S4, E7 The Latin American Left: Opportunities, challenges, and setbacks

The Latin American Left: Opportunities, challenges, and setbacks

Speakers: 

• Ana Karine Pereira, Universidade de Brasília
• Geoff Goodwin, Leeds University
• Melany Cruz, Leicester University

Chair: James Putzel, LSE

What is Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice?

These podcasts are recordings from the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice lecture series 2023/24, 2022/23, 2021/22 and 2020/21, a visiting lecture series coordinated by Professor of Development Studies, Professor James Putzel and Dr Laura Mann.

The Cutting Edge series provides students and guests with fascinating insights into the practical world of international development. Renowned guest lecturers share their expertise and invite discussion on an exciting range of issues, from climate change policy, to pressing humanitarian crises. In 2020, the series took place online, enabling us to host fantastic speakers from around the world and to stream the lectures on YouTube, opening them up to a global audience. Now we are back in person but still recording the sessions to share with our global audience.

SPEAKER 2
Hello, everybody. You know, it gives me a great pleasure to welcome our guests here tonight for the session on the left in America and the left. Opportunities, challenges and setbacks. And there really couldn't be a more timely moment to do this with this election of the right populist. Javier knew that Argentina really quite an earth shattering thing that reflects, you know, I think, trends far beyond Latin America. The tenor of our times, as it were. And so there couldn't be a better moment to look at the future of the left in Latin America in the face of such an event. So I'm going to be very brief with introductions, so I could talk for a long time about each of our speakers, but because we have a panel of three, and because we want to get on to our Q&A with all of you. I'm going to be extremely brief. So first of all, I'm so happy to welcome Professor Ana Karine Pereira. She is a professor at the centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Brasilia. She's visiting here at the moment in the ID department. So we're taking advantage of her presence. Her recent articles include the construction of state capacities and infrastructure policies, socio environmental demands and state heterogeneity and radical reorganisation of environmental policy. Contemporary evidence from Brazil. She has a whole list of publications. But those two. Anyway, I wanted to mention she'll be speaking in her initial contribution tonight on opportunities and setbacks faced by the Brazilian left in implementing environmental policies. She'll focus on the period since Lula's election. Secondly, we're lucky to have Melany Cruz. Melanie is lecturer in international politics at the Global South at Leicester University. She has a current research project on non-violent resistance in the Chilean feminist movement, and that explores the resurgence of the feminist movement in Chile. For those of you who want to have a look, she has an article just out this month or a co-authored article, I think a Revolt Within or Revolt Feminist Political Ideas in Chile's Social Uprising in the Feminist Review. So that couldn't be more apposite for tonight's topic. She'll be speaking about the rise of the recent feminist movement in Chile and its impact on progressive politics. And last but not least, I'm welcoming back Dr. Geoff Goodwin. He's a lecturer in global political economy of Leeds and co-director of the centre for Global Development. I was saying he only left here five minutes ago. He used to teach in our department and he's already co-directing centre. His research centre is on land and water in Ecuador and more recently in Colombia. And he has a wider interest in the history and political economy of Latin America. Just by the way, is an expert in Karl Polanyi and will be coming out, I think, with a book some kind of soon on relevance within development. He'll be speaking on Ecuador, discussing Israel and the and the prospects for an emergence of a wider and alternative left movement in Ecuador. So we want to welcome you all. I set the stage and I'm going to call. I'm pleased to give our first contribution. Thank you.

