On Politics: Latin America’s Right-Wing Shift

At the end of the 20th century and across the first decade of the 21st, a swathe of countries across Latin America elected left-wing governments in what became known internationally as the Pink Tide. In more recent years, what many have seen as a second wave of progressive governments have collapsed, giving way to right-wing leaders such as Milei, Bukele and Bolsonaro, with support from international libertarian movements. In this episode, James is joined by Tony Wood, who wrote about this shift in a recent issue of the LRB, and Camila Vergara, a critical legal theorist at the University of Essex, to discuss why the Pink Tide governments failed, where the new brand of right-wing politics comes from, and whether the revolutionary energy found across the continent could lead to further change.