"Pink tide" (Spanish: marea rosa, Portuguese: onda rosa) and "turn to the Left" (Sp.: vuelta hacia la izquierda, Pt.: Guinada à Esquerda) are phrases used in contemporary 21st century political analysis in the media and elsewhere to describe the perception of a turn towards left wing governments in Latin American democracies straying away from the neo-liberal economic model. The shift represented a move toward more progressive economic policies and coincides with a parallel trend of democratization of Latin America following decades of inequality.
The Latin American countries viewed as part of this ideological trend have been referred to as "Pink Tide nations", with the term post-neoliberalism being used to describe the movement as well. Some pink tide governments, such as those of Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela, have been varyingly characterized as being anti-American, populist, and authoritarian-leaning.
Video Pink tide
Background
During the Cold War, a series of left-leaning governments attained power via electoral polls in Latin America. These governments faced what was described as "economic warfare" and coups sponsored by the United States government as part of its geostrategic interest in the region. These included the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, 1973 Chilean coup d'état and 1976 Argentine coup d'état, among others. All of these coups were followed by US-backed and sponsored right-wing military dictatorships as part of the US government's Operation Condor.
These authoritarian regimes committed several human rights violations including illegal detentions of political opponents, suspects of be one and/or their families, tortures, disappearances and child trafficking. As these regimes started to decline due to international pressure, internal outcry in the US from the population due to the US involvement in the atrocities forced Washington to relinquish its support for them. New democratic processes begun during the late 1970s and up to the early 1990s as a result of the economic hardships due to many faulty economic decisions taken by these regimes and their advisors like the Chicago Boys.
With the exception of Costa Rica, essentially all Latin American countries had at least one experience with a US-supported dictator including Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, Rafael Trujillo in Dominican Republic, the Somoza family in Nicaragua, Carlos Castillo Armas in Guatemala, Juan María Bordaberry in Uruguay, Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina, Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, François Duvalier in Haiti, Emílio Garrastazu Médici in Brazil, Marcos Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela, etc., which caused a strong anti-American sentiment in wide sectors of the population.
Maps Pink tide
History
Rise of the left: 1990s and 2000s
In the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War, Latin American countries turned towards neo-liberal economic policies and underwent a process of privatization of public companies, cuts in public spending, foreign investment, and espousing of free market policies. These neo-liberal economic policies promoted by the IMF and the World Bank were dubbed as the "Washington consensus". According to the BBC, a "common element of the 'pink tide' is a clean break with what was known at the outset of the 1990s as the 'Washington consensus', the mixture of open markets and privatisation pushed by the United States". The neo-liberal experiment collapsed in several countries by the end of the decade, leaving the different economies with features such as high level of unemployment, corruption, inflation and increasing inequality. These initial unsuccessful attempts with neo-liberalism combined with the end of the Cold War allowed the left in Latin America to reevaluate their movements and participate further in electoral processes.
The pink tide was led by Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who was elected into the presidency in 1998. According to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner - a pink tide president herself - Hugo Chávez of Venezuela (inaugurated 1999), Lula da Silva of Brazil (inaugurated 2003) and Evo Morales of Bolivia (inaugurated 2006) were "the three musketeers" of the left in South America. National policies among the left in Latin America are divided between the styles of Chávez and Lula da Silva, as Lula not only focused on those affected by inequality but also catered to private enterprises and global capital.
Commodities boom and growth
With the difficulties facing emerging markets across the world at the time, Latin Americans turned away from liberal economics and elected leftist leaders who had recently turned toward more democratic processes. The popularity of such leftist governments relied upon by their ability to use the commodity boom of the 2000s to initiate populist policies, such as those used by the Bolivarian government in Venezuela. According to Daniel Lansberg this resulted in "high public expectations in regard to continuing economic growth, subsidies, and social services". With China becoming a more industrialized nation at the same time and requiring resources for its growing economy, it took advantage of the strained relations with the United States and partnered with the leftist governments in Latin America. South America in particular initially saw a drop in inequality and a growth in its economy as a result of Chinese commodity trade.
