The return of populism

摘要

Latin america, it is widely asserted, is moving to the left. The recent election victories of Evo Morales in Bolivia, of Chile's Michelle Bachelet, and of Ollanta Humala in the first round of Peru's presidential ballot (see next story) are seen as forming part of a seamless web of leftism which also envelops Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Argentina's Nestor Kirchner and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the front-runner in Mexico's presidential election. But this glib formula lumps together some strange bedfellows and fails to capture what is really changing in Latin America.