Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Latin America at the Crossroads: Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements, and Political Alternatives

2008; Duke University Press; Volume: 88; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00182168-2007-123

1527-1900

Steve Ellner,

Politics and Society in Latin America

Over the recent past, the academic and nonacademic Left has intensely debated the impact on Latin American leftist strategy of such recent developments as globalization and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. With the rise of leftist governments in Latin America, beginning with the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998, the discussion has focused on the experiences of the Left in power. These issues represent a particular challenge to the Cuban government, which defends Marxist orthodoxy but also shows a degree of flexibility dating back to the 1960s, when it challenged the Soviet line. The author of this book, Roberto Regalado, is currently the director of the Department of Foreign Relations of the Cuban Communist Party. The first hundred pages deal with political and economic developments since the rise of capitalism in the sixteenth century. The remaining pages center on Latin America and include a discussion of the Latin American policies of U.S. presidential administrations since the 1970s, as well as an analy sis of leftist and center-leftist governments that have recently come to power.Regalado addresses the question of what significance, if any, the differences in political approaches devised by Washington for Latin America hold for the continent. As may not be surprising, given the fact that Cuba was invaded in 1961 under a Democratic administration, Regalado downplays the differences between the two major parties in the United States. The Nixon administration’s foreign policy, for instance, was in some ways less interventionist than that of the Democratic Party leadership, although not as a result of moral concerns. “The Nixon White House dug in its heels to defend the domestic market and accepted as inevitable the weakening of U.S. imperialism” and thus resigned itself to a “more balanced international context” involving noncapitalist and nondemocratic nations (p. 67). In contrast, Nixon’s liberal adversaries in the Washington establishment favored the promotion of a front of the advanced capitalist bloc in order to jointly establish “new means and methods to . . . reaffirm imperialist domination over a defiant South” (p. 68). Regalado also credits the administration of George H. W. Bush with “the appearance of a certain flexibility and moderation in regard to the policy imposed by Reagan,” such as in the collection of debts from third-world nations (p. 166). The policy of occasional concessions to Latin American political autonomy and economic interests pursued by James Carter (as shown by the transfer of control over the Panama Canal) and to a much lesser extent by Bush Sr. came to a definitive end with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Regalado’s overview of Washington’s record is designed to refute the notion that the Democratic Party still assumes the mantle of Good Neighbor. Regalado states: “If the study of U.S. foreign policy demonstrates anything, it is that there is a tremendous consistency in its general lines, independent of which president or which party is in the government” (p. 191).Regalado recognizes the novelty of Washington’s abandonment of the use of force against leftist and center-leftist governments in Latin America. The author adamantly denies, however, that this tolerance opens possibilities for a gradual, electoral road to revolutionary change. He argues that globalization places so many constraints on third-world states “that the problem is no longer who exercises governmental power” (p. 223). Regalado discards the existence of a revolutionary situation and thus calls on the Left to push for reforms, but ends the book saying “the use of some type of revolutionary violence will be inevitable” (p. 232). Regalado prefers to wait for the “intensification of the global crisis of capitalism” (p. 232) before making a decision to seize state power, and in doing so he subscribes to a mechanistic brand of Marxism that downplays subjective factors. An alternative leftist view would attribute the success of leftist governments not to U.S. tolerance but to militant mass movements and would perhaps be more optimistic about the possibility of far-reaching change short of violent revolution in the context of an economic cataclysm.Regalado presents a mixed appraisal of the center-left governments in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. On the one hand, he claims that Uruguay’s Frente Amplio “has paid unprecedented attention to the demands of the popular sector” (p. 202). On the other hand, Brazil’s social programs fails to “go beyond the position of the World Bank” in its focus on extreme poverty (p. 200). Regalado is particularly critical of the participation of Uruguayan and Brazilian troops in a peace-keeping capacity in Haiti. Nevertheless, he cautions against formulating sharp criticism of those governments from the outside, particularly because foreign observers generally lack the detailed information necessary to reach well-founded conclusions. He adds that the center-left governments in power “are attempting to blaze a trail . . . and therefore their successes as well as their mistakes will contribute valuable experiences” to the Latin American Left (p. 203). A major shortcoming of the book is Regalado’s failure to examine the differences on the Latin American Left between hard-line and social-democratic currents, which he acknowledges have manifested themselves in various meetings of the leftist São Paulo Forum (which Regalado helped found in 1990). This major shortcoming notwithstanding, the book provides a useful insight into the thinking of an important actor over the last half a century, -one whose influence in the continent is likely to increase with the growing assertion of national autonomy throughout the continent.