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charles@cmmstudio.com

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So far charles@cmmstudio.com has created 228 blog entries.

THE GRENADA REVOLUTION: 40 YEARS AFTER

 July 2025 Volume 52 Number 4Issue Editors: Wendy C. Grenade and Candia Mitchell HallSummary:This issue revisits the Grenada Revolution (1979–1983) and its enduring influence on Caribbean politics, culture, and society. Through interdisciplinary analyses, contributors examine the revolution’s achievements, internal contradictions, and eventual collapse, as well as its relationship to Caribbean socialism, regional solidarity, and Cold War politics. Drawing on historical accounts, personal narratives, cultural expressions, and documentary film, the issue explores how the revolution has been remembered, contested, and interpreted across generations, offering new perspectives on its legacy and significance for contemporary Caribbean identity, political thought, and collective memory.TABLE OF CONTENTS | PURCHASE THIS ISSUE

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LATIN AMERICANS SEEKING ASYLUM IN NORTH AMERICA

LATIN AMERICANS SEEKING ASYLUM IN NORTH AMERICA: DOCUMENTING THE CRISIS AS RESEARCHERS AND EXPERT WITNESSESMarch 2025 Volume 52 Number 2Issue Editors: Sarah England and Alfonso Gonzales ToribioSummary:This issue examines the political, economic, and humanitarian dimensions of asylum seeking among Latin American migrants, particularly in the context of increasingly restrictive immigration policies. Through case studies involving Central America, Mexico, the United States, and Spain, contributors explore how neoliberal development, organized violence, and state repression contribute to forced migration, while border militarization and asylum restrictions further endanger vulnerable populations. Highlighting the experiences of asylum seekers and the role of scholarly research in legal advocacy, the issue critically examines the limitations of existing asylum systems and advocates for more equitable, accessible, and humane approaches to migration and refugee protection.TABLE OF CONTENTS | PURCHASE THIS ISSUE

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Political Report #1468: Thanks to Trump

THANKS TO TRUMPBy Cliff WelchSão Paulo, 25 July 2025Thanks to Trump President Lula’s favorability numbers went up. Thanks to Trump the criminal prosecution of former president Jair Messias Bolsonaro surged on. Thanks to Trump U.S. prices for coffee, sugar, oranges and orange juice, beef, honey and travel are set to increase in August. Thanks to Trump Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, facing a backlash due to his alliance with Trump, abandoned his seat in congress, slightly weakening his father’s support in the Brazilian parliament. Thanks to Trump and his decision to use tariffs to try to force the government of Brazil to undermine its own justice system by undermining its case against Bolsonaro, almost everything Trump did not want to happen, has happened. As many may recall, on January 8, 2023, several thousand angry Bolsonaro supporters stormed Brazil’s most iconic government symbols and structures in the nation’s capital, Brasília, in a display of outrage over Lula’s inauguration a week earlier. Inspired by the January 6, 2021 insurrection in support of Trump, the copycat action attacked not only parliament, but also the presidential palace and supreme court. It was meant to provoke a military intervention. While some officers were prepared to intervene, [...]

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Political Report #1467: Performative Victory: How Post-Coup Honduras Used Football to Manufacture a “Silent Mass”

 Author: Clover Hu (Yutong Hu)Clover Hu is a student at New York University studying literature, psychology, economics, and justice in Latin America and post-authoritarian societies.:::Abstract: This article examines how the Honduran government, following the 2009 coup, utilized the country’s qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup as a strategic emotional diversion to suppress political dissent. Through visual analysis of media coverage, theoretical frameworks on deindividuation and emotional governance, and comparative reference to historical models such as “bread and circuses,” the article argues that football was transformed into a state-sponsored spectacle of national unity that effectively muted public outrage. This performance of collective euphoria silenced marginalized voices—particularly Black and Afro-descendant communities—and created an illusion of democratic cohesion. Drawing from thinkers such as Fanon and Seneca, the article frames this phenomenon as a modern iteration of affective authoritarianism. It concludes that the apparent triumph on the football field masked deeper political fractures and social exclusions, and calls for a reexamination of how state rituals manipulate emotion to manage post-crisis legitimacy.Keywords: Emotional governance; Honduras; Football and nationalism; Political diversion; Marginalization and silencePerformative Victory: How Post-Coup Honduras Used Football to Manufacture a “Silent Mass”In June 2009, the democratically elected president of Honduras, José [...]

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Political Report 1466: A Debate on the Left over the Nicolas Maduro Government

A Debate on the Left over the Nicolas Maduro Government NOTE: The website "Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal" hosted a debate over the Venezuelan Solidarity movement, the denunciations of Nicolas Maduro's policies, and the importance of contextualization. The interchange was initiated by an article by Gabriel Hetland, associate professor at the University of Albany, followed by a rejoinder by Latin American Perspectives’ associated managing editor Steve Ellner, and then a critical response from political ecologist Emiliano Teran Mantovani. It consisted of six articles altogether. All three analysts frame issues which are useful for grasping the knotty dilemmas facing not only the Maduro presidency but other Pink Tide governments as well. FIRST ARTICLE Capitalism and Authoritarianism in Maduro’s Venezuela by Gabriel Hetland April, 19, 2025 On January 10, 2025, Nicolás Maduro began his third six-year presidential term in Venezuela, proclaiming during his inauguration, “I have never been, nor will I ever be, president of the oligarchies, of the richest families, of supremacists, or of imperialists. I have one ruler: the common people.”1 Maduro’s rhetoric, alongside his ability to withstand years of U.S. attempts to overthrow him, has garnered him significant support from the global left. First elected in 2013 [...]