SPEAKER 3
Good afternoon, everyone. Can you hear me? Yeah. So first of all, I would like to thank Professor James and Professor Lara for the invitation. For me, it's a big satisfaction to be here with you all this afternoon. So, as I said in this afternoon, my goal is to discuss a little bit about the opportunities and challenges and the setbacks of the Brazilian life in environmental policy, and especially to protect the Amazon for protect the Brazilian Amazon. So to begin with, I would like to talk a little bit about the Brazilian. Specifically about my focus on the Brazilian life. So right now in Brazil, there are about 30 political parties formally registered in the Electoral College. And as you can see in this picture, most of them are located on the right. And the parties that are located on the left. They are quite diverse. And there is a very predominant dominance of the working party in the life in terms of electoral success. So because of that, my presentation here will be focussed on the working party. What I'm calling Brazil, as you probably have heard about it, are pretty. So another interesting question should be is this one? Is the one popular in Brazil? And as you can see on this graph, on this graph, the majority of the Brazilian electorate has a greater identification with the right over time. And this has been reflected on the presidential elections. So all those pictures on the. All those pictures are pictures of the Brazilian president, who were elected in 1985, which is the year when Brazil became a democracy again, and only two of them they can be considered to be alive, left wing politicians, which is Lula. You probably have heard about him. And both of them. They belong to the working party. So, Lula, he was the president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010. And right now he has just been elected for his third term. So he's our current president, as you may know. And Joe was the president of Brazil from 2011 to 2016 when he was impeached. So pretty much I'm going to be focussed on I will focus on his the administration's. So now I would like to talk a little bit about what happened during the working parties administration from 2003 to 2016. In terms of environmental policies and policies to protect the Brazilian Amazon. So when Lula took power, took office in 2003, the environmental situation was quite bad actually, especially because there was a very high increase in environmental deforestation, as you can see in this map here, like in 2003, the situation in terms of deforestation in the Amazon was really bad. So one of his main goals was to kerb the forestation in the Amazon. So the new government he started to do, they started to do all this, to take all these measures to kerb deforestation in the Amazon. And one of these measures, why she strengthened the environmental bureaucracy. So he selected he nominated Marina Silva, who is this very renowned environmentalist. And the whole world was celebrating that she was chosen to be the Minister of the environment and Marina, she was able to select all these very professionalised, top level bureaucrats to work with her. Most of them, they had a lot of experience with forest management management. So that was really helpful to create that plan, the action plan to prevent and control deforestation in the Amazon. And besides that, the government, they also invested a lot to consolidate a state career of environmental analysis, which was very important to implement environmental policies by that time as well. So in terms of policies, the government created this action plan to prevent and control deforestation in the Amazon, which was very successful, to create conservation unit restraint inspection actions. And as a result of all these actions, there was a very impressive deforestation decrease. As you can see in this map here from 2005 to 2000 to 2012. So this decrease accumulated like a reduction of about 80%. This actually represented the largest single contribution of a country in kerbing to kerb climate change. So it was very it was very impressive. Besides these achievements, the working Party government also faced a lot of many challenges during this administration from 2003 to 2016. So one of these challenges was the, um, the change of the government agenda. So in the second term, there was a very big, big focus on development in the developmental agenda, which was represented by this growth acceleration program. So with this program, the government basically they wanted to boost economic growth through investment in these massive and very large infrastructure projects. And in the Amazon specifically, the government invested in the construction of a hydroelectric dam, such as you probably have heard about it. Actually, this picture represents some tries to capture the consequences of relevancy in the fishing communities. And also they invested a lot in paving roads in the Amazon. And all of that caused a lot of social and environmental consequences, such as the reduction of conservation unit, which has been created like in the first years of Lula's government. Another challenge, which we have been facing since then in Brazil was the strength of the what are you calling Brazil? I don't know if that's the right word in English. What do you call it? Horror block in Congress. So this block, they are pretty much linked to agribusiness interests. And they define environmental flexibility and also the flexibility of environmental policies and regulations. And specifically during the German societies government, they were very successful in organising themselves to be represented in the Congress. And also they started to contest the environmental achievements from Lula's first government. So there was this very contentious thing going on in the Brazilian politics around agribusiness and environmental interests. As a consequence of that, the Congress approved the new Forest Code in 2012, and that represented a huge setback in terms of protecting Brazilian firms by that time. So as you know, all of us has just been elected again last year in 2022. And the situation when he took office again was really bad in terms of environmental issues. So the previous government was very successful in dismantling our environmental policy. And during Bolsonaro's government, the different station in Amazon, it raised like over 60%. So the situation was really bad. That means that when Lula was elected, many environmentalists, inside and outside and outside Brazil, everyone was celebrating. But what I want to discuss now is like, well, that's really means Lula's elections for the environment right now. So is the environmental agenda in his government is strong or not. And thus the government has the tools and the capabilities to really implement a strong environmental policy. So before talking about Lowell, I just think that it's important to talk a little bit very briefly about the legacy of the previous government, Bolsonaro's government. And so Bolsonaro, he was the Brazilian president, as you probably know, from 2019 until last year, 2022. And he was elected by this political party coalition, which was very much linked to agribusiness. And most of his voters were also linked to agribusiness, and especially in the Amazon region. So once he was elected, he started immediately to really try to dismantle the environmental policy in so many ways. So he ended the this policy, this policy that I that I just mentioned, the policy, the Act program to control the forest station in the Amazon. He also suspended the Amazon Fund, and he nominated for the Minister of Environment, which pretty much he's very pretty much linked to agribusiness interests. And he was actually involved with illegal timber export. So it was really, really complicated here. I'm just going to summarise this data here. Here I brought some data about our research that I have conducted specifically about the inspection, the environmental inspection policy. So here just try to understand how the government was able to dismantle this specific policy. So basically Bolsonaro, he reduced the budget for inspection actions. And the government also approved all these normative acts to undermine the street level bureaucracy in the field, the autonomy of the street level bureaucracy in the field. And also they started to nominate all these directors, who is top level bureaucracy, who were military, and they had no experience with the environment. And they most of them, they were like involved with environmental crime. So it was really a dark moment in Brazil. So going back to Lula again during Lula's campaign in election campaign last year, the environmental agenda was very strong and very central in his speech. So in his inauguration speech, he even stressed that the new government must rebuild the environmental policy and should also reposition Brazil as a global leader in the fight against against climate change. And he nominated again Marina Silva to be the Minister of the environment, which again was very celebrated by the environmentalist. So by that time, Lula, in the interim Lula environmental agenda was very ambitious. So he claimed that he will do everything so that Brazil could achieve zero depreciation by 2030. He restrained Ibama, which is the regulatory environmental agency. He will create new conservation units. He would also transform the environmental policy in a transversal policy, so that many ministers, and not only the Minister of the environment, would be involved with this in the policy. He would also restore the environmental budget and so in other goals. So what has been done so far in this first month of Lula's government? So he was able to re-establish the Amazon Fund, which is very important. So he sponsored the environmental policy and implementation of the environmental policy. He also increased the government also increased the budget of the Ministry of the environment. And they also revoked they were able to revoke many decrees from Bolsonaro, decrees that harm the environment, such as this decree that created this program for the small scale mining in the Amazon. And they created again the action plan to prevent and control deforestation in the Amazon. So in this plan, they wish they intend to create new conservation units and to hire environmental analysts to implement the policy. So what are the main challenges that the new government has been facing to implement this environmental agenda? So one main challenge challenge in Brazil is the political polarisation. So this map I think it shows very well this polarisation. So Lula, he was elected by a very small margin over Botswana. It was like really small. And actually this map shows this polarisation. The states were in red. Well voted in the majority for Lula and the states which are in blue voting for Bolsonaro. So the country was really and still is very polarised. And another problem was the election of the state governors. So most of them they are linked to Bolsonaro. So there is a lot of opposition in the state level to Lula. Also, since the country was so polarised, the working party, their working party, in order to win the elections, they had to build this really broad political party coalition, which included 16 political parties. So it's really broad and many some of some of these political parties, they are also linked to other business. So they are not very open to strong environmental policies. Another challenge was the likes of the National Congress. So right now in the Brazilian Congress, congressmen are discussing some really important bills in terms of environmental issues. So for instance, there is this bill about environmental licenses, license, the intent of this issue to make the environmental license more flexible. And also this bill that makes the approval of pesticides more flexible as well. The problem is that the composition of the Congress that we have elected last year is pretty much linked to Bolsonaro. So the opposition linked to Bolsonaro has the majority in Congress right now. So the situation for the working party is not like the best one. And there was also a significant increase of this anti-environmental bench in the Chamber of Deputies, and also a strength of the parliamentary agribusiness round in Congress. So the situation is not really. Good right now for environmental issues. And because of that, we have already experienced in Brazil some setbacks in this first year of Lula's third government. So the first setback was the approval of this law in the Congress, which which which withdraw many important responsibilities from the Ministry of the environment, such as responsibilities related to water resources, basic sanitation and solid waste. And another setback is the own working party agenda, which is also very what is the English like developmental mistake. So the working party, they are defending this new growth acceleration program. They are defending the launch of this new growth acceleration program. So with that they they want to invest again in these massive infrastructure projects in Amazon, which is it can cause many several social environmental impacts. And also the working party. And Lula himself is defending the oil exploration in Amazon, which has been already being contacted by Ibama. But there is a lot of pressure in Ibama right now from the government to approve this project, and we don't really know what's going to happen. So that's all for now. Thank you for your time.

