1st Edition
Leftovers Tales of the Latin American Left
Over a decade ago, Jorge Castañeda wrote the classic Utopia Unarmed, which offered a penetrating and comprehensive account of the Latin American left’s fate at the end of the Cold War. Since then, the left across Latin America has travelled in paths no one could have predicted. Latin American nations from Mexico to Argentina wavered for years between leftism and American-supported neoliberalism, but in recent years the left has experienced a tremendous resurgence throughout the region. However, the left is not unified, and as Castañeda, Morales, and their contributors show, it has followed two distinct paths – a more cosmopolitan style leftism, exemplified by Brazil and Chile, and a left fuelled by populist nationalism that has clear debts to Perón or Cárdenas, and is most evident in Venezuela, Mexico’s PRD, Bolivia, and Argentina. Leftovers comprehensively updates this very important story, with country and area specialists contributing.
I. REVISITING THE UTOPIA
1. The current state of the Utopia, Jorge G. Castañeda & Marco A. Morales (NYU)
2. Have Latin Americans turned Left?, Marco A. Morales (NYU)
II. WHAT HAS THE LEFT DONE RIGHT (OR WRONG)?
3. Ecumenism and Diversity: A Tale of economic and Trade Policies of the New Left, Diana Tussie & Pablo Heidrich (FLACSO-Argentina)
4. Social Policy, José Merino (NYU)
5. Nationalism, Jorge G. Castañeda, Marco A Morales & Patricio Navia (NYU)
III. CASE STUDIES
6. The New and the Old in Brazil’s PT, Gianpaolo Baiocchi & Sofia Checa (University of Massachusetts-Amherst)
7. The Successful Chilean Left: Neo-Liberal and Socialist, Patricio Navia (NYU)
8. Uruguay, a role model for the Left?, David Altman & Juan Pablo Luna (Universidad Católica de Chile); Rosana Castiglioni (Universidad Diego Portales)
9. Venezuela: the left turning further left?, Raul Sánchez-Urribarri (University of South Carolina)
10. The left in Peru: Wagons that Lack an Engine, Martin Tanaka (Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Peru)
11. The Evolution of the Mexican Left, Kathleen Bruhn (University of California –Santa Barbara)
IV. PROGNOSIS
12. Where do we go now?, Jorge G. Castañeda (NYU)
Biography
Jorge G. Castañeda, Mexico’s Foreign Minister from 2000-2003, is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University.
Marco A. Morales is a doctoral student in political science at New York University.
"Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections." - CHOICE, April 2009 Vol. 46 No. 08
"This book will surely not be the last word written on the new Latin American left. But it offers several important contributions for those who want to understand the most recent set of surprises and puzzles that Latin America has offered the scholarly community." - Matthew R. Cleary, Syracuse University, USA
