Three waves of the systemic crisis in Latin America

Abstract

At the turn of the second and third decades of the XXI century Latin America was swept by waves of a systemic crisis; once again, Latin American countries entered a zone of increased turbulence. A characteristic feature of the current stage of crisis shocks was a test of the strength of all existential structures of the region’s mode of life (already experiencing bad times) with the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus epidemic, which put a number of Latin American countries on the brink of survival, arose in the context of a worsening economic condition, close to the collapse of the social situation, political instability, and emphasized the existing and emerging “pain points” in the countries of the region. Thus, in Latin America a closely intertwined triune space of systemic failure has formed: an economic collapse, an aggravation of the socio-political situation and problem areas in the field of healthcare. The article describes these three components of the systemic crisis: it analyzes the economic collapse of modern Latin American populism, draws a social landscape against which mass protests in 2019 developed and, finally, the reasons for the region getting into the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic are revealed, despite the maximum geographical distance of Latin America from the focus of the onset of coronavirus.