tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/uruguay-3394/articlesUruguay – The Conversation2023-09-06T17:24:13Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2128012023-09-06T17:24:13Z2023-09-06T17:24:13ZThe Andes flight disaster that gave birth to the Society of the Snow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546405/original/file-20230905-364-616wdu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=341%2C20%2C1272%2C719&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Still from the film 'Society of the Snow', by J. A. Bayona.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.netflix.com/es/title/81268316">Netflix</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What are the limits of the human body? How much pain and suffering can our bodies withstand? What would we be willing to endure for our loved ones? Is solidarity something natural, or does it come to us only in certain moments of our lives? </p>
<p>These questions do not have one answer. They are the subject of numerous discussions and interpretations, and have been asked in countless groups, societies, cultures and civilisations, becoming the topic of both scholarly and everyday debate. When faced with tragic situations, people have been forced to confront them in some way, though often with varying degrees of success.</p>
<h2>Disaster</h2>
<p>13 October 2023 marked 51 years since <a href="https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=8649904">an incident that thrust some of the issues raised above into the limelight</a>.</p>
<p>Uruguayan Air Force flight 571, chartered by a rugby team and their friends and family, was flying to Chile for a friendly fixture. It never reached its destination. After an accident in the Andes Mountains, the remnants of the fuselage were left at an altitude of 4,000 metres, among mountains and towering, mile-high peaks, in the midst of snowfalls not seen for decades and temperatures hovering around minus 40 degrees Celsius.</p>
<p>In the surrounding area there was not even the faintest hint of civilisation, nor any chance of communication (the radio was broken, there was no satellite tracking, GPS or phones), nor anywhere to find even a scrap of food once the scarce provisions (a few chocolates and some wine) were finished. This place –known as the “Valley of Tears”– was extremely hostile to any kind of life.</p>
<p>Of the 45 passengers and crew, only 16 survived. Some died in the accident. Others shortly after from their injuries. More subsequently died in an avalanche that occurred in the days following the plane’s initial impact against the mountains. This event, and what happened in the weeks and months after, came to be known in the Uruguayan and international press as either “The Andes Flight Disaster” or “The Miracle of the Andes”. What we have seen thus far was the disaster. The miracle is what came after.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545922/original/file-20230901-27-g9n9fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C12%2C2041%2C1520&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="View of the monument commemorating the Andes tragedy. In the distance, behind the monument, you can see the mountain that some comrades climbed in their last effort to reach rescue. The photo is taken facing west." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545922/original/file-20230901-27-g9n9fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C12%2C2041%2C1520&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545922/original/file-20230901-27-g9n9fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545922/original/file-20230901-27-g9n9fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545922/original/file-20230901-27-g9n9fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545922/original/file-20230901-27-g9n9fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545922/original/file-20230901-27-g9n9fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545922/original/file-20230901-27-g9n9fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">View of the monument commemorating the Andes tragedy. In the distance, behind the monument, you can see the mountain that some of the comrades climbed in their last effort to reach rescue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Crash_site.JPG">BoomerKC/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<h2>Miracle</h2>
<p>The group who managed to hold out –young men for the most part, in good physical shape, from upper middle class Uruguayan families and members of a religious school– survived in these harsh conditions for 72 days.</p>
<p>After hearing on a transistor radio that the search was over, with both Uruguayan and Chilean authorities presuming them dead, one of the survivors addressed the others and announced that this was good news. To his companions’ confusion, he stated that they were going to get out on their own. And they did. </p>
<p>It is at this point that we can begin talking about aspects such as resistance, creativity, solidarity, fraternity, empathy, resourcefulness and even utopia. These uniquely human ways of surviving are what make us so extraordinary as a species.</p>
<p>Making warm clothing from what was left of the seat covers, sharing what little they had and eliminating any trace of selfishness, conflict, individualism or privacy were necessary to overcome the desperate conditions of cold, hunger, tiredness, weakness, fainting, pain and constant fear.</p>
<p>They even went to such lengths of determination as to eat the flesh of their dead friends in order to survive, to the point of scraping their bones to obtain calcium. This was the subject of much subsequent debate among wider society, some of whom branded them as cannibals. </p>
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<span class="caption">Two of the survivors, Fernando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, together with the mule driver Sergio Catalán, who found them lost in the Andes after ten days walking through the middle of the mountain range.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Viven5.jpg">Héctor Maffuche/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>“The Society of the Snow” was the name given by the survivors themselves to this form of coexistence that was born among them. An entirely new way of imagining society became necessary, as the rules of the previous world had vanished without a trace. At the end of the day, as Spinoza said, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_(Spinoza_book)">“no one knows what a body can do”</a>, and the most fully human thing is to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Principle_of_Hope">push boundaries</a>.</p>
<p>Two of the survivors walked through the mountains in search of help for 10 days without anything that even resembled climbing equipment. They travelled 60 km to finally reach the valleys of Chile where a mule driver spotted them on the other side of a river and was able to begin the rescue. </p>
<p>In the helicopters that took those two friends to join their companions, the pilots remarked that it was impossible to travel that route on foot, or to survive so many days of snowstorms without food or proper warm clothing.</p>
<p>Physical ability and the spirituality professed by some of the survivors were some of the causes given for their survival. There are many other factors, of course, that have to do with the human ability to press forward. As a species we push limits, we are creatures capable of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Genealogy_of_Morality">making and keeping promises</a> and looking to the future. Care –according to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Time">Heidegger’s three principles</a> of possibility, the fact of existence and falling– is what makes us fully human by affirming that a group, simply by being a group, has a common goal.</p>
<h2>From <em>The Impossible</em> to <em>Society of the Snow</em></h2>
<p><em>Society of the Snow</em> is also the title of <a href="https://books.google.es/books/about/The_Snow_Society.html?id=hL-BEAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">a book</a> which features the survivors’ testimonies and has recently been adapted for the big screen in a film directed by Juan Antonio Bayona (<em>The Orphanage</em>, <em>The Impossible</em>, <em>A Monster Calls</em>)</p>
<p>What took place half a century ago serves as a reminder that “impossible” is nothing more than a word that someone, at some point, will ultimately banish from our vocabulary.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleder Piñeiro Aguiar no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.</span></em></p>‘The Society of Snow’, the new film directed by Juan Antonio Bayona which closes the Venice Film Festival, is a new adaptation of the story of a plane crash in the Andes and its survivors.Eleder Piñeiro Aguiar, Ayudante-Doctor en Facultad de Sociología, Universidade da CoruñaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074592023-06-26T13:03:56Z2023-06-26T13:03:56ZFifty years after the Uruguay coup, why so few people have been brought to justice for dictatorship crimes<p>Uruguay marks 50 years from the beginning of its <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3338122">coup</a> on June 27. On this day in 1973, President <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/19/juan-maria-bordaberry-obituary">Juan Maria Bordaberry</a> and the armed forces shut down parliament and inaugurated 12 years of state terror (1973-1985). </p>
<p>This anniversary offers an opportunity to reflect on why Uruguay has not brought more people to trial for <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=drBFEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=uruguay+human+rights+violations&ots=C_qHgKFp33&sig=0bZVwwvPb-Uslbjp-GpqCY7xGu8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=uruguay%20human%20rights%20violations&f=false">human rights violations</a> committed during this dictatorship. </p>
<p>For decades, Uruguay was known as “the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1662-6370.2008.tb00110.x">Switzerland of Latin America</a>”, given its longstanding stability and democratic traditions, and its welfare state. In 1973, little attention was initially paid to Uruguay’s regime, perhaps owing to the country’s reputation, and its geopolitical location – overshadowed by two bigger neighbours, Argentina and Brazil. That year most international attention focused on the spectacular coup against the Chilean president, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salvador-Allende">Salvador Allende</a>. </p>
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<h2>Imprisonment, interrogation and torture</h2>
<p>However, Uruguay’s regime was equally violent and repressive. Within a short time, Uruguay earned a new nickname: the “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064227708532645">torture chamber of Latin America</a>”. By early 1976, Uruguay had the highest per capita concentration of <a href="https://sarahbsnyder.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Ending-our-support-for-the-dictators-Ed-Koch-Uruguay-and-human-rights.pdf">political prisoners in the world</a>.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/amr520131979en.pdf">Amnesty International</a>, one in every 500 citizens was in prison for political reasons and “one in every 50 citizens had been through a period of imprisonment, which for many included interrogation and torture”. Besides the thousands of people imprisoned and tortured, the dictatorship left behind a legacy of <a href="https://www.gub.uy/secretaria-derechos-humanos-pasado-reciente/comunicacion/publicaciones/listado-personas-detenidas-desaparecidas-responsabilidad-yo-aquiescencia">197 state-sponsored enforced disappearances</a> and <a href="https://www.gub.uy/secretaria-derechos-humanos-pasado-reciente/comunicacion/publicaciones/listados-asesinadas-asesinados-politicos-fallecidos-responsabilidad-yo">202 extrajudicial executions</a> between 1968 and 1985. </p>
<p>Repression was brutal not only within Uruguay’s borders but also beyond. My <a href="https://yalebooks.co.uk/page/detail/the-condor-trials/?k=9780300254099">book</a> on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/sep/03/operation-condor-the-illegal-state-network-that-terrorised-south-america">Operation Condor</a> – a repressive campaign waged by South American dictatorships, and backed by the US, to silence opponents in exile – illustrates how Uruguayans represent the largest number of victims (<a href="https://plancondor.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/20230411-informe-ingles.pdf">48% of the total</a>) persecuted beyond borders between 1969 and 1981.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/operation-condor-why-victims-of-the-oppression-that-swept-1970s-south-america-are-still-fighting-for-justice-186789">Operation Condor: why victims of the oppression that swept 1970s South America are still fighting for justice</a>
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<h2>Justice or impunity?</h2>
<p>Uruguay <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3338320.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A6d4c727a5812dc33920cb58f7fa72974&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=">returned to democracy</a> on March 1 1985, with the inauguration of President <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/sanguinetti-julio-maria-1936">Juan Maria Sanguinetti</a>. Prospects for justice were restricted from the start. Uruguay’s generals and representatives of three political parties <a href="https://www.bandaoriental.com.uy/libro/el-uruguay-en-transicion-1981-1985/">had negotiated the transition</a> through the <a href="https://web.s.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzU3NDk1OV9fQU41?sid=91e4cf6e-d742-4bfa-9739-3fe29ba006b0@redis&vid=0&format=EB&lpid=lp_31&rid=0">Navy Club Pact</a>. </p>
<p>Among other things, the latter established a timetable for the return of democracy, restored the political system that pre-existed the dictatorship, including the constitution of 1967, and called for national elections in November 1984. Elections did take place, but with some politicians banned. </p>
<p>In December 1986, the democratic parliament then sanctioned Law 15.848 on the expiry of the punitive claims of the state. This “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/amnesty-in-the-age-of-human-rights-accountability/barriers-to-justice/0EA038B67B9DC9E15C500565D8F73B77">impunity law</a>” effectively shielded police and military officers from accountability for dictatorship-era atrocities, ensuring executive control and oversight over justice. It was introduced at a time of increasing opposition by the armed forces to emerging <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/human-rights-and-democratization-in-latin-america-9780198280385?cc=gb&lang=en&">judicial investigations</a> into past crimes.</p>
<p>The expiry law successfully ensured that the state-sponsored policy of impunity, where crimes are not punished, would remain in place for 25 years, until 2011. I have analysed elsewhere the ups and downs of <a href="https://link.springer.com/series/14807/books?page=2">Uruguay’s relationship</a> with accountability. </p>
<p>Fast forwarding to the present time, Uruguay has a reputation as a regional leader in some human rights issues (for example, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Abortion-and-Democracy-Contentious-Body-Politics-in-Argentina-Chile-and/Sutton-Vacarezza/p/book/9780367529413">reproductive rights</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/02/uruguay-marriage-equality-approved">equal marriage</a>). But it has only achieved very limited justice for dictatorship-era atrocities.</p>
<h2>Comparing Uruguay with Argentina</h2>
<p>As of June 2023, Uruguayan courts have delivered sentences in just 20 criminal cases and condemned 28 defendants in total, some of whom were involved in multiple cases, (from figures compiled from data by myself and NGO <a href="https://www.observatorioluzibarburu.org/">Observatorio Luz Ibarburu</a>).</p>
<p>As a point of comparison, Argentinian tribunals have handed down <a href="https://www.fiscales.gob.ar/lesa-humanidad/desde-2006-fueron-dictadas-301-sentencias-por-crimenes-de-lesa-humanidad-en-argentina/">301 verdicts</a> since 2006, with 1,136 individuals sentenced for the crimes of the dictatorship (1976-1983). </p>
<p>Similarly, as of December 31 2022, 606 final verdicts have been handed down in trials for dictatorship-era crimes in Chile, 487 in criminal and civil cases (heard together), and 119 only civil cases, according to data from the <a href="https://derechoshumanos.udp.cl/observatorio-de-justicia-transicional/">Transitional Justice Observatory</a> at Diego Portales University.</p>
<p>Alongside colleagues at the University of Oxford, we developed an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24518345.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Aeed94c9538aadcddc5001fd1b128a209&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=">approach</a> to account for why some countries hold perpetrators of past human rights violations accountable, while others do not.</p>
<p>It is based on <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ijtj/article/8/1/75/758926#13322005">four factors</a>: civil society demand; the absence of veto players (such as politicians who oppose accountability for, or investigation into, past human rights violations); domestic judicial leadership; and international pressure. This basic approach helps understand Uruguay’s enduring struggles. Although all four factors are at play in the country, they clash with each other and favour impunity overall.</p>
<p>Uruguay has seen significant levels of international pressure, including the famous “<a href="https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_221_ing.pdf">Gelman</a>” verdict in 2011 from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that was instrumental in <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2011/10/uruguay-congress-adopts-landmark-law-tackle-impunity/">repealing</a> the expiry law in 2011. Simultaneously, there has been relentless civil society demand for justice, from the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/762359">landmark 1989 referendum</a> to overturn the expiry law to, most recently, calls to modify the 2006 <a href="https://ladiaria.com.uy/justicia/articulo/2023/5/crysol-propuso-una-peticion-ante-la-cidh-para-revocar-incompatibilidad-entre-el-cobro-de-la-pension-reparatoria-y-la-jubilacion-y-pensiones/">reparations law</a> for political prisoners.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, most progress in justice, truth and reparations has been achieved in Uruguay thanks to the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ijtj/article-abstract/7/2/306/72299">tireless efforts by activists and NGOs</a>, including the central trade union, which has spurred authorities to investigate. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Uruguay has never committed to the investigation of past atrocities as a <a href="https://www.penguinlibros.com/ar/tematicas/160681-ebook-justicia-o-impunidad-9789974732445">state policy</a> as Argentina has done. A set of powerful players, which includes the armed forces, various politicians and high court judges, have ensured that the wall of impunity remained in place with few exceptions.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-latin-american-studies/article/wavering-courts-from-impunity-to-accountability-in-uruguay/0461670D7469DB908BCCD006476C66B7">lack of judicial independence</a> and the sanctioning of a few courageous judges who attempted to defy impunity in the 1990s and 2000s – most recently <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/2/22/uruguays-culture-of-impunity-continues-to-rear-its-head">Mariana Mota</a> – has obstructed progress too. </p>
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<p>Another factor is the significant number of judgements <a href="https://www.wola.org/analysis/new-ruling-uruguays-supreme-court-justice-jeopardizes-search-truth-justice-dictatorship-era-crimes/">in the supreme court</a> which downplayed the severity of the crimes committed during the dictatorship.</p>
<p>Positive change might be on the horizon though. A new <a href="http://www.impo.com.uy/bases/codigo-proceso-penal-2017/19293-2014">criminal procedure code</a> introduced in 2017 means that dictatorship-era allegations (filed since then) are investigated more quickly. And the creation in 2018 of a <a href="https://www.gub.uy/fiscalia-general-nacion/politicas-y-gestion/especializada-crimenes-lesa-humanidad">specialised prosecutor</a> for crimes against humanity – a long standing demand by human rights activists – has resulted in more investigations coming to trial and at a faster pace. </p>
<p>As Uruguayan poet <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/20/obituary-mario-benedetti">Mario Benedetti</a> famously said about memory and oblivion, when truth finally sweeps around the world: “<em>esa verdad será que no hay olvido</em>” – “that truth will be that there is no forgetting”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francesca Lessa’s project on Operation Condor received funding from the University of Oxford John Fell Fund, The British Academy/Leverhulme Trust, the University of Oxford ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, the European Commission under Horizon 2020, and the Open Society Foundations. She is the Honorary President of the Observatorio Luz Ibarburu, a network of human rights NGOs in Uruguay.</span></em></p>Argentina has convicted more people for its dictatorship-era crimes than Uruguay has.Francesca Lessa, Lecturer in Latin American Studies and Development, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1910422022-10-07T12:20:22Z2022-10-07T12:20:22ZCensus data hides racial diversity of US ‘Hispanics’ – to the country’s detriment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488087/original/file-20221004-21-dvyxff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C37%2C8256%2C5425&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Biden Joe Biden speaks at a Hispanic Heritage Month 2022 reception at the White House. Just who counts as 'Hispanic' in the U.S. is an open question.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-biden-joe-biden-speaks-at-a-hispanic-heritage-news-photo/1243624729?phrase=hispanic heritage month&adppopup=true">Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As I opened an email from my local grocery store chain advertising Hispanic Heritage Month – which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 each year – I was surprised to see it highlighting recipes from four distinct regions: Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America. </p>
<p>The advertisement rightly noted that while corn and beans have framed much of what in the United States is considered “Hispanic” foods, Latin America has a much greater diversity of foods. <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/cooking-technology-9781474234689/">Its cuisine</a>, which began long before the Spanish or other colonizers came to the Americas, continues to flourish. </p>
<p>While many of us <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-using-latinx-if-you-really-want-to-be-inclusive-189358">Latine</a> – an alternative term for Latinos or Latinx that I prefer – embrace our European heritage, we also embrace our <a href="http://www.degruyter.com">Indigenous and African heritage</a>. </p>
<p>In recent decades, many Latin American nations have officially recognized their Indigenous and Afro-descendent populations as distinct groups with unique histories, cultures, foods and languages. </p>
<p>Countries across the Americas, including the United States, have <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/fulltextarticle/behind-the-numbers-race-and-ethnicity-in-latin-america/">revised their census questions to better understand their populations</a>, enabling them to create more inclusive policies that actually address people’s needs – and to recognize the too-often hidden achievements of these groups.</p>
<h2>Census changes in Latin America</h2>
<p>Some Latin American countries, such as Peru, have counted their Indigenous population for over a century. But with the exception of Brazil and Cuba, Latin American countries generally <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwim9bj5ysb6AhUwkIkEHZpEBgQQFnoECCoQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fopenknowledge.worldbank.org%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F10986%2F30201%2F129298-7-8-2018-17-30-51-AfrodescendientesenLatinoamerica.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1QUIfPDCb5YXQRcxvrRl0L">excluded race on their national census</a>, allowing economic and social inequalities to flourish undocumented. </p>
<p>The effort to better capture both <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562415000177">Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations in Latin America began around the turn of the 21st century</a>.</p>
<p>Uruguay, a small and prosperous South American country, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137001702_10">long portrayed itself as white and European</a> despite being home to <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807871584/blackness-in-the-white-nation/">Afro-Uruguayans descended from enslaved Africans</a>. In 1996, under pressure from Afro-descendent activists, it added race to its national household survey. That census had census workers identify the respondents’ race and found the country to be 6% Afro-descended and revealed stunning racial disparities in education, income and employment. When in 2006 Uruguayan census-takers began asking residents to state their own racial identity, the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/125852428/Towards-a-Framework-for-Multicultural-Justice-in-Uruguay-Afro-Descendant-Exclusion-and-Collective-Rights-Under-International-Law">Afro-descended population jumped to 10%</a>. This data shift had important implications when Uruguay implemented race-based affirmative action a few years later. </p>
<p>In Mexico, where Indigenous identity had previously been linked only to speakers of one of the country’s 68 Indigenous languages, the census was changed in 2020 to ask if respondents self-identified as Indigenous or belonged to a community that identified as Indigenous. The result was an increase of 7.1 million people to <a href="https://www.alcaldesdemexico.com/notas-principales/poblacion-indigena-en-mexico-la-realidad-en-cifras/">23.2 million who identified as Indigenous</a>. The same change targeting the Afro-Mexican population identified a previously unrecognized <a href="https://aldianews.com/en/culture/heritage-and-history/finally-visible">population of 2.5 million</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Some other race’</h2>
<p>The U.S. added a question about Hispanic descent to the 1970 census long form, and to the short form in 1980. The question asked, “Is this person of Hispanic/Spanish descent?” If the answer was Yes, these were following options: Mexican or Mexican-American or Chicano; Puerto Rican; Cuban; Other Spanish/Hispanic. </p>
