The pink tide (, , ), or the turn to the left (, , ), is a political wave and turn towards left-wing governments in Latin America throughout the 21st century. As a term, both phrases are used in political analysis in the news media and elsewhere to refer to a move toward more economic progressive or social progressive policies in the region. Such governments have been referred to as "left-of-centre", "left-leaning", and "radical social-democratic". They are also members of the São Paulo Forum, a conference of left-wing political parties and other organizations from the Americas.
The Latin American countries viewed as part of this ideological trend have been referred to as pink tide nations, with the term post-neoliberalism or socialism of the 21st century also being used to describe the movement. Elements of the movement have included a rejection of the Washington Consensus, while some pink tide governments, such as those of Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, have been varyingly characterized as being "anti-American", prone to populism, as well as authoritarian, particularly in the case of Nicaragua and Venezuela by the 2010s, although many others remained democratic.
The pink tide was followed by the conservative wave, a political phenomenon that emerged in the early 2010s as a direct reaction to the pink tide. Some authors have proposed that there are multiple distinct pink tides rather than a single one, with the first pink tide happening during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and a second pink tide encompassing the elections of the late 2010s to early 2020s. A resurgence of the pink tide was kicked off by Mexico in 2018 and Argentina in 2019, and further established by Bolivia in 2020, along with Peru, Honduras, and Chile in 2021, and then Colombia and Brazil in 2022, with Colombia electing the first left-wing president in their history. In 2023, centre-left Bernardo Arévalo secured a surprise victory in Guatemala.
Background
During the Cold War, a series of left-leaning governments were elected in Latin America. These governments faced coups sponsored by the United States government as part of its geostrategic interest in the region. Among these were the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, 1973 Chilean coup d'état, and 1976 Argentine coup d'état. All of these coups were followed by United States-backed and sponsored right-wing, military dictatorships as part of the United States government's Operation Condor.
These authoritarian regimes committed several human rights violations including illegal political prisoners, tortures, political disappearances, and child trafficking. As these regimes started to decline due to international pressure, internal outcry in the United States from the population due to the involvement in the atrocities forced Washington to relinquish its support for them. New democratic processes began during the late 1970s and up to the early 1990s.
With the exception of Costa Rica, virtually all Latin American countries had at least one experience with a United States-supported dictator: Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, the Somoza family in Nicaragua, Tiburcio Carias Andino in Honduras, Carlos Castillo Armas and Efraín Ríos Montt in Guatemala, Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez in El Salvador, Manuel Noriega in Panama, Hugo Banzer in Bolivia, Juan María Bordaberry in Uruguay, Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina, Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, François Duvalier in Haiti, Artur da Costa e Silva and his successor Emílio Garrastazu Médici in Brazil, Manuel Odria and Alberto Fujimori in Peru, the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico, Laureano Gomez and Rojas Pinilla in Colombia, and Marcos Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela. This caused a strong anti-American sentiment in wide sectors of the population.
History
Rise of the left: 1990s and 2000s
Following the third wave of democratization in the 1980s, the institutionalisation of electoral competition in Latin America opened up the possibility for the left to ascend to power. For much of the region's history, formal electoral contestation excluded leftist movements, first through limited suffrage and later through military intervention and repression during the second half of the 20th century. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War changed the geopolitical environment, as many revolutionary movements vanished, and the left embraced the core tenets of capitalism. In turn, the United States no longer perceived leftist governments as a security threat, creating a political opening for the left.