Left Turn
In my previous blog post on democratic transitions post Cold War I mentioned how the leftist populists movements of Salvador Allende from the Cold War era and of Hugo Chavez from the post Cold War era were strikingly different. The article Latin America’s “Left Turn” written by Levitsky goes into an in depth analysis on why this is so and on the new left turn that Latin America took after the Soviet bloc collapsed and liberal democracies were embraced in many Latin American countries. Military interventions declined as well as intervention by the United States because leftist movements were no longer viewed as threats due to the overall acceptance of the core features of democracy (8). This allowed left parties to openly organize and compete in electoral processes, something that could not be done in the Cold War period due to restricted suffrage, military intervention, and repression which meant that many of the leftist movements came to pass through revolution such as the revolution lead by Fidel Castro in Cuba (8,9). Lack of repression and intervention allowed a whole wave of electoral victories by leftist presidential candidates in the early 21st century despite U.S hegemony in the region, the rise of neoliberal reforms, and dominance of capitalist democracy (1, 2).
It is my belief that this relatively new freedom of the Left to organize after the Cold War is a main contributing factor to the success of many leftist parties in Latin America and is a significant difference between the two periods of movements, and it supports the claims made by Mainwaring and Pérez Liñán in a previous reading that mass social movements were a driving force in the success of leaders like Hugo Chavez because social movements were able to freely develop and strengthen during this time. However, Levitsky explains that this is not the only difference between the two periods and there are many factors that lead to its success. A major difference is the left of the 21st century is not focused on a transition to socialism like the movement of Allende, instead, the main focus of many leftist leaders is a “deepening of democracy”, reduction of social and economic inequalities, and a strengthening oft the voices of the disadvanteged groups in society. Instead of committing to complete socialism, many adopted neoliberal stabilization policies and were much more moderate than their predecessors (4,5). I found the continued use of some neoliberal policies by some in the Left to be very surprising and somewhat contradictory because neoliberal policies created greater poverty, unemployment, and inequality which is what they want to combat (9).
Additionally, Levitsky also cliams that the left turn is commonly viewed as backlash against neoliberal reforms and, specifically, the economic downturn from 1998 -2000. This hurt the incumbents at the time that were mostly right of center and “eroded public support fro the economic status quo” (10). Another contributor to the success of the Left is because early leaders like Chaves were successful, this proved the left government was viable, encouraged other leftist politicians to run for office, and induced voters to take a chance on the Left (11). This eventually led to two thirds of Latin America living under a left leaning government by 2009 which proves how successful this new Left movement was (1).