<p>In subsequent decades, small changes were made such, as including the word “Latino” and allowing those who choose “other” in the national origin category to write in a response, with suggestions of “Argentinian, Colombian, Dominican, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on.” In 2020, the census allowed respondents to identify as “multiracial.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488132/original/file-20221004-26-hb3oh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488132/original/file-20221004-26-hb3oh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488132/original/file-20221004-26-hb3oh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488132/original/file-20221004-26-hb3oh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488132/original/file-20221004-26-hb3oh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488132/original/file-20221004-26-hb3oh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488132/original/file-20221004-26-hb3oh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488132/original/file-20221004-26-hb3oh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The 2020 U.S. census questionnaire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2020_census_questionnaire.jpg">Ɱ via Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The U.S. Census Bureau argues that its categories now adequately capture the heritage of the 62.6 million <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2021/08/improvements-to-2020-census-race-hispanic-origin-question-designs.html">Hispanics that flourish in the U.S.</a> “because all detailed Hispanic origin groups are included in the newly combined code list.” </p>
<p>In fact, however, if your heritage stems from one of the hundreds of Indigenous or Afro-descended groups in Latin America, these identities remain outside of the way the U.S. captures race among the Hispanic populations. That may explain why, <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/2020-united-states-population-more-racially-ethnically-diverse-than-2010.html">according to the Census Bureau</a> “the vast majority (94%) of responses to the race question that are classified as Some Other Race are from people of Hispanic or Latino origin.” </p>
<h2>Overgeneralized and under-recognized</h2>
<p>When the fixed categories of a census erase the diversity of a population, the gross miscalculations that result may harm a country’s ability to appropriately respond to the needs of its people. </p>
<p>For example, the overgeneralizing of U.S. Hispanics hurts the quality of American education and health care when these institutions assume that Latin American heritage communities speak Spanish. In addition to Indigenous languages, Latino Afro-descendant populations may not speak Spanish but rather may speak French or Haitian Creole, Portuguese or an Indigenous language. If they are from the Miskito Coast of Nicaragua, they may speak an English Creole. </p>
<p>These language differences reflect unique cultures and histories that relate to how people engage with doctors, teachers, politicians and much more. </p>
<p>Failing to recognize the diversity of Hispanics also creates frequent election surprises in the U.S. For example, pollsters <a href="https://theconversation.com/so-called-latino-vote-is-32-million-americans-with-diverse-political-opinions-and-national-origins-149515">got the Latino vote all wrong in 2020</a> by lumping together 32 million people with diverse political opinions and national origins as “Latino.” <a href="https://theconversation.com/democrats-cant-count-on-latinos-to-swing-the-midterms-105338">Democrats arguably made the same mistake</a> in 2018. </p>
<p>In overgeneralizing Hispanics, the U.S may also overlook – to its own detriment – the knowledge and experience of a culturally unique people who bring with them alternative understandings of the world, some of which I’ve studied as an anthropologist focused on food security, migration and health in Latin America. These include agricultural practices that can aid <a href="http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in">American farmers in responding to the global climate crisis</a> and Mesoamerican strategies for health based on <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32848768/">communal care and traditional remedies</a>. </p>
<h2>A growing community with more to offer</h2>
<p>Despite its limitations, U.S. census data clearly shows that the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/15/who-is-hispanic/">Hispanic population continues to grow</a>. While the overall U.S. population increased 7% between 2010 and 2020, the Hispanic population expanded by 23%. Today, 1 in every 5 people in the U.S. identifies with Hispanic or Latino heritage.</p>
<p>This growth is particularly notable in the South – in states like Georgia and North Carolina – and in rural areas. The Hispanic population has become a demographic lifeline for parts of small-town America that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-020-09605-8">experienced significant population loss in the late 20th century</a>. </p>
<p>Hispanic communities have also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716211433445">reinvigorated urban neighborhoods</a> as they open small businesses.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488138/original/file-20221004-22-69f9oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man and woman dance as men in a traditional Mexican costumes entertain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488138/original/file-20221004-22-69f9oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488138/original/file-20221004-22-69f9oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488138/original/file-20221004-22-69f9oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488138/original/file-20221004-22-69f9oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488138/original/file-20221004-22-69f9oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488138/original/file-20221004-22-69f9oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488138/original/file-20221004-22-69f9oq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who live in Brooklyn, New York, celebrate a birthday in Prospect Park on April 4, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-and-woman-dance-as-men-in-a-traditional-mexican-news-photo/1310826559?phrase=Mexican%20brooklyn&adppopup=true">Roy Rochlin/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Rebuilding cities, stabilizing rural counties, expanding local economies – these are among the group contributions made by the community of Americans celebrated each year during Hispanic Heritage Month. </p>
<p>The better we understand the nuances of this large population, the better we will understand who we are as a nation – and benefit more fully from our diversity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ramona L. Pérez receives funding from the Tinker Foundation, National Science Foundation, and the US Department of Agriculture. She is affiliated with the American Anthropological Association, where she currently serves as president. </span></em></p>Countries across the Americas are tweaking their census to better understand their population, allowing them to create more responsive policies. The US still has a ways to go.Ramona L. Pérez, Professor of Anthropology, San Diego State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1467842020-10-15T13:36:42Z2020-10-15T13:36:42ZWhat developing countries can teach rich countries about how to respond to a pandemic<p>Nine months into the pandemic, Europe remains one of the regions worst affected by COVID-19. Ten of the 20 countries with the <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality">highest death count per million people</a> are European. The other ten are in the Americas. This includes the US, which has the highest number of confirmed cases and deaths in the world.</p>
<p>Most of Africa and Asia, on the contrary, still seems spared. Of the countries with reported COVID-related deaths, the ten with the lowest death count per million are in these parts of the world. But while mistakes and misjudgements have fuelled <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-virus-surges-critics-say-uk-hasnt-learned-from-mistakes/">sustained criticism</a> of the UK’s handling of the pandemic, the success of much of the developing world remains unsung.</p>
<p>Of course, a number of factors may explain lower levels of disease in the developing world: <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/why-is-belgiums-death-toll-so-high/">different approaches to recording deaths</a>, Africa’s <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/5/5/e002699">young demographic profile</a>, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-africas-low-covid-19-death-rate-has-multiple-causes-who-says/">greater use of outdoor spaces</a>, or possibly even high levels of <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/pandemic-appears-have-spared-africa-so-far-scientists-are-struggling-explain-why">potentially protective antibodies</a> gained from other infections. </p>
<p>But statistical uncertainty and favourable biology are not the full story. Some developing countries have clearly fared better by responding earlier and more forcefully against COVID-19. Many have the legacy of Sars, Mers and Ebola in their institutional memory. As industrialised countries have struggled, much of the developing world has quietly shown remarkable levels of preparedness and creativity during the pandemic. Yet the developed world is paying little attention. </p>
<p>When looking at successful strategies, it’s the experiences of other developed nations – like <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-exemplar-germany">Germany</a> and <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2246858-why-new-zealand-decided-to-go-for-full-elimination-of-the-coronavirus/">New Zealand</a> – that are predominantly cited by journalists and politicians. There is an apparent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/21/africa-coronavirus-successes-innovation-europe-us">unwillingness to learn</a> from developing countries – a blind spot that fails to recognise that “their” local knowledge can be just as relevant to “our” developed world problems.</p>
<p>With infectious outbreaks <a href="https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/5-reasons-why-pandemics-like-covid-19-are-becoming-more-likely">likely to become more common</a> around the world, this needs to change. There is much to learn from developing countries in terms of leadership, preparedness and innovation. The question is: what’s stopping industrialised nations from heeding the developing world’s lessons?</p>
<h2>Good leadership goes a long way</h2>
<p>When it comes to managing infectious diseases, African countries show that experience is the best teacher. The World Health Organization’s <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/334185/OEW36-310806092020.pdf">weekly bulletin on outbreaks and other emergencies</a> showed that at the end of September, countries in sub-Saharan Africa were dealing with 116 ongoing infectious disease events, 104 outbreaks and 12 humanitarian emergencies.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
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<p>For African nations, COVID-19 is not a singular problem. It’s being managed alongside Lassa fever, yellow fever, cholera, measles and many others. This expertise makes these countries more alert and willing to deploy scarce resources to stop outbreaks before they become widespread. Their mantra might best be summarised as: act decisively, act together and act now. When resources are limited, containment and prevention are the best strategies.</p>
<p>This is evident in how African countries have responded to COVID-19, from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-africa-idUSKBN2120YR">quickly closing borders</a> to showing strong political will to combat the virus. While <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/18/how-did-britain-get-its-response-to-coronavirus-so-wrong">Britain dithered</a> and allowed itself to sleepwalk into the pandemic, Mauritius (the tenth most densely populated nation in the world) began <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/mauritian-response-covid-19">screening airport arrivals and quarantining visitors</a> from high-risk countries. This was two months before its first case was even detected.</p>
<p>And within ten days of Nigeria’s first case being announced on February 28, President Muhammadu Buhari had <a href="https://statehouse.gov.ng/covid19/objectives/">set up a taskforce</a> to lead the country’s containment response and keep both him and the country up to date on the disease. Compare this with the UK, whose first case was on January 31. Its COVID-19 action plan wasn’t unveiled until early March. In the intervening period, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, is said to have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/michael-gove-fails-to-deny-pm-missed-five-coronavirus-cobra-meetings">missed five emergency meetings</a> about the virus.</p>
<p>African leaders have also shown a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0961-x">strong desire to work together</a> on fighting the virus – a legacy of the 2013-2016 West African Ebola outbreak. This epidemic underlined that infectious diseases don’t respect borders, and led to the African Union setting up the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).</p>
<p>In April, the Africa CDC launched its <a href="https://africacdc.org/download/partnership-to-accelerate-covid-19-testing-pact-in-africa-social-media-materials/">Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing</a> (PACT), which is working to increase testing capacity and train and deploy health workers across the continent. It’s already provided laboratory equipment and testing reagents to Nigeria, and has <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/africa-cdc-launches-web-based-tool-better-administer-public-health-emergencies">deployed public health workers</a> from the African Health Volunteers Corps across the continent to fight the pandemic, applying knowledge picked up when fighting Ebola.</p>
<p>The Africa Union has also established a continent-wide platform for procuring laboratory and medical supplies: the <a href="https://amsp.africa/about-us/">Africa Medical Supplies Platform</a> (AMSP). It lets member states buy certified medical equipment – such as diagnostic kits and personal protective equipment – with increased cost effectiveness, through bulk purchasing and improved logistics. This also increases transparency and equity between members, lowering competition for crucial supplies. Compare this with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/02/global-battle-coronavirus-equipment-masks-tests">underhand tactics</a> used by some developed nations when competing for shipments of medical equipment. </p>
<p>The AMSP isn’t unique. The European Union has a similar platform – the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/health/preparedness_response/joint_procurement_en">Joint Procurement Agreement</a>. However, a <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1272242/EU-coronavirus-UK-PPE-ventilator-procurement-scheme-update">bumpy start</a> together with <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/european-commission-vax-companies-379866">slow and overly bureaucratic processes</a> led some countries to set up <a href="http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/four_european_nations_form_alliance_to_fast-track_covid-19_vaccine_1341492">parallel alliances</a> in an attempt to secure access to future vaccines. The AMSP avoided sharing this fate thanks to the African Union handing over its development to the private sector under the leadership of the Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa. He <a href="https://www.commonwealthsecurity.org/post/strive-masiyiwa-best-practices-from-africa-collaboration-in-the-time-of-covid-19">pulled together</a> the expertise needed to quickly develop a well-functioning platform, drawing on his contacts and businesses across the digital and telecoms sectors. </p>
<p>This contributed to the AMSP’s <a href="https://www.janngo.com/covid-19-the-africa-medical-supplies-platform-experiences-a-surge-in-demand-2/">popularity with vendors</a> and created high demand from member states. There are now plans to <a href="https://itweb.africa/content/RgeVDMPY4grqKJN3">expand access</a> to hospitals and local authorities approved by member states, and for additional support to be included from donors (such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MasterCard Foundation). Again, a decisive decision, focusing on installing strong leadership, has paid dividends.</p>
<p>Strong leadership on COVID-19 hasn’t been limited to African countries. The Vietnamese government has been <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep24880.pdf">widely praised</a> for its <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-prevention-vietnam-song-ghen-co-vy-tik-tok-challenge-about-washing-hands-quang-dang-john-oliver/">clear and engaging public health campaign</a>. This has been credited with bringing the country together and getting a wide amount of buy-in on efforts to control the virus. </p>
<p>Vietnam has also shown that good leadership involves acting on the lessons from the past. The 2003 Sars outbreak led to <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/222831563548465796/pdf/The-Future-of-Health-Financing-in-Vietnam-Ensuring-Sufficiency-Efficiency-and-Sustainability.pdf">strong investment in health infrastructure</a>, with an average annual increase of 9% in public health expenditure between 2000 and 2016. This gave Vietnam a head start during the early phases of the pandemic. </p>
<p>Vietnam’s experience with Sars also contributed to the design of effective containment strategies, which included quarantine measures based on exposure risk rather than symptoms. Badly affected countries such as the UK, which received warnings that its <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/exercise-cygnus-uncovered-pandemic-warnings-buried-government/">pandemic preparedness wasn’t up to scratch</a> years ago, should sit up and take note. Vietnam has one of the lowest COVID-19 <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/viet-nam/">death tolls</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, let’s look at Uruguay. The country has the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.65UP.TO.ZS?locations=ZJ-UY&most_recent_value_desc=true">highest percentage of over-65s</a> in South America, a largely urban population (only <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locations=UY">5% of Uruguayans</a> do not live in cities) and a hard-to-police land border with Brazil, so it should be a likely infection hotspot. Yet it has managed to curb the outbreak without enforcing lockdown.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3575">Early aggressive testing strategies</a> and having the humility to <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2247740-how-cuba-and-uruguay-are-quashing-coronavirus-as-neighbours-struggle/">ask the WHO for information</a> on best practices were among the ingredients of its successful response. Along with <a href="https://www.laprensagrafica.com/internacional/Gobierno-de-Costa-Rica-reduce-salario-al-gabinete-para-reducir-gasto-publico-en-la-pandemia-20200807-0008.html">Costa Rica</a>, Uruguay also introduced a temporary <a href="https://www.elobservador.com.uy/nota/gobierno-anunciara-10-de-rebaja-en-salarios-publicos-mayores-a-80-000-2020326175023">reduction in salaries</a> for its highest paid government officials to help fund the pandemic response. The measure was passed unanimously in parliament and contributed to high levels of social cohesion.</p>
<p>Of course, strong leadership isn’t limited to the Global South (<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/cc1f650a-91c0-4e1f-b990-ee8ceb5339ea">Germany</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/100-days-without-covid-19-how-new-zealand-got-rid-of-a-virus-that-keeps-spreading-across-the-world-143672">New Zealand</a> get top marks), nor do all southern countries have effective leadership (think of <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-how-brazil-became-the-second-worst-affected-country-in-the-world-141102">Brazil</a>). But the examples above show that good leadership – acting now, acting decisively and acting together – can go a long way to compensating for countries’ relative lack of resources.</p>
<h2>Doing more with less</h2>
<p>Necessity is said to be the mother of all invention – where money is in short supply, ingenuity abounds. This has been just as true during COVID-19 as at any other time, and is another lesson the developed world would do well to consider.</p>
<p>Early on in the pandemic, Senegal started developing a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/senegal-10-minute-coronavirus-test-1-200327053901231.html">ten-minute COVID-19 test</a> that costs less US$1 to administer and doesn’t need sophisticated laboratory equipment. Likewise, scientists in Rwanda developed a clever algorithm that allowed them to test lots of samples simultaneously by <a href="https://theconversation.com/rwandas-covid-19-pool-testing-a-savvy-option-where-theres-low-viral-prevalence-141704">pooling them together</a>. This reduced costs and turnaround times, ultimately leading to more people being tested and building a better picture of the disease in the country.</p>
<p>In Latin America, governments have embraced technology to monitor COVID-19 cases and send public health information. Colombia has developed the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/healthprotection/fetp-40th-anniversary/stories/colombia-app-covid.html">CoronApp</a>, which allows citizens to receive daily government messages and see how the virus is spreading in the country without using up data. Chile has created a <a href="http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2494302&CategoryId=14094">low-cost, unpatented coronavirus test</a>, allowing other low-resource countries to benefit from the technology. </p>
<p>Examples of entrepreneurship and innovation in the Global South aren’t restricted to the biomedical field. In Ghana, a former pilot whose company specialises in spraying crops repurposed his drones and had them <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-africa-innovation-idUSKBN2480OE">disinfect open-air markets and other public spaces</a>. This quickly and cheaply got a job done that would normally have taken several hours and half a dozen people to do. And in Zimbabwe, <a href="https://laoferta.com/2020/06/26/zimbabwean-farmers-get-tech-savvy-to-stay-in-business/">online grocery start-ups</a> are offering new opportunities for food sellers to retain customers wary of shopping in person. </p>
<p>While these are handpicked examples, they illustrate the importance of the capacity to innovate in conditions of scarcity – what is known as <a href="https://www.nesta.org.uk/feature/frugal-innovations/">“frugal innovation”</a>. They prove that simple, inexpensive or improvised solutions can solve complicated problems, and that frugal solutions don’t have to involve “chewing gum and baling wire” types of fixes.</p>
<p>The ability to deal with complex problems under resource constraints is a strength that can be useful for all, particularly given the pandemic’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51706225">eye-watering impact on high-income economies</a>. Solutions coming out of developing countries may offer far better value for money than the <a href="https://theconversation.com/boris-johnsons-moonshot-mass-testing-plan-is-not-the-way-out-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-145960">elaborate and expensive “moonshot” solutions</a> being mooted in countries like the UK.</p>
<h2>Why not follow these examples?</h2>
<p>This pandemic is another wake-up call. Since Ebola and Zika, governments around the world have known that they need to up the “global preparedness” agenda. It’s often said that when it comes to pandemics, the world is as weak as its weakest point. </p>
<p>Global action, however, requires moving beyond national interests to identify with the needs of others. We call this <a href="http://www.carolcgould.com/uploads/1/2/5/0/12505497/transnational_solidarities_published.pdf">“global solidarity”</a>. Unlike relationships of solidarity within nation states – which are based on a shared language, history, ethnicity and so on – global relationships need to recognise <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2012.01991.x">the interdependence of diverse actors</a>. Global solidarity is so difficult to achieve because it must accommodate difference rather than rely on commonality. </p>
<p>The pandemic has shown why we need global solidarity. Globalisation has made countries interdependent, not just economically but also biologically. And yet in recent months, isolationist stances <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2020-06-24/un-chief-criticises-lack-of-global-cooperation-on-covid-19">have prevailed</a>. From the USA <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52857413">pulling funding</a> from the WHO to the UK’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/uk-missed-three-chances-to-join-eu-scheme-to-bulk-buy-ppe">refusal to participate</a> in the EU’s Joint Procurement Agreement, countries are instead pursuing do-it-alone strategies. Within this inward-looking context, it’s little wonder that industrialised nations are failing to capitalise on lessons from Africa, Asia and Latin America. </p>
<p>It’s not a lack of recognition that there’s knowledge and expertise outside the developed world; it’s just that such knowledge is <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/06/04/developing-countries-can-respond-to-covid-19-in-ways-that-are-swift-at-scale-and-successful/">not seen as relevant</a> given the structural differences between developed and developing countries. On this point, consider this final example. </p>
<p>Between the start of April and the end of June, the Rural Development Foundation based in Sindh province in Pakistan on its own decreased the spread of infection in the region by more than 80%. It did this by engaging communities through information campaigns and sanitation measures. Community-level approaches have also been successfully deployed <a href="https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/05/14/covid-19-has-forced-a-reckoning-the-uk-has-much-to-learn-from-low-income-settings/">in the DRC and Sierra Leone</a>. During these countries’ Ebola outbreaks, rather than relying on tech and apps, authorities trained local people to do in-person contact tracing instead.</p>
<p>These community-level strategies were advocated by developed world experts, including from the UK. And yet, despite the clear current need, tried-and-tested low-cost approaches like this remain <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/nhs-coronavirus-crisis-volunteers-frustrated-at-lack-of-tasks">underused in high-income countries</a>. They’ve been disregarded in favour of <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/10/01/nhs-covid-19-app-track-trace-how-work-download-phone-now/">high-tech solutions</a>, which so far haven’t proved to be any more effective.</p>
<p>The problem, as this example illustrates, is the persistence of a pervasive narrative in global health that portrays industrialised countries as “advanced” in comparison with the “backward” or “poor” developing world, as described by Edward Said in his foundational book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)">Orientalism</a>. Europe’s failure to learn from developing countries is the inevitable consequence of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0263276409349275?casa_token=zM0_0U9jEh8AAAAA:hvrCS2wngWirPP4Py4ZqU75TixDqIDIWAq4cJQKrGlDtevJM5R7e8nqdb0Qvu22mBTaVZnJ01ZOCGQo">historically ingrained narratives</a> of development and underdevelopment that maintain the idea that the so-called developed world has everything to teach and nothing to learn.</p>
