Description
Despite significant variation in pandemic responses, Latin America has been among the
world’s hardest-hit regions. At one end of the spectrum is Brazil, whose president has been
accused of pursuing a “genocidal” anti-public health agenda that has resulted in the world’s
second-highest death toll, as well as economic ruin. In seeming contrast, Chile has one of the
world’s top vaccination rates, but also recurring surges in new cases. For its part, Uruguay was
feted for largely controlling the spread of the pandemic in its early days, and without imposing
a full lockdown. It currently has the world’s worst rates of new infections and deaths.
We argue that what has produced disturbingly similar outcomes in seemingly disparate
countries is a shared commitment to neoliberal governance: that is, pandemic responses that
are based on individual and family responsibility, fail to provide material resources to allow
populations to stay home, and rely on eviscerated public health systems. In turn, as we explore,
the pandemic represents a potential inflection point in the regional political economy, as elites
who seek to minimize interruptions to the status quo and are poised to push for post-pandemic
austerity face increasing contestation by oppositional forces who desire non-neoliberal
alternatives.
