by Ramsey McGlazer
polity
Copyright © Fernando Calderón and Manuel Castells 2020
First published in Spanish as La nueva América Latina by Fondo de Cultura Económica 2019
This English edition © Polity Press 2020
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4003-7
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Calderón G., Fernando, author.
Title: The new Latin America / Fernando Calderón and Manuel Castells ; translated by Ramsey McGlazer.
Other titles: Nueva America Latina.
Description: Cambridge ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Translated from Spanish. | Summary: “A comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of Latin America today”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019057548 (print) | LCCN 2019057549 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509540013 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509540020 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509540037 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Latin America--Economic conditions--21st century. | Latin America--Social conditions--21st century.
Classification: LCC HC125 .C243313 2020 (print) | LCC HC125 (ebook) | DDC 330.98--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019057548 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019057549
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For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has had a peculiar trajectory. It began as a shared intellectual project, one that developed during a seven-year period, drawing on the empirical research of a group of scholars from 11 Latin American countries who studied the region’s transformation during the first decades of the twenty-first century. But each of us also traveled along separate paths through various countries, gathering information and reflecting on our findings, together with a broad range of colleagues and friends who helped us to understand the complex context that is Latin America. For this reason, we wish to thank everyone who worked on the book Navegar contra el viento: América Latina en la era de la información [Sailing against the Wind: Latin America in the Information Age], edited by Fernando Calderón. For joining us on this thrilling adventure, thanks to: Martin Puchet, Isadora Chacón, Diego Escobar, Isabel Licha, Haydee Ochoa, Miguel Ángel Contreras, Rodrigo Márquez, Fernando Mayorga, Solange Novelle, Juan Pablo Deluca, Ignacio Cretini, Ana Rivoir, Santiago Escuder, Gonzalo Vásquez, Deborah Pragier, and Juan Wahren. Special thanks to the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) in Argentina for supporting this project.
We have made numerous friends and met many colleagues during the last few years. Many thanks to them as well. For their intellectual contributions to the analyses offered in this book, we thank Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Francisco Delich, Ernesto Ottone, Isidora Chacón, Alejandra Moreno Toscano, Alicia Ziccardi, Manuel Perló, Carmen Rodríguez Armesta, Helena Useche, Tarso Genro, and Marcelo Branco.
We also had the privilege to discuss our progress and our research in several academic contexts. Fernando Calderón benefited from a year of reflection spent at the University of Cambridge, where he held the Simón Bolívar Chair. He would especially like to thank the Center for Latin American Studies and the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, as well as Clare Hall College and his colleagues and friends in Cambridge: John Thompson, Jeff Milley, Johanna Page, and especially Julie Coimbra.
In addition, we would like to highlight the contributions made by all of our friends and collaborators in the Programa de Innovación Desarrollo y Multiculturalismo at the UNSAM in Buenos Aires.
Several other academic institutions provided organizational and/or financial support for the research on which this book is based, among them: the UNSAM in Argentina, the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California, and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. We would like to extend our sincerest thanks to these institutions. The book’s final composition benefitted from opportunities to discuss and present our analyses in several academic contexts, in particular at the UNSAM, the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge, and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Most especially, we would also like to express our gratitude to the people who offered us technical assistance during the last stages of production: Caterina Colombo, for her crucial statistical and documentary support; Noelia Díaz López of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, for her excellent preparation and organization of the book’s manuscript; and Pauline Martinez of the University of Southern California, for logistical support during the final phase of the project.
This work is the product of a complex Socratic journey, through which we sought to understand recent changes in Latin America. We have had the good fortune to rely, as always, on our loved ones. Many thanks to them for their support and their patience: to Alicia, Manuel, Coral, and Daniel from Fernando; and to Nuria, Irene, and José from Manuel.
As always, our friend and teacher Alain Touraine is a presence in this book.
Finally, we acknowledge the Editorial Fondo de Cultura Económica and especially Julio Sau Aguayo, our editor and friend, with thanks for the support for this book’s publication and for inspiring other, past books as well.
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
At the time when this translation went into production (January 2020), Latin America had exploded. The streets of Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Colombia filled with people protesting against government policies and ruling elites. Argentina elected a progressive president after a wave of social protests
