Latin America Today
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LATIN AMERICA TODAY Edited by Michael Shifter and Bruno Binetti INTRODUCTION BY LAURA CHINCHILLA UNFULFILLED PROMISES LATIN AMERICA TODAY Edited by Michael Shifter and Bruno Binetti INTRODUCTION BY LAURA CHINCHILLA © 2019. Inter-American Dialogue. First Edition Printed in Washington, DC ISBN (paper): 978-1-7337276-0-0 ISBN (electronic): 978-1-7337276-1-7 Photos: Juninatt/Shutterstock (front cover); Bogdan R. Anton/Pexels (chapter 1); Cameron Casey/Pexels (chapter 2); Icon 0/Pexels (chapter 3); Alex Powell/Pexels (chapter 4); Fox/ Pexels (chapter 5); Amy Chandra/Pexels (chapter 6); Gabrielle Ri/Pexels (chapter 7); Magda Ehlers/Pexels (chapter 8); Shutterstock.com (back cover). Layout and copyediting: Nita Congress This book is a product of the Inter-American Dialogue. The views and recommendations contained herein are solely the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the consensus views of the board, staff, and members of the Inter-American Dialogue or any of its partners, donors, and/or supporting institutions. The Inter-American Dialogue is a non- partisan organization deeply committed to intellectual independence, transparency, and accountability. While donors are encouraged to participate in Dialogue activities, they do not influence our work in any way. Financial supporters have no control over the writing, methodology, analysis, or findings of the Dialogue’s research efforts. Contents Acknowledgments . v Abbreviations . vii 1. Introduction: Latin America, A Pending Assignment . 1 Laura Chinchilla 2. The Rule of Law in Latin America: From Constitutionalism to Political Uncertainty . 11 Catalina Botero 3 . Fighting Organized Crime in Latin America: Between Mano Dura and Citizen Security . 27 Robert Muggah 4. Latin America’s Social Development: Mountains and Valleys . 53 George Gray Molina 5. Latin American Economic Growth: Hopes, Disappointments, and Prospects . 77 Augusto de la Torre and Alain Ize iii iv Contents 6. Latin America and the World: Dependency, Decoupling, Dispersion . 101 Andrés Malamud 7, Latin American Integration: Circumstantial Regionalism . 121 Ana Covarrubias 8. Conclusion: A Latin American Narrative . 141 Michael Shifter and Bruno Binetti Contributors . 151 Acknowledgments his volume is the culmination of a special Inter-American Dialogue proj- ect. Unlike other Dialogue publications, its essays attempt to stand back Tand take a broad view of Latin America. Focused on cross-cutting and salient themes, together they try to construct a thread or narrative about the region, seeking to capture Latin America’s main idiosyncrasies and trends. To be sure, in Latin America there are multiple, often competing stories— some more sanguine than others—and enormous variation, depending on the country, the issue, and the moment. The idea of this volume is to stimulate reflection and debate on the region’s performance in critical areas, with the aim of charting a constructive path forward. It is intended for a wide and diverse audience and will also be published in Spanish and Portuguese. The undertak- ing is difficult and ambitious, but hopefully valuable, particularly since we live in such uncertain and turbulent times, both regionally and globally. The six topics selected are by no means exhaustive, but all are particu- larly pertinent to most Latin American countries. They include democracy and the rule of law, crime and violence, poverty and inequality, economic manage- ment, regional integration, and Latin America and the world. We are extremely fortunate to have contributions from first-rate analysts and scholars from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico. We are grateful to Laura Chinchilla, former president of Costa Rica and current co-chair of the Dialogue’s Board of Directors, for her thought-provoking and sobering intro- ductory essay. This project owes a huge debt to Bruno Binetti, co-editor of this volume and co-author of the concluding essay. Binetti, a Dialogue fellow who teaches at Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was chiefly responsible for the v vi Acknowledgments coordination of this effort and bringing it to fruition. He worked closely with each author as the essays went through various drafts. He applied his excep- tional editing skills, intellectual acumen, and vast comparative knowledge to the project. Binetti exhibited superb judgment and good humor throughout. The project benefited from an excellent meeting with all authors at the Dialogue’s office in Washington, DC, in February 2018. The frank and stim- ulating exchanges on initial drafts helped improve their quality and achieve greater coherence. We appreciate the acute, constructive comments