Jorge G. Castañeda
Jorge G. Castañeda, former Foreign Minister of Mexico (2000-2003), is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.
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2011-12-27
| For Latin America, 2011 was, in Frank Sinatra’s terms, a very good year – and 2012 doesn’t look like being so bad either. But, while the region should count its blessings, it should also remember that nothing lasts forever.... read |
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2011-09-26
| On the UN resolution establishing a no-fly zone and civilian protection in Libya, Brazil, along with three of the other “BRICS” (and world power wannabes) – Russia, India, and China – abstained. Now Brazil and other large Latin American countries are showing a similar lack of leadership on the question of statehood for Palestine.... read |
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2011-06-20
| The politically committed intellectual may be a dying breed in much of the world, but not in Latin America. Indeed, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa may well have played a decisive role in Peru's recent presidential election.... read |
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2011-03-21
| Barack Obama’s current swing through Latin America will probably be short on substance, long on rhetorical flourishes and symbolism, and may include a few announcements affecting American business in the region. More importantly, he will see how Latin America has changed – to the point that it is disappearing.... read |
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2010-12-17
| For Latin America, Wikileaks has so far provided enticing tidbits of both gossip and substance about Brazil and Argentina; interesting, first-rate analysis regarding Honduras, Bolivia, and Mexico; and a few intriguing notes about regional politics and international relations. Nothing extraordinary has been revealed, but much will be learned.... read |
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2010-09-21
| Brazil is on the cusp of sustained growth, higher international stature, and consolidating its middle-class status. But, until it develops a mature foreign policy that matches its economic aspirations – a foreign policy based on principled leadership, not heedless Third World solidarity – its global influence will be constrained.... read |
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2010-06-17
| The relative quiet in the ongoing ideological, political, and diplomatic conflict between Latin America's "Bolivarian" countries – Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Nicaragua – is only temporary. Any number of rising tempests, including conflict between Colombia and Venezuela, could end it.... read |
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2010-03-18
| The OAS will have to decide on March 24 whether to re-elect Chilean diplomat and politician José Miguel Insulza as its Secretary General. But the OAS is facing a broader challenge in the threatened departure of the so-called ALBA countries - Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay - which are seeking to establish a rival organization.... read |
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2009-12-18
| Three years ago this month, Mexican President Felipe Calderón donned military fatigues and declared a full-scale war on drugs, ordering the Army into Mexico’s streets, highways, and villages. Like George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, it was a war of choice, and it should never have been waged, because it can never be won.... read |
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Time to Confront Chávez
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Jorge G. Castañeda 
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In early September, Colombia’s biggest businesses surprised everyone by declaring their wholehearted support for the country’s president, Alvaro Uribe, in his deepening conflict with Venezuela. But Uribe will probably have to step down as president before Colombia can enlist allies in its case against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.... read
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2006-03-03
| A debate on immigration is beginning in the United States Senate, which will take up several proposals. These include a hateful bill – which the House of Representatives has already approved – that provides for the construction of a wall along the US-Mexican border and makes unauthorized entry into the US a felony.... read |
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2005-12-07
| Venezuela’s recent legislative elections confirmed trends that have repeatedly brought the country into the headlines in recent years. President Hugo Chávez showed once again that he enjoys broad support among the nation’s poor and desperate, and that he is miles ahead of his opposition in terms of political skill, cunning, and ruthlessness. Yet at the same time voter turnout is declining with each passing election under Chávez, and the questionable fairness of the electoral process has grown increasingly apparent.... read |
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2005-03-22
| In recent weeks, many observers of the Latin American military situation have detected what could be the beginning of a new arms race in the region. Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva was photographed boarding the Tikuna, his country’s first conventional, domestically built submarine. He used the opportunity to highlight his support for the Brazilian military. ... read |
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2004-12-21
| A perception has been growing over the last few years – and picking up strength in recent months – that Latin America is swinging back to the left. The unimpressive – and sometimes dismal – results of economic reform seem to have generated a backlash that has elected leftist presidents across the continent, starting with Hugo Chávez’s victory in Venezuela at the end of the 1990’s, and continuing with those of Ricardo Lagos in Chile and Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, and more recently that of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay. More left-wing victories seem to be in store in Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia. ... read |
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2005-06-23
| Bolivia is not a typical Latin American country by any definition. But for Haiti, it is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and it is even less stable, with a history of more than two hundred coups since independence. ... read |
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2005-09-21
| Corruption is not exactly a new phenomenon in Latin America. Indeed, corruption scandals have been a fixture on the region’s landscape since time immemorial. So there is nothing in principle new or surprising about the ongoing, almost endless drama that has engulfed Brazil’s President Luis Ignacio “Lula” da Silva, his political organization – the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, or Workers’ Party) – and much of the country’s political elite. But this scandal, unlike many others before it, is taking place in a consolidated democratic environment, and on the left.... read |
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2006-06-06
| There are two ways to interpret Latin America’s recent election results. First, and most obviously, the supposed turn to the left is running out of steam, fast. In recent weeks, the hyper-nationalist Ollanta Humala, a clone of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, was defeated in Peru, the conservative Alvaro Uribe won a landslide victory in Colombia, with 62% of the vote, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador has fallen behind in Mexico’s July 2 presidential election. All of these isolated developments seemingly contradict the leftward trend in Latin America. ... read |
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2004-06-10
| When the NATO Allies gather in Istanbul, much of the talk will concern the divisions between America and Europe over Iraq. But Europe is not alone in its estrangement from the United States under President George W. Bush's leadership. Among the vast list of unforeseen consequences springing from the US fiasco in Iraq is the vital fact that, across Latin America, anti-Americanism is on the rise and is rapidly generating myriad grim effects on the region's politics. ... read |
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2004-09-20
| Whatever John Kerry does about Latin America if he is elected President of the United States in November, the election could initiate a sea-change in US-Latin American relations - even or perhaps mainly if George W. Bush is reelected. Kerry has never shown much interest in the region, while Bush has largely ignored it since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. But the unlikely nature of a shift in relations does not make it any less necessary. ... read |
2011-06-20
