Pink Tide Research Articles

The politics of coproduction during Latin America’s ‘Pink Tide’: Water, housing, and waste in comparative perspective

Coproduction brings together a diverse range of state and non-state actors to create and deliver public services. These processes, which occur across the Global South, have been widely studied. However, insufficient critical attention has been paid to their politics. We address this gap in the literature by analysing the politics of coproduction in Latin America during the ‘pink tide’ of the early twenty-first century. Drawing on original qualitative research, this article explores the coproduction of three distinct public services—water, housing, and waste—in three countries where left-leaning presidents and governments were elected into office—Ecuador, Bolivia, and Uruguay. We argue that coproduction is intrinsically political in these three cases; that is, the ‘political’ is internal to, and inherent in, coproduction. Our comparative analysis centres on two political dimensions—subject-making and collective autonomy—and shows that tensions around these two issues were central to coproduction in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Uruguay . The article demonstrates the importance of not treating politics as a mere contextual concern in coproduction analysis and shows that coproduction has the capacity to reshape political relationships and subjectivities. Taking politics into account is essential to understanding the dynamics and potential of coproduction in the Global South. Our comparative analysis also provides new insights into Latin American politics, especially concerning 'pink tide' governments and the provisioning of public services.

Extractivist States: Contesting and Negotiating the “Commodities Consensus” in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Across Latin America

Extractivist States: Contesting and Negotiating the “Commodities Consensus” in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Across Latin America

Policy Dynamics of the pink tide of regime change in Latin America

Policy Dynamics of the pink tide of regime change in Latin America

Peasant and indigenous autonomy before and after the pink tide in Latin America

AbstractAutonomy should not be understood as an inherent quality of rural subjects but as fundamentally a political and cultural project. This paper will present an overview of the evolution of the idea, project, and practice of peasant and indigenous autonomy in Latin America from the 1990s to today. It will trace the origins of the process and examine how the different dimensions of the concept of autonomy (economic, political, ideological, and ethnic) came together in the early 1990s to form a coherent although contradictory political project, which attempted to present an alternative to neoliberalism and political paternalism. The paper will assess the extent to which this project addressed the main challenges that the different sectors of the peasantry faced with the neoliberal restructuring of the economy and the deployment of neoliberal multiculturalism in the region. Through the case studies of Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Mexico, the paper will argue that the autonomy projects entailed serious contradictions since their inception because by wanting to solve some problems through certain mechanisms, rural movements exacerbated other problems. The paper also highlights the difficulty that peasant and indigenous movements had through the years in maintaining a strong alliances with each other.

Broadened embedded autonomy and Latin America’s Pink Tide: towards the neo-developmental state

ABSTRACT A central issue in the scholarly literature on the Latin American Pink Tide is the renewal of state-led development, or neo-developmentalism, and dependence on primary resources or the so-called resource curse. In this article, we consider the question of neo-developmentalism during the Pink Tide and state capacity, analyzing whether the three ‘radical’ Pink Tide governments in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia were able to achieve their respective neo-developmental political objectives. We employ a comparative approach building on the theory of ‘broadened embedded autonomy’ as conceptualized by Peter Evans. We argue that while reliance on resource extraction posed a challenge for the construction of state capacity for Pink Tide governments, national-level differences help explain why some governments were relatively more successful than others at inducing neo-developmentalism. A comparative approach focused on the politics of state-society thus provides a promising analytical framework for interpreting variations across cases.

Peripheral Nerve: Health and Medicine in Cold War Latin America

Peripheral Nerve: Health and Medicine in Cold War Latin America

Summit of the Americas: Reformatting the Agenda

The article examines the origins of the formation and evolution of negotiation platforms between the countries of the Western Hemisphere. These platforms cover security and economic development issues. The Summit of the Americas, which is a contemporary format, showed the lack of a coordinated position of the participants to the agenda proposed by the USA, as well as the actualization of the “Pink Tide” in 2022. Some experts regard the non-appearance of 11 heads of state as a kind of call for fair treatment, as a manifestation of an independent foreign policy course rejecting pressure from the United States.

Regionalismo e Integração Regional na América do Sul: uma discussão sobre as dificuldades e divergências ideológicas (2000-2016).

This paper analyzes the regional integration process in South America and discusses the main difficulties and obstacles until 2016. During the 2000s, with the so-called Pink Tide, there was the rise of several left-wing and center-left governments in the region, which were dedicated to formalizing regional integration initiatives to project South America as a center of power on the international scene. However, these initiatives were not homogeneous in their ideological aspects, generating some contrasts between them. Also, with the decline of the left-wing and center-left governments in the region between 2011 and 2016, the initiatives gradually weakened, causing a setback to regional integration in the subcontinent.

Will the new Latin America pink tide provide a viable alternative for workers?

Will the new Latin America pink tide provide a viable alternative for workers?

Red Current, Pink Tide: A Visit to El Maizal Commune in Venezuela

El Maizal's flag-waving communards are rapidly breaking down skepticism about the viability of leader Ángel Prado's election campaign, for it is undeniable that they are among the reddest elements in the so-called Pink Tide.

El embate neoconservador a las políticas de igualdad de género tras el fin del “giro a la izquierda” en América Latina

In Latin America, gender equality policies are being challenged by campaigns against sexual and non-reproductive rights, comprehensive sexuality education, and gender as an analytical approach. This article analyses the advances and pitfalls of gender equality policies during the Latin American pink tide and the most recent rise of the political right wing. We argue that, while earlier opposition focused their efforts on a narrow set of policy issues linked to sexuality and reproduction, a novel and distinctive feature of contemporary gender backlash is the expansion of that organized opposition into new previously uncontested policy domains.

