Populism in Latin America

Populism in Latin America provides a lively, accessible, and up-to- date introduction to the fascinating populist leaders who dominated much of 20th-century Latin American politics.  

From the earliest years in the La Plata region to the end of the 1990s, Latin American populists proved amazingly successful at gaining high office, holding onto power, maintaining their followings, and renewing their careers. They raised more campaign money, got more voters to the polls, and held followers' allegiances far better than traditional politicians. Certainly some populist leaders corrupted their countries, others manipulated their followers, and still others disgraced themselves. Nevertheless, populist leaders were extraordinarily effective in reaching masses of voters, and some left positive legacies for future generations. Populism in Latin America provides an in-depth and thought-provoking assessment of the most prominent of these colorful and charismatic leaders, whose impact has been profound yet not fully recognized. 

Latin American scholars here survey the populist experiences in those nations most profoundly influenced by this distinctively Latin American way of conducting the public's business--Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. Joel Horowitz, for example, examines Argentina's strong legacy of populism, beginning with the remarkable Hip-lito Yrigoyen, moving through the archetypal Juan and Evita Perón, and ending with still-active president Carlos Menem. Ximena Sosa-Buchholz provides a fascinating view of populism in Ecuador, a country often overlooked by students of modern politics. Kurt Weyland challenges the notion that neoliberal, or monetarist, economic policies are incompatible with populism. Other populist leaders profiled include Lazaro Cardenas, Romulo Betancourt, and Alberto Fujimori to name a few.  

In his epilogue and bibliographic essay, volume editor Michael Conniff suggests new directions for further research and offers a comprehensive survey of the evolution of major writings, theories, and methodologies in the field. 

 (2 customer reviews)

The book was good, but took way to long to get to me. I waited for almost 3 and a half weeks for the book.

Since the book was prepared in the mid 1990's, it really needs to be updated in order to include more recent developments of Latin American politics such as the Lula's government in Brazil, Hugo Chavez's radicalization in Venezuela and Kirchner couple's rule in Argentina.
Nevertheless, it brings a lot of useful information about the politics of several major Latin American countries since the beginning of the 20th century.
As shown in the book, Latin American populists were non revolutionary (i.e. non Communist) popular politicians that, in general, wanted to gain power through elections and also used several kinds of reformism to give the poor people some advantages in return for their votes, the conclusion is that the "populists" were basically good politicians despite their defects such as centralization and violence.
The most interesting question however is: What's really a populist? Aren't all politicians populists, regardless if they operate in Latin America or...Read more