As the prices of commodities lowered into the 2010s, coupled with overspending with little savings by pink tide governments, policies became unsustainable and supporters became disenchanted, eventually leading to the rejection of leftist governments. Analysts state that such unsustainable policies were more apparent in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela, who received Chinese funds without any oversight. As a result, some scholars have stated that the pink tide's rise and fall was "a byproduct of the commodity cycle's acceleration and decadence".
End of commodity boom and decline: 2010s
Hugo Chávez, who was seen as having "dreams of continental domination", was determined to be a threat to his own people according to Michael Reid in Foreign Affairs, with his influence reaching a peak in 2007. The interest in Chávez waned after his dependence on oil revenue led Venezuela into an economic crisis and as he grew increasingly authoritarian. The death of Hugo Chávez in 2013 left the most radical wing without a clear leader, as Nicolás Maduro did not have the international influence of his predecessor. By the mid-2010s, Chinese investment in Latin America had also begun to decline, especially following the 2015-16 Chinese stock market crash.
In 2015, the shift away from the left became more pronounced in Latin America, with The Economist saying the Pink Tide had ebbed and Vice News stating that 2015 was "The Year the 'Pink Tide' Turned". By 2016, the decline of the pink tide saw an emergence of a "new right" in Latin America, with The New York Times stating "Latin America's leftist ramparts appear to be crumbling because of widespread corruption, a slowdown in China's economy and poor economic choices", with the newspaper elaborating that leftist leaders did not diversify economies, had unsustainable welfare policies and disregarded democratic behaviors. In mid-2016, the Harvard International Review stated that "South America, a historical bastion of populism, has always had a penchant for the left, but the continent's predilection for unsustainable welfarism might be approaching a dramatic end".
Corruption
Some pink tide governments, such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, allegedly ignored international sanctions against Iran, allowing the Iranian government access to funds bypassing sanctions as well as resources, such as uranium, for the Iranian nuclear program.
On 12 July 2017, the former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was convicted of money laundering and passive corruption, defined in Brazilian criminal law as the receipt of a bribe by a civil servant or government official. He was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison by judge Sérgio Moro. Investigations later revealed that Brazilian president Lula da Silva pressured Odebrecht to pay millions of dollars toward the presidential campaign of the leftist Peruvian president, Ollanta Humala. On 7 April 2018, Lula turned himself in and began serving his jail sentence.
In December 2017, Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas was removed from office and sentenced to six years in prison following after being involved with receiving over $13.5 million in bribes during the Odebrecht scandal.
Economy
Some of the initial results after the first pink tide governments were elected in Latin America included a reduction in the income gap, unemployment, extreme poverty, malnutrition and hunger, and rapid increase in literacy. The decrease in these indicators during the same period of time happened faster than in non-Pink Tide governments.
Countries like Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica experienced notable economic growth during this period, whilst Bolivia and El Salvador both saw a notable reduction in poverty according to the World Bank.
Economic hardships occurred in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela as oil and commodity prices declined and because of their unsustainable policies, according to analysts. President of Inter-American Dialogue, Michael Shifter stated in regard to the economic situation, "The United States-Cuban Thaw occurred with Cuba reapproaching the United States when Cuba's main international partner, Venezuela, began experiencing economic hardships".
Political outcome
Following the initiation of the pink tide's policies, the relationship between both left-leaning and right-leaning governments and the public changed. Up until the 1990s, only two classes - the "political elite" and the people - existed in Latin America. As leftist governments took power in the region, rising commodity prices funded their welfare policies, which lowered inequality and assisted indigenous rights. The overspending of leftist governments in the 2000s resulted in the election of more liberal governments in the 2010s by citizens in the region seeking a sustainable economy, which required potential progressive politicians to reevaluate their policies. However, such advancements changed the location of Latin America's center of the political spectrum, forcing right-wing candidates and succeeding governments to adopt more socially-conscious administrations.