UNKNOWN
Hi, everybody. Can you hear me? Well, yes. Great. Thank you. I'm just going to grab some water because. I didn't give it till I was lecturing today. So I and I'm those kind of people, when they speak in public they need to be drinking water. You know, it's like a type of people. That's that's me. But thank you very much for the invitation today. Um, so I have 20 minutes to run you through, perhaps the enter of chilli chilli into progressive politics in the scheme of Latin American region. And just as an anecdote joke; our Latin American neighbours don't really think much of us in terms of progressive politics. And I hear this my colleague heard probably that for the longest time, and perhaps since the 1970s, when we had those sort of like large movements or progressive politics or left wing politics in particular. Chile was obviously part of that. But after 70 years of dictatorship and pretty much another 20 years of sort of centrist politics, Chile was regarded as like and they say this joke in Latin America, the British of South America. Yeah. So you will take that as you will. Uh, so but in the last, in the last few years we've seen the transformation of national politics in Chile. So what I'm going to talk about today. And hopefully in 20 minutes to talk about the sort of background, contextual situation since 2019 with the social uprising or popular uprising, and seen a little bit of the cause and the consequences of that. I'm just going to run through that very quickly because the focus I want to, I want to centre on today is to talk about the recent feminist movement and its role during the social uprising, and speak about my own research and what I found out when I discussed this issue with feminists, one particular feminist organisation in the country. And finally, finally, finally just that. I can see the type of now in this going to bother me. But anyway, and the challenges and the setbacks on, um, on the on the feminist, on the, the influence of feminist movement in, in Chile today. So in October 2019, we see what initially we call, which was a social uprising that emerged particularly from the rise of metaphors in Santiago, the capital. This happened on a regular weekday in the communes, in which a group of students, not university students but a school students to start like a random protest in the metro by jumping the metro barriers. And this was not particularly unusual. We have a pretty strong student movement in Chile, so this was kind of a regular day, except that October, the majority of the population started joining these social protests. We see randomly on TV how instead of people criticising students and saying the same thing again, oh, my students are protesting, oh my God, my commute back home is getting double the time. They were actually supporting them. They were like, oh yeah, this is this is the end. We have to all join. We all have to support the students. We have to join in. We have to join in. And from that we see a spiral of a series of protests, violent and non-violent protest protests that lasted for a few months. So why in the background? Why? Why suddenly we have this sort of uprising, this sudden outburst of anger and discontent in the analysis of the 2019 crisis, we can say that there was a high discontent for the cost of living crisis. Hence the rise of metaphors and discontent in traditional political system. At the time, the president of the country was a right wing politician called Pineda, and and people were very discontent, not just of the economic consequences, but also the high level of corruption that will kind of pop up every now and then in different financial sector, political sector and so on and so forth. And, and one of the topics that emerged from these, this period of sort of social movement is that we see a clear critique from social organisations that are joining this continuation of protest. Protests is a critique of the continuities of the 1980s consequent situation. I said at the beginning, we were on a dictatorship for 17 years, and one of the consequences of that dictatorship was the writing of the 1980s Constitution. It's a very, very tight constitution. What I mean by this is that it's really, really hard to reform. It's very hard to change. And although it's been reform and through the 90s, in 2000, in democratic governments, these reforms have not been enough to actually transform, make a structural transformation for the country. And I think there was an underlying argument or narrative emerging from these movements to say, well, this is the time to change the Constitution. This is what it's going to solve the main structural problems in the country. So we see this discontent happening. And what was the reaction of the mainstream political system or political parties from the far left to the. Well, there was not a clear far right yet, but to the proper mason. Right. We see there was not a clear response to these social uprising. In fact, I believe and this is perhaps we could argue, that it was actually quite they were quite surprised. They could not believe that for the first time in decades, the Chilean population was actually revolting against the political system. It was so harsh. The response from the government that this is a direct quote from the president at the time. We are at war with a powerful enemy. He said that in front of, in front of cameras and in. So that's sort of make these worse. And it kind of create a second round of high level of protests in the country. This obviously was with response with high police force. Military forces were in the street, and it was a lot of violent confrontations at the time. And of course, it brought serious consequences and serious violations of human rights. I'm famously over 300 eye injuries were identified during this period, alongside other very serious violations of human rights. What happened after the period of the social uprising. As I was saying, one of the answers that the social movements, the civil society and then the political system thought it would be a good outcome was to reopen a religious operation that has been opened before, open the constitutional process that is still ongoing. That meant and I can spend on this question, if you're interested, later in the Q&A, because it's a kind of a side conversation, I guess. But the constitutional process meant to write a new constitution that will replace the 1980s Constitution. And this is a pretty important outcome because it was decided through a referendum at the at the end of 2021. And yes, and a referendum by around 8% voted to actually create a constitutional convention that will write a new constitution. This was done. And throughout 21 we see the creation of the convention by the election, 100% elected members, and they write the draft. And by the end of that process, the draft is rejected in an other referendum. There's a lot of referendums in this story. So if you can't keep up, then we come back to it, okay. Because there's a lot of referendums happening so that that that draft is rejected. The interesting part of that dilemma for the discussion we have in today, which has to do with the progressive politics and in, in, in Chile in this case, is that those who were elected to the convention in 2021 were majority progressive forces from leftwing political parties, but also from independent social movements. So the draft. One could argue was very, very progressive. We're talking about lines of what happened in Ecuador, for example, plural national, state and legalise abortion and access to radical things like a national health system and so this created why of course, a lot of discontent from a right wing sectors of the country. Nevertheless, at the same time we were having a national election to elect a new president. And in this context emerged it was not a new figure because it was a member of Parliament. But he became the running lead candidate for the progressive forces at the time. And he was elected in the second round against Felipe Cast, who was the far right candidate of and one of the founders of the new far right party. Like it's called the Republican Party. I don't know where they got that idea from. It's very I don't know, it's very regional. And so. That is the two forces that I got into the second round, and Burridge is selected in 2021. What? What is interesting about this process, and I think I want to highlight this because kind of tied nicely to the second part of the presentation, is that 68% of women under 30 supported borage. And we see us at increase in women's turnout to vote, the highest turnout of women in democratic elections in the 90s, since the 1990s. So since we return to democracy. So we see that there is a high a political movement from women's organisations. But also what I'm going to talk about today. The rise of the feminist movement. If I have any movement, of course, or the feminist trajectory in Chile is much longer than 2019 and as it is in most countries. But I want to highlight the milestones since then and how influential this particular movement has been for. For the push to progressive politics in the country. Throughout the social uprising and in the aftermath. And I want to highlight one particular organisation because it is an amazing organisation, but because this organisation that is so a different strategy to implement or to incorporate feminist ideas into mainstream politics. And this is coordinator Otto Emin. They organise the International Women's Day in 2018. And they created this, this, this coordinator, which is basically a network that works autonomous from political organisations in the political parties, NGOs or trade unions. And in 2018, they were quite prescient and quite they took quite a leadership in what it was called Myo Feminista, which was the feminist made particular set of protest protests that happened that made against, um, sex education, higher and higher European universities. These were because there was a lot of cases of sexual assault in universities, but also a lot of discrimination against women students and staff. So university students, once again, they came out and sort of organise occupations and protests. But it was the first time in in the student movement history that there was a leadership and from women. And the, the connotation of that movement was feminism. So it was called The Feminist May in reference obviously to May 1968, as you probably will make that parallel. Another important milestone that put this network of feminists at the forefront was the organisation of the women's strike, which is. It takes place on International Women's Day in 2019. So before the social uprising, which has been one of the largest protests since the return to democracy. Which is also very impressive to be a feminist movement that kind of gathered that amount of people in a march. And then we have a more international, well known milestone of this movement. That is the performance of leftists that happen from here in London. I think they're quite well known. But also I can just explain a little bit more. What I did with that performance during the social uprising is identify that that performance, because it was a decline in the everyday protest in Santiago, but after its measure that after that performance and the series of performance that they did with this particular dance and music sort of like artistic intervention, there was a return to the social protest. So people kind of return back to the street after the last intervention. So we see how there is a series of milestones around the social uprising that have that sort of feminist intervention and connotation. Ah, who who are this feminist? Right. So it's a bit of an abstract to think about the feminist movement. Who are they? In the public face of activism? The majority are urban, university educated young women. So under 30. Um, this is the vast majority of women that participate in the front of the feminist network, but also as spokespersons in in doing the social uprising and any of these other organised events. And, and that's kind of what you see. However, they also describe that they have a very intersectional approach to who join the network or the movement. And we start seeing and this is also an interesting phenomenon of how we identify these feminist or these feminisms, is that, um, a lot of organisations, political parties in particular, but also trade unions and more traditional social movements like movements for the move forward. For example, they start building feminist branches within it. So we start seeing how mainstream politics, institutional politics, start using the language of feminism to explain their politics around 2018 and 2019. So we start seeing this interconnection between what I call institutional feminism and non institutional feminism, and for the process of the social uprising. This was a vehicle here, an alliance if you want because allowed uh institutions, organisations, political parties that have they have the infrastructure to run events, protest marches and do lobbying in, in Congress for example, and build alliances with like street movements and social movements. I put these as a side point that what is the ideological position of these feminists, because it's so diverse, is is very difficult to pinpoint. What are the ideological alliances. And I'm going to that's what it was my question when I started. So what are these who are these feminist? What are. Because yeah, from the media you start thinking where are where they are located, what are the networks? But what are they thinking? What are their ideas that they can believe they can contribute to this idea of progressive politics. And before knowing is that is that they were anti-capitalist and Antonio liberals. Antonio liberal and left leaning. I'm going to skip this and then we can talk about it more. So what I found in my research is what? Feminist organisations, particularly according out to the Maxwell, managed to implement or to expand feminist political ideas across the political spectrum using two elements horizontally, which is like horizontal politics and autonomy, which was a way for them to intersect and enter to stable political spaces, but also maintain independence from militancy programs. So allow them to have that flexibility to step in and out of certain political situations that were not, perhaps feminist in principle. And the second of it is the implementation of political narratives that they were expanded throughout society. One of them being the idea of precariousness, of life. So they started to connect the problem of neoliberalism. So the crisis of neoliberalism that Chile was going through, and it kind of exploded in 2019 with a contribution from feminist ideas, something that is not new. By the way, those who have probably studied feminism here will be like, well, that's not new. It wasn't new, but it wasn't new for this feminist either. But it was the ability to interconnect those problems in order to gather wide support across the population and obviously invite more women in particular, but not just women, men and other diversities into the feminist movement. And I have some points that I can go back to them if you have any questions. So I see the spelling as well. The challenges we see here for the progressive movements from a feminist perspective, I think there are three at the moment. One of them is what I told you at the beginning, the rejection of the constitutional proposal and the opening of a new constitutional process that is still ongoing. We have to vote on the 17th of December. That is being written now from the far right perspective, which is not very helpful. And. Feminists have not been able to intervene in that space again. They have a huge intervention in the previous process of drafting the constitution, and then now are kind of isolated from that process. So opens the question of how much of these ideas are still very present in the daily debates, political debates in the country that goes in hand with the rise of the far right, which is in principle, and the feminist. We think about anti-abortion, anti women's rights and all those narratives that are not unusual, I believe you're probably familiar with as well. They have entered Parliament with two senators and 12 deputies, and they constitute the 35% of the Constitutional Council that is currently just drafting a new constitution and proposal. And there is the re articulation of this, all these feminisms. So we have the tension, as I would say, institutional feminism and autonomous feminism. Since the election of Barack as a progressive president, we've seen the retraction of institutional feminists that obviously are working on the influence of government, but in tension with the continuation of autonomous feminist organisations that are in the street criticising the progressive government. So the alliances that work in 2019, 2020 and 21 are not so clear anymore. So we haven't seen again the wider movement, street movement that we see in the last few years. So those are the tensions and the challenge of the feminist movement have that it success in the last few years, but has been more quiet in the last year or so. Just to finish. What is the question here is that obviously it's ongoing. We can resolve this, this problem or predict these problems. But what is interesting is that that entity, political to the political arena of feminism essentially is not unique opportunity. So the question is, was that the only opportunity they had, or there will be other avenues for them to continue to intervene in the political sphere. Right. So this is obviously a set of processes, but thank you very much. If you have any questions we talk about it.

