Customer Reviews

Populism in Latin America

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The book was good, but took way to long to get to me. I waited for almost 3 and a half weeks for the book.

Since the book was prepared in the mid 1990's, it really needs to be updated in order to include more recent developments of Latin American politics such as the Lula's government in Brazil, Hugo Chavez's radicalization in Venezuela and Kirchner couple's rule in Argentina.

Nevertheless, it brings a lot of useful information about the politics of several major Latin American countries since the beginning of the 20th century.

As shown in the book, Latin American populists were non revolutionary (i.e. non Communist) popular politicians that, in general, wanted to gain power through elections and also used several kinds of reformism to give the poor people some advantages in return for their votes, the conclusion is that the "populists" were basically good politicians despite their defects such as centralization and violence.

The most interesting question however is: What's really a populist? Aren't all politicians populists, regardless if they operate in Latin America or elsewhere?