The election of Gabriel Boric as President of Chile has attracted international press attention and generated much hope, excitement and debate among political and social activists in Latin America and other regions of the world. So what can we expect? Some preliminary answers and context to understand the historic victory.
What we face today is not just a "crisis" in the normal sense of the word - "a time of intense difficulty or danger". We also face a crisis in the sense of the word’s etymological roots in the Greek word krisis. This refers to a turning point in the course of an illness, pointing either to the start of recovery or the imminence of death. Such an understanding of "crisis" implies a relatively brief moment between two possible outcomes, a good one and a bad one. The deep social, economic and political problems of our times, however, are not signs of a passing "moment" or a single issue; they rather signal a multi-faceted crisis, whose components all strengthen and reinforce each other.
This report shows that neoliberal climate and energy policy has failed. It argues that the pursuit of endless growth and capitalist accumulation has resulted in an energy expansion, rather than an energy transition.
Durante las revueltas populares en el norte de África y en el oeste de Asia de hace una década (2010-2011), en el marco de la llamada “primavera árabe”, el pensamiento y la praxis de Frantz Fanon demostraron ser más relevantes que nunca. No sólo relevantes, sino perspicaces, ya que nos permiten entender mejor la violencia en el mundo maniqueo en el que vivimos y la racionalidad de la resistencia popular.
Covid-19 has once again demonstrated the significance of safe, accessible and affordable water for all. It has also highlighted enormous disparities in service provision while at the same time dealing a blow to public water and sanitation operators around the world due to massive drops in revenues, rapidly rising costs and concerns about health and safety in the workplace. This book provides the first global overview of the response of public water operators to this crisis, shining a light on the complex challenges they face and how they have responded in different contexts. It looks specifically at ‘public’ water and asks how public ownership and public management have enabled (or not) equitable and democratic emergency services, and how these Covid-19 experiences could contribute to expanded and sustainable forms of public water services in the future.
The international media coverage and academic analyses have mainly focused on the magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis in the affluent societies of the North, in particular the European countries. The rather biased references to Europe, however, hide profound differences in the ways the crisis is affecting diverse countries and social sectors. This article examines the responses of the public sector to the pandemic in the European context and then suggests possible “lessons” for Latin America and other regions of the world.
The Frente Amplio (Broad Front) government of Uruguay, one of the most stable, fruitful and serene experiences of the “new Latin American left”, is going through a very dramatic electoral process with likely profound impacts in the country and in the region. Daniel Chavez appraises the results of the Uruguayan experience and suggests what might be relevant for other counter-hegemonic processes in the region and the world.
Uruguay and Costa Rica are world leaders in clean, public, democratically accountable energy. Their success owes much to state-owned companies with the power to drive systemic change.
Social movements need to grapple with not only building successful political parties and winning power but also with using that power strategically to best implement change. This report examines the critical role played by Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) government employees and the challenges they faced in advancing a social and economic justice agenda within Bolivia. How can progressive government employees remain true to their political ideology while ensuring the execution of a professional and fair public bureaucracy?
Santiago Arconada Rodríguez, Karina Arévalo, Javier Biardeau, Atilio A. Borón, Ana Esther Ceceña, Reinaldo Iturriza, Claudio Katz, Edgardo Lander, Miguel Mazzeo, Claudia Korol, Juan Carlos Monedero, Nildo Ouriques, Isabel Rauber, Maristella Svampa, Marco Teruggi, Zuleima Vergel, Raúl Zibechi
10 August 2017
Report
Venezuela is passing through a period of acute political, economic and social turmoil, which has intensified the debate within the regional and global left about the nature, the legacy and the prospects of the Bolivarian process.
How are people across the world taking back power over the energy sector and re-imagining how energy might be produced, distributed and used? How can the concept of energy democracy be deployed to demand a socially and just energy system, with universal access, fair tariffs and secure, unionised and well-paid jobs?
Researchers and activists from fifteen countries met in Amsterdam with the aim to jointly draft the research agenda of the New Politics Project, a decentralised think tank on counter-hegemonic politics. It will aim to boost the development of desirable, viable and achievable alternatives, transcending current oppressive and exploitative structures; acknowledge the diversity of knowledge as a source of inspiration for the co-creation of alternatives; and promote fruitful collaboration and exchanges among researchers and activists from different regions of the world.
Reorienting Development analyses what the nature, advantages, limitations and challenges of public companies are. It also offers new theoretical and conceptual insights on the nature and roles of the state and the controversial meanings of development.
The State is Dead! Long live the State! At the turn of the century, many commentators from the right and left seemed united in their analysis that the state as an economic player was dead or at least no longer relevant. The combined pressures of globalisation, liberalisation and marketisation unleashed by the market-driven dogmas of Thatcherism and Reaganomics had massively expanded the private sector and concurrently downsized the public sector. Corporate power was in the ascendancy and many state-owned companies had become little more than second-rate government departments, and the underlying assumption was that, as the economy evolved, the government would close or sell them to private investors.
An international seminar in Montevideo, co-organised by TNI and the Uruguayan government, shared the latest learning and innovation by state-owned enterprises across Latin America and affirmed their importance as instruments for economic and social development.
