| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
185630
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promoted himself as a historical figure equal to the great heroes of Mexico’s national mythology. His populist rhetoric denigrates political opponents as enemies of the people. But more than two years into his term, his promises of economic growth have failed to materialize, partly because of his attachment to austerity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 2 |
ID:
185626
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The November 2019 ouster of President Evo Morales, followed by the interim government’s harsh crackdown on his supporters, plunged Bolivia into a political crisis just as the COVID-19 pandemic arrived with devastating effect. The interim government’s haphazard response was marred by corruption scandals over procurement of medical supplies. After several delays, a general election was finally held in October 2019. Luis Arce, the presidential candidate of Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism, won decisively. But Morales’s subsequent return from exile signaled that the struggle over his legacy would continue.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 3 |
ID:
185625
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
In an October 2020 referendum, nearly 80 percent of Chileans voted to start a process to write a new constitution. A special assembly with equal representation of men and women will now attempt to replace the 1980 dictatorship-era constitution. Getting to this point was a major win for workers, students, leftists, feminists, Indigenous peoples, and the poor, all of whom were involved in leading 2019’s widespread protests over social and economic inequality. The demonstrations forced the conservative government to make the concession of holding the referendum. Chile now embarks on the fraught process of writing a new constitution that must satisfy diverse stakeholders while reforming political and economic systems that have preserved the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
ID:
185627
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Mexico and Brazil, both among the region’s hardest hit by COVID-19, took strikingly different steps to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic. Although President Jair Bolsonaro dismissed the need for social distancing measures, the government provided substantial financial aid to citizens though cash transfer programs, avoiding potentially sharp increases in poverty and inequality. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who also displayed a dismissive attitude about the virus, made relatively little effort to protect the poor and unemployed from its effects, despite his pro-poor rhetoric. As a result, the Mexican economy was projected to contract by 9 percent in 2020, while poverty sharply increased. Rising malnutrition and missed schooling may have long-term consequences for inequality.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 5 |
ID:
185629
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This essay situates Guyana’s recent election standoff in a longer, relatively unbroken trajectory of racially divisive politics. It explores how historically oppressed peoples have directed their hostility at each other while governments have worked with extractive industries to perpetuate a neo-imperial economidepenc structure. The recent discovery of major offshore oil deposits has started a new cycle of this economic dency on commodity exports and multinational corporations while raising the stakes of racialized domestic political competition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 6 |
ID:
185628
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
In June 2019, Nayib Bukele, a former mayor affiliated with the former guerrilla movement FMLN, became president of El Salvador at the head of a new party allied with a splinter faction of the right-wing ARENA party. Capitalizing on the corruption scandals that tainted the two major parties, the youthful businessman rode to victory on an anti-sleaze platform. He has made Twitter his government’s main communications platform, using symbolic politics to achieve high public approval ratings. But the president spurns openness and transparency in government, is hostile to the media, and openly defies the legislature and the judiciary, putting democracy at risk.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|