoritarian trend across Latin America, especially with the recent turn to far-right politics in Brazil and other countries in the region.