SPEAKER 1
Yeah, one. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Melanie and Anna. That was really fascinating to learn about what's been happening in Brazil and Chile. I'm going to be focusing on on Ecuador. First of all, I'd like to say a huge thank you to to James and to Laura for the invitation to speak. It's it's a huge honour for me to be part of the Cutting Edge series. I've watched it for many years, and I know how much work goes into organising these events, and I'm really honoured to be part of it. And on the personal level, it's also wonderful to be back at LSC, seeing colleagues and and former students as well, which is excellent. Okay, so I'm going to focus on on on on on Ecuador. And I'm going to focus really I'm going to break my talk into three parts. I'm going to start by setting it up as some kind of paradox, what I'm calling a neoliberal paradox. That is, how do we understand the election victories of neoliberal candidates in Ecuador in six years after the leftist president Rafael Correa, left office in 2017? And I will argue in the second part that to understand that, we need to look at the nature and also the legacies of charisma, the movement that has emerged around Rafael Correa. And then to finish, I'll really focus on some of the opportunities for a left, the wider left in Ecuador, in the context. In the wake of Daniel Bowie's election victory in October just last month. So. So Ecuador witnessed some of the most sustained and widespread resistance to neoliberal reform and structural adjustment in the ninth from the 1980s, early 1980s through to the early 2000s. And if you want the backdrop on that, you might want to read Duncan's earlier work, which was really show some of the sort of social devastation really was caused through structural adjustment and neoliberal form in the 1980s and 1990s. And this really widespread mobilisations, which came across different sectors, really created the platform for Rafael Correa to win the 2006 presidential elections. And he started his presidency in early 2007, and he remained in power for ten years. And here is reflecting on this moment in Ecuadorian history, this sort of landmark moment really in Ecuadorian history. In an interview in which was published in the New Left Review, some years, some years after the election victory. So he says, you know, what we were proposing was a revolution understood as a radical and rapid change in the existing structures of Ecuadorian society in order to change the bourgeois state into a truly popular one. Yeah. So in my opinion, Correa fell well short of achieving this. However, his governments made significant advances as well. State institutions were rebuilt after decades of decline during structural adjustment and the end of reform. There was significant investment in infrastructure and public services, social security and social protection expanded. There are also some quite novel social inclusion programs that his government experimented with, including with working with street gangs, for example. Even if the prison population also increased significantly, significantly public parks, public spaces were were revitalised. So more broadly, I think what Correa did, and to some extent he embodied this. I mean, he's this is him as a, as a, as a much younger man. He really generated a sense of progress and hope in Ecuador, especially during his early, the early years in, in office. And these advances and his charisma explain why he was able to win two consecutive presidential elections. I mean, he won three presidential elections consecutively, but two based on full terms in office in the first round, which is really unprecedented in Ecuadorian history. So he was an incredible electoral force. And this explains to some extent, while why he continues to have considerable support in Ecuador. Okay. So what happened next then when Correa left office? Well, Lenin Moreno, who was a vice president under Correa, he took office and he won the 2017 elections with a mandate to continue Correa's political project. But he quickly abandoned that and embraced what I would call neoliberal austerity under the guidance of the of the IMF. So he he signed two massive agreements with the IMF totalling to $6.5 billion. And this included lots of the usual conditions we would associate with the IMF. So austerity, cutting back public spending, privatisation and economic liberalisation. And then also who won the 2021 elections and he beat record candidate Andrés Rose in the second round. He then continued along with this neoliberal path before being pushed out of office in early this year, when he was threatened with impeachment and he dissolved the Assembly and triggered new elections. So critics of neoliberalism or neoliberal policies, like me expecting things to get worse, you know, the expectation was that socio economic conditions would deteriorate, especially especially for for low income groups and marginalised groups in society. But few people expected it to get as bad as it has, has done. You can see here from this data coming from a general deterioration in in poverty. This reverses the decline in poverty. But we saw during Correia's presidency, especially during the first half of his presidency. So you see this fairly steep increase in poverty. And today, around more than 1 in 4 Ecuadorians live on less than $88 a month. The minimum wage, I think, is currently $450 a month for minimum wage. So conditions have become more precarious. Of course, Correa didn't eradicate poverty. Poverty was very much continued during his presidency, but it's important to recognise that he made significant advances and those advances have been reversed. The most alarming change has been in relation to crime and and violence. The homicide rate here gives us a kind of general indication of a much wider tendency. So we can see here during Correa's presidency, a quite significant decline in the homicide rate. Pretty much soon after he soon after taking office all the way through to 2017 when he left. And then when Moreno and Lasso come in, we see, certainly from 2020 onwards, really exponential increase in in crime and violence. And these homicide rates are lower than, than other homicide rates. I'm just using them to give you a sense of the trend over time. So this is largely connected to international criminal networks and gangs who are vying for control of very lucrative drug trafficking routes through Ecuador. Most of the coca is produced in in the neighbouring countries of Ecuador, in Colombia, in Peru and in and in Bolivia. And Ecuador is a very important drug trafficking hub. So a lot of this violence and. Crime has been connected to drug trafficking, but it has been fuelled, I would argue, by increased poverty, increased precarity and by neoliberal austerity, by a restructuring of the state and and all of those changes that we've seen over the last five years. So the homicide rate really gives us an indication of a much wider deterioration in, in crime and violence and security in Ecuador. On a personal level, it's been really distressing to see it deteriorate so, so dramatically. It's particularly intense in the coastal region of Ecuador where the where the drug trafficking routes are more and more important. But it's spread across the country. And now in Ecuador, it's much more common for extortions, kidnappings and political assassinations. Most famously, most disturbingly, Fernando Vila was assassinated. He was the presidential candidate. He was assassinated just before the first round of the presidential elections. We've also seen a series of shocking prison massacres in Ecuador, which have left over 400 prisoners dead since Correa left office. So we see this really disturbing deterioration in crime and violence. And really a state is unable to control this process. What we've also seen as a consequence of this really is a massive outflow of Ecuadorians. So they started Ecuador and started to pour out the country when the borders were reopened after the Covid pandemic. And this data, sorry, it's a bit complicated, but you get a sense of the overall trend. What we see here is during Canarias presidency, outward migration was actually reversed temporarily, so more Ecuadorians were coming back into Ecuador than leaving the country for the first time in over 20 years. And then right towards the end, we see this sharp acceleration of migration after 2020, when the borders were, were were opened after the well during the Covid 19 pandemic. So migration is now at 20 year highs and from what I can tell from this year, the numbers have continued to increase. So most Ecuadorian migrants who have been leaving Ecuador have attempted to cross into the US and Canada, often trying to travel overland through Central America. And this would involve crossing the Darian Gap, which is the gap of the tropical region between Colombia and Panama. And this quote, this comes