<p>But if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that these times demand that we recalibrate our perceptions of knowledge and expertise. A “second wave” is already on Europe’s doorstep. Many countries in the southern hemisphere are still in the middle of the first. The much talked-up <a href="https://apps.who.int/gpmb/assets/annual_report/GPMB_AR_2020_EN.pdf">global preparedness</a> agenda will require responses to be handled very differently from what we’ve seen so far, with global solidarity and cooperation front and centre. A healthy start would be for developed countries to get rid of their <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-in/sports/sports-index/englands-world-beating-system-to-track-the-coronavirus-is-anything-but/ar-BB15EJw1">“world-beating”</a> mindset, cultivate the humility to engage with countries they don’t normally look towards, and learn from them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
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<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-unidentified-zimbabweans-lie-in-secret-mass-graves-and-i-want-to-find-them-122586?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Thousands of unidentified Zimbabweans lie in secret mass graves – and I want to find them</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-future-of-periods-can-now-be-sustainable-and-cheap-133025?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The future of periods can now be sustainable and cheap</a></em></p></li>
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<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When it comes to leadership and innovation, there’s much that industrialised nations can learn.Maru Mormina, Senior Researcher and Global Development Ethics Advisor, University of OxfordIfeanyi M Nsofor, Senior Atlantic Fellow in Health Equity, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1458752020-09-09T15:46:36Z2020-09-09T15:46:36ZFight fire with trade: how Europe can help save the Amazon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357212/original/file-20200909-22-lg71a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=507%2C561%2C3472%2C1667&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thiago Foresti</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The EU is thinking about agreeing to a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/eu-mercosur-association-agreement/index_en.htm">€4 billion trade deal</a> with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay (known as the Mercosur bloc). In our new academic research, myself and 21 international co-authors looked at the details of this deal so you don’t have to. What <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(20)30422-X">we found</a> wasn’t pretty. </p>
<p>Even though negotiations took two decades, the deal failed to include Indigenous groups or local communities in negotiations. This is crucial given that murders of Indigenous leaders in the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest level in <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/murders-of-indigenous-leaders-in-brazil-amazon-hit-highest-level-in-two-decades/">two decades</a>. Many of these violent attacks are linked to land grabs for agricultural expansion, and very few of them are <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/09/17/rainforest-mafias/how-violence-and-impunity-fuel-deforestation-brazils-amazon">officially investigated</a>.</p>
<p>Worryingly, this trade deal would guarantee cheaper beef and ongoing tariff-free soy – the two top drivers of deforestation in the region. Despite this, the deal fails to provide mechanisms to ensure that deforestation and human rights violations are not linked to the commodities imported into the EU, clearly in contradiction to the goals of the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en">EU Green Deal</a>.</p>
<p>To add insult to injury, Brazil’s government is doing the opposite of what the country agreed to in the Paris Agreement – to reduce deforestation. Right now, fires are raging through the Amazon at the same <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-fires-exclusive/exclusive-brazil-amazon-fires-likely-worst-in-10-years-august-data-incomplete-government-researcher-says-idUSKBN25T349">startling rate</a> as 2019, while unprecedented burning is sweeping through <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/30/argentina-delta-fires-rage-out-of-control-parana-river">Argentina’s</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/world/americas/brazil-wetlands-fires-pantanal.html">Brazil’s wetlands</a>. Out of control fires in wetlands really shouldn’t be a thing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Unfinished horse drawing meme." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357218/original/file-20200909-20-1vdmzxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357218/original/file-20200909-20-1vdmzxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357218/original/file-20200909-20-1vdmzxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357218/original/file-20200909-20-1vdmzxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357218/original/file-20200909-20-1vdmzxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357218/original/file-20200909-20-1vdmzxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357218/original/file-20200909-20-1vdmzxc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eight word summary of our research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/unfinished-horse-drawing">Laura Kehoe / Ali Bati</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The tide looks like it might be turning on this agreement, with German chancellor Angela Merkel recently voicing “<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/merkel-amazon-deforestation-threatens-eu-mercosur-deal/a-54651194#:%7E:text=German%2520Chancellor%2520Angela%2520Merkel%2520has,her%2520spokesman%2520said%2520on%2520Friday.">considerable doubts</a>” following a meeting with youth climate activists.</p>
<p>Here’s the deeper issue that’s often ignored: even without this contentious deal, the ongoing problems of international trade will be left untouched.</p>
<p>The EU is already responsible for hefty imports from the Mercosur bloc. It imports more than <a href="https://circabc.europa.eu/sd/a/ecca07a5-5d56-47b1-a678-e24cceeb450c/oilseeds-trade-2017-18-marketing-year-July-December.pdf">10 million tonnes</a> of soy (for livestock feed) and over <a href="https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2019/june/tradoc_157955.pdf">200,000 tonnes</a> of beef every year. Imports from the Mercosur bloc to the EU already result in deforestation equivalent to one football pitch <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab0d41">every three minutes</a>. All while the Amazon nears a <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/12/eaba2949">tipping point</a> that if reached could trigger a rapid shift from lush tropical rainforest to a dry savanna. This would be catastrophic for Indigenous people, the region’s agriculture, and the world’s climate.</p>
<p>If we are serious about combating climate change and supporting human rights, we must take urgent action.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357216/original/file-20200909-22-j3g7r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Infographic showing various problems with the EU-Mercosur trade deal" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357216/original/file-20200909-22-j3g7r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357216/original/file-20200909-22-j3g7r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357216/original/file-20200909-22-j3g7r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357216/original/file-20200909-22-j3g7r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357216/original/file-20200909-22-j3g7r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357216/original/file-20200909-22-j3g7r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357216/original/file-20200909-22-j3g7r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Infographic from the academic article published in the journal One Earth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Kehoe</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Things could be so much better</h2>
<p>First things first: it’s clear that we need to cut down on foods that have high environmental impacts such as meat. Europeans eat so much meat that they are not only driving deforestation abroad, but also causing health problems at home. Excessive meat consumption is associated with increased rates of coronary <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2017.1392288">heart disease, strokes</a>, and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%252Fs11883-012-0282-8">type 2 diabetes</a>, with convincing evidence that red and processed meat <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0020456">can cause cancer</a>. If we ate more delicious plants, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/46/23357">we’d feel better and the planet would too</a>.</p>
<p>However, fixing our diets alone won’t be enough to completely solve this issue. To avoid unintentionally fuelling conflict and ecocide abroad, Europeans also need to fundamentally fix trade.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1303716169426366466"}"></div></p>
<p>Luckily, solving this crisis doesn’t require fancy new inventions or a technological leap. Our research outlines the mechanisms needed to transform trade for the better, all of which are available to us now. For example, we could actually listen to Indigenous peoples and local communities and work to ensure they don’t lose their land to illegal invasions. We could trace the origin of products to make sure they don’t come from areas of deforestation or conflict. We could introduce legal mechanisms like collective redress – where vulnerable communities have a means to seek legal action.</p>
<p>Crucially though, even if we hold every company to account and trace every soybean, we could still indirectly drive pressure on South America’s last remaining forests, savannas, and wetlands if our demand increases. To avoid this, it’s important that we make trade deals contingent on countries making wider progress towards international commitments – the Paris agreement being a prime example.</p>
<p>Imagine if the economic muscle of trade was used to create a new playing field, where entering the game required genuine progress on reducing deforestation and supporting human rights. In the case of Brazil, Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/07/31/europe-can-help-us-save-amazon">suggests</a> two clear benchmarks of progress that should be met before considering ratifying any new trade deals:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li><p>Substantial progress in ending impunity for violence against forest defenders, as measured by the number of these cases investigated, prosecuted, and brought to trial.</p></li>
<li><p>A reduction in deforestation rates that is sufficient to put the country back on track to meet its own targets under the Paris Agreement.</p></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>Ultimately, we need to have the courage to stand up and act in line with the values we already hold. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to live in a world that isn’t hellbent on destruction? Where we can have dinner without worrying about whether our meal has a shady past?</p>
<p>Our research outlines what’s needed to fundamentally fix trade - it’s now up to the EU to step up and become a leader in sustainability that we can all be proud of.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145875/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Kehoe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The proposed EU-Mercosur deal would guarantee cheap beef and lock in further deforestation. But our new research shows it is possible to transform trade for the better.Laura Kehoe, Researcher in Conservation Decision Science and Land Use, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440002020-08-16T20:14:21Z2020-08-16T20:14:21ZFrom the COVID-19 epicentre: lessons from Latin American cities’ successes and failures<p>Latin America is now the <a href="http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/latin-americas-coronavirus-crisis-why-it-disproportionally-affects-the-poor/">epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. The fastest spread of the disease in the region’s cities follows a pattern of contagion that is anything but arbitrary. Disturbing images in international media depict the unfolding crisis, from disinfection campaigns in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to stockpiles of cardboard coffins in Guayaquil, Ecuador. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/deaths-and-desperation-mount-in-ecuador-epicenter-of-coronavirus-pandemic-in-latin-america-137015">Deaths and desperation mount in Ecuador, epicenter of coronavirus pandemic in Latin America</a>
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<p>By this week, <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/latin-america-caribbean-pass-europe-in-covid-19-deaths/1934209">about 30%</a> of the <a href="https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases">world’s reported cases</a> were in the region. But some centres have been much worse hit than others.
Two factors underpin these variations: levels of inequality, and the ways governments and communities are handling the crisis.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352858/original/file-20200814-18-1olzvi3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="World map showing distribution of reported COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population for each country" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352858/original/file-20200814-18-1olzvi3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352858/original/file-20200814-18-1olzvi3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352858/original/file-20200814-18-1olzvi3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352858/original/file-20200814-18-1olzvi3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352858/original/file-20200814-18-1olzvi3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352858/original/file-20200814-18-1olzvi3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352858/original/file-20200814-18-1olzvi3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Worldwide distribution of 14-day cumulative number of reported COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population. Darkest colours indicate highest rates of infection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases">ECDC</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Across the region’s largest cities, the <a href="https://www.as-coa.org/articles/coronavirus-latin-america">first cases had appeared</a> by early March in well-off neighbourhoods. Not until May were <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases">exponential rates of infection recorded</a> in most Latin American countries. The surge in cases reflected the spread of coronavirus across cities and into their poorest neighbourhoods. </p>
<h2>The poor are more vulnerable</h2>
<p>Many of the urban poor have <a href="http://www.unla.edu.ar/novedades/estudio-de-la-unla-y-el-conicet-revela-que-apenas-un-tercio-de-las-trabajadoras-domesticas-sigue-cobrando-su-salario-en-cuarentena">not been able to manage risk</a> in the way that the better-off do. To make ends meet they often travel long distances in public transport to work in wealthier neighbourhoods. Those who have jobs are often employed in the informal economy: cleaning houses, fixing electrical problems, selling vegetables and so on. </p>
<p>By June 2020, infection rates were increasing in many middle-class neighbourhoods too –
for example, in <a href="https://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/coronavirus/noticias/actualizacion-de-los-casos-de-coronavirus-en-la-ciudad-buenos-aires">Buenos Aires</a>. However, self-isolation is a more realistic prospect in these areas. Medical care is also more accessible.</p>
<p>Inequality created ideal conditions for COVID-19 to spread. The disease <a href="https://blogs.iadb.org/ideas-que-cuentan/es/la-importancia-de-las-politicas-de-busqueda-activa-de-casos-covid-19-en-barrios-marginales/">disproportionately affects residents of informal settlements</a> in the largest cities. <a href="https://www.techo.org/mexico/informate/cidh-audiencia-regional-asentamientos-informales-america-latina/">One-fifth</a> of the Latin American population lives in such settlements.</p>
<p>As well as their work being insecure, their <a href="https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/regularization-informal-settlements-latin-america-full_0.pdf">living conditions</a> add to their vulnerability. Some of the problems faced can include overcrowding, malnutrition, deficient sewer systems, limited (and often paid) access to drinkable water, overwhelmed or unaffordable health services and indoor air pollution from cooking (with open fires or simple stoves, for example).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/so-coronavirus-will-change-cities-will-that-include-slums-137072">So coronavirus will change cities – will that include slums?</a>
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<p>Given these conditions, COVID-19 is far from a levelling force. It is the latest crisis to reveal old and hard truths about Latin America’s social and economic geography.</p>
<h2>Quality of governance laid bare</h2>
<p>The virus has not spread unabated in all Latin American cities. The quality of governance and the preparedness of services have greatly affected outcomes between cities and countries. </p>
<p>Some have paid a high price for the harmful impacts of inconsistent communications by authorities and political leaders, weak public health systems, liberalised employment conditions and lack of support for disadvantaged groups.</p>
<p>Mortality analyses conducted by the <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality">Coronavirus Resource Center</a> at John Hopkins University show six of the countries most affected by COVID-19 worldwide are now in Latin America. Brazil, Chile and Peru have reached 50 or more deaths per 100,000 population. Nowhere has it been made clearer how a chronically underfunded public health system leaves behind vulnerable people. </p>
<p>The mortality rate is lower in other parts of the region. In these countries, strict restrictions have been introduced and the public health systems bolstered since the start of the pandemic. Leading examples include Uruguay, with 1.07 deaths per 100,000 people, and Argentina (11.7/100,000).</p>
<p>In June, Time included Argentina’s response in “<a href="https://time.com/5851633/best-global-responses-covid-19">The Best Global Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic</a>”. In the capital, Buenos Aires, co-ordination between the three levels of government has been strong on public health as well as economic and social protection measures despite political differences. Shared communications have backed strict lockdown measures every fortnight since March 20 (read more about the Buenos Aires experience <a href="https://crawford.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/17295/covid-19-suppression-buenos-aires-five-factors-work-worlds-longest-lockdown">here</a>).</p>
<h2>Bottom-up efforts are vital too</h2>
<p>It is not just top-down approaches by government that make a difference to local outcomes. The bottom-up work of social organisations in Latin American cities has also been vital. </p>
<p>We see this work especially in informal settlements that lack public services. Often run voluntarily and by women, these organisations cook meals for people in need, make masks, source medications, spread public information and fix broken houses. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-mumbais-poorest-neighbourhood-is-battling-to-keep-coronavirus-at-bay-137504">How Mumbai's poorest neighbourhood is battling to keep coronavirus at bay</a>
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<p>Many of their actions are also directed toward the state. With an ethic of care, they seek to drive anti-neoliberal change and demonstrate a better urban future centred on people’s real lives and desires. </p>
<p>For example, across the region feminist social movements and politics are dismantling patriarchal perspectives about modern cities. Their collective response to the COVID-19 crisis is a demonstration of solidarity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352453/original/file-20200812-20-uuvi3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Posts by Latin American feminist groups" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352453/original/file-20200812-20-uuvi3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352453/original/file-20200812-20-uuvi3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352453/original/file-20200812-20-uuvi3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352453/original/file-20200812-20-uuvi3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352453/original/file-20200812-20-uuvi3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352453/original/file-20200812-20-uuvi3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352453/original/file-20200812-20-uuvi3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Feminist movements debate ‘ecofeminism’ and ‘the city we want to return to’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ciudadfeminista.cl/%20https://www.ciudaddeldeseo.com/">Ecofeminism Encounters, Latin American Dialogue (https://www.ciudadfeminista.cl/, https://www.ciudaddeldeseo.com/)</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Remaking cities after the pandemic</h2>
<p>Looking forward to the post-pandemic city, there are valuable lessons to be learnt from Latin America. </p>
<p>First, debilitating inequality must be redressed. Poverty has been built into the way cities are developed. But this is now being denaturalised. </p>
<p>Second, co-ordinated and strong state-led action that made public health the priority has saved lives in cities like Buenos Aires. Bipartisan leadership and collaboration between levels of government can also help us deal with pressing urban challenges in the future. </p>
<p>Third, because of the ubiquitous albeit unequal way coronavirus has affected people across cities, there is potential for a post-pandemic future that focuses on collective well-being. </p>
<p>Many Latin American social organisations, and the networks between them, offer hope and direction for the challenge of recovery. Not only do they provide vital support in crisis management, they could play a democratising role in shaping politics and state responses to redress inequality over the long term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hayley Henderson previously received an APA scholarship while undertaking her PhD studies at The University of Melbourne on integrated planning in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Melbourne, Australia. </span></em></p>Latin America now has about 6 million COVID-19 cases – 30% of the global total. But some cities have fared much worse than others, largely due to the quality of government and community responses.Hayley Henderson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1427062020-07-22T11:58:33Z2020-07-22T11:58:33ZHow other countries reopened schools during the pandemic – and what the US can learn from them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348707/original/file-20200721-19-1oxa443.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=411%2C74%2C4580%2C2994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Class is in session in Uruguay, one of the first countries in the Western Hemisphere to reopen its schools. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Virus-Outbreak-Uruguay/f51b789442b54e789666b36e87ffed29/1/0">AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As American school officials debate when it will be safe for schoolchildren to return to classrooms, looking abroad may offer insights. Nearly every country in the world <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/apa.15432">shuttered their schools early in the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. Many have since sent students back to class, with varying degrees of success.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://spcs.richmond.edu/people/bspires/">scholar of comparative international education</a>. For this article, I examined what happened in four countries where K-12 schools either stayed open throughout the pandemic or have resumed in-person instruction, using press reports, national COVID-19 data and <a href="https://globalhealth.washington.edu/sites/default/files/COVID-19%20Schools%20Summary%20%282%29.pdf?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkRreE5XWXlORFF3TXpNeCIsInQiOiJIbVNQTTVySEo0Vzk1cHVBZVVqWnFGVmR1UEJxRGdpd01mTXg4OGw3Mk5nTnpmaUoyMGt2UXIwWVZBOE5GVjIybHA5aStrbzJ3MUxsanoxamZibmlocmpSbXZyVFVoV0VHYU1aTGx0RnpsMXlmOEtXSVJqaDJsZ0RJU1BQcVZjZSJ9">academic studies</a>. </p>
<p>Here’s what I found.</p>
<h2>Israel: Too much, too soon</h2>
<p>Israel took stringent steps early on in the coronavirus pandemic, including severely restricting everyone’s movement and closing all schools. By June, it was being <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/08/middleeast/israel-coronavirus-second-wave-netanyahu-intl/index.html">lauded internationally</a> for containing the spread of COVID-19.</p>
<p>But shortly after schools reopened in May, on a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/224fa625-657c-4ffb-a6a0-a40e04d685b9">staggered schedule paired with mask mandates and social distancing rules</a>, COVID-19 cases <a href="https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1278682387325616129">surged</a> across Israel. <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-data-show-school-openings-were-a-disaster-that-wiped-out-lockdown-gains">Schoolchildren and teachers</a> were among the sick. Today, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/school-openings-across-globe-suggest-ways-keep-coronavirus-bay-despite-outbreaks">several hundred Israeli schools have closed again</a>. </p>
<p>Some blame <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/15/21324082/coronavirus-school-reopening-trump-children-safety">lax enforcement of health guidelines</a> in schools. The weather didn’t help: In May, a <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/school-openings-across-globe-suggest-ways-keep-coronavirus-bay-despite-outbreaks">record heat wave hit Israel</a>, making masks uncomfortable for students to wear. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348709/original/file-20200721-25-1xczr28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Children wearing face masks walk close together with an adult" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348709/original/file-20200721-25-1xczr28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348709/original/file-20200721-25-1xczr28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348709/original/file-20200721-25-1xczr28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348709/original/file-20200721-25-1xczr28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348709/original/file-20200721-25-1xczr28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348709/original/file-20200721-25-1xczr28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348709/original/file-20200721-25-1xczr28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">No social distancing here, Tel Aviv, July 6, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Israel/1266fc7e9be44f51920286f6e0c1a2ba/1/0">AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner</a></span>