Introduction to ‘Pink Tides, Right Turns in Latin America’ special issue

ABSTRACT This special issue emerged from the seminar of the same name in which took place at the Université du Québec en Outaouais in Gatineau, Quebec in June 2019. It focused on two interrelated political and economic dynamics currently taking place in Latin America. First, the decline of the wave of Left and Centre-Left governments that emerged in the region in the early 2000s, known as the Pink Tide. Second is the recent emergence of the region’s new right-wing political and social movements, which picked up in intensity and influence around 2015.

Constrained integration in Latin America: Analysis based on a twenty-first-century centre-periphery vision

The early twenty-first century in Latin America was characterized by a “pink tide”, in which a reorientation of national policies produced positive social outcomes and changed both the regional order and the role of regional integration in the different countries. Alongside this process, the international economy provided relief from the external constraint, which meant that growth paths were not interrupted by balance-of-payments crises. Nonetheless, the progress made in regional integration falls well short of political intentions. This article posits that major transformations occurring at the centre of the international economy prevented the region’s production structure from becoming more diversified. Unfortunately, as existing production structures were reproduced (or reprimarized), external engagement outside the region became deeper and Latin American integration remained constrained and confined to a secondary role.

The return of the state and the pink tide in Latin America: Implications for the capacity and democratic quality of gender equality agencies

The return of the state and the pink tide in Latin America: Implications for the capacity and democratic quality of gender equality agencies

Elisabeth Jay Friedman (ed.), Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2019), pp. xiv + 330, $104.95 hb, $27.95 pb; £84.00 hb, £20.99 pb; E-book.

Elisabeth Jay Friedman (ed.), Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2019), pp. xiv + 330, 27.95 pb; £84.00 hb, £20.99 pb; E-book. - Volume 53 Issue 4

Shifting tides, regional reverberations: a class-relational analysis of the ALBA-TCP

ABSTRACT The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) represents the most dramatic regional departure from neoliberalism under Latin America’s pink tide, based on principles of anti-imperialism, mutual development, and barter exchange. Since 2015 however, trade and social programmes between member countries have deteriorated, while regional support for ALBA has declined. In order to account for the rise and relative fall of ALBA-TCP, this article mobilizes the theory of social property relations to trace the international, regional and national forces and structures that have shaped the development trajectory of the ALBA since its creation in 2004. It argues that ALBA’s characteristics are principally constituted through concrete class formations, struggles and institutional resolutions that shape the pattern of ALBA’s international relations. Ultimately, the contradictions of ALBA’s social base with its uneven insertion into the broader international division of labour has created a series of tensions and roadblocks.

The Politics of Differentiation and the Co‐Production of the “Model Periphery” in Brazil’s Public Housing

AbstractIn Latin America’s pink tide democracies, peripheries were pivotal openings into the ambiguities of political and economic urban governance. Once portrayed as territories of decay, state disregard, and societal oblivion, peripheries turned into key moral and spatial assemblages in Brazil’s post‐neoliberal project of a “de‐poored,” middle‐class country. This article draws on ethnographic research conducted in two peripheral Minha Casa Minha Vida projects—Brazil’s large‐scale public housing program—in the city of Porto Alegre. Charting the long‐term entanglements of local activism, communal hope, and national developmentalism, I argue that peripheral zones illuminate the ambivalences of state‐ and place‐making. Unveiling the politics of differentiation and distended governance that render one periphery a successful case of state and market intervention over the other, I explore how images of the “model periphery” are enforced through local infrastructures of worth and the effacement of its failed Other: the intractable faraway periphery, deemed to disappear in the name of public accountability and social and economic development. In conclusion, the article suggests that the consorted travails of leaders, citizen activists, politicians, and planners in casting visibility onto the model periphery contribute to bolstering and obscuring extant patterns of urban segregation and social inequality.

Come In, We’re Open (and Flexible): Trade Openness, Labour Flexibility, and Varieties of Capitalism

AbstractFor decades now, scholars have questioned the influence that international trade has had on labour regimes across the globe. This article seeks to contribute to this body of literature by assessing the relationship between trade openness and labour flexibility across countries while controlling for institutional complementarities and industrial relations values included in the varieties of capitalism (VoC) literature. In parallel, the article’s empirical core assesses the relationship between labour flexibility and trade openness within OECD and Latin American countries. As the empirical sections will highlight, the paper’s examination of the cited bivariate relationship points to a policy convergence toward labour flexibility among OECD countries that were originally considered by the VoC framework. Conversely, in Latin America, the cited relationship exhibits diverging trajectories in policy outcomes, suggesting an influential impact of the ‘pink tide’ that swept across the region at the turn of the century.

Trans Readings and Translocalities in Beyond the Pink Tide

Trans Readings and Translocalities in <i>Beyond the Pink Tide</i>

Roundtable: the Latin American state, Pink Tide, and future challenges

ABSTRACT In May 2020, the guest editors of this special number organized a roundtable discussion centred on six themes and covered a broad range of topics pertaining to Latin American development, politics and economics. The context of ‘pink tides’ and ‘right turns’ are a backdrop that represent both the consequences and the lead up to what comes next. At the centre of the analysis are the core dynamics of the political systems we intend to explore. The perspectives of the roundtable represent a theoretical and methodological spectrum ranging from neoWeberianinstitutionalism closely associated with the work of O'Donnell, and comparative studies of democratization, to critical-world systems analysis, associated with Marxian historical materialism, typically found within the development studies and political economy disciplines. Although the authors may draw more from one end of the spectrum than from the other, throughout their research careers, they have considered all of them in their intellectual reflections.