Resisting austerity in the era of COVID-19

Abstract

A wave of right and far-right governments swept Latin America after a commodity ‘super cycle’ came to an end around 2014, seemingly marking the end of a decade characterised by progressive and leftist governments in the region. In the moment we finish writing this chapter, in early 2021, right-wing governments have been governing debt and fiscal crises through increasing foreign debt and imposing austerity measures, including cuts to social and environmental programs and the privatisation of state institutions. In effect, such measures have placed the cost of debt and fiscal deficits on the popular classes that most depend on government services. The turn towards austerity in Latin America has been compared to the 1980s and 1990s, when the original neoliberal project produced what are frequently called “the lost decades”, in reference to rising poverty and inequality in the region (Naranjo, 2004). The lost decades and the current conjuncture of the late 2010s have both been characterised by reductions in social spending and market deregulation, in addition to policies designed to secure capital accumulation, such as labour flexibilization and free trade agreements (FTAs) largely imposed by international money lenders. In response to a broad array of neoliberal reforms in the 1990s and early 2000s, multiple governments across the region were challenged or toppled by mass popular protests that converged on political centres. Likewise, massive street protests emerged in the final months of 2019 in a number of countries in the region, particularly in Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, and Haiti. Thus, 2019 ended amid growing popular discontent and mass social mobilization, characterized by growing articulations between diverse social movements. However, this mass mobilization was truncated by the COVID-19 public health crisis. Specifically in Ecuador, the central government took advantage of the public health crisis to advance austerity measures and further benefit capital through state deregulation and provision of financial incentives for environmentally destructive activities linked to extractive industries and the corporate food sector – a veritable economic-environmental “corona-shock” (c.f. De Fato, 2020). In Ecuador, resistance has not disappeared during the pandemic despite the absence of large mass uprisings. Rather, as we explore in this chapter, Resisting austerity in the era of COVID-19