Re-Globalization in Latin America: Can Turmoil Lead to Reforms?

All of Latin America burns. Literally. Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship in Venezuela, the populisms of Andrés López Obrador in Mexico and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, the dismantlement of Peru’s congress by its president and the social crises in Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, and Bolivia: the whole continent is in upheaval. Profound changes are in sight and perhaps even imminent, one example being the debate over a new constitution for Chile, where even the richest part of the population and the elite admits that the road traveled so far has come to an end. The good news is the classic teaching: Crisis creates consciousness. Could Latin America’s turmoil ultimately lead to profound and substantial systemic reforms that could become a blueprint for reforming globalization as a whole? In the important framing essay for this series, Roland Benedikter and Ingrid Kofler have described current global change very accurately and have rightly pleaded for a five-fold model of “Re-Globalization.” In my view and in that of most Latin American’s, all five “R’s” are necessary, if not unavoidable, and must be seen as an interconnected whole. Yet I believe that from a Latin American (and perhaps Global South) point of view, the main two challenges for re-globalization over the coming few years will be “reframing” and “reforming.”