Social Democracy or Moderate Left? An analysis of cases from Chile and Uruguay in the beginning of XXI century

Abstract

In the beginning of the XXI century, a majority of South American countries had experienced a “left turn,” trying to put into question the foundations of the neoliberalism implemented in the decade of the 90s of the previous century. It has also emerged in the academic scope and in some media a taxonomy that seeks to distinguish the current governments of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil, on one side, and Chile and Uruguay on the other. The first group of countries would be –according to this scheme- populist governments and the second group would be examples of social democratic governments. In this paper we will expose the debate about the viability of social democratic governments in Latin America. Then, we will review the contemporary political history of Chile and Uruguay. The hypothesis that guides this work is that, at least in Chile and Uruguay, we would not be seeing examples of social democracy, but rather of the moderate left who avoid challenging the neoliberal principles.