Exclusive, After the Ecuadorian election

After the Ecuadorian election

by Marc Becker

Lenín Moreno narrowly turned back a resurgent conservative restoration in Ecuador’s April 2 presidential election. Rafael Correa’s former vice president defeated the wealthy banker Guillermo Lasso by a slim margin of 51 percent to 49 percent.

In the campaign, Moreno vowed to continue Correa’s spending on social programs including education, housing, and infrastructure that lifted millions out of poverty.

Lasso, a member of the reactionary Catholic cult Opus Dei, pledged to cut social spending, privatize healthcare and education, and slash taxes for corporations. He also promised to create a million jobs, though his platform lacked details on how he would do that or what kinds of jobs those would be.

Lasso was finance minster under Jamil Mahuad in 1999 whose policies led to an economic crisis, the dollarization of the economy, and the exodus of millions of Ecuadorians in search of employment. Lasso personally benefited from the crisis, as he speculated on financial losses and moved millions of dollars in ill-gotten wealth into offshore accounts in Panama and elsewhere.

Book, The Tourism Encounter: Fashioning Latin American Nations and Histories by Florence Babb

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The Tourism Encounter: Fashioning Latin American Nations and Histories 
by Florence Babb

In recent decades, several Latin American nations have experienced political transitions that have caused a decline in tourism. In spite of—or even because of—that history, these areas are again becoming popular destinations. This work reveals that in post-conflict nations, tourism often takes up where social transformation leaves off and sometimes benefits from formerly off-limits status.

Comparing cases in Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru, Babb shows how tourism is a major force in remaking transitional nations. While tourism touts scenic beauty and colonial charm, it also capitalizes on the desire for a brush with recent revolutionary history. In the process, selective histories are promoted and nations remade. This work presents the diverse stories of those linked to the trade and reveals how interpretations of the past and desires for the future coincide and collide in the global marketplace of tourism.

Abstract, The Ups and Downs of an Uncomfortable Legacy: The Complicated Dialogue between Gramsci and the Latin American Left by Raúl Burgos

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Abstract:  The Ups and Downs of an Uncomfortable Legacy. The Complicated Dialogue between Gramsci and the Latin American Left 

by Raúl Burgos

The ideas originating in Antonio Gramsci’s politico-theoretical work, in a multifaceted itinerary departing from a purely ethical matrix, have developed in Latin America into a sophisticated theoretical formulation focused on the theory of hegemony. The emergence of this formulation marks the beginning of a complex process of reformulation of the classic paradigms of the left, producing a drastic change in thinking about the logic of social transformation in Latin America. With this shift the issues of strategic design and the transformational process began to undergo thorough debate. The theoretical tasks presented by the current development of Gramscian thought toward the construction of a comprehensive theory of hegemony include the classical political and cultural dimension and the productive dimension of hegemonic actions.