Under the Obama admininstration, which held a less interventionist approach to the region after recognzing that intererference would only boost the popularity of populist pink tide leaders like Chávez, Latin American approval of the United States began to improve as well. By the mid-2010s, "negative views of China were widespread", due to the substandard conditions of Chinese goods, unjust professional actions, cultural differences, damage to the Latin American environment and perceptions of Chinese interventionism.
Use of the term
The term "pink tide" had become prominent in contemporary discussion of Latin American politics in the early 21st century. Origins of the term may be linked to a statement by Larry Rohter, a New York Times reporter in Montevideo who characterized the 2004 election of Tabaré Vázquez as leader of Uruguay as "not so much a red tide...as a pink one". The term seems to be a play on words based on "red tide" (a biological phenomenon rather than a political one) with "red" - a color long associated with communism - being replaced with the lighter tone of "pink" to indicate the more moderate socialist ideas that gained strength.
Despite the presence of a number of Latin American governments which professed to embracing a leftist ideology, it is difficult to categorize Latin American states "according to dominant political tendencies, like a red-blue post-electoral map of the United States." According to the Institute for Policy Studies, a leftist think-tank based in Washington, D.C.:
- While this political shift was difficult to quantify, its effects were widely noticed. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, 2006 meetings of the South American Summit of Nations and the Social Forum for the Integration of Peoples demonstrated that certain discussions that "used to take place on the margins of the dominant discourse of neoliberalism, now moved to the center of public debate."
In the 2011 book The Paradox of Democracy in Latin America: Ten Country Studies of Division and Resilience, Isbester states:
Reception
In 2006, The Arizona Republic recognized the growing pink tide, stating " A couple of decades ago, the region, long considered part of the United States' backyard, was basking in a resurgence of democracy, sending military despots back to their barracks", further recognizing the "disfavor" with the United States and the concerns of "a wave of nationalist, leftist leaders washing across Latin America in a 'pink tide'" among United States officials.
A 2007 report from the Inter Press Service news agency said how "elections results in Latin America appear to have confirmed a left-wing populist and anti-U.S. trend - the so-called "pink tide" - which ... poses serious threats to Washington's multibillion-dollar anti-drug effort in the Andes".
In 2014, Albrecht Koschützke and Hajo Lanz, directors of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for Central America discussed the "hope for greater social justice and a more participatory democracy" following the election of leftist leaders, though the foundation recognized that such elections "still do not mean a shift to the left" but are "the result of an ostensible loss of prestige from the right-wing parties that have traditionally ruled".
Presidents
Below are left-wing and centre-left presidents elected in Latin America since 1995
Note: Centre-left presidents are marked with *
- Argentina: Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015)
- Bolivia: Evo Morales (2006-present)
- Brazil: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva* (2003-2011), Dilma Rousseff* (2011-2016)
- Chile: Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle* (1994-2000), Ricardo Lagos* (2000-2006), Michelle Bachelet* (2006-2010; 2014-2018)
- Costa Rica: Luis Guillermo Solís* (2014-2018), Carlos Alvarado Quesada (2018-present)
- Dominican Republic Leonel Fernández* (1996-2000; 2004-2012), Danilo Medina* (2012-present)
- Ecuador: Rafael Correa (2007-2017), Lenín Moreno* (2017-present)
- El Salvador: Mauricio Funes* (2009-2014), Salvador Sánchez Cerén* (2014-present)
- Guatemala: Álvaro Colom* (2008-2012)
- Honduras: Manuel Zelaya* (2006-2009)
- Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega (1979-1990, 2007-present)
- Paraguay: Fernando Lugo (2008-2012)
- Peru: Alan García Pérez (2006-2011), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016)
- Uruguay: Tabaré Vázquez* (2005-2010; 2015-present), José Mujica* (2010-2015)
- Venezuela: Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), Nicolás Maduro (2013-present)
Timeline
The timeline shows periods where a leftist leader governed over a particular country, beginning with Hugo Chávez in 1999
See also
- Conservative wave
- Bolivarianism
- Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas
- Foro de São Paulo
- History of Latin America
- Kirchnerism
- Latin American drug legalization
- Latin American integration
- Pan-Americanism
- Socialism of the 21st century
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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