from an El Pais article where one person who was crossing it said, look, I have more fear of living in Ecuador than I do of crossing medallion. So we get a sense of just how precarious life has become in Ecuador. And it's really reflected in the in the migration data. So against this backdrop, then why is charisma, why is the Cory's the party now called the revolution a revolution ciudadania why why have they not been able to recapture a presidency in six years after we've seen this massive deterioration in, in socio economic conditions, accelerating crime and violence? And the Cory's. The candidate was defeated in the second round of the elections in 2021. And Luisa Gonzalez, who was the charisma candidate in the 2023 elections, the second round were in October. She was defeated by Daniel Navarra, who is a member of one of Ecuador's wealthiest families and comes from the right and is very much about maintaining some degree of neoliberal continuity. So, you know, we could ask, but surely, given what we've seen in 2023, that the time was ripe for a crista victory, but that didn't come to pass. And I think to understand that we really need to look into a nature of charisma and think about some of these legacies, and I'll spend the next five minutes or so talking about those elements, and then I'll come on to talk a little bit about the wider Ecuadorian left. So charisma is just, of course, one element of a much broader movement. Okay. So. First of all then I would like to focus on extractive ism as it's well known, Correa government was heavily dependent on oil revenues in particular, but also on mining revenues. And his government tried to accelerate or accelerate the or expand the mining frontier, particularly in the Andean region. And and this triggered significant local resistance. And it really ruptured relations with lots of the social movements, particularly the indigenous movement, the largest indigenous movement in Ecuador. Con I. But also with environmental movements and collectives, which have grown in strength in Ecuador over the last 20 years. And that's one of the really interesting developments that we've seen in Ecuador and the Yasuni initiative. It was really emblematic of this. I'm not sure how many of you have heard of the Yasuni Initiative, but put very simply, the proposal was we were coming from an Ecuadorian perspective, will leave more than 850 million barrels of oil unexploited in the Amazonian rainforest, in oil fields located to the located close and in the Yasuni National Park. And the idea was the oil would be left unexploited in exchange for compensation from the international community, broadly defined, and the Correa government, who supported this initiative initially were asking for $3.6 billion, which was estimated at around half of the value of the oil given the oil prices at that time. So it was an incredibly innovative initiative, one that was very much driven from below. The Correa government certainly didn't start it, but they support the government supported it in its opening years. But when it didn't attract significant investment from overseas and Correa government was starting to look for new sources of finance, it closed the the initiative unilaterally in 2013, and then it blocked a referendum on the issue in the following year. So oil production started in the Yasuni National Park or in the three fields that are integrated. Interesting in 2016. So one, one reason I wanted to highlight Yasuni in particular was because it came back to haunt Correa this year, when the movement behind the referendum in 2013 eventually were able to force a referendum on the initiative. Oh my goodness. Okay, so. They forced a referendum on the issue and the referendum won. It was supported by 60% of the electorate and Gonzalez, Luis Gonzalez. Really? Felt supported as the crowd. Okay, I'm going to move very quickly through this. In fact, I'll just skip a couple of these points because they're not as they are, as interesting, perhaps because this comes from my own research, but I can come back and answer some questions on this. One element of charisma, which is really important to understand, and this comes back very much connects to what Melanie was talking about feminism and was authoritarianism. So Correa was and Correa's governments were, were authoritarian. They deployed significant amounts of repression and authoritarianism in various forms. And one of the most visible forms of of this was during Correa's weekly addresses. So he would often have weekly televised addresses or weekly radio addresses, where he would often single out people for for particular attention. In this case, he's referring to anti-mining activists in the southern Andes. And he's it is. And he says, I call on all the civilised citizens of a country, denounce these unpatriotic people, fight them. These are anti-mining activists. It's almost impossible to even talk about her. Lina Solana Solano, who was one of the mining activists. Please, we have to. We have to send this lady to a psychiatrist so you can see the kind of sexist language Correa used. And this is what Teresa Velasquez in her, in her fantastic book, refers to as a sort of performative machismo, which is very much part of Correa style. So this was very much about this discursive technique, was very much about trying to create the enemy, if you like, of a revolution suited Ana and and Correa very much governed through a kind of populist logic of us versus the us versus them. And that really distanced his movement from social bases and alienated lots of lots of voters. So I think one of the big problems that charisma faces is the hero worship and worshipping of of Correa. And this is really limited. Any space for debate, internal critique or renewal within, within charisma or within the movement. And that's very much came to play in the 2013 elections, when 2023 elections when Luisa Gonzalez was very much presenting the Correa presidency as a blueprint for future career governance. You know, warts and all. Take it or leave it. There is no kind of critique or self reflection at all, at least externally and looking in. So, you know, my my point really is one argument I'd like to make when we think about why the left then is that there are there are limits. There are clear limits to what we can expect to happen within charisma or within charisma movement. But and I think the recent election results suggest that charisma has hit its electoral limits. It captures about 33% of the vote in the first round at both 21 and 2023 elections, but it won't be going anywhere either. It will remain a very powerful electoral force on the left, and I think the challenge, again, for the left is to find ways of working with charisma without being dominated and being consumed by it. So this would involve building a wider movement of left movements, autonomous movements, political movements and parties that are able to find areas of agreement one also respecting diversity and autonomy, which of course is a very complicated task. And I think Conwy, the largest indigenous movement in Ecuador, is really the most the best place to be able to do this. So. Because I really led to massive mobilisations in Ecuador. It was interesting to hear Melanie's reflections on Chile, because this was part of a much wider cycle of mobilisation that we've seen in Latin America in 2019. And and it was also a surprise in Ecuador. You know, that no one expected Connie to bring, mobilise its bases and occupy Quito in a way that it did in 2019 and then again in 2022. So two massive mobilisations, which I had led. And Connie is able to articulate both indigenous or ethnic and religious racial demands alongside class demands. And that's particularly true under the leadership of Leonidas Isa. So we can see this, I we can perhaps come back to this and talk about it in the, in the, in the Q&A. But here are some of the demands that can I have made that they are expecting a narrower government to to follow through from, including introducing the or implementing the Yasuni referendum. So I think just to conclude then very quickly, I think one of the ways that this can happen, and I think this is where as an opportunity for charisma is to build from the ground up. I don't I don't expect very much to happen in terms of a national leadership, but I think there are opportunities at the local level to build trust, to build relations. And this is Pavel Munoz, who's the mayor of Quito. And this is related to a Choco Andino referendum, which was held at the same time as the Yasuni referendum, which is an anti-mining referendum. So I think there's opportunities for the Correa's to party, to work with social movements and collectives at the local level and build some kind of left movement from a ground up, and I think that's the most promising. Route forward. So I'm sorry I took a bit more time, James, but thank you very much for for listening.

