Populist Seduction in Latin America — 2000 ·

The Ecuadorian Experience

By Carlos de la Torre

A new brand of populist politicians has risen to power in the late 1980s and 90s. They have kept the Manichaean and moralistic populist discourse of their predecessors while pursuing different economic programs.

The old nationalist and distributive policies of past populist regimes have been replaced by neoliberal policies that have privatized state enterprises, eliminated protective tariffs, and concentrated income.

In Populist Seduction in Latin America, Carlos de la Torre shows that populism did not disappear, as expected, with the modernization of society. Combining the study of populist discourse with an analysis of the social and political setting for the emergence and persistence of populism, de la Torre argues that the durability of populism is explained by the deficient incorporation of the popular sectors into Latin American democracies.

Carlos de la Torre is a professor of political studies at FLACO-Ecuador. He is coeditor with Steve Striffler of The Ecuador Reader.