Towards an Uncertain Future (LAST100 wk 13)
Channel: UBC Latin American Studies
Date: 2020-12-17

This final lecture in the course covers the 1980s to the present in Latin America, from the heyday of neoliberalism to the rise and fall of the "Left Turns" and the challenges facing the region in the present and the future.

It can seem that the major problem that Latin America still faces is the weakness of its state institutions. The states that emerged from the dark years of dictatorship and civil war were weaker than ever. They had succeeded only in spreading distrust and cynicism. And under the neoliberal order, state weakness became ideology. Neoliberals argued that the state should leave things to the “invisible hand” of market mechanisms which, they contended, were always more efficient and reliable.

Today, the situation in Latin America is murkier than it has been for some time. Overall, this volatility may be a sign that we can speak less of linear narratives than of the way in which the unexpected is increasingly to be expected, “outlier” events are more often the norm. Who or what can rule over such exceptions? It is harder than ever to represent tendencies in the region with the broad brush-strokes with which we have been dealing throughout the semester.

0:00 Intro
0:21 Recap
3:47 Weak States and Cynicism
5:56 Neoliberalism
11:32 The Left Turns
17:11 Corruption and Volatility
20:43 Back to the Beginning Again
21:43 Break and Questions
24:23 Credits

Transcript https://last100.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2020/11/13.uncertain-future-1.pdf

#last100 #latinamerica #neoliberalism

Video by Jon Beasley-Murray for the University of British Columbia course, LAST100, "Introduction to Latin American Studies." See https://last100.arts.ubc.ca/syllabus/week-13/.

LAST100 Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFjDuS6mZI_lgiq7IhOIJh4HOAiinVIUj

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