Latin America

Till today

Overview

• • • •

For Latin America, the 20th and early 21st centuries were a time of

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economic expansion and urbanization

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growing middle class.

The vast majority, however,

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experienced few benefits from modernization,

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for many rural dwellers, conditions grew worse. There was progress towards democracy, punctuated by frequent lapses into military dictatorship. It was a time of political upheaval, with revolutions in Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua.

Central America and Mexico

South Amerrica

Mexican Revolution

• In the early 20th century, economic growth and rapid urbanization created social tensions in many parts of Latin America. • Workers demanded higher wages and better working conditions, • Peasants resented the loss of their lands to hacienda owners and railroad companies. In Mexico, • these tensions led to a revolution in 1910, • liberal landowner Francisco Madero overthrew the pro-modernization, pro US government of Porfirio Diaz. •The new government curtailed foreign intervention in domestic industry; and it also introduced land reforms, redistributing land to the peasants.

Populism

• The worldwide economic slump of the 1930s brought mass unemployment and poverty to Latin America. • In some countries during the 1940s, this led to the rise of political leaders known as populists, • who promised – higher wages and better working conditions for employees, – an end to exploitation by foreign businesses.

• In order not to alienate the business community, populist governments – kept firm control over labor unions, – repressed communist groups, – promoted domestic industry.

Populism

• Populist Leaders – Juan Peron of Argentina, – Victor Haya de la Torre of Peru, – Getulio Vargas of Brazil – Jorge Gaitan of Colombia. • The populists, although elected, often became increasingly autocratic once in power. • However, they were successful at mobilizing the working masses to their support; and in alarming the conservative, property-owning classes, sometimes sufficiently to back plots against them. – Gaitan was assassinated in 1948, – Vargas was forced to resign in 1954, – Peron was overthrown by a military coup in 1955.

US influence

• During the Cold War, the USA sought to influence the politics of Latin America, • backing anti-communist groups and regimes • undermining communist ones. • A popular revolution was thwarted by US pressure in Bolivia (1952), and a CIA-backed invasion overthrew the government of Jacobo Guzman in Guatemala (1954) after he appropriated United Fruit Company lands. The USA armed and funded right-wing guerrillas in El Salvador (1980 —1988) and backed an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, but failed to oust the left-wing pro-Soviet government of Fidel Castro.

Military regimes

• The success of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 inspired revolutionary and socialist movements in other parts of Latin America. • Military leaders and conservative landowners feared revolution. • A wave of military coups swept Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s.

• A coup in Brazil in 1964 ushered in 20 years of military rule • The elected socialist government of Chile was overthrown by US backed General Augusto Pinochet in 1973.

Military regimes

• The leaders mercilessly suppressed communism and political opposition of all kinds. • Their regimes presided over a growing debt crisis in the 1970s and their high defence spending diverted funds from social welfare programmes.

• During the late 1970s and 1980s, armed uprisings overthrew several military regimes in Latin America. • Others returned peacefully to civilian rule, including Argentina (1983), Brazil (1985) and Chile (1990). • By 1990, Cuba was the only Latin American country not ruled by a democratic government.

Neollberallsm

• The state-led model of economic growth favored by governments of the 1960s and 1970s had proved a failure, and in the 1990s most Latin American governments adopted neoliberal economic policies.

• These involved supporting free-market activity, privatizing industries; cutting back on social programmes; and encouraging foreign trade. • In 1993, Mexico joined NAFTA, a trading bloc with the USA and Canada, which led many American companies to relocate to Mexico, where wages were lower. • Many thousands of Mexicans have migrated to the USA in search of better employment opportunities. – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay formed an equivalent trading bloc, MERCOSUR, in 1995.

• Neoliberalism improved efficiency, but also produced unemployment and a growing discontent among the poor. • Despite the reforms, Latin American economies remained largely driven by exports of raw materials, lacking the industrial development to compete with North America and Europe.

Recent developments

• In the 2000s, the gap between rich and poor became wider than ever, and the growing numbers of urban and rural poor put pressure on resources. • A large illegal drug trade in countries such as Colombia and Bolivia led to a rise in organized crime. • Left-wing or reformist governments came to power in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and Michelle Bachelet in Chile. • They have all tried to improve social welfare for the poor, and reduce their countries' dependence on overseas investment.