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<p>But schools were only part of a broader reopening in Israel that, many experts say, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/where-we-went-wrong-expert-says-these-3-blunders-caused-new-israeli-covid-chaos/">came too soon and without sufficient testing capacity</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p>
<p>“The reopening happened too fast,” said <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-data-show-school-openings-were-a-disaster-that-wiped-out-lockdown-gains">Mohammed Khatib, an epidemiologist on Israel’s national COVID-19 task force</a>. “It was undertaken so quickly that it triggered a very sharp spike, and the return to more conservative measures came too little, much too late.”</p>
<p>Israel’s public health director, Siegal Sadetski, resigned in early July, saying the health ministry had ignored her warnings about <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-battles-new-wave-coronavirus-infections-after-reopening-n1233139">reopening schools and businesses</a> so rapidly.</p>
<h2>Sweden: A hands-off approach</h2>
<p>Schools never closed in Sweden, part of the Scandinavian country’s risky <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/15/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-deaths.html">gamble on skipping a coronavirus lockdown</a>. Only students 16 and older stayed home and did remote learning. <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/05/sweden-hasnt-locked-down-but-normal-life-is-a-luxury/">Social distancing</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/school-openings-across-globe-suggest-ways-keep-coronavirus-bay-despite-outbreaks">masks were recommended but optional</a>, in line with the Swedish government’s emphasis on personal choice. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348706/original/file-20200721-27-1j24pw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People sit at tables inside a small restaurant" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348706/original/file-20200721-27-1j24pw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348706/original/file-20200721-27-1j24pw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348706/original/file-20200721-27-1j24pw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348706/original/file-20200721-27-1j24pw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348706/original/file-20200721-27-1j24pw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348706/original/file-20200721-27-1j24pw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348706/original/file-20200721-27-1j24pw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A restaurant in Stockholm still full of diners, March 25, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Sweden/1f62c6496c1a4f01be9f99339c58c5d0/4/0">AP Photo/David Keyton</a></span>
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<p>This strategy earned <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/schools-reopening-coronavirus/2020/07/10/865fb3e6-c122-11ea-8908-68a2b9eae9e0_story.html">praise from President Donald Trump</a> but some resistance from Swedish parents, especially those whose children have health issues. The government threatened to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-compels-parents-send-kids-to-school-2020-5">punish parents</a> who didn’t send their kids to school. </p>
<p>Sweden’s plan <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-schools-sweden-denmark-5ff88c81-67e3-4c33-8b74-fe57b9555827.html">seems to have been safe enough</a>. Its health agency reported on July 15 that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-schools/swedens-health-agency-says-open-schools-did-not-spur-pandemic-spread-among-children-idUSKCN24G2IS">COVID-19 outbreaks among Sweden’s 1 million school children</a> were no worse than those in neighboring Finland, which did close schools. And pediatricians have seen <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa864">few severe COVID-19 cases</a> among school-age children in Stockholm. Only <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden-by-age-groups/">one young Swedish child is believed to have died of the coronavirus</a> as of this article’s publication. </p>
<p>However, officials in Stockholm have admitted they don’t know how the disease may have affected teachers, parents and other adults in schools.</p>
<p>Sweden had <a href="https://www.coronatracker.com/country/sweden/">over 70,000 COVID-19 cases</a> as of July 21, which puts it in the middle of the pack in Europe, according to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa864">a joint study</a> from Sweden’s Upsala University and the University of Virginia. Of those, slightly more than <a href="https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/c1b78bffbfde4a7899eb0d8ffdb57b09/covid-19-school-aged-children.pdf">1,000 involved children and teens</a>. </p>
<h2>Japan: So far, so good</h2>
<p>Japan, which has mostly <a href="https://www.coronatracker.com/?country_code=JP">kept COVID-19 under control</a>, took <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/japan-coronavirus-schools-reopen/2020/06/06/9047be8c-a645-11ea-8681-7d471bf20207_story.html">a conservative approach</a> to reopening schools in June. </p>
<p>Different schools have <a href="https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/06/bdd000c967a7-school-restarts-picking-up-in-japan-amid-lingering-coronavirus-fears.html">different strategies</a>, but generally Japanese students <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/18/national/japan-schools-reopen-state-of-emergency/">attend class in person on alternating days</a>, so that classrooms are only half full. Lunches are silent and socially distanced, and students undergo daily temperature checks. </p>
<p>These precautions are <a href="https://globalhealth.washington.edu/sites/default/files/COVID-19%20Schools%20Summary%20%282%29.pdf?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkRreE5XWXlORFF3TXpNeCIsInQiOiJIbVNQTTVySEo0Vzk1cHVBZVVqWnFGVmR1UEJxRGdpd01mTXg4OGw3Mk5nTnpmaUoyMGt2UXIwWVZBOE5GVjIybHA5aStrbzJ3MUxsanoxamZibmlocmpSbXZyVFVoV0VHYU1aTGx0RnpsMXlmOEtXSVJqaDJsZ0RJU1BQcVZjZSJ9">more stringent than those in many other countries</a>. Still, some Japanese school children have <a href="https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/06/bdd000c967a7-school-restarts-picking-up-in-japan-amid-lingering-coronavirus-fears.html">gotten COVID-19</a>, particularly in major cities. </p>
<p>A survey from Save the Children found that Japanese school children <a href="https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00744/">wanted more clear and detailed information</a> about the virus and the outbreaks. <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/04/06/national/japan-parents-back-to-school-coronavirus/">Parents</a>, students and <a href="https://japan-forward.com/what-its-like-going-back-to-school-after-the-coronavirus-emergency/">teachers</a> continue to express hesitancy about returning to school and <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/06/09/national/japanese-students-coronavirus-measures-school/">displeasure over reopening measures</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348720/original/file-20200721-35-wmj61x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Nurse in protective gear takes the temperature of a small child" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348720/original/file-20200721-35-wmj61x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348720/original/file-20200721-35-wmj61x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348720/original/file-20200721-35-wmj61x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348720/original/file-20200721-35-wmj61x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348720/original/file-20200721-35-wmj61x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348720/original/file-20200721-35-wmj61x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348720/original/file-20200721-35-wmj61x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Temperature check at Kinugawa Elementary School in Nikko, Japan, June 3, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pupil-has-her-temperature-taken-by-a-school-nurse-at-news-photo/1217222086?adppopup=true">Carl Court/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Uruguay: A+ for safety</h2>
<p>Analysts credit Uruguay’s <a href="https://www.wlrn.org/post/small-uruguay-big-proof-committing-public-health-can-contain-covid-19#stream/0">well-organized and efficient public health system</a> and Uruguyans’ <a href="https://theconversation.com/uruguay-quietly-beats-coronavirus-distinguishing-itself-from-its-south-american-neighbors-yet-again-140037">strong faith in government</a> for its success stopping the coronavirus. The progressive South American country of 3.4 million has the region’s <a href="https://www.wlrn.org/post/small-uruguay-big-proof-committing-public-health-can-contain-covid-19#stream/0">lowest rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths</a>, and it never shut down its economy entirely. </p>
<p>Uruguay was one of the Western Hemisphere’s first countries to send its students back to school, using a <a href="https://blogs.iadb.org/educacion/en/uruguayreopening/">staged approach</a>. </p>
<p>In late April, Uruguay <a href="https://www.elobservador.com.uy/nota/gobierno-anuncio-que-el-22-de-abril-se-pueden-retomar-las-clases-en-973-escuelas-rurales-202048204622">reopened schools in rural areas</a>, where the student population is small. In early June, it brought vulnerable student groups, which were <a href="https://blogs.iadb.org/educacion/en/uruguayreopening/">struggling to access online learning</a>, and high school seniors back into classrooms. Then all students in non-urban areas went back to classrooms. </p>
<p>Finally, on June 29, <a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2020/06/29/uruguay-completa-la-reapertura-de-las-escuelas-256-mil-alumnos-vuelven-a-clase-en-montevideo/">256,000 students in the capital of Montevideo</a> returned to school. An <a href="https://labs.ebanx.com/en/notes/uruguay-one-of-the-first-in-the-americas-to-reopen-schools/">alternating schedule</a> of in-person and virtual instruction reduces the number of students in classrooms at one time. </p>
<p>Uruguay is notable for residents’ <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-30/in-midst-of-covid-chaos-one-latin-american-nation-gets-it-right">consistent and early adoption of measures</a> like social distancing and masks. Its successful pandemic response comes despite its <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-30/in-midst-of-covid-chaos-one-latin-american-nation-gets-it-right">proximity to hard-hit Brazil</a>, where schools remain closed.</p>
<h2>Final grades</h2>
<p>There is no perfect way to reopen schools during a pandemic. Even when a country has COVID-19 under control, there’s no guarantee that schools can reopen safely.</p>
<p>But the policies and practices of countries that have had some initial success with schools point in the same direction. It helps to slowly stage the reopening. Strict mask wearing and social distancing is critical, both in schools and surrounding communities. And both officials and families need <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/puar.13252">reliable and up-to-date data</a> so that they can continually assess outbreaks – and change course quickly if necessary.</p>
<p><iframe id="uPQAB" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/uPQAB/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>That complicates school reopenings in the U.S., with its <a href="https://theconversation.com/experts-agree-that-trumps-coronavirus-response-was-poor-but-the-us-was-ill-prepared-in-the-first-place-133674">soaring COVID-19 cases</a>, limited testing capacity and decentralized education system. Most countries have national education systems. In the U.S., school officials in all 50 states must sort through the same <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/us/politics/trump-accuses-media-democrats-coronavirus.html">politicized messaging</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-numbers-confusing-you-heres-how-to-make-sense-of-them-142624">confusing data</a> as everyone else to make their own decisions about whether, when and how to welcome back students.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Spires does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nearly every country in the world shuttered its schools due to COVID-19. Now, from Israel to Uruguay, many students are back in class, with varying degrees of success.Bob Spires, Assistant Professor of Education, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1400372020-06-15T18:15:40Z2020-06-15T18:15:40ZUruguay quietly beats coronavirus, distinguishing itself from its South American neighbors – yet again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341368/original/file-20200611-80774-1of4hge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Life is resuming in Uruguay, where some students returned to school in April and the remainder will go back in on June 29. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-picture-released-by-adhoc-news-agency-students-of-a-news-photo/1210676744?adppopup=true">Daniel Rodrigues/adhoc/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Latin America is the world’s new <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/869053446/latin-america-becomes-a-new-epicenter-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic">coronavirus epicenter</a>, but Uruguay – a small South American nation of 3.5 million people – has so far avoided the devastation raging across the rest of the region. </p>
<p>As of June 14, the country had <a href="https://covid19.who.int/?gclid=CjwKCAjw5vz2BRAtEiwAbcVIL5W0xoGMZZUidJH2jZ0cA2W6EoYlJX6gbjpzDUyiangaCi7HznDkwBoC8_cQAvD_BwE">847 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 23 deaths</a>. By population that’s 244 cases and 7 deaths per 1 million inhabitants, well below neighboring Brazil, with 4,001 cases and 201 deaths per million; and Chile, with 9,118 cases and 174 deaths per million.</p>
<p>Uruguay <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-52837193">moved swiftly</a> in March to enact social distancing, testing and community tracing, though President Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou never decreed a lockdown. Offices and shops are open for business, and Uruguayan children will return to school by <a href="https://www.cnnchile.com/mundo/uruguay-retorno-vuelta-a-clases-coronavirus_20200522/">June 29</a> even with winter and flu season coming to the Southern Hemisphere.</p>
<p>In avoiding the tragedy playing out nearby, Uruguay continues its tradition of bucking regional trends. My research on Latin American politics shows that the country has long stood out for its <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/how-party-activism-survives/93C5584DB63DF0A80B51F3EEB68BC8E9">vibrant participatory democracy</a>, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000312240607100604">low inequality</a> and <a href="https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=polisci-faculty-publications">expansive social policies</a> – all attributes that help explain Uruguay’s relative success in the pandemic. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341643/original/file-20200614-153822-15ytsji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341643/original/file-20200614-153822-15ytsji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341643/original/file-20200614-153822-15ytsji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341643/original/file-20200614-153822-15ytsji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341643/original/file-20200614-153822-15ytsji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341643/original/file-20200614-153822-15ytsji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341643/original/file-20200614-153822-15ytsji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341643/original/file-20200614-153822-15ytsji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The main plaza in Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Montevideo_-_Centro_-_Plaza_Independencia_-_Palacio_Salvo_-_Uruguay_%2834893291250%29.jpg">Wikimedia/Flashpacker Travel Guide</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Uruguayans support democracy</h2>
<p>In a region marked by political discontent, Uruguayans generally like their political system. In 2016, <a href="http://infolapop.ccp.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/nivel-satisfaccion-democracia-latam.html">57%</a> of Uruguayans were satisfied with democracy, compared to 47% of Argentines, 34% of Brazilians and 40% percent of Chileans, according to Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Political Opinion Project.</p>
<p>Satisfaction with Uruguay’s democracy is matched by high trust in political institutions. In 2016, <a href="http://lapop.ccp.ucr.ac.cr/es">65%</a> of Uruguayans voiced support for institutions, Vanderbilt’s data shows. This is 7 points higher than Argentina and over 20 points higher than Brazil or Chile. </p>
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<p>Uruguayans have good reason to trust the system. The country’s <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo13590041.html">expansive welfare state</a> provides <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/welfare-and-party-politics-in-latin-america/BFE6B43ED35B5CB02919279F5620AB73">near-universal</a> access to pensions, child care, health care, education and income support for the poor. </p>
<p>Uruguay also has one of Latin America’s smallest gaps between rich and poor, rivaled only by Argentina. Uruguay’s latest Gini Index, a World Bank measure of income inequality, is <a href="https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators">39.5</a> – better than the United States, though higher than much of Europe. </p>
<p>Most South American countries have a Gini index above 45, meaning wealth distribution is highly unequal.</p>
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<h2>Progressive politics and Uruguay’s success</h2>
<p>Uruguay may be best known for <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47785648">legalizing recreational marijuana use</a> in 2013. That first-in-the-world policy is the latest in a century-long progressive trend.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341579/original/file-20200612-153827-haenef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341579/original/file-20200612-153827-haenef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341579/original/file-20200612-153827-haenef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341579/original/file-20200612-153827-haenef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341579/original/file-20200612-153827-haenef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341579/original/file-20200612-153827-haenef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341579/original/file-20200612-153827-haenef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341579/original/file-20200612-153827-haenef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A march to legalize cannabis in Montevideo, May 5, 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-take-part-in-a-march-for-the-legalization-of-news-photo/143924841?adppopup=true">Miguel Rojo/AFP via GettyImages</a></span>
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<p>Under the Paris-educated <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Model_Country.html?id=maZ7AAAAMAAJ">President José Batlle y Ordoñéz</a>, who led the country from 1903 to 1907 and 1911 to 1915, Uruguay got unemployment insurance, paid maternity leave and divorces at the wife’s request. In 1915, Uruguayan workers became the Latin American workers to be guaranteed an 8-hour work day.</p>
<p>By 1943 Uruguay had established a system for <a href="https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft567nb3f6;query=;brand=ucpress">collective wage negotiations</a>, allowing unions to bargain with employers and the government to set salaries, putting the country on a course to become solidly middle class.</p>
<p>Uruguay underwent another period of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/welfare-and-party-politics-in-latin-america/BFE6B43ED35B5CB02919279F5620AB73">strong development</a> in the early 2000s under the left-leaning Frente Amplio party. </p>
<p>Among other reforms made during this 15-year period of progressive government, President Tabaré Vázquez in 2005 revived collective bargaining rights, which had been <a href="https://ladiaria.com.uy/articulo/2019/3/una-mirada-a-los-anos-90-eliminar-los-consejos-de-salarios/">gutted in the 1990s</a>. As a result, <a href="http://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/uruguays-miracle-redistribution-and-the-growth-of-unionism/">stagnant wages rose</a>, <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---americas/---ro-lima/documents/publication/wcms_245894.pdf">more informal workers got labor contracts</a> and <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/21099/why-uruguay-leads-latin-america-in-labor-rights">labor conditions improved</a> – significant achievements in a region that struggles to provide steady, well-paid employment.</p>
<p>Between 2010 to 2015, Vazquez’s successor, José Mujica, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19986107">legalized abortion</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19986107">same-sex marriage</a> in addition to recreational cannabis. Uruguay is <a href="https://apnews.com/31de1cb8536a4aea9cc0b09b64f5dc5e">one of only six</a> Latin American countries that recognize marriage equality. </p>
<p>Though the Frente Amplio candidate narrowly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/world/americas/uruguay-election.html">lost Uruguay’s 2019 presidential election</a>, the party remains the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-latin-american-left-isnt-dead-yet-124385">dominant political force</a>, and Uruguayans overwhelmingly <a href="https://nuso.org/articulo/que-significa-el-giro-la-derecha-uruguayo/?fbclid=IwAR1Oxq9cOSzxgjqF4aKJeOK7-MZl8E56Gk3XWbhn5EGX_QSMQA59T0-b3WE">support</a> the left’s legacy of generous welfare programs. This makes it unlikely that the center-right President Lacalle Pou, who took office in March just before the pandemic, will radically change course.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341578/original/file-20200612-153808-lxbnzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341578/original/file-20200612-153808-lxbnzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341578/original/file-20200612-153808-lxbnzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341578/original/file-20200612-153808-lxbnzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341578/original/file-20200612-153808-lxbnzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341578/original/file-20200612-153808-lxbnzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341578/original/file-20200612-153808-lxbnzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341578/original/file-20200612-153808-lxbnzs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Urguayans voted to fully legalize abortion in a 2013 referendum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-casts-her-vote-to-request-a-referendum-to-validate-or-news-photo/171208022?adppopup=true">Miguel Rojo/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Uruguayan exceptionalism</h2>
<p>Uruguay does have challenges. It has been slow to address <a href="http://ine.gub.uy/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=1726c03f-aecd-4c78-b9be-f2c27dafba1d&groupId=10181">racial inequality</a> and a rising school <a href="https://www.borgenmagazine.com/education-in-uruguay-drouts/">dropout rate</a>. Its <a href="https://repositorio.cepal.org/handle/11362/39862">aging population</a> has also strained the welfare state. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the country is weathering the COVID-19 pandemic remarkably well. While it has not eliminated the virus, <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-hits-zero-active-coronavirus-cases-here-are-5-measures-to-keep-it-that-way-139862">as similarly sized New Zealand has</a>, Uruguay is one of just a handful of countries to effectively manage the disease.</p>
<p>Its unique and defining characteristics likely helped. Political trust and support for democracy <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-leadership-in-various-countries-has-affected-covid-19-response-effectiveness-138692">encourage people to follow public health recommendations</a>, and a strong welfare state provides income support and reliable health care to help slow infection. </p>
<p>Having a strong, transparent democracy, in other words, has enabled Uruguay to <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/06/06/democracies-contain-epidemics-most-effectively">acknowledge, evaluate and control</a> a pandemic that has overwhelmed so many bigger and richer nations.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Pribble does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pandemic devastation surrounds it on all sides, but tiny Uruguay has COVID-19 under control – just the latest win for a country that’s always stood out.Jennifer Pribble, Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Studies, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1400362020-06-08T19:02:44Z2020-06-08T19:02:44ZUsing the military to quash protests can erode democracy – as Latin America well knows<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340354/original/file-20200608-176564-b579mk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C2977%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Chilean soldier stands guard at a ransacked supermarket in Santiago, October 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chilean-soldier-stands-guard-at-a-supermarket-after-it-was-news-photo/1177544361?adppopup=true">Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump on June 7 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/us/politics/trump-military-troops-protests.html">withdrew National Guard troops</a> from Washington, D.C., but his threat to “deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem” of <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/transcript-trump-mobilize-federal-resources-stop-violence-restore/story?id=71008802">civil unrest following the police killing of George Floyd</a> continues to fuel a firestorm of debate.</p>
<p>Calling upon the armed forces to restore order is rare in a democracy. Militaries are trained for warfare, not policing, and their use to quell protests politicizes the armed forces. </p>
<p>Latin America knows this all too well. The region has a long history of using the armed forces for political purposes under civilian, elected governments. In many cases, the result was <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-warning-from-latin-america-trump-is-opening-the-door-to-military-rule-73592">military dictatorship</a>. Even after civilian government resumed, restoring full democracy was a challenging process, my research on <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/Democratization_and_Military_Transformation_in_Argentina_and_Chile_Rethinking_Rivalry">the region’s civil-military relations</a> shows. For <a href="https://www.cmi.no/publications/5569-the-argentine-military-in-democracy">democracy to succeed</a>, militaries have to respect civilian authority and renounce internal policing.</p>
