BY OLIVER STUENKEL | FEBRUARY 5, 2020
With Latin America politically fragmented and convulsed, intra-regional dialogue is getting more difficult.
https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/regional-cooperation-dead-latin-america
Ideological divisions and weak heads of state have undermined Latin America’s ability to engage in dialogue, even as the region faces its most profound challenges of the last three decades. The lack of a coherent response to last year’s fraught Bolivian election and the region’s inability to influence events in Venezuela are just two examples of Latin America’s foreign policy vacuum. Unfortunately, it’s hard to imagine any of the region’s current leaders coming in to fill the void.
Indeed, as Latin America’s presidents look inward, the region is suffering from a lack of vision as to how to face issues like transnational crime, climate change and deforestation. But none of these can be tackled alone. The same is true of growing U.S.-China tension, which has strongly affected the region, and the gap in physical infrastructure that Latin America needs to fill in order to boost economic growth.
This lack of leadership was acutely felt in what was a terrible 2019 for much of the region. Mass protests, political instability, economic stagnation and an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Venezuela (which could soon become the world’s worst migration crisis) hurt Latin America’s reputation abroad and challenged its policymakers at home.
Democracy is under strain in the region’s two largest countries. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro,…
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