Chris Sabatini: The sad death of the Latin American left

Latin America, economic crisis, corruption, and, now, political upheaval, have brought an end to the foreign policy adventurism of two nations that once seemed poised to lead a new era: Brazil and Venezuela.

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  • Christopher Sabatini

    Dr. Christopher Sabatini, is a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, and was formerly a lecturer in the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. Chris is also on the advisory boards of Harvard University’s LASPAU, the Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch's Americas Division, and of the Inter-American Foundation. He is also an HFX Fellow at the Halifax International Security Forum. He is a frequent contributor to policy journals and newspapers and appears in the media and on panels on issues related to Latin America and foreign policy. Chris has testified multiple times before the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2015, Chris founded and directed a new research non-profit, Global Americas and edited its news and opinion website. From 2005 to 2014 Chris was senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas (AS/COA) and the founder and editor-in-chief of the hemispheric policy magazine Americas Quarterly (AQ). At the AS/COA, Dr. Sabatini chaired the organization’s rule of law and Cuba working groups. Prior to that, he was director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the National Endowment for Democracy, and a diplomacy fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, working at the US Agency for International Development’s Center for Democracy and Governance. He provides regular interviews for major media outlets, and has a PhD in Government from the University of Virginia.

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Latin America, economic crisis, corruption, and, now, political upheaval, have brought an end to the foreign policy adventurism of two nations that once seemed poised to lead a new era: Brazil and Venezuela. Both of their economies are in a tailspin. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff faces impeachment proceedings over her alleged lack of oversight of the budget process. And with the resounding defeat of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s governing party in the Dec. 6 legislative elections, these countries’ once-proud ambitions of only a decade ago now seem delusional.

In the early years of the 21st century, Venezuela and Brazil sought to shake off centuries of U.S. dominance. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva stood at the vanguard of a younger generation of South American heads of state. To the considerable anxiety of officials in Washington, they seemed to herald a new, turbulent phase for the region’s relations with the United States.

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