Blog Contributions Week 7
South America has seen the rise of populist leaders recently, I found this article which was pretty interesting. The piece highlights the growth in right-wing populism across Latin America due to voter disillusionment with the status quo and a promise of bold reforms. In many ways, this is the formula leaders such as Argentina's Javier Milei and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele have seized on to offer radical change in exchange for political and economic stability.
Milei is a libertarian, and he had "the most extreme promises, like replacing Argentina's pesos with the U.S. dollars and cutting government spending." While he scaled down others, his attacks on democratic institution calls for concern as this could lead to erosion of democratic norms.
Bukele, in like manner, who was able to reduce crime because of his iron-fist policy toward gangsters, is very popular in El Salvador. But the constitutionality of him running for a third term and mass detention of prisoners without trial has been making fears about democratic backsliding.
Both leaders are examples of the emerging trend in Latin America to value security and economic promises over democratic freedoms. This may, in turn, lead to wider democratic erosion in the region if other leaders take these examples.
Link to the Article: https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2024/06/19/the-coolest-dictator-and-el-loco-the-new-latin-american-right/
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