SPEAKER 2
As usual, that the women are more disciplined than the men. No, I know. Okay.

SPEAKER 0
Sorry about that.

SPEAKER 2
All right. I think. Hey. Okay. This is, I think, a really rich set of presentations giving us an awful lot to think about. And I know some of you are from the region as well and may want to interrogate the positions that we've put forward. On the panel. So can I get a. Can I get a view of.

SPEAKER 0
Of questions.

SPEAKER 2
Okay. Where are Mic's? Okay, we start here. We'll take three questions at a time to start with.

SPEAKER 3
Yeah. So I want to. There's the talk about the big world. To what extent do you think that the increase in poverty, crime and migration was also influenced by the end of the commodity boom set by China?

SPEAKER 2
It's. Did you have a question to answer? Okay, great. Here.

SPEAKER 5
I thank you for your presentations that were very interesting, and it's very much so. It's very interesting to hear about the feminist movement. Respected and I wonder about in general, probably for the panellists from Brazil and Ecuador. What do you feel about the feminist movements in those countries? And if you feel that the feminist agenda or the feminist, the values behind or supporting the feminist movements could be an answer against the. I don't know how to say that in English. I'd like to thank you.

UNKNOWN
And. Okay. Thank you.

SPEAKER 6
I think that we actually must be what type of radio you actually try to implement with the letter in that call? Because it was the reason why. Street is linked with corruption. For example, the detention was a huge amount of crap and were linked to actually the previous party station at the same time because government had of links with the cartels and. It's a massive reason why. People have experienced the violence and crime ever since you left, and now you have corruption and the fiscal and the judicial system as well. Even money laundering to offshore accounts. And it's all linked to grant and reader's license. This moment and even now, with the centre of the board, still have the assembly back. Is the majority of it the PC party at the same time? Then I could also, for an acronym standpoint, it's something which is not going to go away. And if you think it's still prevalent and it will be prevalent. So how is that something that the left can fix in the long term? Not because of the thing that causes movement.

SPEAKER 2
Thank you. Why don't we start with those?

SPEAKER 1
Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yes. Thank you very much for your start with it. Yes. So that's a really interesting point, I think. It's certainly connected. Absolutely. I mean, the commodity boom, which didn't really end, which kind of, you know, I mean collapsed in 20 1314 in terms of oil prices and that and that's one of the things I wanted to highlight in terms of. The weaknesses of. Revolutions in Sudan. But charisma was this heavy reliance on oil and and mining revenues and being and the lack of institutions that were created to try to smooth the flow of oil revenues. The money was just spent. And then pariah started to cut back public spending in 2015. So I think I certainly think and it can be connected to that. I mean, that heavy reliance on on extractive ism, on oil in particular. So, you know, this this process of the cycles that we've seen in commodity markets, the inability, the faith of the government in, in oil and extractive ism to kind of fuel this is political program. So I think you can you can certainly see that there were there were connections there. But I would argue that that what we've seen in terms of public spending cuts and the reorganisation, the restructuring of the state under from Moreno and Lasso, I would, I would argue, is the more decisive factor. Quite frankly. And of course, we can agree to disagree with that. But I think it's certainly connected. But but it's really the political choices. But Moreno and Lasso have taken in collaboration with the IMF, I think are really the most important. Shall I? I don't know, because there's another question for you. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. So maybe I'll come back to a feminist movement at the end. So I don't talk too much. Yeah. So in terms of corruption, yeah of course the government was very corrupt like all of Ecuadorian governments before. Um, I think one of the things that that really struck me. You know, having lived in Ecuador and having studied Ecuador's political economy was the difference with Correa. You know, corruption is is endemic in Ecuador as it is in the UK. Of course, it just happens in a very different form. It's legal in the UK. So I think the difference was Correa was correct who was corrupt, but they also built things, you know, that they also had, you know, huge investment in infrastructure. The new airport built mass, you know, roads and so on and so forth. So I think there's huge levels of corruption. But the difference was what, what what what what sort of what made the government different to the earlier governments or right wing governments or they were corrupt, but they also built things and they also did things with that money. So I think the idea that any government, quite frankly, any in any Latin American government is going to defeat corruption is just a fantasy. Quite frankly. So I think all you can do is try to think about ways of using public money in a more transparent way. But I think the anti-corruption fight is what is like the war against drugs. And. So I think the absolutely you know, there's also you can make the same argument about the war on drugs. Right. But the idea that any government is going to come in in South America and, and sort of defeat the the drug cartels is a fantasy. So they have to find ways of managing it. And I think to some extent, Korea was able to do that for, for a certain period of time. You know, if you look at what's what happens in Bolivia as well, then you see a different way of trying to work with the, the, the drug trade and trying to institutionalise in different ways. So I think, I mean, there's, you know, there's obviously a very strong tendency to put all of the blame on all of the problems we see in Ecuador and Korea. I take a more balanced view. I'm very critical of Korea, but I'm critical for. Um, and I think that there are other factors we need to bring in to bring into play as well. Just just a very quick to say on that. I think to some extent, you know, what happened with Corrie also happened with Lula. Other left wing governments were all wrapped up in the Odebrecht scandal. Um, and, and of course, you know, that's still playing out. So I think to some extent that was all about the pink tie and the fact that governments were investing more in infrastructure. And of course, there was huge amounts of corruption. Yeah.

SPEAKER 2
Do you want to.

SPEAKER 1
Come back, man? Come back!

SPEAKER 2
And if you wonder, because I think there was a question about feminism.

SPEAKER 3
About feminist agenda, right? Well, I have to say that I don't really study feminism, but I mean, what I have seen is that there is a big mobilisation around abortion. Right now abortion is illegal, but there are some exceptions. But because of the extreme right, they are trying to abolish these exceptions. So the feminist movement is trying to organise to avoid that. But I have to say. That I don't know much.

SPEAKER 2
About that, but one of the one of the issues, I guess, is that these right wing movements are very machismo. Machismo is very, very evident across the board. Think and both scenarios especially. Did you want to add something? Yeah.

SPEAKER 4
Just to add the years beyond the case of Chile, I think the feminist movement in Latin America, it is quite on the rise in several countries. I think I'm not an expert on each of them, but my understanding is that in Ecuador, for example, in Ukraine there is a strong connection with like indigenous women. And it's kind of like the decolonial feminism that has emerged strongly as a political narrative. But yeah, across the board, I think abortion rights are campaigns against violence, against violence, against women's campaigns, and are kind of the centre of the rise of feminism. And I think in terms of their influence in social uprisings, the case of Colombia was also very telling. They went to a social uprising in 2020, 2021. It was around the same time as Ecuador, and women's had a lot of interesting role to play. Them. But yeah, I think Argentina and Chile have the kind of the movement, the biggest movements in terms of like interjecting mainstream political political systems here.

SPEAKER 1
Just very quickly I absolutely I haven't, I haven't studied the feminist movement in Ecuador. Maybe some people in the room have more more in. That's neither. But. But I think. Yeah, absolutely. There's a really interesting. Actually in the book that I mentioned by Theresa. Yes. She she, she that's what really her focus is on how Anti-mining activism was very much led by women activists of a local level, and how they were really responding to various forms of discrimination and sexism and inequalities. You know, you saw with the quote that I gave the kind of abuse that they would receive, often very personal abuse. You saw the name of the person in a televised address. So, so she, she, she really details that more local level and so how it intersects. I think it's more of a kind of intersectionality, thinking about, you know, how feminism and race and ethnicity kind of intersect and class is really important. But it was important that the elections because. Luis Luisa Gonzalez is socially conservative. She's against abortion and other other women's rights. And that to some extent cost her votes from. Feminist feminist voters.

SPEAKER 2
Yeah. Let me take another round of questions. Here. Then we have. And so.

SPEAKER 0
Hi. Thank you for They were all very interesting. I have a question for regarding Brazil. And if you can speak a bit About the recent Supreme Court decision. In September, when they voted against the ivory business attempt to kerb indigenous people. Was done right. And how this connects with. I guess. Protecting the environment and the goal of indigenous people in doing so. And I know that Bolsonaro made a lot of reforms, which is why the Supreme Court decision was such a difficult one. Like everybody was very scared that it was not going to. Part of this result. And so yeah, like whether you can also. Maybe there's some possibility of the Supreme Court to ensure that like not this kind of decision wouldn't, like come back. Thank you.

SPEAKER 7
My question is not about one of the three countries that was present at all. But since we're talking about Latin America left and I asked because it's very topical, and I wanted to ask how do you assess the future of banana revolution in Guatemala? And given that you said to be inaugurated in January 2024 and now kind of facing a series of of rather farfetched allegations by the losing side, which kind of.

UNKNOWN
Thank you. Thank you. And so first, I'll come to you next time.

UNKNOWN
For your presentations. I have a question for Melanie. Talk about how successful. About how the feminist movement today has been able to mobilise civil society since 2018. But how do you assess that mobilisation against the feminist movement? I'm not in favour of it. And if there's like a trade off between being more or not accomplishing goals in terms of political representation, of passing laws, and at the same time mobilising the society and against that progressive agenda.

UNKNOWN
Thank you.

SPEAKER 2
Those three questions. And why don't you start this? Okay.

