Democratic Setback in Latin America: from a progressive political cycle towards a neoliberal and authoritarian political cycle

Abstract

The present article intends to analyze the political framework of Latin America through
the notion of political cycle. Since 2015, the continent has been living a neoliberal and
non-democratic political cycle that has replaced the progressive political cycle (Soares
Lima, 2008), dominant since the end of the 20th century. With the concept of political
cycle, our aim is to take into account many recent presidential overthrows in the
region – Zelaya in Honduras (2009), Lugo in Paraguay (2012) and Rousseff in Brazil
(2016) –, situating them in a broader political process of neoliberal and oligarchical
advance. This process also encompasses Macri's victory in Argentina (2015), Evo
Morales' defeat in the 2016' referendum on reelections in Bolivia, a possible Piñera's
victory in Chile (December 2017) and, last but not least, the deep and persistent crisis in
Venezuela. Such a broader process must thus encompass the conjunctural dynamics
along with more permanent tendencies – and this dialectics guides this article's search
for a definition of political cycle, in order to deepen our understanding of the new
political cycle, paying special attention to its subtraction on representative democracy's
scope in the region (a theme that has been decisive for many analysts of the Brazilian
case, such as Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos, Luís Felipe Miguel and José Maurício
Domingues).