Prematurely declaring election victory is a hallmark of non-democratic regimes.
Demonstrators in Zimbabwe chant slogans and wave flags during a rally to denounce EU and US sanctions against the country on October 25, 2019.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP
Sophie Marineau, Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain)
Countries or international organizations regularly enact sanctions against individual states. But how can the effectiveness of these measures be evaluated?
A Chilean soldier stands guard at a ransacked supermarket in Santiago, October 2019.
Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images
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.
Venezuelans try to enter Colombia at the closed Simon Bolivar international bridge borders crossing, March 16, 2020. Normally, 40,000 Venezuelans come into Colombia every day.
Schneyder Mendoza/AFP via Getty Images)
US denies backing failed raid to remove Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro – but it has a long history of sponsoring private armies elsewhere.
He may be praying, but so far the Pope has declined to intervene in Venezuela’s crisis to aid a unified coronavirus response.
LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images
If anyone can convince the Maduro government and the Venezuelan opposition to come together to fight COVID-19, it’s the Pope. But the Church’s power to negotiate an emergency deal is limited.
In this March 2018 photo, Venezuelan children wait for a meal at a migrant shelter set up in Boa Vista, Roraima state, Brazil.
(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
If Brazil can find an efficient, pragmatic way to welcome, protect and integrate hundreds of thousands of forced migrants arriving at its border, so can more affluent states.
Venezuelan migrants look at the Panamericana Highway, in Urbina, Ecuador. More than 4.5 million Venezuelans have fled to neighbouring countries like Brazil, where they must navigate anti-migrant politicians. LGBTQ+ refugees in South America have only one dedicated centre — Casa Miga — to turn to.
AP Photo/Edu Leon
Economic growth is a red herring if economies can’t stop themselves shrinking more and more.
Demonstrators clash with a police water cannon during a recent anti-government protest in Santiago, Chile. Several South American countries have been experiencing massive social unrest in recent months.
(AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
In the last century, several South American countries faced coups, military dictatorships and social uprisings. Despite economic improvements in recent years, the continent remains mired in unrest.
A Yemeni national, denied entry into the U.S. because of the travel ban, shows their cancelled visa to reporters as they successfully arrive at Washington Dulles International Airport.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Files
Vahid Niayesh, California State University, Long Beach
Was the ban a Muslim ban – or was that just an anti-Trump narrative? A political scientist combs through the data for answers.
Many of Latin America’s leftist ‘revolutions’ are now in crisis. But the left is resurging in some countries.
The Conversation / Photo Claudia Daut/Reuters
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.
Sanctions are mounting against the government of Nicolás Maduro.
Rayner Pena/EPA
When the Rio Treaty was signed in 1947, an opportunity was missed to promote democracy in Latin America.
Venezuelans hoping to cross into Ecuador via Colombia amass at the Rumichaca border bridge in Tulcan, Ecuador, as new visa restrictions limiting migration took effect, Aug. 26, 2019.
Reuters/Daniel Tapia
Citing national security, Ecuador, Peru and Chile have all made it harder for Venezuelan migrants to enter the country, and xenophobia is rising across the region – even in more welcoming Colombia.
Venezuela has been in economic and political crisis for years.
Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
For one, you can’t break an economy that’s already broken.
A line of cars spills on to the street as drivers wait to fill their tanks at a fuel station in Cabimas, Venezuela, in May 2019. U.S. sanctions on oil-rich Venezuela appear to be taking hold, resulting in mile-long lines for fuel and other hardships.
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
The devastating costs of economic sanctions on Venezuela are being ignored or disregarded. So too is the lack of a legal basis for international intervention.
Bullet shells collected during a pro-government protest in Venezuela.
Miguel Gutierrez/EPA.
At the beginning of the 1980s, homicides were relatively rare in Venezuela. Now, it’s one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America.
Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez speaks to reporters outside the residency of the Spanish ambassador in Caracas, May 2, 2019.
REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Venezuela’s most famous political prisoner, freed from house arrest by soldiers who turned against President Maduro, now faces arrest after leading an April 30 rebellion against Maduro’s government.
Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López has been freed by his captors from house arrest and is backing a coup attempt against the Maduro government.
AFP/YouTube
Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University; Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Centre, and Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford