Introduction: Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World: Insights from Latin America and the Caribbean

This Special Issue of Latin American Perspectives is part of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), ¹ a broad research collective that launched a global agenda in 2018 to understand the rise of authoritarian populism across the world, as well as forms of resistance and alternative politics that deal with or emerge from rural contexts. In the past years, the world has witnessed a rise of right-wing, exclusionary, and regressive politics backed by widespread popular support. After more than a decade of the so-called Pink Tide governments in Latin America and the Caribbean –known for promoting developmentalism, economic growth, equity, and social progress– the region has succumbed to the global trend in multiple yet diverse cases. The left-leaning governments of countries like Venezuela and Nicaragua have been accused of assuming an authoritarian character. During the 2010s, in Honduras, Brazil, and Paraguay, democratically elected presidents were ousted in soft coups and substituted by right-wing governments with socially regressive political projects. However, national politics in countries such as Colombia and Mexico have turned to the left. In Latin America currently, different kinds of leftist progressive governments coexist with right-wing authoritarianism. This makes it challenging to pin down a single trend and direction of political transitions.

The rural context is particularly relevant to grasping these economic and political changes. It is well known that agriculture and the extractive industry have played an important albeit ambiguous role in the economy and politics of the region during the last decades. Taking advantage of the high commodity prices and demand in the world market during the early 2000s, left-leaning governments relied on the export revenue accrued from agriculture and natural resource extraction to promote economic growth and social policies that provided welfare to the poor. In many cases, that implied a state sponsorship of agrarian and rentier elites, alongside modest redistributive reforms. Consequently, the rural population, which represented an important electoral base of Pink Tide governments, benefited from a series of progressive policies but was also harmed and threatened by agricultural and mining expansion or developmentalist infrastructure projects. For that reason, the rural context has also represented a substantial bastion of organized resistance and emancipatory politics.

During the 2010s, right-wing politics and ideologies gained ground, and the rural context was further jeopardized. This either occurred through the championing of agribusiness and resource exploitation or the denial of environmental concerns, including, in some cases, direct warfare against indigenous people, rural leaders, and agrarian movements. Assaults against constitutional institutions, repression, and coercion of the organized political opposition are expressions of authoritarian populism.

Further reflections remain necessary in the face of a complex, controversial, and rapidly changing economic and political scenario. This LAP special issue aims to better understand whether and how the rural setting is affected by, contributes to, or reacts against authoritarian populism. As such, we reinforce the ERPI effort of creating scholarship and movement building around populism and emancipatory politics. Below, we list three clusters of questions in which we are interested in but not confined to.

Understanding Authoritarian Populism And Its Rural Links (Roots And Effects)

Articles in this issue of Latin American Perspectives aim to explore the roots and effects of the rise of authoritarian populism in Latin America. Several questions emerge in this regard. To what extent do the region’s recent economic and political changes cast a shadow over the progressiveness of Pink Tide governments, particularly in relation to the rural setting? In which ways has the extractivist pattern of development conditioned or contributed to the economic and political crises that followed? What are the economic, social, and environmental implications for the future of rural development if authoritarian populism – or other manifestations of regressive politics – continues to spread and deepen in the region?

Resistance, Mobilization, And Emancipatory Politics

Rural social movements have often had an ambiguous relationship with past politics. While their demands have been partially incorporated into governmental practices, they have also struggled to maintain their autonomy and critical positions regarding state-sponsored agribusiness and extractivism. This has sparked heated debates over whether progressive and popular governments have stimulated or stalled social and political activism in rural areas. Were rural social bases strengthened or weakened in their organization and forms of economic and social reproduction? The authoritarian turn has further affected rural social movements’ strategies and grassroots initiatives. How have organized rural resistance movements and their social bases positioned themselves in regard to current politics? With whom have they allied, and on what basis? Do they have an emancipatory agenda, or do they await a return to the (populist?) leaders and politics of the past? Are their strategies and forms of contestation expressions of emancipatory politics?

Understanding, Creating, Supporting, And Scaling Up Alternatives

The rural context plays a central role in Latin American development and politics. It is not only a stage for disputes and contestations but also a site for constructing radical political alternatives and comprehensive projects emerging from rural actors, such as food sovereignty, energy transition, and agrarian and climate justice. Therefore, the role of rural social movements extends beyond the struggle for the land and livelihood of peasants, Indigenous peoples, and other subjects; it involves the creation and advancement of alternatives to multiple crises in dialogue with different actors. How can alternatives for a broader transformation be strengthened and expanded? What are the challenges to gaining wider political and public support?

The Articles In This Lap Issue

This issue includes one article with a regional perspective and four with country studies of Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala, and Venezuela. The articles situate the relevance of debates around authoritarian populism and the rural world for those countries’ specific contexts. They also show the complexities of the uneven political landscape in Latin America today.

Sergio Coronado aims for a regional perspective by surveying different rural politics during political transitions in Latin America after the decay of the Pink Tide (2010-2020). By analyzing the rise of contemporary forms of right-wing populism and authoritarianism and their political sources, that is, the social fragmentation produced by decades of enforcement of economic and political neoliberalism, the author considers the emancipatory character of rural politics conducted through alliances of political forces to subvert relations of oppression. He focuses on the convergences of the political mobilization of agriculturalist and urban food consumers in Argentina, on the one hand, and on unions, Indigenous peoples, and environmental movements in Colombia on the other, arguing that the emancipatory character of those experiences is anchored in an alliance between subjects pursuing interests that are allegedly antagonistic.

Alberto Alonso-Fradejas examines how, in Guatemala, the hegemony of a particular form of authoritarian corp-populism has relied on widespread violence and regime concessions to the rural poor population under the framework of private relations of production. As a result, since the mid-2000s, the country has witnessed the consolidation of flex-crop-based agrarian extractivism. The author examines the institutional and political frameworks through which sugar cane and oil palm corporations dominate the country’s economic sphere, highlighting the role of political elites, their strategies, and actors, and how this agenda faces opposition from political forces. This article gains even more relevance in light of recent political developments in Guatemala, in which alternative political forces reached state power through a highly contested electoral process.

The Pink Tide’s crises had nuances and differences across countries. In Bolivia, a crisis of government legitimacy arose from a gradual shift from progressive-left populism toward authoritarian tendencies. McKay and Colque offer a critical and thought-provoking analysis of Evo Morales’s rise and fall. Initially, Morales ascended to power with the support of Bolivia’s powerful social movements, promising radical reforms against the neoliberal elite. However, his administration’s concessions to rural elites and agribusiness and environmental conflicts created tension between the government and social movements, especially in rural areas. These tensions contributed to the broader political crisis, culminating in Morales’ controversial ousting in 2019. The authors argue that Morales’ authoritarian populist approach, characterized by polarizing politics, alliances with capitalist classes, and his refusal to relinquish power, was key to his downfall. Thus, they challenge the coup d’état narrative, offering instead a nuanced analysis of Morales’s downfall and exploring the implications for rural politics and emancipatory alternatives in Bolivia’s evolving political landscape.

Felicien, Schiavoni, and Romero challenge recent literature on authoritarian populism in Latin America, which argues that progressive governments’ reliance on natural resource exploitation was a principal reason for their weaknesses and the subsequent authoritarian turn – a narrative often exemplified by Venezuela. The authors contend that this perspective overlooks the agency of the people who brought these governments to power, along with their emancipatory visions and practices, which extend beyond governmental regimes. They note that the literature insufficiently critiques authoritarianism as stemming from structural and historical state-capital and North-South power relations. Their article delves into the intricate interplay between state, capital, and society, while examining Venezuela’s global and national-level food politics. The authors uncover deep tensions, ties, complexities, and controversies impacting daily life, offering vivid accounts of past and present injustices, discrimination, and violence that show how food has historically served as a vehicle for social differentiation along race, class, and gender lines. The article brings forth the perspectives of those engaged in on-the-ground struggles, showing how food sovereignty activism remains loyal to the ideals of the Bolivarian revolution and is actively involved in constructing popular power. However, this activism navigates a complex web of relations with the state, which has yet to fully confront corporate power in the food sector, including its international ties. It is a timely and powerful contribution that enhances our understanding of emancipatory struggles in the region.

Muñoz, Penna, and Niederle investigate how three rural movements with distinct organizational structures and political agendas have utilized food markets as strategies of collective action and arenas of resistance in Brazil’s shifting political regimes. Their study centers on the period of authoritarian populism following the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016. They show that under Bolsonaro’s presidency, market creation has become a crucial component of resistance against authoritarianism and the dismantling of public policies. While market-based activism is not new, its role as a form of resistance has intensified in this political context. The comparative analysis highlights how each movement’s market strategies and repertoires of collective action have evolved, providing a nuanced understanding of market engagement as a versatile tool in political struggle and resistance.

These five pieces show that, regardless of a political regime’s orientation, emancipatory rural initiatives must transcend state-centered politics. The opportunities created when political regimes leaned to the left during the early 2000s were weakened by government alliances with agrarian elites and agribusiness corporations. The authoritarian turn that followed significantly complicated the landscape for social movements and emancipatory rural politics, introducing new challenges and forms of resistance. However, several questions remain open regarding the current political scenario in Latin America. We would like to propose two: Does the emancipation forged by rural movements imply that state politics should be conditioned by the people, or that the people should be free from the conditioning influence of the state and capital? And, to what extent do rural mobilizations and grassroots movements contribute to state accountability and adherence to emancipatory principles, and how do rural and agricultural policies influence the scope and radicalism of emancipatory movements? Addressing these and other emerging questions is an urgent task, given the changing character of rural politics in Latin America.