<p>Even strong democracies have unraveled when the military was brought in to quell protest. Uruguay in the 1960s, Venezuela in the 1980s and Chile just last year provide insights. </p>
<h2>Uruguay</h2>
<p>Historically, Uruguay has been known for its social welfare policies, respect for civil rights and longstanding democracy. But in 1968, economic instability triggered mass protests by university students and labor unions, leading President Juan Pacheco to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521266529">declare a state of emergency</a> and call upon the military to quash the demonstrations.</p>
<p>Instead of disbanding, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520290013/uruguay-1968">social movement activism increased</a> and the nascent <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198606963.001.0001/acref-9780198606963-e-1311?rskey=RHaEGx&result=6">Tupamaros</a>, a Marxist guerrilla group, were emboldened.</p>
<p>Responding to Pacheco’s show of force, the Tupamaros took up high-profile kidnappings to show that the government was, in fact, weak. In defending against the insurgency, government became dependent on the military as a political ally. </p>
<p>By 1973, the military took over in a coup that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511528200">inaugurated a brutal 12-year dictatorship</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340347/original/file-20200608-176560-1g33gia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340347/original/file-20200608-176560-1g33gia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340347/original/file-20200608-176560-1g33gia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340347/original/file-20200608-176560-1g33gia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340347/original/file-20200608-176560-1g33gia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340347/original/file-20200608-176560-1g33gia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340347/original/file-20200608-176560-1g33gia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340347/original/file-20200608-176560-1g33gia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Families of those ‘disappeared’ during Uruguay’s military dictatorship outside the Legislative Palace in Montevideo in 2005.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/group-of-mothers-and-relatives-of-disappeared-during-the-news-photo/52260015?adppopup=true">Pablo Porciuncula/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Uruguayan military’s transformation was remarkable: It went from being relatively obscure to becoming the most brutal component of the Uruguayan state. Between 1973 and the restoration of democracy in 1985, hundreds were killed, and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3338122">one in every 30 adult Uruguayans</a> was detained, interrogated or imprisoned. </p>
<p>Despite the return to democracy, the military has largely avoided accountability for its crimes. To date <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/uruguay/report-uruguay/">fewer than 10%</a> of nearly 200 cases of human rights violations from that period have been prosecuted. </p>
<h2>Venezuela</h2>
<p>Venezuela today is a chaotic authoritarian state. But from the 1960s through the 1980s, it had a stable two-party democracy and oil-fueled prosperity. Those pillars collapsed in 1989, after oil prices tanked and the country faced a debt crisis. </p>
<p>In response, President Carlos Andrés Pérez imposed austerity measures. In the capital of Caracas, the public reacted with protests and riots in the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3875580">wave of unrest known as the “Caracazo.”</a> </p>
<p>Pérez suspended civil rights, declared martial law and put Venezuela’s military on the streets for the first time in decades. In quelling the revolt, security forces killed at least <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3875580">400 civilians</a>. </p>
<p>The brutal repression – carried out mostly against the country’s poorest populations – produced division within the armed forces. Many junior officers resented the order to repress their people. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_RIPC_172_0127--caracazo-1989-twenty-years-on-from.htm">Among these officers was Hugo Chávez</a>, who would go on to stage a failed coup attempt in 1992. Six years later, he legitimately won the presidency with an anti-establishment agenda. Ultimately, Chávez’s election marked the complete dissolution of Venezuela’s two-party system and the birth of a <a href="https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2019/crucial-role-military-venezuelan-crisis">militarized, autocratic state</a> that blooms in full failure today under his successor, Nicolás Maduro.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340345/original/file-20200608-176595-v38q9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340345/original/file-20200608-176595-v38q9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340345/original/file-20200608-176595-v38q9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340345/original/file-20200608-176595-v38q9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340345/original/file-20200608-176595-v38q9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340345/original/file-20200608-176595-v38q9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340345/original/file-20200608-176595-v38q9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340345/original/file-20200608-176595-v38q9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lt. Hugo Chávez in 1994 being freed from jail after an attempted coup in Venezuela.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/army-lieutenant-colonel-hugo-chavez-who-headed-the-1992-news-photo/151344613?adppopup=true">Bertrand Parres/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Chile</h2>
<p>Chile is often heralded as Latin America’s “<a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/03/12/can-chile-reinvent-itself">model</a>” democracy for its economic growth and political stability. Yet last year, it became the epicenter of mass protests that shook Latin America.</p>
<p>Chile’s protests began over transit fare hikes driven by President Sebastian Piñera’s economic belt-tightening but quickly grew to a wave of demonstrations in multiple cities calling for <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2020/02/24/chile-struggle-democratize-state-plebescite">long-pending reforms</a> to address inequality. Soon, protesters were demanding a new constitution to replace the one <a href="https://theconversation.com/chiles-political-crisis-is-another-brutal-legacy-of-long-dead-dictator-pinochet-126305">drafted 40 years earlier during the Pinochet military dictatorship</a>.</p>
<p>In response, Piñera declared “we are at war” and deployed the military to oversee a state of emergency – its first political policing role since the dictatorship ended in 1990. In the ensuing months, dozens of protesters were killed, hundreds more injured and over 28,000 arrested.</p>
<p>Though <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/chile-responsable-politica-deliberada-para-danar-manifestantes/">the most violent repression</a> is attributed to police, Piñera’s move created challenges for Chile’s military, which struggled in the post-Pinochet era to redefine its image by focusing on national defense and <a href="http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org/2014/04/03/contributor-profile-chile/">United Nations-led international missions</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340338/original/file-20200608-176550-5q8ccy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340338/original/file-20200608-176550-5q8ccy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340338/original/file-20200608-176550-5q8ccy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340338/original/file-20200608-176550-5q8ccy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340338/original/file-20200608-176550-5q8ccy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340338/original/file-20200608-176550-5q8ccy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340338/original/file-20200608-176550-5q8ccy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chile’s militaristic national police are alleged to have used excess force during Chile’s 2019 mass protests.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fernando Lavoz/NurPhoto via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“I’m not at war with anybody,” said the general tasked with overseeing security in the capital last year, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/world/americas/chile-protests-riots.html">distancing himself from the president</a>. The military also apparently <a href="https://interferencia.cl/articulos/ffaa-se-niegan-nuevo-estado-de-emergencia-obligando-pinera-recurrir-policias-retirados">resisted</a> Piñera’s efforts to extend the state of emergency, arguing that the protests were a “political problem.”</p>
<p>Although Chile’s democracy has not unraveled, its political culture has been upended. Public <a href="http://www.latinobarometro.org/lat.jsp">support for democracy</a> had already declined 20% before the protests, yet the military remained one of Chile’s most trusted institutions. The militarized repression that occurred will likely erode <a href="https://www.cepchile.cl/cep/site/docs/20200116/20200116081636/encuestacep_diciembre2019.pdf">confidence in the armed forces</a>, too. </p>
<p>This widespread distrust occurs just as Chileans decide whether, and how, to write a new constitution.</p>
<h2>Slow slide into authoritarianism</h2>
<p>As in Chile, in the U.S. numerous officials – including former <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-06-02/robert-gates-overmilitarization-american-foreign-policy">Pentagon officials</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/mattis-protests-statement/index.html">retired military officers</a> – are raising alarm over President Trump’s threat to militarize the protest response. Yet 58% of American voters approve of his stance, according to a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/02/58-of-voters-support-using-military-to-help-police-control-protests-poll-finds/#67311c6c2417">recent survey</a>.</p>
<p>One key lesson from Latin America is that democracy rarely breaks down suddenly. Countries <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562246/how-democracies-die-by-steven-levitsky-and-daniel-ziblatt/">slide gradually into authoritarianism</a> as leaders curtail civil rights, demonize opposition groups and muzzle the press.</p>
<p>Another is that professing “law and order” through militarization does not solve a country’s systemic problems. It only deepens divides – and imperils democracy.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140036/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristina Mani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Latin American history shows that sending out troops to quell unrest is a perilous move even in strong democracies. Usually, protesters die. Sometimes, the end result is authoritarianism rule.Kristina Mani, Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of Latin American Studies, Oberlin College and ConservatoryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1243852019-10-09T16:50:28Z2019-10-09T16:50:28ZThe Latin American left isn’t dead yet<p>Argentina, Bolivia and <a href="https://www.elpais.com.uy/informacion/politica/elecciones-dicen-encuestas-cara-octubre.html">Uruguay</a> will all hold presidential elections in October. And, for now, leftists are <a href="https://www.as-coa.org/content/guide-2019-latin-american-elections/argentina">strong contenders</a> in all three countries. </p>
<p>This is a somewhat unexpected development. Beginning in 2015, <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2016/12/09/right-turn">conservatives toppled</a> major leftist strongholds, including in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. The socially progressive Latin American left was <a href="https://aulablog.net/2019/01/09/a-right-turn-in-latin-america/">declared dead</a> <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/pink-tide-latin-america-chavez-morales-capitalism-socialism/">many times over</a>. </p>
<p>But the left-leaning populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-was-elected-to-transform-mexico-can-he-do-it-99176">victory in Mexico</a> in July 2018 showed that Latin American political winds don’t all blow in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/mexicos-left-turn-and-the-road-to-uncertainty-106847">same direction</a>.</p>
<p>So what can be learned from the failures and successes of Latin America’s leftist parties and governments in the very recent past?</p>
<h2>Latin America’s ‘left turn’</h2>
<p>About two-thirds of all Latin Americans lived under some form of leftist government <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/1866">by 2010</a> – a “pink tide” that washed over the region following the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1998. </p>
<p>Only a few countries – notably Colombia and Mexico – remained under conservative political leadership during this period.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296464/original/file-20191010-188792-1ysbkxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296464/original/file-20191010-188792-1ysbkxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296464/original/file-20191010-188792-1ysbkxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296464/original/file-20191010-188792-1ysbkxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296464/original/file-20191010-188792-1ysbkxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296464/original/file-20191010-188792-1ysbkxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296464/original/file-20191010-188792-1ysbkxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296464/original/file-20191010-188792-1ysbkxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay have elections in October.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com/The Conversation</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Academics conventionally grouped this <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/welfare-and-party-politics-in-latin-america/BFE6B43ED35B5CB02919279F5620AB73">Latin American left</a> into <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=eKOwSqYH5rcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=uruguay+social+democratic+left&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBl7LNpY_lAhXQl-AKHaIlB7QQ6AEwAHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=uruguay%20social%20democratic%20left&f=false">two camps</a>. </p>
<p>There was the moderate “social democratic” left of Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, which embraced an agenda of egalitarianism while accepting the basic precepts of market economics. </p>
<p>This group was generally contrasted with the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3IVjDgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT5&ots=8jhwLduGbl&sig=eLyxmkw3j55zS5nuIfqGGkj6WI8#v=onepage&q&f=false">more radical “populist” left</a> that ran Venezuela, <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny/cp/2016/00000048/00000004/art00003">Bolivia</a>, Nicaragua and Ecuador. These governments shared the moderate left’s commitment to progressive social change but had bolder aims: an alternative to market economics and profound changes to political institutions. </p>
<p>Such groupings did little to predict these countries’ divergent fates.</p>
<p>In a few places, leftist governments have remained popular, vibrant and electorally competitive after over a decade in power – namely <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/bolivia/2018-02-14/key-evo-morales-political-longevity">Bolivia and Uruguay</a>. </p>
<p>But by 2015, <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/bolsonaro-and-brazils-illiberal-backlash/">Brazil</a>, <a href="https://www.wola.org/sites/default/files/Venezuela/Smilde%20Current%20History--final.pdf">Venezuela</a> and <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2018/07/25/nicaragua-view-left">Nicaragua</a> had all become political and economic catastrophes. <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/party-vibrancy-and-democracy-in-latin-america-9780190870041?cc=us&lang=en&">Chile’s leftist government</a> sharply declined in popularity. </p>
<h2>The conformist temptation</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ob2gBJoAAAAJ&hl=en">political science research</a> identifies some shared weaknesses of the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d7yzgzQAAAAJ&hl=en">Latin American left</a>.</p>
<p>The first lesson comes from the Workers Party, which governed Brazil between 2003 and 2016. </p>
<p>Like many progressive parties, the Workers Party’s founding leaders were idealistic – committed to <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300050745/workers-party-and-democratization-brazil">upending Brazilian politics as usual</a>. </p>
<p>Under the Workers Party, Brazil experienced a massive <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11186-019-09351-7">expansion of social citizenship rights</a>. By 2008, Brazilian President Lula da Silva was arguably the <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-brazil-tilts-rightward-lulas-leftist-legacy-of-lifting-the-poor-is-at-risk-65939">world’s most popular president</a>.</p>
<p>But the Workers Party became <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/transformation-workers-party-brazil-19892009?format=PB&isbn=9780521733007">detached from the social movements</a> it once championed. Deeply immersed in the normal – even <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-brazil-is-winning-its-fight-against-corruption-71968">corrupt</a> – give-and-take of Brazilian politics, the party came to be molded by the flawed system it sought to change.</p>
<p>We call this pitfall the “conformist temptation.” </p>
<p>The Workers Party rule ended with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/impeachment-culture-wars-and-the-politics-of-identity-in-brazil-59436">2016 impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff</a>, Lula’s hand-picked successor. Although Rousseff herself <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-brazilian-president-dilma-rousseffs-real-crime-59363">faced no corruption charges</a>, the Workers Party left power associated with corruption scandals, campaign finance violations and economic mismanagement – the exact problems it had promised to fix.</p>
<p>Chile’s Socialist Party met a similar fate. </p>
<p>Under Presidents Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet, moderate leftists who governed Chile almost uninterrupted from 2001 to 2018, the party <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/12/18/chile-just-elected-a-billionaire-president-these-are-the-4-things-you-need-to-know/">distanced itself from its supporters in social movements</a>.</p>
<p>In 2011, students and teachers began <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/08/student-protests-in-chile/100125/">protesting</a> Chile’s low levels of public education funding and <a href="https://www.borgenmagazine.com/economic-inequality-in-chile/">high inequality</a>. The <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1866802X1600800305">youth protest movement</a> grew, exposing Chileans’ disappointment at the Socialists’ limited progress on social reforms. </p>
<p>These divisions on the left <a href="https://theconversation.com/chile-heads-into-presidential-runoff-with-a-transformed-political-landscape-86453">allowed Chile’s strong right wing to win</a> Chile’s 2018 presidential election.</p>
<h2>The autocratic temptation</h2>
<p>Crises in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador result from a different fatal flaw. </p>
<p>In these three countries, leftist leaders succumbed to what we call the “autocratic temptation” – the idea that a charismatic leader or popular political movement not only can speak for an <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/latin-americas-authoritarian-drift-the-threat-from-the-populist-left/">entire nation</a> but that they can <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolivia-is-not-venezuela-even-if-its-president-does-want-to-stay-in-power-forever-93253">do so forever</a>.</p>
<p>Like many authoritarian leaders, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega have lost touch with their constituents. When leaders become too insulated, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-dictators-dilemma-9780190228552?cc=us&lang=en&">research shows</a>, safeguards against corruption and irresponsible public policies weaken. </p>
<p>Authoritarian leaders are less likely to change course when things go wrong. </p>
<p>The consequences may be devastating – like Maduro’s egregious failure to adjust Venezuela’s exchange rate policies during its descent into economic crisis and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/venezuelas-crisis-in-5-charts/2019/01/26/97af60a6-20c4-11e9-a759-2b8541bbbe20_story.html">hyperinflation</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Weyland-24-3.pdf">Authoritarian leadership</a> has degraded democracy in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador in other ways, too. <a href="https://theconversation.com/ecuadors-populist-electoral-victory-for-moreno-shows-erosion-of-democracy-75157">Checks and balances on presidential authority</a> have been weakened and press freedoms restricted. In Venezuela and Nicaragua, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/nicaragua-protests-threaten-an-authoritarian-regime-that-looked-like-it-might-never-fall-95776">electoral process was manipulated</a>.</p>
<p>The autocratic temptation to lionize a charismatic founding leader weakens the governing political party, too, by making it extremely difficult for new leaders to emerge and carry forward the party’s long-term transformative agenda.</p>
<p>In Nicaragua and Venezuela, that has meant that <a href="https://theconversation.com/nicaraguans-try-to-topple-a-dictator-again-98123">autocrats have clung to power</a> despite popular demand that they leave.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://aulablog.net/2018/02/02/ecuador-referendum-marks-critical-juncture-for-moreno-and-correa/">Ecuador</a>, the current and former presidents – Lenín Moreno and Rafael Correa – are engaged in a bitter dispute. Protests have rocked Ecuador over Moreno’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49955695">economic policy shifts</a> away from Correa’s agenda.</p>
<h2>Leftist exceptions</h2>
<p>So what explains the resilience of the left in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/when-movements-become-parties/F06BEE9DEA9BA4E7DCFBD9A87266FAB8#fndtn-information">Bolivia</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/how-party-activism-survives/93C5584DB63DF0A80B51F3EEB68BC8E9">Uruguay</a>, where leftist parties have reduced <a href="http://www.santiagoanria.com/data.html">inequality</a> and made tremendous progress toward <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/delegative-democracy-revisited-more-inclusion-less-liberalism-in-bolivia/">social and political inclusion</a>? Left-wing candidates are polling well in both countries’ <a href="http://www.startribune.com/evo-morales-not-trending-among-bolivia-s-youth-ahead-of-vote/562382812">presidential races</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296075/original/file-20191008-128681-1cs7t1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296075/original/file-20191008-128681-1cs7t1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296075/original/file-20191008-128681-1cs7t1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296075/original/file-20191008-128681-1cs7t1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296075/original/file-20191008-128681-1cs7t1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296075/original/file-20191008-128681-1cs7t1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296075/original/file-20191008-128681-1cs7t1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Argentine presidential candidate Alberto Fernandez and running mate, former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, at a campaign rally, Aug. 7, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pictures.reuters.com/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2C0BXZSUWZX3IE&SMLS=1&RW=1920&RH=996#/SearchResult&VBID=2C0BXZSUWZX3IE&SMLS=1&RW=1920&RH=996&POPUPPN=8&POPUPIID=2C0BF1MYIRFG1">Reuters/Agustin Marcarian</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In our assessment, what sets Bolivia and Uruguay apart is the strength of the ties between the leftist parties and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/when-movements-become-parties/F06BEE9DEA9BA4E7DCFBD9A87266FAB8#fndtn-information">allied social movements</a> there. That has encouraged the accountability and responsiveness lacking in Venezuela, Brazil and Chile. </p>
<p>Civil society in Bolivia and Uruguay also retained its capacity for independent mobilization, constraining any possible slide into autocracy or unbridled ambition. </p>
<p>That may explain why Bolivia has so far <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/bolivia/2018-02-14/key-evo-morales-political-longevity">avoided the worst social and economic consequences of the autocratic temptation</a> – despite its charismatic indigenous president, Evo Morales, <a href="https://theconversation.com/bolivia-is-not-venezuela-even-if-its-president-does-want-to-stay-in-power-forever-93253">eliminating term limits and consolidating power</a> over the past 14 years. </p>
<p>In Argentina the left’s possible comeback has more to do with conservative president Mauricio Macri’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/10/argentina-economic-crisis-imf-debt-default">economic mismanagement</a>. But the center-left ticket leading Argentina’s presidential race has also succeeded because the candidates formed a broad national coalition – one that includes an array of social movements, from labor unions to feminist groups.</p>
<p>The Latin American left has some life in it yet.</p>
<p>[ <em>You respect facts and expertise. So do The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=yourespect">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Progressives are leading in the presidential elections of Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia, bucking the region’s recent rightward trend. But there are lessons in the failures of leftists past.Santiago Anria, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Latin American Studies, Dickinson CollegeKenneth M. Roberts, Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government and Director, Latin American Studies Program, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1123382019-02-25T11:58:04Z2019-02-25T11:58:04ZRoma: how Alfonso Cuarón’s movie is spurring Mexico to treat domestic workers more fairly<p>Mexico City, 1970. Cleo’s alarm sounds very early in the morning. She gets up and climbs down the stairs from her rooftop room in the upper middle class house where she lives and works. Everyone else in the house is still sleeping. Cleo gently wakes up the kids, serves the family breakfast and takes the youngest child to kindergarten. </p>
