The Left in the City

The Left in the City
Participatory Local Governments in Latin America
Lecture by Daniel Chavez (TNI New Politics Project)
CEDLA (Center for Latin American Research and Documentation), Amsterdam, 23 September 2004

Abstract:

During the past two decades Latin America experienced profound economic and political transformations, including fundamental changes in the composition and depth of civil society and in the nature and roles of the state. Throughout the region several parties on the
post-authoritarian left have been moving forward in the search for alternatives to neoliberalism and winning elections in the newly democratised region, especially in large urban areas. In the early 1980s, the first major city governed by the left was the Peruvian capital, Lima. The left won key Brazilian cities soon afterwards, including a state capital, Fortaleza, in 1985. The watershed year was 1988, when the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, Workers' Party) won 36 cities in Brazil, including Sa~o Paulo, the second-largest city in Latin America. Since then, not only the PT, but other progressive parties have racked up an impressive list of electoral victories in dozens of important cities across the region, including Montevideo, Mexico City, Caracas, Porto Alegre, Brasilia, San Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Belem, Rosario and Caracas, among others.

The lecture will examine the left's attempts to implement democratising experiments in city government. It will briefly outline the paths taken by the different parties to local office, their position within the national political system, and the varying urban environments that they confronted, including the presence or absence of social movement allies. Significant attention will be given to the specific participatory institutions created by the left once in power, with analysis of how the institutions function, their ability to attract popular participation, and their effects on national politics.

See the book The The Left in the City
Participatory Local Governments in Latin America
Edited by Daniel Chavez and Benjamin Goldfrank
Foreword by Hilary Wainwright
Latin American Bureau and TNI
Forthcoming in October 2004