July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Latin America Erupts: Ecuador’s Return to the Past
Reformist leaders offered order, stability, and progress. But the country’s deep-seated political pathologies have proven far more durable than their promises.
Country: Ecuador
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
The Return of the Latin American Military?
When asked by presidents to intervene domestically for crime-fighting or civil-order purposes, Latin American militaries face a number of risks and have a degree of freedom to tailor their responses accordingly.
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
The Pushback Against Populism: Why Ecuador’s Referendums Backfired
Populists have often turned to referendums to dismantle a democracy. Democrats should be wary of turning to the same tool to rebuild what was lost. It may only pave the way for populism’s return.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
Populists in Power
The historical record since 1945 gives us a picture of how populists operate once they hold political power. The record shows that populism is inimical to liberal democracy, and not a corrective to some of its failings.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Latin America’s Shifting Politics: Ecuador After Correa
The question of succession is a tricky one for populist leaders. In Ecuador, it has produced a surprising reversal for Rafael Correa, who had thoroughly dominated the political scene for the past decade.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
Delegative Democracy Revisited: Ecuador Under Correa
One of the first Latin American countries to make a democratic transition as the 1970s ended, Ecuador struggled in its search for political stability. Now it appears to have more stability, but that stability appears more authoritarian than democratic.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
Latin America’s Authoritarian Drift: Technocratic Populism in Ecuador
President Rafael Correa, now entering his third term, has built a curious form of populist-authoritarian regime. He champions redistributionism and a kind of technocratic leftism while assaulting the traditional left along with such mainstays of a liberal society as the freedom of the press.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Lessons from Latin America: The Rise of Rentier Populism
Latin America’s much-discussed political “left turn” has taken two very different forms. Why has the region’s commodities boom led some left-turn states to move toward “plebiscitarian superpresidentialism,” while others have resisted this temptation?
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Ecuador: Correa’s Plebiscitary Presidency
Long an extreme case of institutionalized instability, Ecuador now has a dynamic young president who is determined to remake its constitution, and eventually its society, in the name of "twenty-first-century socialism."
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Latin America’s Indigenous Peoples
Where indigenous peoples constitute a smaller share of the electorate, their recent inclusion denotes a more generalized opening of the political system to excluded and vulnerable sectors of society.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
High Anxiety in the Andes
The Editors’ introduction to “High Anxiety in the Andes.”
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
High Anxiety in the Andes: Crisis and Contention in Ecuador
Massive protest by indigenous groups in both 2000 and 2001 have overthrown one president and weakened another. Though such conflict poses a short-term threat, it may ultimately contribute to democratic development.
Ecuador’s Democratic Breakdown
The small Latin American country was a brief democratic bright spot. But it appears to have fallen victim to a clash between populists and anti-populists, without a democrat in sight.