SPEAKER 3
Okay. Thank you for your question. So you were talking about the things that are right. So I don't know if you know about it, but there was this big discussion in Brazil.

SPEAKER 5
About this bill.

SPEAKER 3
Which was being discussed in the Congress, but also in the Supreme Court. So basically, the idea which which was defined by the agreement was that indigenous land could only be the if the indigenous people were there. In 1988, when the when there was the promulgation of the Brazilian constitution, and that didn't really make sense because many of these indigenous indigenous people, they were expelled from their land. So that would have meant that many indigenous people, they couldn't have had the land that they marketed. So it's very complicated and interesting because the Supreme Court voted for the indigenous rights. But the Senate vote against that. So we have this really contradiction thing right now, and I don't know how. I mean, the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court. So I'm guessing that the indigenous, like the demarcation will go on. But the problem is that the way that the Supreme Court approved this was actually like tricky somehow because like, if these lines are demarcated, then they state have to pay for the landlords, that you have to leave the lines. So it means that you will compensate people who invaded indigenous land. So many people in Brazil are criticising this and it's very easy, still very contentious. So I'm not sure what's going to happen actually.

UNKNOWN
Right about the question out there. I don't have I don't have a clear reflection yet. So let me think about it. I don't have I haven't thought about it. So I can just just come with a very good answer about that. But yeah, it's a really, really good question. Just having my thoughts clear about that Particular case as is ongoing.

SPEAKER 4
In terms of your question of thank you. Very good question. What happened with the anti feminist movement in Chile and how that sort of has affected the development of street politics alongside the influence that they can have in institutional politics in government, for example, elections. So the ultimate this movement is very much reflected as in any other sort of Latin American government. We see sort of a moral stance against Women's rights. From the far right party. So anti-abortion and obviously limitation of body autonomy in general, and also very little legislation or consideration against issues. Like violence against women. Just to name a few. I think my argument is that what I think I sort of aligned with in this feminist movement is that they do invite Forresters, which is a political series. It talks about the politics of investment, and they do the politics of investment by combining two things, which I believe is a process of demand making the mine making that is sort of gaining each of demands, for example, of abortion first and then a national care system second, but also by building, by consent building, which I call concept building, which is advancing a political discourse in society. And I think in a way is a success, that there is so many anti feminist narratives because it's the opposition where we are not having the conversation, we're not in feminist terms, we're not winning by having the conversation. There is a politic of investment that is not about the ending goal, because this is not like forming a government, which will be the interests of all the progressive forces, like political parties, obviously, but it's about advancing that sort of discourse alongside the potential of changing things for better in feminist terms. So I think that kind of plays the success and failure of the feminist movement in relation to the anti-feminist sentiments that will continue to grow, obviously, because there is a polarisation of society at the moment with the with the rise of the far right.

SPEAKER 1
Okay. Yeah, I'm afraid I thank you so much for raising Guatemala. I'm afraid I can't really give you any informed opinion on what's happening in Guatemala either. An incredibly complicated situation. And what I would say is I think it draws attention. And I think we've seen this across the three presentations. It's a it's a sort of a theme, I think that connects all of the presentations is, is the strength of the right, the Latin-American right. And, and and that's quite fundamentally different to the context of the early the pink tide of the early 21st century, when the right wing governments were widely discredited through structural adjustment and neoliberal reform, and when left governments were able to come in and really articulate a very clear vision of the future and a very clear. Path towards an alternative form of development, which of course took different shapes in different contexts. But I think that the strength of the right and particularly the far right is quite fundamentally different to what we saw 20 years ago. And of course, that's a global trend. We see that in Europe. We saw that. We've just seen in Holland. We're seeing across, you know, in Vox. I think there's a lot of parallels between Spain and Vox, where the Spanish in Spain is very strong and you see it, you see a very virulent far right response, reactionary response. So I think it just makes everything far more volatile and far more dangerous, quite frankly, today. And I think the possibilities of dictatorships reappearing in Latin America are very real now. Very real. You know, you see presidents like Senado, many who openly cast, openly celebrate dictatorships winning significant portion of votes. So I think it speaks to a wider issue around democracy in Latin America and, and this global, perhaps global breakdown of liberal democracy. Quite frankly, not wanting to extend too much away from Guatemala because it has its own characteristics. But I do think that's a theme that is very powerful.

UNKNOWN
Thank you. Enzo.

SPEAKER 2
Whether you think that there is a missing.

SPEAKER 6
I mentioned to this new agenda on.

SPEAKER 8
Because when I compare his previous achievements. Was elected. He also brought a lot of economic policy. Policies in the region that would provide electricity, banking, employment. Support for the people today and that then work for. And this time, personally, I don't see that. Big infrastructure. I always see all of that, but I didn't see policies that provide alternatives.

UNKNOWN
To people who have to. Good question.

SPEAKER 2
I'm going to go to my colleague Duncan here.

SPEAKER 0
It's one of those.

SPEAKER 9
Customers which is like, we've had lots of politics. So tensions between social movements and governments, especially with social movements, get into power. Very difficult. So. Then come east more that tradition within Latin America. Insecurity rising issue for many, many people. It's the most popular president in Latin America. What are the economics? The left is always clear about what it's a case for. You know that old saying that propuesta from a different question, if it's not extractive, isn't. Then what? It can't just be spent more. Was a productive economic. The letters have to be pushed.

SPEAKER 2
How about put it back here? Okay, now everybody's raising their hands.

SPEAKER 7
Okay.

S11
So my first question will be when were you study of Ecuador, one of the main one of the few countries in the world that uses a foreign currency is Ecuador, which is the US dollar. So. Uh, when you think it's such a popular major even to date. And if you see if you see, think and see is changing at some point, because even in the left, I mean, it's popular in the right and a lot in the left side. And also you talk about the Jasmine Initiative, which was not successful. And now the current president of Colombia, Mr. Alberto, is trying to do so similar, which is of exchange of external debt for environmental protection. So that question is for Ana. What do you think about this measure if you think it can be successful? And what is the. Trust you. I'm there.

SPEAKER 2
Okay. Thank you. I'm going to take a couple more because we're running out of time. I'd like to. Oh.

SPEAKER 5
Hi. Yeah. Just really quick about the Brazil. You have a slide on the map of. The voters are both in Lula. And I thought it was interesting how in the West, where in the state of Amazonas was. And in that view that promotes. So I was wondering if you had an explanation as to why the state of Amazon Rainforest. Always married.

SPEAKER 2
Okay. Thank you. I have to let one colleague ask because I have to. I have to let Laura. That's a good question.

UNKNOWN
Make sure you take your notes and pick your favourite questions.

SPEAKER 5
Thank you James and thank you to the panellists.

S12
My question actually goes very much with Enzo and Duncan's, and it's a question that's mainly for Anna, but a bit of BoJack as well. I wondered if you know, the the kind of electoral alliance for Lula seems to be pro-growth on the one hand, but then pro-environment on the other. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the kind of both the social bases in terms of voters, but maybe also the funding. And I'm wondering when we think of green growth and we think of green industrial policies, is this kind of a compatible, realistic vision, or are the kind of social bases and perhaps the funding basis from international actors not very complementary in that where the international funders of the environment are not very pro-growth and whether the funders of growth are not very green, and how that might be changed.

SPEAKER 2
Thanks. Just a small question.

SPEAKER 2
Okay. I'm going to take one more question up on top of that.

S14
Hello. I would like to show you. Origins of the. Find new ways of finding economic growth, local growth, especially mobile communities in Yellowstone, and how these new. I mean, these units are going to go with the necessity of conservation mitigation and adaptation, especially with the role, the key role that indigenous communities have in those areas. And what is the left going to do regarding that? Is there any agreement that they are willing to follow or is up, or are they not actually paying that much attention to?

SPEAKER 2
Okay. We will turn to. To the panel.

