Latin American Tendencies

The most serious crisis has taken place in Central America, specifically in Honduras – The global economic crisis, which was unleashed in the United States around September 2008 and soon spread out to the rest of the world, didn’t affect the region in a direct way – The regional economy will already start to recover towards the beginning of next year, and those countries which adopt a more sensible economic policy, like Peru, Brazil or Chile, and probably Mexico, will do that even before and more vigorously – The rise to power of a new American president, the Democrat Barack Obama, also contributed to the creation of a relatively relaxed atmosphere in the political field – The left-turn of the region is reaching an end: with Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Mexico in a clearly distinct position, the expansion of populist policies already turns out to be impossible.

TENDENCIAS Latinoamericas intends to offer the reader a balanced overview on the reality of our region: being a semestral report, this is not a typical review of the political situation – since it goes beyond the anecdotic to immerse into the tendencies which lie beyond everyday life – however, this does not mean that we are reaching the other extreme, the purely abstract reflection, disconnected of the various occurrences of this region. Furthermore, this balance relates to the highlighted subjects and facts: the idea is to link economics with politics and social issues; therefore we present information that is not limited to a specific group of countries, but rather includes also events which, on occasion, could go unnoticed.