The impacts of the global economic crisis of 2008 began to reverberate across South America around 2012, with a number of countries governed by progressive parties entering into protracted economic downturns. After a short period of time, this often translated into political defeat at the hands of the Right, whether through elections, extra-constitutional means, or an internal rightward drift within governments conceived as part of the progressive cycle. Coming up in October, near-simultaneous elections in Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay will further impact upon continuities and ruptures with the “end of the cycle” and the rise of the new right across the region. It is a crucial moment to pause and take stock of both the longer-term and immediate political-economic dynamics underpinning such developments.

With all of this in mind, I had an extended conversation in Buenos Aires in early May with Mabel Thwaites Rey, professor in the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Buenos Aires, one of the leading theorists of the Latin American state, and a preeminent analyst of the rise and fall of the progressive tide of social movements and governments in the twenty-first century.

In our discussion, we trace the rise of anti-neoliberal social movements at the turn of the century and the progressive governments that followed them. Key issues taken up here are the impact of the commodities boom and the role of the state under new progressive governments, compared to its role during the orthodox neoliberal era.