SPEAKER 3
Oh, okay. Oh, there are so many interesting questions. I'm trying to answer most of them, but maybe I won't be able to answer to all of them. So what? What is it? And so thank you for your question is quite interesting. Well, I don't really agree with what is that because you mentioned that the first government he was investing in like this sustainable economy in. But actually, if you look at the Pentagon, which was the major environmental policy for the Amazon, is supposed to invest in inspection actions and in the creation of protected areas in the Amazon and also in the sustainable economy. So which is very interesting to kerb the forest in the long term, because, I mean, you have to give other economic options for local people to live. But actually the evaluations of the president says that the program was made especially successful in creating conservation units and also inspection actions, but it was not really successful to offer a to think about new sustainable economic ways or local economic economic ways. So I think there are like some small advantage, like most of it. So the government would pay like what is the name in English like anyway? It would compensate local families who work with sustainable activities. But it was not like a big thing. And right now, like the model for the Amazon, by then it was like just let's be let's build these huge infrastructure projects like highways, roads and hydroelectric dams. And I think right now the model, the model is quite the same. I don't think that it is like a big discussion about how to develop a sustainable local economy in the Amazon right now. I mean, there are there is this discussion, but it's not very strong. Basically, the government is still investing in expansion policies and trying to create conservation units. And one of the reason is that is because when I interview this broadcast, they don't really know how to do that. It's really easy to understand how you do like inspection actions and how you create conservation units, but how you like it's much more tricky and complicated and complex to really create like a new model of sustainable economy for local people. So I don't see many. Uh, progress in that area in either. So another question someone asked about. How come? I think it's really interesting when we see.

SPEAKER 5
Sorry. Go ahead.

SPEAKER 3
I think when I show that map, I think it's very interesting and intriguing when you see that most of the Amazonian states they voted for an actual Bolsonaro is really strong in the Amazon in say, it's from Amazon Amazonian. And the reason for that is because the agribusiness is really strong there right now. So they they knew from frontier of pasture and agribusiness right now in Brazil, in the north of the country where the Amazon is. So when you see who voted from farmers in the Amazon, it's major these agribusiness. And usually actually there is a study that show that the the only separatists who voted the most for most are the municipalities where the differentiation is the highest. So there is because they I mean, for them, it's really interesting because they went to the forest and it was announced that he's going to flexibilities and weak inspection policies and all this kind of stuff for these kind of voters. It's really interesting. So. Well, I guess that's all for now. Some.

SPEAKER 5
You know. Okay.

SPEAKER 1
Yeah yeah yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. So just very quickly on Dollarisation. Yeah, absolutely. Is a huge, huge issue in Ecuador, Ecuador, the economy with dollar raised in 2000 very quickly with the guidance of the IMF once again after a financial crisis in 1998 and 1999. And and if you look back at the charts on migration, you'll notice the first wave of Ecuadorian migration happened after dollarisation. It was devastating time for most people, and there was a massive outflow of migration that was connected to global issues as well. So I think dollarisation generally is a kind of monetary policy. Is is. It's not a straitjacket in terms of development, ceding control of monetary policy to live with basically losing control of any kind of influence over the exchange rate. So I think it does bring and it has more in Ecuador, price stability. But that's come at a real cost. Let's say thinking about industrial policy or trying to bring about any kind of structural transformation. I think Korea toyed with the idea of abounding in it in his early, early years in office, and I think he could have because he was so popular. But then he no, he didn't do that. And I think I have stuck with it is, of course, popularised through the press. You know, the press always write very, very favourably around Dollarisation and how it's wonderful keeping prices down. But I think in terms of a macro economy, it's a disaster. It's like a straitjacket. We develop a country in the global South. And of course, now Argentina is talking about. When you say policy. And then that links really links to Duncan's question is and Laura's question as well, I think it's absolutely I mean, the challenge is enormous, isn't it? Quite frankly, you know, I've thought on James's brilliant development course here and we look at the history of development in Latin America, and we see efforts that industrialised industrialisation in the 1950s and 1960s and how they hit their limits generally and then reverse and so on and so forth. You know, we can see in the case of, well, Brazil most clearly, but also in Chile as well, you know, the power of the elite, the last class power, you know, blocking any kind of reforms, agro industry in particular is hugely influential in Ecuador. So I think one of the interesting things, you know, trying to think about it on a more positive note, is think about Latin America as a really inspirational place of innovation and creativity. Um, and we see a lot of that actually in terms. Economic policy appropriately defined. You know, in Ecuador, the Constitution in 2008, Constitution enshrined in it reorients its development around whenever there. So it kind of looks at a totally different, at least, you know, discursive and opens up space for actually rethinking development altogether. So I think it's not surprising that many post development thinkers like Alberto Acosta know come from Ecuador or come from Latin America, have a different vision of development, which isn't necessarily based on industrialisation and structural transformation. It's about something perhaps more profound. So I think in Ecuador there's, there's, there's, there's a, there's a very small but expanding agora ecology movement. What was interesting about it. Yes. And the initiative was the argument was, of course, if we, if we vote to. And just to clarify, it was successful. So it was backed in the elections in August. So 60%, 59% of the voters supported this initiative, and not a lot of the discussion there was around connecting it to redistribution and saying, look, if we're going to lose 12% of total oil production, which is, yes, in the accounts, more or less, then we need to think about redistribution in different ways. So I think it's connected to redistribution of wealth, income, land, water, and trying to really, I would argue. Leverage this incredible environmental consciousness that's emerged in Ecuador over the last 20 or 30 years, which I think is expressed in the SMB initiative, and thinking about green, a Green New Deal, or just transitions or degrowth or eco socialism or whatever it might be. That's what I would. That's where I would go. But of course, we come up against these massive challenges that we've seen throughout the the development of Latin America. Since he was inserted into the capitalist economy in. In the 16th 17th century. So I don't think any of this is easy. But I do think that Latin America is really inspirational in that sense. And. Um, incredible ideas and possibilities. Even if, when they're incorporated into state policy, they're often. Um de-radicalisation and watered down.

SPEAKER 2
I want to get the last word, and therefore I'll ask a little question to Melanie and to Anna, if I can. And and that's it. It seems to be very precarious. The government of. And just by a very small margin, if anything. Things are moving. Since he came to power. And in Chile also. It seems to me that when we think about our right, that is actually mobilising against many of the ideas of the urban feminist movement. What are the chances? That power can be used in Brazil and in Chile to consolidate. A direction towards the left in the face of what we're witnessing. That.

SPEAKER 5
Um, yes.

SPEAKER 4
I think this is a very good question. And obviously there's a there's a lot of factors to consider, but I think perhaps there's one positive element is that there are continued that continue very strong social movements. And there's a strong left in Chile, unless there is no and all left, that is a new left that is represented by the but the character of Gabriel Burridge. And he still has. Decent popularity, by the way. Not good, but decent. So that still exists. But you right. There is a rise of the far right. My sense of chilly is that because we have the referendum in the 17th of December, we were going to vote this new draft of the Constitution. All the polls are indicating that the draft is going to fail again. So we will end up with the old Constitution or the current Constitution. My guess is because the polarisation of the political system is not fitting, any ideas that the civil society are expressing? Nothing is actually changing. It's not changing much with the current government. And because of the short periods of governments we have in Chile, only four years is unlikely that many things are going to change. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a switch into the far right in the next election. But at the same time, I don't think they will have long term success unless they use old fashioned tools like the military and authoritarianism in a more straightforward way, which I don't. It will be very surprising in the case of Chile, but not impossible because nothing the is possible. So I think those scenarios needs to be managed to understand the balance of power. If we just think about power, us holding the power of the state, because as you well say, just before national leaders continue to be the same and they haven't changed with this progressive government. And the economic model has not shifted in, in any other direction than neoliberal austerity, or maybe less austerity or.

SPEAKER 5
Continuation of regulation.

SPEAKER 2
Thank you. Anna. Last word to you.

SPEAKER 3
Oh, that's a very interesting and complex question. So I agree, I think the situation of the government is very precarious in terms of political support. So one of the working parties, some of the working party leaders are saying is that they they will have to sacrifice some of its agenda, for instance, the environmental.