<p>She works from sunup to sundown, even providing emotional support to family members along the way. After a day of cleaning and housekeeping tasks, she welcomes everyone back home. She serves her employers snacks while they watch TV together in the living room. She takes the kids to bed, turns off the light, and climbs the stairs to her room after everyone has gone to sleep.</p>
<p>Cleo’s long working days are magnificently portrayed by director Alfonso Cuarón in Roma, which has just won three Oscars, including best director. You are left appalled at the state of her work-life balance – and wondering about the lives of domestic workers today. </p>
<p>There <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/domestic-workers/who/lang--en/index.htm">are at least</a> 67m domestic workers worldwide and almost three quarters are women. Many are migrants who – like Cleo – are required to live in their workplace. Over 70% are employed informally, with no contract of employment. They <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ilj/article-abstract/43/3/319/693366">often work</a> very long hours for low pay; get <a href="https://www.dur.ac.uk/law/policyengagement/ufw/challenges/careeconomy/">treated</a> violently or harassed; and are casually hired and fired at will. The profession still tends to be excluded from many labour laws and social security regimes. Recent estimates <a href="https://www.ilo.org/travail/whatwedo/publications/WCMS_536998/lang--en/index.htm">indicate that</a> 90% of domestic workers worldwide have no access to social security, for instance. </p>
<p>These workers’ rights remain a grave concern in many countries, but there have been significant recent reforms – despite commentaries on Roma <a href="https://qz.com/quartzy/1491476/alfonso-cuarons-roma-shows-domestic-workers-complex-emotional-labor/">implying</a> otherwise. Latin America has led the way here, hauling employment protections into line with other professions, for instance, but Mexico is only finally catching up. As we shall see, Roma and Cuarón have played a key role in helping bring this about. </p>
<h2>Latin American reformers</h2>
<p>Domestic work is perhaps undervalued because it is associated with tasks commonly performed by unpaid housewives. The lack of legal protection makes domestic workers exceptionally vulnerable. Even when labour laws do protect workers, it can be difficult to check that employers are meeting the relevant standards, so there are often problems with noncompliance. </p>
<p>As Cuarón beautifully depicts in Roma, the boundaries between home and the workplace <a href="http://www.trabajo.gov.ar/downloads/newsletter/ctio/plurales2/trabajo_domestico_ma-elena-valenzuela.pdf">can be</a> particularly unclear in Latin American countries. Too often, employers take advantage of unequal bonds of affection to justify taking liberties. The region’s domestic workforce is mostly black or indigenous, and includes the most dispossessed elements of the population. High inequality rates and intergenerational poverty, plus the fact that most workers are female, makes regulating the sector a crucial route to social justice. </p>
<p>Domestic worker NGOs and other civil society organisations in the region began pushing for reform in the early 2000s, and many countries <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/65153">had a</a> lively <a href="http://www.uy.undp.org/content/dam/uruguay/docs/IDH/Lilian%20Soto%20ESP%20pag%20Individual.pdf">debate</a> about the best way forward. On the back of this, <a href="https://www.ilo.org/legacy/english/inwork/cb-policy-guide/uruguaylabourrelations2005to2008.pdf">Uruguay</a> (2006), <a href="https://www.social-protection.org/gimi/RessourcePDF.action;jsessionid=JCEZAkHFtTmEeXGESQ57GAJ0a_lO-1qL2TKBMUTkyAYAka3AiRoJ!241796269?id=53103">Argentina</a> and <a href="http://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/brazil-constitutional-amendment-approved/">Brazil</a> (both 2013) adopted rules that put domestic workers on a par with other workers in relation to conditions like holidays, working hours and maternity pay. They also <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---americas/---ro-lima/documents/publication/wcms_480352.pdf">established</a> wage-bargaining mechanisms for the profession, and encouraged employers to introduce formal contracts. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260656/original/file-20190225-26184-a24ydd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260656/original/file-20190225-26184-a24ydd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260656/original/file-20190225-26184-a24ydd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260656/original/file-20190225-26184-a24ydd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260656/original/file-20190225-26184-a24ydd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260656/original/file-20190225-26184-a24ydd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260656/original/file-20190225-26184-a24ydd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260656/original/file-20190225-26184-a24ydd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Latin America’s clean slate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-woman-cleaning-floor-living-room-1018591744?src=hDICwawi4KT2zIbD6PQ-6A-2-40">kitzcorner</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To promote the new rights, these countries raised awareness through publicity campaigns on television and billboards. They also took a progressive approach to enforcement which proved effective. In Uruguay, for instance, labour inspectors visited homes with domestic workers; but instead of punishing infringements, they took the opportunity to educate employers about their obligations. Uruguay <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---americas/---ro-lima/documents/publication/wcms_371217.pdf">has since</a> seen domestic worker wages take a big step towards the national average. <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---americas/---ro-lima/---ilo-buenos_aires/documents/publication/wcms_592331.pdf">Argentina</a> and <a href="http://www.ipea.gov.br/portal/images/stories/PDFs/mercadodetrabalho/bmt60_11_politica1.pdf">Brazil</a> have achieved various improvements, too. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-combat-forced-labour-and-in-work-poverty-brazil-and-india-offer-some-lessons-106570">We need to combat forced labour and in-work poverty – Brazil and India offer some lessons</a>
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<p>In parallel, the UN International Labour Organisation (ILO) launched the <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:2551460">Domestic Workers Convention</a> in 2011 – international laws aimed at improving domestic worker rights across the world. The convention entered into force in 2013, and has been <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:11300:0::NO:11300:P11300_INSTRUMENT_ID:2551460:NO">ratified by</a> 27 countries including 14 in Latin America and others such as South Africa, the Philippines and Germany. Among the entitlements are a minimum wage, daily and weekly rest hours, the right to choose where to live, and clearly communicated conditions of employment. The majority of countries around the world have still not ratified the convention, however. Mexico, unfortunately, is one of them. </p>
<h2>Why so slow, Mexico?</h2>
<p>Mexico was actually the first country <a href="https://archivos.juridicas.unam.mx/www/bjv/libros/9/4430/23.pdf">to enshrine</a> labour protection in its constitution, but domestic workers still get a raw deal. With <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ilsb.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Policy-Jornada_A.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1551176078894000&usg=AFQjCNExyY9Kme9ydfrEv8KeTsWMvCWEjw">over 2.4m</a> domestic workers in a country of <a href="https://www.indexmundi.com/mexico/demographics_profile.html">some 90m</a> adults, the law discriminates against them by not limiting their working hours or mandating a minimum wage equal to that of other workers. Very few domestic workers have employment contracts, so the limited legal protections that do exist are rarely followed. As many as 97% of domestic workers <a href="https://ilsb.org.mx/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Policy-Seguridad_A.pdf">still have</a> no access to social security in the country. </p>
<p>The first sign of progress came when the first domestic workers’ union was <a href="https://www.solidaritycenter.org/first-ever-domestic-workers-union-launched-in-mexico/">recognised</a> in 2015. The National Union of Household Workers (SINACTRAHO) has since fought tirelessly for domestic worker rights. In December 2018, the Supreme Court duly <a href="https://www.apnews.com/1c1869c6be994907815588d66f5484c0">ruled</a> that excluding these employees from the country’s obligatory social security regime is unconstitutional. The court mandated a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com.mx/2018/12/05/corte-determina-que-trabajadoras-del-hogar-deberan-ser-inscritas-al-imss_a_23609981/">pilot programme</a> that will this year develop a new system for these workers. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the new left-wing <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-46404650">government</a> of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which took office in December, has said it will present the ILO Domestic Workers Convention before the senate for ratification. The country’s two biggest parties are also jointly sponsoring a <a href="https://www.elsoldemexico.com.mx/mexico/politica/derechos-laborales-trabajadoras-domesticas-hogar-senado-2756849.html">bill</a> aimed at the profession. It proposes to equalise domestic workers’ rights with other waged workers, including a minimum wage and a maximum 44-hour working week. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260653/original/file-20190225-26184-uu9dem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260653/original/file-20190225-26184-uu9dem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260653/original/file-20190225-26184-uu9dem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260653/original/file-20190225-26184-uu9dem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260653/original/file-20190225-26184-uu9dem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260653/original/file-20190225-26184-uu9dem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260653/original/file-20190225-26184-uu9dem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260653/original/file-20190225-26184-uu9dem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Activist Marcelina Bautista.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marcelina_Bautista_Bautista.jpg#/media/File:Marcelina_Bautista_Bautista.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While these developments owe much to vigorous campaigning by SINACTRAHO and other domestic worker organisations, Roma has played an important role by highlighting the struggle of the profession. Cuarón dedicated the film to Mexico’s domestic workforce, and <a href="https://twitter.com/untrabajodigno/status/1074847506603728896">recently invited</a> activist Marcelina Bautista to give a speech at the national premiere of the film. “Mexico owes a lot to women,” she concluded. “We need to stop violence and abuse of power against women.”</p>
<p>If the promising signs in Mexico bear fruit, Cuarón’s masterpiece will have helped secure decent conditions for domestic workers in a country which has denied them for too long. Roma surely deserves its Hollywood awards, but achieving real reform will be worth a great deal more.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima is a Research Assistant on the Project on Decent Work Regulation at Durham Law School, which is funded by the ESRC, HEFCE and GCRF. She is also the recipient of a Modern Law Review Scholarship.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arely Cruz-Santiago receives postdoctoral research funding from the ESRC. </span></em></p>While other Latin American countries like Argentina and Brazil led the way on reforming legal protections for domestic workers, Mexico looked the other way.Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima, Doctoral Researcher in Law, Durham UniversityArely Cruz-Santiago, ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Geography, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/917072018-03-08T11:40:40Z2018-03-08T11:40:40ZFemale presidents don’t always help women while in office, study in Latin America finds<p>When Michelle Bachelet steps down as Chile’s president on March 11, she will bring to a close not just her own administration but also an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/world/americas/michelle-bachelet-president-of-chile.html">era of female leadership in Latin America</a>.</p>
<p>Between 2006 and 2018, four women <a href="https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/51646">served as presidents in the region</a>. On the political left, Bachelet and Argentina’s Cristina Fernández both completed two terms. Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, of the progressive Workers’ Party, was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/31/dilma-rousseff-impeached-president-brazilian-senate-michel-temer">impeached a year into her second administration</a>. And, on the center-right, Laura Chinchilla governed Costa Rica from 2011 to 2014. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5xSYuXcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">gender researchers</a> like <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tIONAuEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">ourselves</a>, this is a rare chance to assess how the president’s gender influences policy in Latin American countries. Global research has confirmed that having women in the highest echelons of power leads to <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00402.x/full">greater political engagement among women and girls</a>. We wanted to know what Latin America’s four “presidentas” had done to promote gender equality while in power. </p>
<p>Here’s what <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sp/article-abstract/24/4/345/4775169?redirectedFrom=fulltext">we</a> learned. </p>
<h2>Reproductive rights not guaranteed</h2>
<p>Prior studies had already shown that Latin America’s presidentas <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2016.00316.x/full">nominated more female cabinet ministers</a>, paving the way for future generations of female leaders. </p>
<p>And based on <a href="http://www.schwindt.rice.edu/pdf/publications/reyeshousholder_schwindtbayer2016_book_chapter.pdf">public opinion survey data</a>, we knew that in Latin American countries with female heads of state, women were slightly more likely to participate in local politics than in countries run by men. Latin Americans who have a woman for president are also much less likely than other respondents to say they think men make better political leaders than women.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sp/article-abstract/24/4/345/4775169?redirectedFrom=fulltext">our new research</a> disproves the admittedly tempting idea that merely putting a woman in power improves gender equality. Other factors, including party politics and the presence of strong social movements, turn out to exert more influence on a president’s policies. </p>
<p>Take abortion, for example, which is largely outlawed in <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2014/11/13/religion-in-latin-america/">heavily Catholic</a> Latin America. Even in the few countries, <a href="https://theconversation.com/incest-case-attests-that-in-costa-rica-abortion-is-legal-in-name-only-75766">like Costa Rica</a>, that allow women to terminate pregnancies resulting from rape, the procedure is still <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-latin-america-is-there-a-link-between-abortion-rights-and-democracy-85444">extremely difficult to obtain</a>. Fully 97 percent of Latin American women <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/abortion-latin-america-and-caribbean">cannot get safe, legal abortions</a>, leading to <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30380-4/abstract">high rates of maternal mortality</a>. </p>
<p>But attempts to ease Latin American abortion laws have historically provoked a deep conservative backlash. In Brazil, Rousseff declared her support for abortion liberalization on the campaign trail in 2010, but <a href="http://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol13/iss3/8/">had to backpedal due to intense media criticism</a>. Once in office, Rousseff remained silent on reproductive rights. </p>
<p>Bachelet also shied away from the issue during her first term. The Catholic opposition was well organized and, at the time, Chile’s feminist movement was relatively weak. Bachelet focused instead on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/world/americas/17chile.html">access to emergency contraception</a>. </p>
<p>By the time she ran for re-election in 2013, however, feminists had <a href="http://lapeste.org/2014/01/autoayuda-practica-el-colectivo-feminista-linea-aborto-libre/">coalesced around abortion reform</a>. They pushed Bachelet to include reproductive rights in her campaign and kept the pressure on once she was in office. In 2017 Chile made abortion <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sp/article/24/4/481/4775171">legal in cases of rape, fetal deformity or danger to a mother’s life</a>.</p>
<p>In Argentina, meanwhile, Fernández – also a leftist – actually <a href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1984-64872016000100022&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=es">quashed activists’ efforts</a> to expand reproductive rights. Perhaps unsurprisingly, <a href="https://www.nacion.com/el-pais/chinchilla-opuesta-a-matrimonio-gay-aborto-y-estado-laico/YPC7XHHH6RHGLN6UQXZLNBHBG4/story/">so did the conservative Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica</a>.</p>
<h2>Gender equality lags under populists</h2>
<p>That’s because major social change requires more than just a woman president. The kind of political party she leads matters a lot – more, in fact, than her gender.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/23/populism-is-coming-for-latin-america-in-2018/">left-wing populist parties that ruled Ecuador, Argentina and Venezuela</a> during the period we analyzed made no effort to liberalize abortions. In fact, we found that populist leaders, in their <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-43301423">quest to appeal to the masses</a>, actively shut out feminist activists and ignored the demands of female constituents. </p>
<p>Fernández didn’t just <a href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1984-64872016000100022&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=es">uphold Argentina’s harsh abortion restrictions</a> – she actually <a href="http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/LARR/prot/fulltext/vol49no1/49-1_104-127_piscopo.pdf">cut off funding for the country’s universal contraception program</a>, too. Rather than focus on women’s issues, her Justicialist Party expanded social welfare programs, including a hallmark cash-transfer program that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2011/sep/05/argentina-child-allowance-poor-schools">subsidizes families with young children</a>. </p>
<p>Anti-poverty policies are typical of the <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21674783-argentinas-dominant-political-brand-defined-power-not-ideology-persistence">populist Peronist movement</a> that brought Fernández and her husband, former president Nestor Kirchner, into power. These initiatives may also help women, since <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/14/women-poorer-and-hungrier-than-men-across-the-world-u-n-report-says/?utm_term=.f3f426f107c1">they are poorer than men</a>, but that’s not the main goal. </p>
<p>In the Latin American countries we studied, those where reproductive rights most improved in the early 21st century were ruled by what political scientists call “<a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/resurgence-latin-american-left">institutionalized parties</a>.” Such parties generally have a cogent ideology – though it could be left, right or center – a broad base of support and clear structures for responding to constituent demands. </p>
<p>When Bachelet finally loosened abortion restrictions, it was at the helm of a broad-based coalition called the New Majority. Likewise, Uruguay <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sp/article/24/4/481/4775171">fully legalized abortion</a> in 2012 under the presidency of José Mujica and his Broad Front alliance. </p>
<h2>Men help women, too</h2>
<p>Legalizing abortion – one of the world’s most polarizing policy debates – may be asking a lot. So we also assessed whether these four presidentas promoted gender equality in other ways.</p>
<p>We found they did somewhat better on childcare, which <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/25082/9781464809026.pdf?sequence=6&isAllowed=y">enables women to return to the labor market after becoming mothers</a>. Argentina’s Fernández paid the topic little mind, but <a href="https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/chile_36227.html">Bachelet</a>, <a href="http://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/brazil-national-education-plan-approved/">Rousseff</a> and even Costa Rica’s center-rightist <a href="http://www.wradio.com.co/noticias/internacional/laura-chinchilla-firma-ley-para-el-cuidado-de-ninos-y-ancianos/20140324/nota/2143827.aspx">Chinchilla</a> all expanded access to childcare during their tenures. </p>
<p>But <a href="http://www.presidencia.gub.uy/Comunicacion/comunicacionNoticias/vazquez-sistema-de-cuidados-primera-infancia">so did the men who governed Uruguay during the same period</a>. That supports the idea that party type matters more than the chief executive’s gender when it comes to a country’s women’s rights. </p>
<p>And when looking at perhaps the most dramatic improvement in gender equality in Latin American in recent years – the <a href="http://webarchive.ssrc.org/working-papers/CPPF_WomenInPolitics_02_Htun_Piscopo.pdf">high number of women in politics</a> – we see that these changes, too, were led by male and female politicians alike. </p>
<p>Improvements began in the early 1990s. Back then, <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/pdfs/Schwindt-Bayer_SmallGrant_Publish.pdf">nearly every Latin American country adopted some form of gender quota</a>, which requires political parties to nominate a certain percentage of women for legislative office. In many cases, though, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2015.00278.x/abstract">the early laws were rather weak</a>. Parties put women on the ballot in districts they could never win or didn’t get fully behind their campaigns.</p>
<p>Over the past decade, women politicians and feminists across the region have <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2015.00278.x/abstract">organized to improve political participation among women</a>. In every country where women <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sp/article/24/4/399/4775165">pushed stronger gender quotas through Congress</a>, those initiatives became law. </p>
<p>The payoff of this popular women’s mobilization has been huge: Between 1990 and 2018, the percentage of <a href="https://jenniferpiscopo.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/piscopo-feb-18-2018.pdf">female lawmakers in Latin America shot up, from 9 percent to 28 percent</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91707/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research on Latin America’s four recent female presidents disproves the idea that merely putting a woman in power will improve gender equality.Merike Blofield, Associate Professor, University of MiamiChristina Ewig, Professor of Public Affairs and Faculty Director of the Center on Women, Gender and Public Policy, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of MinnesotaJennifer M. Piscopo, Assistant Professor of Politics, Occidental CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/858832017-10-18T22:30:35Z2017-10-18T22:30:35ZThe hidden connection between obesity, heart disease and trade<p>This week, representatives from most of the world’s governments are meeting at a <a href="http://www.who.int/nmh/events/2017/montevideo/about/en/">World Health Organization global conference</a> in Uruguay to tackle the global pandemic of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). </p>
<p>These NCDs are the chronic diseases — including cancers, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and diabetes — that <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs355/en/">now kill around 40 million people each year</a>. They are responsible for 70 per cent of all deaths globally and have a much bigger impact than infectious diseases such as HIV and malaria. Reducing the preventable deaths they cause is one of the <a href="http://indicators.report/targets/3-4/">key health targets of the new Sustainable Development Goals</a>.</p>
<p>The good news is that the meeting’s <a href="http://www.who.int/ncds/governance/montevideo-roadmap.pdf?ua=1">draft agreement</a> recognizes the need to address conflicts between public health goals and private sector interests in tobacco, unhealthy foods and alcohol products. Alongside physical inactivity, consumption of these products is one of the main drivers of NCDs. </p>
<p>The bad news is that the agreement is virtually silent on the role of trade and investment agreements in promoting the global rise in NCDs.</p>
<h2>Trade agreements boost heart disease and obesity</h2>
<p>There is plenty of research evidence of the impact of trade and investment agreements on NCDs such as heart disease, and on major risk factors such as <a href="http://www.who.int/topics/obesity/en/">obesity</a> and <a href="http://www.who.int/topics/tobacco/en/">tobacco use</a>.</p>
<p>One of our studies, for example, revealed that <a href="https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12992-015-0127-7?site=globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com">consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in Vietnam spiked dramatically</a> after that country opened itself to trade and foreign investment. Soft drink companies based in the United States increased their market presence even as the World Health Organization identified the rise in consumption of high-sugar content drinks as a <a href="http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/childhood/WHO_new_childhoodobesity_PREVENTION_27nov_HR_PRINT_OK.pdf">major cause of rising youth obesity</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190712/original/file-20171017-30436-ei85jt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190712/original/file-20171017-30436-ei85jt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190712/original/file-20171017-30436-ei85jt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190712/original/file-20171017-30436-ei85jt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190712/original/file-20171017-30436-ei85jt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190712/original/file-20171017-30436-ei85jt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190712/original/file-20171017-30436-ei85jt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sugary carbonated drinks for sale at a market in Vietnam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Another study found that <a href="https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12992-017-0240-x?site=globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com">consumption of unhealthy foods and sugary drinks increases after implementation of trade agreements</a>, often those with the U.S. There was also a correlation between such trade agreements and higher rates of heart disease and obesity. </p>