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AMAZON RAINFOREST AND SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL ALTERNATIVES IN LATIN AMERICA

September 2025 Volume 52 Number 5 Issue Editors: Felipe Antunes de Oliveira, Claudia Horn, and Fernando RugitskySummary: This issue examines the Amazon as a region of diverse societies, cultures, and ecological relationships, challenging conventional representations that reduce it to a natural resource frontier. Through interdisciplinary studies from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, contributors explore how capitalist extractivism, environmental policies, and organized crime threaten Indigenous territories, local livelihoods, and ecological sustainability. Highlighting the contradictions of green development initiatives and the struggles of marginalized communities, the issue brings together scholarly research and literary contributions to emphasize Amazonian perspectives, diverse forms of knowledge, and alternative visions for the region’s future. TABLE OF CONTENTS | PURCHASE THIS ISSUE PodCast

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DEMOCRATIC STAGNATION AND RESURGENT AUTHORITARIANISM IN PARAGUAY

 Issue Editor: Arturo Ezquerro-CañeteSummary:This issue examines Paraguay’s prolonged transition from dictatorship to democracy, highlighting the enduring legacies of authoritarianism, political clientelism, and elite dominance. Through historical and political-economic analyses, contributors explore how the Colorado Party’s continued influence, state capture by economic elites, and the expansion of agro-extractivism have undermined democratic consolidation and reinforced social and territorial inequalities. Particular attention is given to agribusiness, land dispossession, and Indigenous and campesino struggles, emphasizing grassroots resistance and alternative approaches to land rights, ecological sustainability, and democratic transformation.TABLE OF CONTENTS | PURCHASE THIS ISSUE

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Trump’s Policy toward Latin America: Even Anti-Communist Zealots in Miami Don’t Like It

First posted by NACLA: Report on the AmericasApril 2025 Steve Ellner During his first term, President Donald Trump exerted a “maximum pressure” campaign against perceived U.S. adversaries in Latin America and elsewhere. Among other hardline policies, he levelled crippling sanctions against Venezuela—leading, ironically, to a mass exodus of Venezuelans to the United States—and reversed former President Barack Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba. But just how committed is Trump to fighting communism in Latin America at this particular moment—in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua? Today, it’s anyone’s guess. Trump’s recent threats against Panama, Canada, and Greenland, on top of his clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, take the spotlight off the “real enemies,” as usually defined by Washington. In that sense, Trump’s foreign policy actions in the first two months of his second administration are a far cry from his first, when regime change was the unmistakable goal. In sharp contrast to the rhetoric of his first administration, in his March 4 address to the Joint Session of Congress Trump made no reference to Nicolás Maduro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, or Daniel Ortega. It’s even unclear whether Trump will pursue the use of international sanctions, which he ratcheted up against Venezuela and Cuba in [...]

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COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS: PANDEMIC POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA HEALTH AS ASSET, HEALTH AS RIGHT

January 2025 Volume 52 Number 1 Issue Editors: Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli, Alexander Scott, Kristi M. Wilson, and Marina Gold Summary:This issue examines the political, economic, and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America, highlighting how the crisis exposed and intensified existing inequalities and the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism. Through case studies from across the region, contributors explore the pandemic’s impact on public education, gender inequality, labor conditions, social protections, and government responses, as well as the expansion of digital capitalism and extractivism. Emphasizing the experiences of vulnerable communities, the issue considers the limitations of state responses, emerging forms of resistance, and the importance of collective action in building more equitable postpandemic futures.   TABLE OF CONTENTS | PURCHASE THIS ISSUE PodCast

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Alcances y limitaciones del sexenio de Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (2018-2024)

Alcances y limitaciones del sexenio de Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (2018-2024) y los retos de Claudia Sheinbaum en México por Emelio BetancesUn balance de la gestión de Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Amlo) tiene necesariamente que empezar con el contexto histórico que hizo posible su victoria en 2018. El neoliberalismo había caído en una crisis de legitimidad y no se pudo levantar. Los partidos dominantes (Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) y Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) ya no tenían nuevas propuestas. En ese contexto Amlo, un político carismático con un proyecto de nación que venía proponiendo desde los años ochenta, se proyectó presidenciable. Este político fuera de serie en el contexto mexicano había formado parte del proyecto político del ingeniero Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, quien había competido en las elecciones de 1988 y que perdió contra Carlos Salinas de Gortari, gracias a un gigantesco fraude electoral.El surgimiento de un liderazgo nacionalEn las primeras décadas del siglo actual Amlo desarrolló su proyecto, <more>

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Latin American Perspectives, founded in 1974, is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. Most issues focus on a single problem, nation, or region, providing an in-depth look from participants and scholars throughout the Americas.

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Alfredo Saad Filho — "SOAS, University of London" “Latin American Perspectives is the most important resource available providing in-depth progressive analyses of developments in Latin America. It is the unmissable Journal!”
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