Latin American Perspectives

10/15/2026

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has made excessive concessions to Washington. Nevertheless, her harshest critics, who demonize her, have yet to propose a viable alternative.

Venezuelan provisional president Delcy Rodríguez’s all-smiles photo op with Trump in a Manhattan hotel on September 22 proved too much for some of her

10/07/2026

New podcast episode: Brazil’s presidential election, round one.

On October 4, Brazilians voted in the first round of their presidential election. Far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, eldest son of imprisoned former president Jair Bolsonaro, finished ahead of President Lula da Silva, 47 percent to 45. It was the first time since 1998 that Lula has finished second in a first round. Bolsonaro’s party also became the largest force in both houses of Congress. The two candidates now face each other in a runoff on October 25.

Two days after the vote, Felipe Antunes de Oliveira joins us to walk through the results, why the left did so badly, and what a Flávio Bolsonaro presidency would mean for Brazil and the region.

Felipe Antunes de Oliveira is a senior lecturer in International Relations at Queen Mary University of London and a coordinating editor at Latin American Perspectives.

Full episode: https://sites.libsyn.com/456621/latinamericanperspectives/bolsonarismo-returns-brazils-first-round-election-w-felipe-antunes-de-oliveira

09/29/2026

New Editor’s Choice, Ep. 14. Fascism didn’t die in 1945. It put on a suit and tie.

Historian Daniel Kressel joins Alexander Scott and Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli to talk about Hispanic Technocracy (Cambridge University Press, 2025), his history of how Franco’s Spain, Onganía’s Argentina, and Pinochet’s Chile built a post-fascist state out of Catholic mission, authoritarian rule, and early neoliberal economics, run by men who insisted they had no ideology at all.

“When you say that you represent the truth and not ideology, then this is a pure ideological moment.”

We get into Opus Dei and the Spanish “economic miracle,” the networks that brought Chilean and Argentine rightists to Franco’s Madrid, the roots of Pinochet’s terror, and why today’s authoritarian nostalgia, from Vox to Kast to Milei, rests on the dictatorships’ own propaganda.

Link in bio. On Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you listen.

09/21/2026

Imperialism ain’t what it used to be. Andrew Smolski is back for part two of our conversation on US imperialism and Cuba, recorded one week after Washington sanctioned the company that imports Cuba’s grid-repair equipment.

His argument: what we’re watching in Cuba and Venezuela is a nineteenth-century idea of hierarchy in the hemisphere, asserted out loud, by a government that assumes 1950s US control over a 2026 global economy.

Andrew Smolski is an assistant professor of rural sociology at Penn State and a coordinating editor of Latin American Perspectives.

Full episode: https://sites.libsyn.com/456621/latinamericanperspectives/imperialism-aint-what-it-used-to-be-cuba-venezuela-and-the-return-of-the-colonial-state-w-andrew-smolski

Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube.

09/12/2026

New from Latin American Perspectives Associate Managing Editor Steve Ellner, in CounterPunch: “Delcy Rodríguez has a Gun Pointed at her Head – Does She have Options?”

Since the January 3 kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s interim president has faced constant threats, blackmail, and the prospect of prosecution — and has conceded a great deal, including the reform of Chávez’s hydrocarbon law and the 65-billion-barrel oil deal Trump calls the biggest in history. Ellner takes the resulting split on the left seriously: those defending Rodríguez risk lending cover to an imperial project, while those demanding she walk away owe an answer to what comes next, which is almost certainly a Machado government and Pinochet-style repression. His argument is that “hide your strength, bide your time” is a strategy, not a betrayal, and that whatever one thinks of Rodríguez, solidarity work has to stay focused on the source of the crisis: freeing Maduro and Flores, lifting all sanctions, and returning Venezuela’s seized assets.

Read the full piece:

Donald Trump’s success in wresting concessions from Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez is a clear demonstration of what can be achieved through

09/11/2026

There’s no precedent for what is happening in Venezuela and there are no easy answers. What is clear is that Gunboat diplomacy is back in a big way.

Donald Trump’s success in wresting concessions from Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez is a clear demonstration of what can be achieved through

08/04/2026

🌱 Nuevo episodio · Parte 2

"Ecología política, género y medio ambiente en América Latina" — la segunda parte de nuestra conversación sobre el número de enero de 2026 de Latin American Perspectives.

Esta vez vamos directo a la investigación: Mayarí Castillo conversa con cuatro de las autoras del número —Evelyn Arriagada, Paula Contreras, Beatriz Cid y Paula Acuña— sobre el género como categoría crítica en la ecología política. Hablan del agua, el cuidado, la agroecología, la recolección de kolloy, los saberes locales e indígenas y el liderazgo de las mujeres en las luchas socioambientales, desde el norte de Chile hasta la costa mapuche del Biobío.

🎧 Escúchalo en Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube o tu app preferida:

https://sites.libsyn.com/456621/latinamericanperspectives/political-ecology-gender-and-the-environment-in-latin-america-parte-2-conversacin-con-las-autoras-del-nmero

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5yov8EzwiWdmdql9JmZSpd?si=W9CYurxsS0qEU0fsHZu1kQ

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/latin-american-perspectives/id1675319784?i=1000779768852

📖 Todos los artículos del número, en las notas del episodio.

05/13/2026

New episode of LAP Editor’s Choice 🎙️

In Ep. 12, we speak with sociologist Bryce Henson about his new book Emergent Quilombos: Black Life and Hip-Hop in Brazil — a powerful exploration of Black resistance, diasporic politics, urban inequality, and the radical political possibilities emerging through hip-hop culture in Brazil.

Drawing on Black radical thought, political economy, and ethnographic research, Henson examines how contemporary “quilombos” continue long traditions of collective struggle against racial capitalism and state violence.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your preferred podcast platform.
https://sites.libsyn.com/456621/latinamericanperspectives/editors-choice-ep-13-emergent-quilombos-black-life-and-hip-hop-in-brazil-w-bryce-henson

05/11/2026

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0094582X261444032?casa_token=5QKQ5OSfua8AAAAA:P00Bf8rBxE1ubW7jGUgNz838qpNO05iMHtw8hV16-ARInXUJ1dI3XKZnys_85r4wv5Ijz-c00UdO

This article examines how the COVID-19 pandemic and Chile’s Emergency Family Income (IFE) reshaped households in the Social Household Registry (RSH). Using admi...

05/09/2026

Twenty years after the historic May 1 immigrant rights mobilizations, the struggle against raids, deportations, militarization, and imperial war continues.

In this recent op-ed for , Latin American Perspectives editor Alfonso Gonzales Toribio reflects on the political legacy of the 2006 mobilizations and the ongoing fight for immigrant justice and international solidarity.

Read it here: https://www.calonews.com/opinion/opinion-latinos-and-the-may-1-mobilizations-20-years-of-resisting-raids-and-imperial-wars/article_9a855f18-76cc-4dad-a22b-bb1b8b6ccb31.html