<p>Other research has found that <a href="https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1744-8603-7-21">when countries opened themselves to trade, cigarette consumption rose</a>; as more cigarettes entered the domestic market, price competition made them more affordable. </p>
<h2>Limiting government power to prevent disease</h2>
<p>Trade and investment agreements are not the only cause of these NCD-promoting patterns. <a href="http://www.onlinepcd.com/article/S0033-0620(13)00169-2/fulltext">Globalization processes more generally are also involved</a>. This includes the way that products such as high-sugar drinks and cigarettes can function as symbols that people in low-income countries have “made it” to the middle class. But as <a href="http://www.ijhpm.com/article_3186_741c0738f19120039415d58aedff5602.pdf">our analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement</a> has found, such agreements can limit the ability of governments to implement laws, policies and regulations aimed at controlling these NCD risk factors. </p>
<p>These agreements require governments to have scientific proof for any new control measure they introduce that could interfere with trade rules. But what if the measure, by being new, has only limited evidence? Agreements also call on governments to prove that their control measure is “necessary” and that no other less trade-restrictive options might exist, such as mass education campaigns. </p>
<p>Extended patent protection on drugs used to treat NCDs, meanwhile, price them beyond poor peoples’ reach. And they drain limited government health budgets.</p>
<h2>Government fear of being sued</h2>
<p>Many trade agreements also contain rules that allow foreign investors to sue governments over perceived losses due to new regulations. Philip Morris did just that when Australia introduced tobacco plain packaging. Several <a href="http://untobaccocontrol.org/kh/legal-challenges/australias-plain-packaging-laws-wto/">tobacco-exporting countries launched government-to-government disputes</a> under the World Trade Organization (WTO) system.</p>
<p>These challenges were not successful in the end, although the final WTO ruling has yet to be made public. But the very fact that they were considered possible <a href="http://www.globalhealthequity.ca/webfm_send/12">creates a “regulatory chill”</a> in which governments grow reluctant to enact new public health measures for fear of a future trade or investment dispute. This is especially concerning for low-income countries that lack the financial resources to fight such a regulatory challenge.</p>
<p>Few NCD control measures have actually gone to formal trade or investment dispute. But under the WTO system, there are an increasing number of challenges being raised against <a href="https://academic.oup.com/heapro/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/heapro/daw109">government policies on food or alcohol labelling</a> intended to inform consumers of health risks, on marketing restrictions and on <a href="http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/articles/PMC4994523/pdf/nihms806911.pdf">tobacco control measures</a>. As a result of these informal challenges, governments in some instances have delayed or backed away from their policies to avoid the risk of a dispute.</p>
<h2>Three steps to reduce preventable deaths</h2>
<p>So what should governments do, especially since much of the liberalized global diffusion of NCD risks has already occurred? Fortunately, there are three simple steps they can take to ensure the “policy coherence” that is the theme of the Uruguay meeting.</p>
<p>First, governments should agree that all future trade and investment agreements contain a full carve-out for any non-discriminatory public health measure aimed at controlling NCD risks (or any other health concern), whether or not there is scientific proof or other less trade-restrictive means available.</p>
<p>Second, since there are already scores of existing agreements potentially tying public health’s regulatory hands, governments should commit to not initiating a dispute against another country’s non-discriminatory public health measure.</p>
<p>Third, governments should refrain from increasing patent protection on drugs used to treat NCDs. These diseases will continue to surge before prevention measures lead to their eventual decline; affordable treatments will be needed.</p>
<p>These three commitments should be written into the final Uruguay agreement. They respect the aim of global trade by ensuring public health measures are not used to discriminate against another country’s products or trade interests. They also respect the policy space governments need now, and into the future, to protect the health and well-being of their citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85883/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald Labonte receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs program, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and and National Institutes of Health. He is affiliated with the Trade and Investment Research Project of the non-profit Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, and the non-profit Health and Trade Network. He is Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed BMC journal, Globalization and Health. </span></em></p>As government representatives meet at the WHO global conference on noncommunicable diseases in Uruguay this week, their focus should be on reducing the health impacts of trade deals.Ronald Labonte, Professor and Canada Research Chair, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/787322017-06-09T03:55:15Z2017-06-09T03:55:15ZMost countries score an F on our LGBT human rights report card<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172788/original/file-20170607-21930-15ciphh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police in Istanbul,Turkey disperse gay pride demonstrators with a water cannon in June 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Turkey-Gay-Pride-Parade/68079ee35a664e95bbf8c658619c53f1/15/0">AP Photo/Emrah Gurel</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>June is Gay Pride Month, but the sobering reality is that most countries, including the U.S., do not protect sexual minorities. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304539197_Human_Rights_and_the_Global_Barometer_of_Gay_Rights_GBGR_A_Multi-Year_Analysis">Our research</a> gives most countries in the world a failing grade in LGBTQ rights, reflecting widespread persecution of sexual minorities. Only one country in 10 actively protects the human rights of sexual minorities.</p>
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<h2>From persecution to protection</h2>
<p>The Franklin & Marshall Global Barometer of Gay Rights (GBGR), started in 2011, ranks countries based on 29 factors that quantify how much a country protects human rights. </p>
<p>It looks not only at constitutional protections, but also societal indicators, political opinion, civil society and economic factors. For example, we look at whether the majority of citizens are accepting of sexual minorities and if gay rights organizations can peacefully and safely assemble.</p>
<p>Countries are then graded on a five-point scale, from F (“persecuting”) to A (“protecting”). </p>
<p>The extremes are stunning. In 2017, 23 countries have legalized same-sex marriage, yet 71 countries <a href="http://ilga.org/ilga-state-sponsored-homophobia-report-2017/">still criminalize same-sex acts</a>. </p>
<p>Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen score lowest on our scale, with an overall GBGR score of 3 out of a possible score of 100, while Luxembourg, Malta and New Zealand score highest, with 100 percent. A score of 100 percent doesn’t mean a country is perfect in its treatment of LGBT individuals, but it does mean they protect LGBTQ rights. </p>
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<p>South America shows the most striking variation in protection or persecution of sexual minorities. Uruguay is a leader in protecting sexual minorities, as the second South American country to legalize same-sex marriage in 2013, preceded by Argentina in 2010. Meanwhile, gays are largely not legally protected in Paraguay, Peru or Bolivia.</p>
<p>The African continent has the least variation. Every country, with the exception of South Africa, is considered a persecutor. Although South Africa is one of the first countries to approve same-sex marriage, in 2006, it resists assuring LGBT human rights – particularly in the violence toward sexual minorities, such as <a href="http://wafmag.org/2015/11/south-africa-slow-respond-cases-corrective-rape/">“corrective rapes</a>.”</p>
<p>How do we account for such variation between countries and regions?</p>
<p>Our initial findings suggest that higher income, lower rates of religiosity, higher life expectancy, a higher freedom rating by nonprofit <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/">Freedom House</a> and having a democratic political system are the best predictors of how much a country respects or abuses the rights of sexual minorities. </p>
<p>This suggests that a country’s attitude toward gay rights is strongly related to its level of socioeconomic development, political development and religiosity. That makes the U.S.‘ low score an even greater anomaly.</p>
<h2>The US lags behind</h2>
<p>While the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf">upheld the right to same-sex marriage</a> in 2015, we do not consider the U.S. a nation that’s protective of gay rights. </p>
<p>We class the U.S. as “rights-resistant,” putting it in the same category as nations like Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Mexico and South Africa. </p>
<p>Examples of resistance to gay rights are abundant in the U.S. For example, last year in Mississippi, a Picayune funeral home <a href="https://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/legal-docs/zawadski_ms_20170502_complaint">refused to provide cremation services</a> to a gay man because “we don’t deal with their kind,” and claimed a right to refuse service based on religious freedom. </p>
<p>As a nation, we found the federal government falls short on workplace and housing protections and joint adoption rights for sexual minorities. As a society, hate crimes against sexual minorities are a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/issues/lgbt-rights">persistent problem</a>.</p>
<p>Some may believe the U.S. is accepting and supportive of sexual minorities, but the reality is that we are behind most developed nations, which consistently earn a protecting or tolerant grade. </p>
<p>While we may be more tolerant of gay rights than in places like Indonesia, where gays <a href="https://theconversation.com/caning-of-gay-men-in-aceh-not-necessarily-the-exception-to-indonesian-rule-78516">can be caned</a>, or like Nigeria, where gays can be <a href="http://afrol.com/articles/16722">stoned to death</a>, we believe the U.S. needs to do far more to protect the rights of sexual minorities.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/19/5-ways-americans-and-europeans-are-different/">Americans tend to believe</a> that individual rights and freedoms are more important here than they are in any other nation in the world. </p>
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<p>Yet even though global trends indicate an overall improvement in GBGR scores, incidents like <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-orlando-shooting-exploring-the-link-between-hate-crimes-and-terrorism-60992">last year’s Orlando shooting</a> underscore the unfortunate reality that the world, even the U.S., is far from a safe place for sexual minorities.</p>
<p>Our tool is a reminder of how far we have to go as a nation to secure basic human rights for our own sexual minorities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many in the US are celebrating LGBTQ rights for Gay Pride Month. But data show that most countries, including the US, need to do much more to protect sexual minorities.Susan Dicklitch-Nelson, Professor of Government and Chair of the Government Department, Franklin & Marshall CollegeBerwood Yost, Director of the Center for Opinion Research, Franklin & Marshall CollegeScottie Thompson, Project and Data Specialist, Franklin & Marshall CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/623192016-07-14T15:44:11Z2016-07-14T15:44:11ZUruguay’s victory against Big Tobacco is more than just a local triumph<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130394/original/image-20160713-12397-mclv58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/dl2_lim.mhtml?src=BL9oSQ0r7XmI2TA_4skZFg-1-8&image_format=jpg&size=medium&chosen_subscription=1&method=download&id=388393894&from_redirect=1">DomDew_Studio/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Uruguay recently won a <a href="http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/content/press_office/2016/2016_07_08_uruguay.pdf">landmark case</a> against the tobacco firm Philip Morris International. The company sued the Latin American state after it introduced two measures affecting tobacco packaging: that graphic health warnings cover 80% of cigarette packets, and that tobacco companies adopt a single presentation for their brands – dropping “gold” or “blue” descriptions for example – that could lead smokers to believe one variant was <a href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/11/suppl_1/i73.full">safer than another</a>.</p>
<p>In its lawsuit at the World Bank’s <a href="https://icsid.worldbank.org/apps/ICSIDWEB/Pages/default.aspx">International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes</a>, the Swiss-based tobacco company complained that the Uruguayan tobacco control measures violated a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilateral_investment_treaty">bilateral investment treaty</a> between Uruguay and Switzerland protecting its brands. It meant that the company was obliged to withdraw seven of its 12 brands from the Uruguayan market including Marlboro Red, Marlboro Blue and Marlboro Gold.</p>
<p>The effects of this decision – the first time a tobacco company has brought a national government to an international court – might soon be felt beyond Uruguay. It may make it more difficult for tobacco companies to use lawsuits to produce a “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect">chilling effect</a>” and so discourage countries from introducing tobacco control policies.</p>
<h2>Limiting the use of brands</h2>
<p>Measures that restrict the ability of tobacco companies to use their eye-catching brands and other fancy elements of cigarette packs are increasingly being adopted. The EU, for example, recently made it mandatory to have health warnings that cover <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/health/tobacco/products/index_en.htm">at least 65% of cigarette packs</a>. Similar, or even larger, health warnings are now required by several other countries, including <a href="http://www.tobaccolabels.ca/countries/turkey">Turkey</a>, <a href="http://www.tobaccolabels.ca/countries/canada">Canada</a>, <a href="http://www.tobaccolabels.ca/countries/thailand">Thailand</a>, <a href="http://www.tobaccolabels.ca/countries/pakistan">Pakistan</a> and <a href="http://www.tobaccolabels.ca/countries/india">India</a>.</p>
<p>Some countries have even gone beyond large health warnings and passed laws which force tobacco firms to adopt standardised packaging. This means logos and colourful elements are removed from packs, except for the brand name, which is displayed in a standard font. </p>
<p>First <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/tobacco-plain">Australia</a>, and more recently, <a href="http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2015/act/4/section/23/enacted/en/html">Ireland</a>, the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2015/9780111129876">UK</a> and <a href="http://en.rfi.fr/france/20160520-plain-cigarette-packaging-comes-force-france-uk">France</a> have taken this step. The aim is to make cigarette boxes unappealing – especially to young people – and provide meaningful information about the adverse effects of smoking.</p>
<h2>The legal challenge to Australia</h2>
<p>Plain packaging is currently under scrutiny, though. The Australian measure is being <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds467_e.htm">challenged</a> at a World Trade Organisation tribunal by Cuba, Dominican Republic, Indonesia and Honduras – countries whose economies rely on the tobacco industry. These countries, <a href="http://www.tobaccotactics.org/index.php/Australia:_International_Lobbying">encouraged by the tobacco industry</a>, complain that standardised packaging prevents tobacco companies from communicating their brand to customers and unduly encroaches on their trademark rights, which in turn damages these states that strongly rely on tobacco growing.</p>
<p>A decision is expected in early 2017. Tobacco majors may be in for a disappointment as Australia appears to have <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-plain-tobacco-packaging-law-at-the-wto-14043">strong grounds</a> to win the dispute.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130448/original/image-20160713-12397-1our0l8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130448/original/image-20160713-12397-1our0l8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130448/original/image-20160713-12397-1our0l8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130448/original/image-20160713-12397-1our0l8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130448/original/image-20160713-12397-1our0l8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130448/original/image-20160713-12397-1our0l8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130448/original/image-20160713-12397-1our0l8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The effects of smoking are scientifically proven.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=lung%20cancer&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=300354104">Tewan Banditrukkanka/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>As brands on cigarette packs aim to promote a product that is scientifically proven to be harmful, it is understandable that governments would want to restrict their use. These measures do not prejudice the main function of trademarks, which is to distinguish the products of a company from those of competitors. They still allow some aspects of the brand to be displayed on the pack. For example, the measure that requires that health warnings cover large parts of the packs, permits brands to be displayed on the remaining (smaller) part.</p>
<p>The same goes for the more drastic standardised packaging requirement, which allows the brand name to be displayed on the pack (although in a standard font), so that consumers are still able to make their choices. Anyway, cigarettes’ packaging (with or without visible, or less visible, brands) has basically no effect on consumers’ purchase decisions in countries such as the UK and Ireland where tobacco products cannot be displayed at the point of sale (so-called “display ban”). The only indication of the tobacconist’s stock at the retail point is a list of the available brands and their price. Smokers don’t need to see the packaging when making their choice. </p>
<p>The introduction of plain packaging has not changed the way smokers choose their preferred cigarette pack. What it has done is ban the promotional use of fancy and colourful elements of tobacco brands outside the course of trade (that is, on the packaging which can be shown in public after the sale, for example at the pub, restaurants and other social settings). In particular, the aim is to prevent non-smokers from being exposed to eye-catching packs which could sway them to try the product.</p>
<p>That this standardised packaging doesn’t make it more difficult for consumers to choose their preferred tobacco product was confirmed earlier this year by the English <a href="https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/bat-v-doh-summary.pdf">High Court</a> in the domestic challenge unsuccessfully brought by several tobacco companies against the <a href="https://theconversation.com/plain-packaging-does-not-violate-big-tobaccos-intellectual-property-rights-38802">UK standardised packaging regulations</a>.</p>
<p>So, whatever Big Tobacco may think, public health policies pursued by democratically-elected governments should not be overturned by the industry’s trademark-based lawsuits, which seem predominantly aimed at scaring policymakers focused on protecting citizens’ health.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Enrico Bonadio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Uruguayan government’s victory over Philip Morris should embolden other countries to introduce stronger tobacco-control policies.Enrico Bonadio, Senior Lecturer in Law, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/585272016-05-06T10:51:32Z2016-05-06T10:51:32ZShould the UK legalise cannabis?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121066/original/image-20160503-19847-3n4csp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Judges smoke it, even lawyers too.' – Peter Tosh.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=76peBUyTCp5navgwHXUzBg&searchterm=marijuana&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=359713784">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A number of countries have decriminalised cannabis for personal use. None of them have descended into anarchy, so what’s preventing the UK government from following suit?</p>
<p>The Conservative government claims to be in favour of evidence-based policies – in rhetoric, at least – yet successive UK governments have signed up to the United Nations international drug convention, a convention based on prohibition and the “war on drugs”, neither of which have any evidence of working. </p>
<p>But does signing up to UN drug conventions matter when agreements can be sidestepped by individual states? Portugal’s decision to decriminalise all psychoactive substances in 2001 being a case in point. </p>
<p>And Portugal is not alone. It is now 25 years since the Czech Republic effectively decriminalised the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use. And in 1994, Switzerland introduced heroin-assisted treatment, a form of state-sanctioned heroin supply for certain users. But it is with cannabis that the most significant developments have occurred. In late 2013, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-25328656">Uruguay</a> took the decision to legalise the recreational use of cannabis (as opposed to “decriminalise” where possession can lead to a fine, but not a criminal record). It was the first country to do so since the global drug prohibition framework was established by the United Nations in 1961. </p>
<p>Uruguay demonstrates that policy alternatives are possible without any international enforcement. Several <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/map-united-states-legal-marijuana-2014-2016">US states</a> have followed Uruguay, extending liberalisation to recreational as well as medical cannabis users. But the UK remains steadfast in its resolve, maintaining that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2010-to-2015-government-policy-drug-misuse-and-dependency/2010-to-2015-government-policy-drug-misuse-and-dependency">current policy</a> is working. </p>
<h2>False logic</h2>
<p>The UK is looking increasingly out of step with many other countries when it comes to its approach to drugs in general and cannabis in particular. In the aftermath of changes in the US, polling suggests increasing numbers of UK citizens are also in favour of a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/legalising-cannabis-47-support-sale-of-drug-through-licensed-shops-poll-reveals-a6976796.html">change in the law</a>. </p>
<p>The Home Office <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/368489/DrugsInternationalComparators.pdf">acknowledges</a> that there is no “obvious relationship between the toughness of a country’s enforcement against drug possession, and levels of drug use in that country”. Convictions relating to cannabis use have reduced by 46% over the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35954754">last five years</a>. This could suggest that cannabis has been quietly and partially decriminalised. Yet the government maintains its outdated and dogmatic tough approach to drugs when making public statements about cannabis.</p>
<p>The government claims that prohibition works because cannabis use has declined in the UK in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tables-for-drug-misuse-findings-from-the-2014-to-2015-csew">recent years</a>. This decline in use may account for some of the fall in cannabis conviction rates. But if we follow the government’s false logic in relation to prohibition and simply wait for cannabis use to fall further, assuming it does (a very big assumption), then it would take a further five decades before their aim of eliminating cannabis use is achieved. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120689/original/image-20160429-10488-958x0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120689/original/image-20160429-10488-958x0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120689/original/image-20160429-10488-958x0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120689/original/image-20160429-10488-958x0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120689/original/image-20160429-10488-958x0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120689/original/image-20160429-10488-958x0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120689/original/image-20160429-10488-958x0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>But such simplistic interpretation of the data is clearly wrong. Although cannabis use has fallen it ignores what is happening with certain sub-groups of cannabis users. For example, an increasing number of young people are accessing drug treatment services as a result of using <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09687637.2015.1090398">potent strains of cannabis</a>. </p>
<p>Individual and covert commercial growers have used advances in seed technology and access to hydroponic growing equipment to cultivate more potent varieties of cannabis. There is little doubt that stronger strains of cannabis elevate the risk of developing a range of health problems such as <a href="http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana">psychosis</a>. Increasing potency is a compelling reason to change the current legal position, not one that endorses it.</p>
<h2>What are the options?</h2>
