A Populist Precursor: Guillermo Billinghurst

1977 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Blanchard

The term ‘populism’ has been used to describe many of the popular movements that have appeared in Latin America in recent decades. It is an ‘imprecise term’, to use the words of Professor Skidmore, and the large number of definitions available, indicates how imprecise the term, in fact, has become. Definitions of a universal nature are of limited use, for populism seems to vary according to geographical region: the North American populist differs from the Russian populist, who differs from the African populist, who differs from the Latin American populist, and so on. Even when dealing with the specific area of Latin America there is no consistency. Writers disagree on whether Latin American populists are Left- or Right- Wing, anti- or pro-status quo, reformists or opportunists, rigid or flexible with regard to ideology.

Author(s):  
Jeffrey Lawrence

This chapter focuses on a paradigmatic misencounter between an American experiencer and a Latin American reader. Examining an implicit debate about the sources of Walt Whitman’s poetry and vision of the Americas, I argue that Waldo Frank, one of the twentieth century’s main literary ambassadors from the US to Latin America, positioned Whitman as the representative US writer whose antibookish experiential aesthetics could serve as a model for “American” writers both in the North and in the South. I show how Frank’s framework provided a foil for Borges’s idiosyncratic view that Whitman’s poetry about America derived entirely from his readings of European and US writers. Although much of the best scholarship on Whitman’s reception in Latin America has concentrated on poets like José Martí and Pablo Neruda, who adapted Whitman’s naturalism, I contend that Borges’s iconoclastic portrait of Whitman as a reader profoundly influenced a range of anti-experiential literary theories and practices in Latin America.


2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-117
Author(s):  
Daniel G. Kressel

AbstractThe article examines the ideological character of Juan Carlos Onganía's dictatorship by exploring its ties and dialogue with Francisco Franco's Spain. Known as the “Argentine Revolution,” Onganía's regime (1966-70) was, the article shows, one of the first Cold War Latin American dictatorship to overtly use Francoist ideology as its point of reference. While building on the conventional wisdom that the legacies of the Spanish Civil War informed right-wing thought in Latin America, the study then shifts its focus to Spain's 1960s “economic miracle” and technocratic state model, observing them as a prominent discursive toolkit for authoritarian Argentine intellectuals. Drawing on newly discovered correspondence and archival sources, the article first excavates the intellectual networks operating between Franco's Spain and the Argentine right during the 1950s and 1960s. Once handpicked by Onganía to design his regime, these Argentine Franco-sympathizers were to decide the character of the Argentine Revolution. Second, the article sheds light on the intimate collaboration between the two dictatorships, and further explores the reasons for Onganía's downfall. In doing so, the study adds to a burgeoning historiographic field that underscores the significance of the Francoist dictatorship in the Latin American right-wing imaginary.


2018 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 733-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos de la Torre

The twenty-first century could well become known as the populist century. No longer confined to Latin America or to the margins of European politics, populism has spread to Africa, Asia, and, with Donald Trump's election, to the cradle of liberal democracy. Even though it is uncertain what impact Trump's populism will have on American democracy, it is worth learning from Latin America, where populists have been in power from the 1930s and 1940s to the present. Even as Latin American populists like Juan Perón and Hugo Chávez included the poor and the nonwhite in the political community, they moved toward authoritarianism by undermining democracy from within. Are the foundations of American democracy and the institutions of civil society strong enough to resist US president Donald Trump's right-wing populism?


2009 ◽  
Vol 35 (S1) ◽  
pp. 169-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
DIANA TUSSIE

