The Ebbing of Pink Tide: The elector erosion of the left in Latin America?

GABRIEL KESSLER

Nueva York

Mesa redonda; The Ebbing of Pink Tide; 2016

ILAS-Columbia University

In general, I think that we never have an entire vision of the region and that, for a number or reason. From one country to other what is included in Latin American, what is a kind of blurring reality and what is completely outside from the scope change. That?s a consequence as well of different links among countries as for political positions. There is not a neutral vision about what is latin American because very often each view involves political and social connotation. Latin American can be defined in a positive terms for example for the left or for populist partisans, but can acquire a more negative connotation for modernizing elites aimed to put behind long run under development. In terms of countries: Bolivia and Ecuador are in the center of some political vision, for others Chile because is supposed to have the strongest institutions. Recently for someone Colombia and Peru is now the model to follow, given that there were no left turn but however we saw social improvements. Last but not least, the place of Cuba in a latin American view about itself keep unsolved: yet defended for the left, in a uncomfortable place for social democratic and considered a dictatorship for the center or the right.