Photo by Sebastián Vivallo Oñate
BY OLIVER STUENKEL | OCTOBER 29, 2020
Riven by ideological difference and lacking regional leadership, Latin America faces a slow post-COVID recovery.
https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/the-peril-of-a-rudderless-continent/
SÃO PAULO – Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández had reason to be upbeat last week: After Luis Arce’s election victory in Bolivia on Oct. 18, the peronista will no longer be the only center-left leader in South America. Fernández used the opportunity to call for the revival of UNASUR, a nearly defunct regional organization that once comprised 12 South American nations. Yet his largely symbolic proposal merely underlined the sorry state of cooperation in the region.
After the promising development of regional rules and norms starting with the end of the Cold War, Latin America has seen a shocking breakdown of regional coordination. This has been symbolized most recently by Jair Bolsonaro’s refusal to speak…