AbstractThe breakdown of the North-South, East-West governing principles, and the removal of superpower overlay have led to an increasingly decentralised system setting the stage for the so called new geography of trade and the reconfiguration of political – diplomatic strategies. Such strategies now include contestation, articulation, competitive liberalisation, ample inter-state coalition building such as the G-20, G-33, G-90 in the Doha Round and the proliferation of regional and wider ranging preferential arrangements. Regionalism is both policy and project. Agreements vary widely in motivation, form, coverage and content. It is very often the case that, as in multilateral institutions, one major actor sets the agenda at the regional level with the view not only of constructing and retaining power at that level but also of setting global precedents. New balancing or bandwagoning efforts vis-à-vis the local strong power are set in motion with fresh implications for the emerging global architecture. Regional alignments are thus constantly shaping and reshaping market relations. Intra-Latin American agreements (those not including the majors, the US and the EU) were motivated by the search for wider markets building up economies of scale amongst similar countries. Such agreements mostly focused on market liberalisation through diverse schedules of tariff reduction. The result has been the emergence of shallow regional agreements. Nonetheless, most have not been fully implemented, but they show a long term trend towards potential convergence, especially if the Community of South American Nations moves on. External pressures have also spurred agreements as defensive mechanisms. So we witness impulses to regionalism complementing and at times competing with older patterns and trends. This contribution focuses on the different avenues that Latin America is undertaking in terms of regional projects. It will assess the dynamics of intra- regional integration and the inter-action effects with varieties of North-South integration.


Author(s):  
Richard D. Mahoney

How did the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement come about? The officially named “U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement” was the stepchild of a rancorous hemispheric divorce between the United States and five Latin American governments over the proposal to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement...


1984 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-22
Author(s):  
George Black

‘Those who are not with the government are considered enemies of Honduras, anti-patriots, Communists’ says Tiempo's editor, Manuel Gamero Honduras was until recently an area of calm in the stormy region of Central America. Now, however, its civilian government is hard-pressed by the armed forces who have involved the country in the struggle against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the guerrilla fighters in El Salvador. Both Honduras' press and university are coming increasingly under attack, as George Black, a British journalist who is on the staff of the North American Congress on Latin America in New York, here explains.


Author(s):  
Marisa von Bülow

Latin American transnational social movements (TSMs) are key actors in debates about the future of global governance. Since the 1990s, they have played an important role in creating new organizational fora to bring together civil society actors from around the globe. In spite of this relevance, the literature on social movements from the region focuses primarily—and often exclusively—on the domestic arena. Nevertheless, there is an increasingly influential body of scholarship from the region, which has contributed to relevant theoretical debates on how actors overcome collective action problems in constructing transnational social movements and how they articulate mobilization efforts at the local, national and international scales. The use of new digital technologies has further blurred the distinction among scales of activism. It has become harder to tell where interpretative frames originate, to trace diffusion paths across national borders, and to determine the boundaries of movements. At the same time, there are important gaps in the literature, chief among them the study of right-wing transnational networks.


1959 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Kantor

The election of Rómulo Betancourt as constitutional President of Venezuela for the 1959-1964 term marks a turning point in that country's political evolution and a high point in the tide of reform now sweeping Latin American toward stable constitutional government. The new president of Venezuela and the party he leads, Acción Democrática, represent the same type of reformist movement as those now flourishing in many other countries of Latin America. As a result, dictatorship in the spring of 1959 is confined to the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. The situation in Haiti is unclear, but in the other sixteen republics the governments are controlled by parties and leaders which are to a greater or lesser degree trying to get away from the past and seem to have the support of their populations in their efforts. This marks a great change from most of the past history of the Latin American Republics in which the population was ruled by dictatorial cliques dedicated to the preservation of a status quo which meant the perpetuation of poverty and backwardness for most of the Latin Americans.


1997 ◽  
Vol 1997 (1) ◽  
pp. 447-451
Author(s):  
Alicia Watts Hosmer ◽  
Ede J. Ijjasz ◽  
Gwen Fairweather

ABSTRACT Environmental regulation in Latin America is currently undergoing radical change. In response to an increase in environmental awareness, internal pressures (including privatization of state-owned monopolies), and external standards (such as those of the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] Environmental Side Agreement and ISO 14000), a large number of Latin American countries have passed or will soon pass new environmental legislation. Although much of this legislation aims to develop or strengthen the general environmental frameworks of these countries, there are many emerging Latin American regulations and initiatives that deal specifically with oil spill prevention, preparedness, and response. As a first step toward understanding the impacts that these oil spill regulations and initiatives will have for individual Latin American countries and the region, this paper seeks to identify and explore the current forces driving the increase in oil spill regulation in Latin America; examine some new oil spill regulatory initiatives taking place in individual countries, including Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia; review relevant international treaties and regional initiatives; and discuss anticipated future trends for the region as a whole.


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