Shannon O’Neil

This is a guest post by Stephanie Leutert, a research associate here at the Council on Foreign Relations who works with me in the Latin America program. Venezuelan President Hugo...

The aspiration to integrate governance between Latin America’s twenty nations to address issues ranging from human rights to economic development to security concerns are long-held, but have led to mostly...

Steven Levitsky’s recent article in the Journal of Democracy explains why Humala won the Peruvian elections last summer. He points to a mix of campaign particulars — most importantly the divisions within the center-right – Humala’s effective shift from the left to the center, and most fundamentally, state weakness (which tends to push voters toward anti-establishment candidates). The Peruvian state has always been weak – as Hillel Soifer’s work has shown.

Today, chances are Hugo Chávez will face off against Henrique Capriles Radonski in the 2012 October presidential elections. The 39-year-old former mayor of Caracas’s Baruta Municipality (2000-2008) and current Miranda state Governor is leading the opposition candidates, and polling just 2 percentage points below Chávez. He is a lawyer who entered politics at the age of 26 to become the youngest member of the Chamber of Deputies until it was dissolved in 1999.

A recent article by Mariano Turzi argues that soy is the most recent of Latin America's commodity booms, creating many of the same challenges that metals, minerals, and oil brought in the past. Whether economic booms and busts, populist leaders, or fights between more powerful (e.g. Brazil) and weaker (e.g. Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia) nations in the supply chain, Turzi worries about the fallout for the Southern Cone and its future.

A new piece by Eduardo Guerrero in Nexos looks at the growing problem of extortion in Mexico. Differentiating it from drug trafficking, he finds it more brutal and violence, and argues it is on the rise for three reasons: fragmentation of cartels, displacement of crime rings (and their response to expand into new territories), and finally rampant impunity for such acts.

The Pew Research Center released the results of a wide-ranging public opinion poll based on interviews with some 800 Mexicans (the study is part of their larger Global Attitudes Project). It finds strong continued support for military - 83 percent favor their role in the drug war - and for U.S.-Mexico security cooperation, with nearly 3 in 4 Mexicans supporting U.S. training and weapons for national security forces.

One of the heralded lessons of Colombia’s fight against drug cartels is that fragmentation reduces violence.Mexico has, in fact, done this fairly successfully. Of the 37 thugs on its Most Wanted list, 21 are either behind bars or six feet underground. Where once U.S. and Mexican officials cited four main criminal organizations, today the number has at least doubled, complemented by the rise of many smaller operations and local gangs. But as the Mexican cartels multiplied, violence escalated to all time highs.

Today the Council on Foreign Relations is releasing its independent Task Force report, “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations”. Although there were some differences of opinion among Task Force members (some of which are noted in the additional comments and dissents section of the report), everyone agreed to Brazil’s rising importance.

Jorge Dominguez’s recent testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere gives an overview of Latin America’s progress toward democratic consolidation in recent history, and the role the international community has played in this slow, but steady, march.