of Peter Hakim, the Dialogue’s president emeritus and senior fellow. At the Dialogue, we are also grateful to the intellectual and administrative contributions made by Ben Raderstorf, especially during the earlier stages of this effort. In the latter stage, special thanks go to Irene Estefanía González and Melissa Reif for their invaluable support in design, layout, and publication. Gastón Ocampo, Dialogue intern, provided editorial assistance. The Dialogue expresses its profound gratitude to the Ford Foundation and, in particular, its vice president for social justice, Martín Abregú. The Foun- dation’s generous support enabled the Dialogue to engage such outstanding authors, produce this volume, and undertake dissemination activities in Wash- ington, DC, and throughout Latin America to foster open dialogue. Michael Shifter President, Inter-American Dialogue Abbreviations ALBA Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América) BRI Belt and Road Initiative BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa CCT conditional cash transfer CELAC Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños) CICIG International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala) EU European Union FARC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) FPIC free, prior, and informed consent FTAA Free Trade Area of the Americas GDP gross domestic product IAHRS Inter-American Human Rights System ISI import-substituting industrialization MCCE moderately converging commodity exporter vii viii Abbreviations MCCI moderately converging commodity importer Mercosur Southern Common Market (Mercado Común del Sur) MPI Multidimensional Poverty Index NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement OAS Organization of American States PA Pacific Alliance SCCE strongly converging commodity exporter SCCI strongly converging commodity importer UN United Nations UNASUR Union of South American Nations (Unión de Naciones Suramericanas) USMCA United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement WCCE weakly converging commodity exporter WCCI weakly converging commodity importer WTO World Trade Organization WWII World War II 1 Introduction: Latin America, A Pending Assignment Laura Chinchilla Introduction: Latin America, A Pending Assignment Laura Chinchilla n 1992, in commemoration of the 500-year anniversary of Christopher Colum- bus’s first voyage to the Americas, Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes penned one Iof the most notable essays ever written on Ibero-American history entitled The Buried Mirror. In this essay, he compared the region’s troubled past to the con- struction of a tall building in Mexico City, a building that is never fully finished in spite of gradual, permanent progress. The construction of Latin America, he claimed, was just as incomplete. It was a work that was “advancing yet unfin- ished, energetic yet fraught with seemingly insoluble problems” (Fuentes 1992). Over 20 years have passed since Fuentes’s seminal essay. Most countries in the region find themselves amid the opposite commemoration: the bicenten- nial of their independence. Yet it is fair to say that the image of that unfinished building continues to be the most accurate depiction of Latin American reality. Our inability to carry out plans and objectives, our difficulty in finishing tasks, our propensity to improvise and to look for the easy way out instead of finding long-term solutions continue to be the signs of our predicament. These problems are not exclusive to Latin America, but we can think of few other places where there is such a strong sense of wasted opportu- nity. Latin America is a region particularly identified with unfulfilled promise, untapped potential, and unfinished business. Throughout history, some Latin American countries have stood at the threshold of success. Some have expe- rienced episodes of unprecedented economic growth; others have attained remarkable development goals—but each time a new economic recession, a new political breakdown, a new social upheaval has undermined their achieve- ments and set them back years, if not decades. Argentina by the first two decades of the 20th century ranked among the 10 richest nations in the world, ahead of France, Germany, and Italy. Its per capita income was 92 percent of the average of 16 rich economies, and even during the second post-war period it was still the fifth largest economy in the world. After years of economic ups and downs, Argentina’s per capita income is 43 percent of those same 16 rich economies (The Economist 2014). But the most visible and tragic example of economic and social decline is Venezuela. By 1970, this country had become the richest in Latin America and 3 4 Laura Chinchilla 1 of the 20 richest