<p>Although the drugs debate is commonly framed as a debate of two extremes – legalise or criminalise – there are actually many options. For example, Beau Kilmer, co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center suggests an incremental approach to regulation (see chart below).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120683/original/image-20160429-10485-noqp0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120683/original/image-20160429-10485-noqp0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120683/original/image-20160429-10485-noqp0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120683/original/image-20160429-10485-noqp0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120683/original/image-20160429-10485-noqp0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120683/original/image-20160429-10485-noqp0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120683/original/image-20160429-10485-noqp0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Source: Beau Kilmer, RAND Drug Policy Research Center.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This proposal could inform a new policy approach which has the potential to enhance health at a population level. Introducing state regulation would provide users with a cannabis product that has been tested for potency and supplied without the risk of harmful additives. It would also generate revenue, adding to our collective wealth. Evidence supporting such a change is accumulating across the world thanks to those jurisdictions that have moved beyond an ideological commitment to the drug war. </p>
<p>The government’s duty is to protect the people it serves. With cannabis it fails to meet this obligation in two ways. First, it outsources the production and supply of a widely used product to organised crime, meaning that there is no quality control or regulated standards of production. This leaves people who use cannabis conducting daily experiments with their health. Second, by publicly endorsing prohibition yet quietly allowing its agencies to do the opposite, it lacks credibility. It’s difficult to work out who this policy serves other than a few elite criminals who control the production and supply of cannabis.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"728504014405550081"}"></div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The UK may have signed the UN drugs convention – with its emphasis on prohibition – but that doesn’t mean it can’t legalise the drug.Ian Hamilton, Lecturer in Mental Health, University of YorkMark Monaghan, Lecturer in Crimimology and Social Policy, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/437922015-07-14T05:22:19Z2015-07-14T05:22:19ZHow Latin America has blazed a trail by tackling inequality<p>A recent <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/in-it-together-why-less-inequality-benefits-all_9789264235120-en">OECD report</a> has shown that income inequality has increased in the majority of OECD countries – and in some, at historic speed. </p>
<p>The OECD countries’ wealthiest 10% owns 9.6 times more wealth than the poorest 10%, up from a roughly 7:1 ratio in the 1980s. This represents an increase of 11% in the <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gini-index.asp">Gini Coefficient</a>, from 0.29 in 1980 to 0.32 today. The report underscores that the income gap also widened in emerging economies such as China, Russia, Indonesia and South Africa. </p>
<p>Yet the majority of Latin American countries, Brazil in particular, have been reducing income inequality over the past decades – from 0.6 in the mid-1990s to 0.55 – representing an overall improvement of 8%. </p>
<p>Latin America is not the world’s poorest region, but it has long been one of its most unequal, so it’s worth asking how it managed to buck what’s become a global trend. The answer is that after they were laid low by economic collapse, many Latin American countries managed to radically redraw the boundaries of political and economic possibility to turn themselves around.</p>
<h2>Growing the middle</h2>
<p>Years before the banking collapse in 2008, much of Latin America was embroiled in a cataclysmic “debt crisis” of its own. But whereas much of Europe has tried to deal with the post-2008 crisis by rolling back the boundaries and spending of states, Latin American countries responded to their debt crisis by steering away from neoliberal orthodoxy – albeit in different ways across different countries.</p>
<p>But Latin America’s performance in social indicators has not been as consistent as all that, which makes it hard to pin their progress on the global economy. Poverty, for example, has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-28946221">decreased</a> across the region due to favourable conditions in global trading, including the rise of China, which boosted Latin American economies by pushing commodity prices up. Although the argument is valid to explain a common regional trend with regards to economic growth and general poverty reduction, it is less so to explain improvements in inequality levels, which have been rather more uneven across countries. As a <a href="http://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/37627/S1420728_en.pdf?sequence=4">UN report</a> put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In some countries reduction in inequality began to pick up speed in 2008, especially in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. Of these countries, three (the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil) also saw striking improvements in inequality reduction in 2002-2008.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The data in the <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/in-it-together-why-less-inequality-benefits-all_9789264235120-en">recent report</a> also shows a downward trend in “income bipolarisation”, an indicator used to measure the size of a country’s middle class (the larger the bipolarisation figure, the smaller the “middle” is). Among the countries with the most significant improvements were Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil – all of whom have spent much of the 21st century governed by left-wing governments and coalitions. Many of these governments originated in mass mobilisation and social protest movements, successful political uprisings that reworked the “common sense” assumptions on which their states and economies were run. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88228/original/image-20150713-11836-h31gyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88228/original/image-20150713-11836-h31gyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88228/original/image-20150713-11836-h31gyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88228/original/image-20150713-11836-h31gyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88228/original/image-20150713-11836-h31gyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88228/original/image-20150713-11836-h31gyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88228/original/image-20150713-11836-h31gyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brazil’s Bolsa Familia has improved the standard of living for millions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABolsa_Fam%C3%ADlia_(15227337667).jpg">Senado Federal via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the reasons inequality widened in Europe but narrowed in Latin America is that the latter’s politics have undergone a major transition, which some have called <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/democracy-against-neoliberalism-in-argentina-and-brazil-juan-pablo-ferrero/?isb=9781137395016">a move to the left</a> – and which is only in its embryonic stages in most of Europe, if it is even happening outside of a few countries.</p>
<p>In much of Latin America, the results are very visible. Public policies such as Brazil’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/dec/17/brazil-bolsa-familia-decade-anniversary-poverty-relief">Bolsa Familia</a>, which establishes a minimum income for households with children, lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty and improved the standard of living for tens of millions more. As a consequence, poor people suddenly had access to shopping centres and holidays. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/Saad-Filho2013CSMassProtestsunderLeftNeoliberalism.pdf">Alfredo Saad-Filho</a> rightly points out that some of these aspirations are not necessarily to be praised, since they are socially undesirable, economically destabilising and environmentally unsustainable, or because they still support large capital. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, something fundamental has changed in Latin America which explains the difference with Europe: the function of the state. </p>
<h2>Phase change</h2>
<p>As most Latin American countries (Mexico being a conspicuous exception) emerged from their debt crises, they set about dismantling the neoliberal orthodoxy that had held sway over their states and economies for decades. The result was a “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=k8-_2a98MbYC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=%22redistributive+state%22+latin+america&source=bl&ots=_ZuqK-L0gO&sig=zVxMwp0YITDisR-j9HeT7IF93iY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4K2jVbXYOsr7UqyevOAO&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22redistributive%20state%22%20latin%20america&f=false">redistributive state</a>” – a “class compromise” between capital and labour that is now starting to bring down outrageous levels of income inequality. This is only possible because the dominant “common sense” has been changed, and the policies of governments along with it.</p>
<p>Even leaving aside extreme cases such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-jailed-opposition-leader-who-might-hold-the-key-to-venezuelas-future-42364">Venezuela</a>, Latin America’s pioneering leftists are of course due some criticism. Their policies against inequality remain fairly limited and fundamentally capitalist, since they are still driven by the imperative to bring people into the labour market and turn them into consumers. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Latin America’s 1990s protest movement fundamentally changed the game. The protests against neoliberalism didn’t stop at expressing outrage; what were originally anti-political movements took on clear political identities (<a href="http://www.coha.org/two-hundred-years-of-argentina-seven-years-of-kirchnerism/">Kirchnerista</a>, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tquM3XUW5ccC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=petista+brazil&source=bl&ots=ulVuzRofmz&sig=s3SSVcyQJV-008u0XZinOr_ezas&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Q7KjVdvsI8LTUdWMpMAJ&ved=0CF0Q6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=petista%20brazil&f=false">Petista</a>, <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21654653-un-honours-venezuela-curbing-hungerwhich-actually-getting-worse-let-them-eat-chavismo">Chavista</a>, and so on), which in turn opened up space for new policies that would once have been downright transgressive.</p>
<p>This is the biggest <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-europes-hopeful-left-can-learn-from-latin-america-37422">lesson</a> leftist movements and parties around the world can draw from the Latin American experience. If their politics simply reject an elitist status quo, they will make little impact; they have to clearly articulate alternative political projects and, if necessary, become strong enough political movements to implement them themselves.</p>
<p>Although their rise is a promising sign, it is still too soon to gauge the true impact of the left-wing movements-turned-parties in Spain and Greece (and especially the latter). But to appreciate the important strides they have made <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-you-ready-for-a-new-kind-of-left-wing-politics-33511">so far</a> and to imagine where they really could go, just take a look at Latin America’s complicated but nonetheless remarkable trailblazers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juan Pablo Ferrero does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While still host to some of the world’s most unequal countries, Latin America is making strides where Europe and the US are falling behind.Juan Pablo Ferrero, Lecturer in Latin American Studies, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/166462013-08-02T13:43:18Z2013-08-02T13:43:18ZWhat Uruguay’s legal weed means for the war on drugs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28574/original/5hb8pz9j-1375446803.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It will soon be legal to grow, sell and smoke cannabis in Uruguay.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cuau Guerra</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Uruguay is set to become the first country to legalise marijuana use, cultivation and possession following a century of often authoritarian prohibition laws across the globe. In a landmark vote on President José Mujica’s recent proposal, the Uruguayan Congress overwhelmingly <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23516966">voted in favour of legalisation</a> and it is expected that the bill will pass through the Uruguayan Senate in the next few weeks.</p>
<p>The Uruguay vote comes amid a heightened regional scepticism about the benefits of prohibition and US-led military strategies to enforce repressive anti-narcotics legislation. Even a number of former and current Latin American leaders of the political right have called for the legalisation of marijuana, presumably in recognition of the terrible socio-economic suffering the “war on drugs” has wrought over the last 40 years.</p>
<p>Significantly, the move by Mujica’s government is an indication of growing regional independence. John Kerry may still refer to Latin America as the US’ “<a href="http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/23-04-2013/124377-latam_backyard-0/">backyard</a>”, but it a part of the world increasingly escaping Washington’s hegemonic grasp. </p>
<p>After all, the war on drugs was principally an American invention, launched by President Nixon when he declared that narcotics were the country’s “public enemy number one”. Since then, the war on drugs has provided a pretext for military and political intervention in Latin America (and Asia) and increasingly brutal and repressive social control within the United States. The passing of the new law in Uruguay may be a preliminary step to dismantling a war whose fraudulence and hypocrisy easily compares with its Cold War and “war on terror” counterparts.</p>
<p>Last year, Washington State and Colorado approved laws which allow for the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/us/politics/marijuana-laws-eased-in-colorado-and-washington.html?_r=0">recreational use of marijuana</a> and it is quite possible that other states will follow their example in the near future. These moves have the potential to halt some of the absurdities of the drug war, even if similar legislation is not adopted at the federal level. </p>
<p>These new laws also reflect a growing scepticism among the US public about the benefits of prohibition. Consider that in 1969, a year noted for the sudden increase in pot smoking among Americans, about 12% of the population favoured legalisation. Compare the rather conservative 1960s with attitudes today: a poll conducted this year by the Pew Research Center found that <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports-legalizing-marijuana/">52% of Americans</a> favour the legalisation of marijuana. </p>
<p>Such a change in attitudes also reflects increased popular awareness about the drug and a cynicism about politicians’ scaremongering and their blatant manipulation of the facts. In the United States, for example, it’s perfectly legal for tobacco to kill about <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5745a3.htm">440,000 people every year</a>. Around 80,000 deaths in the US are caused annually by <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm">excessive use of legally-purchased alcohol</a>. And yet there are precisely <a href="http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_of_Death#sthash.Dd7XV6EH.dpbs">zero recorded deaths</a> from overdoses of marijuana.</p>
<p>The laws related to marijuana consumption, possession and cultivation may seem overly harsh to a rational observer. However, those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo, such as the private prison industry, the arms industry and the US political elite, are unlikely to disappear.</p>
<p>In the US, marijuana users have found themselves serving longer prison sentences than murderers and rapists. Thanks to Bill Clinton’s “three strikes” law, some cannabis users have <a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/05/fourth_marijuana_conviction_ge.html">faced life imprisonment</a>. Such measures led one scholar of Nazi law, Richard Lawrence Miller, to compare legislation targeting drug users to that used in Germany to <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drug-Warriors-Their-Prey-Police/dp/0275950425">marginalise and exclude Jews</a> from mainstream society. Michelle Alexander terms the drug war, “<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Jim-Crow-Michelle-Alexander/dp/1595586431">The New Jim Crow</a>”, after the name given to laws that enforced segregation in pre-1960s America. She argues that current practices overwhelmingly target African-Americans, even though studies demonstrate that they use and sell drugs at a level equal to or lower than their Caucasian counterparts.</p>
<p>Indeed, since Nixon declared drugs as “public enemy number one” at a time when drug use was actually in decline, the US prison population has increased from about <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/04/why-american-right-closing-prisons">0.3m people to 2.3m</a>, the largest incarceration in world history. And America locks up more black people proportionally than <a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/16756-schools-and-the-new-jim-crow-an-interview-with-michelle-alexander">South Africa during apartheid</a>, predominantly as a result of anti-drug legislation.</p>
<p>While incarcerating hundreds of thousands of young African-American males for minor drug offences may seem puzzling, it nonetheless makes sense to the booming private prison industry. With the devastation of much of the blue collar workforce as a result of neoliberal economic policies, the economic contribution and value of a whole sector of society has been put to a different purpose. On this, notes <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_business_of_mass_incarceration_20130728/">American journalist Chris Hedges</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Poor people, especially those of colour, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jails and prisons, however, they each can generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to $40,000 a year.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One compelling argument in favour of legalisation is that it will seriously undermine the profits of organised crime. Yet narcotics (including marijuana), for example, might account for about half of the profits of some Mexican cartels. Organisations like Los Zetas are impeccable capitalists and are constantly in search of new markets. The Zetas have expanded into people smuggling, sex trafficking, extortion, piracy and even the petroleum industry and coal mining, and these represent huge sources of income. </p>
<p>The issue therefore runs much deeper than mere legalisation and decriminalisation. If there are no efforts to address the root causes of the explosion and growth of organised crime, what is to say criminal syndicates won’t simply expand into other very profitable markets?</p>
<p>Uruguay’s move will hopefully provoke a serious international debate on legalisation. But this debate must also address who will control marijuana production in newly-legalised states. Could growing be organised within local communities and be controlled by consumers, or will legalisation provide a pretext for transnational corporations, perhaps led by big pharmaceutical companies, to muscle in? From their perspective, why should upstart delinquents control the market and accrue massive profits when white collar professionals can run things so much more efficiently? </p>
<p>One potential problem is that the global market might become monopolised, creating what would be a legal but perhaps even more powerful cartel. But for now, Uruguay’s move is clearly a positive step.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Watt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Uruguay is set to become the first country to legalise marijuana use, cultivation and possession following a century of often authoritarian prohibition laws across the globe. In a landmark vote on President…Peter Watt, Lecturer, Department of Hispanic Studies, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82392012-07-16T04:54:43Z2012-07-16T04:54:43ZParaguay’s ‘coup’ puts a dent in Australian-South American trade dreams<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/12956/original/7vzzk5j2-1342154422.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The political tumult in Paraguay will have significant ramifications for future economic engagement between South American countries and Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>World Cup qualifiers in South America are renowned for their ferocity. For Uruguayans, there is more at stake than national pride. Even a “friendly” against Argentina or Brazil is a chance for revenge. If the aftermath of the recent presidential summit of the South American trade bloc <a href="http://www.mercosur.int/msweb/portal%20intermediario/">Mercosur</a> is any indication, Uruguay’s upcoming matches against its neighbours could reach new heights of viciousness. While these games will be little more than a spectacle of fan fervour and footy magic for Australians, the political back-story has serious implications for Australia’s trade policy.</p>
<p>A quick bit of context is needed. Mercosur is a moderately successful trade bloc composed of two big economies, Argentina and Brazil, and two small economies dependent on their neighbours, Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela has been waiting to join since 2006.</p>
<p>Politics and trade flows pointed to a fast-tracked Venezuelan accession to Mercosur until Hugo Chávez delivered a professional foul in 2006. Annoyed with delays in approval of Venezuela’s membership application, he branded the Brazilian and Paraguayan congresses toadies of US imperialism. Brazil gave him a yellow card, but eventually signed off on Venezuela’s membership. Paraguay’s congress was pricklier, giving Chávez a red card and thus effectively vetoing Venezuelan membership in Mercosur.</p>
<p>Fast-forward to June 2012 and a game-changing moment appears. Different factions in the Paraguayan congress had long wanted to get rid of president Fernando Lugo, who came from outside the dominant political parties to win a surprise victory in 2008. Lugo’s saving grace was that his opponents distrusted each other more than they hated him. This changed after a number of police and protesters were killed in a land ownership dispute last June. In an episode of breathtaking political cynicism, the Chamber of Deputies and Senate seized upon constitutional impeachment rules and took just two days to charge, try, and fire Lugo.</p>
<p>Although legal and in compliance with constitution processes, this episode seriously failed the democratic sniff test. Lugo was given only two hours to prepare his defence and an appeal to the Paraguayan Supreme Court was all-but summarily dismissed.</p>
<p>Argentine president Cristina Kirchner and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff labeled events in Paraguay a coup. More importantly, they were quick to invoke provisions in the Mercosur treaties that immediately suspend any member judged to have broken the rules of democratic governance.</p>
<p>The idealism of Argentina’s and Brazil’s stance was almost immediately undermined by the announcement that only Paraguay’s political participation in the bloc would be suspended. There would be no economic sanctions imposed on the new government. The joint stance of the bloc’s two dominant members was further tarnished when it was announced that with Paraguay silenced Venezuela was free to join Mercosur. Argentina and Brazil had effectively imposed a nullification of Paraguay’s red card on Venezuela’s Mercosur membership. Venezuela is set to formally join Mercosur on July 31st.</p>
<p>This Machiavellian end-run around Mercosur procedures appears to have displeased Uruguay, and the country’s foreign minister and vice-president are speaking out forcefully against Argentine and Brazilian cynicism. Their complaint is that this opportunistic manipulation of political instability in Paraguay makes a mockery of already weak to non-existent institutional structures in Mercosur, which are tiny Uruguay’s only defence against its giant neighbours.</p>
<p>Retired Brazilian diplomats who built their careers breathing life into the economic bloc are effectively agreeing with Uruguay and throwing their hands up in despair. Brazil’s opposition politicians, who were in power when the bloc was formed, are warning that Mercosur has lost its economic raison d’être and become little more than a political plaything to assuage Dilma’s and Cristina’s leftist supporters.</p>
<p>It is this last aspect that particularly bothers Uruguay, a small country dependent on access to the Argentine and Brazilian markets, and which should also be of concern to Australia.</p>
<p>Uruguay’s and Australia’s problem is simple, but politically intractable. Mercosur rules forbid members from individually negotiating trade deals with other countries or regions. Any deal must be agreed en masse. The result has been no meaningful expansion of Mercosur’s external trade linkages since the bloc was formed in 1991. This leaves Uruguay trapped in a situation of dependence on Argentina and Brazil, neither of whom are particular concerned about their small neighbor’s interests.</p>
<p>Venezuela’s accession to Mercosur will almost certainly kill Uruguayan ambitions to sign trade deals with other countries. Hugo Chávez has been quite clear that he wants to “liberate” Mercosur from its slavish adherence to neoliberalism and return it to a socialist path of solidarity and fraternity. This is completely antithetical to the sort of globalized trade agenda Uruguay wants to pursue. In particular, it automatically eliminates virtually all of the countries on Uruguay’s ‘must-have’ list for free trade agreement partners, including Australia as well as the US and EU.</p>
<p>The implications are equally dire for Australia’s growing and very real South American engagement policy. Brazil’s enormous internal market and large economy is the real prize for Australian trade policy, with Uruguay being a pleasant addition. The catch is that any trade agreement with Brazil or Uruguay would have to come through a deal with the entirety of Mercosur.</p>
<p>Venezuela’s full membership in Mercosur makes a deal with Australia as likely as a 2014 repeat of Uruguay’s 1950 World Cup defeat of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã stadium. Better odds than an Australian victory, but still highly unlikely. What remains to be seen is if Uruguay will finally give up on what it sees as a rigged game and downgrades its membership in Mercosur. This outcome has about the same odds as a Brazilian victory in 2014.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/8239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Burges receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>World Cup qualifiers in South America are renowned for their ferocity. For Uruguayans, there is more at stake than national pride. Even a “friendly” against Argentina or Brazil is a chance for revenge…Sean Burges, Lecturer in International Relations, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.