STWR - Share The World's Resources

When the global financial crisis hit the US, President Lula assured Brazilians that their economy was ‘decoupled’ from the world's free market. Yet the country's recent economic decline has left half a million people in poverty, making us question his rhetoric of independence, says Renaud Lambert.

Latin America is locked in a struggle between those leaders seeking economic alternatives to the Washington Consensus and others who resist change. This tension is not only responsible for the region's instability; its outcome could also define a postneoliberal order. By Emir Sader.

The recent successful elections in Bolivia and Venezuela are being heralded as an important step forward for Latin America, signalling the increasing decline of US influence and a further triumph in the region for economic independence, social equality and redistributive policies.

The seeds of Latin America's rebirth - challenging US domination and neoliberal orthodoxy, breaking down social and racial inequality, building regional integration and taking back strategic resources from corporate control - were sown half a century ago in Cuba, writes Seamus Milne.

In the context of ambiguous electoral victories, movements throughout Latin America have come to the conclusion that despite the importance of electing and defending progressive governments, real change cannot come without struggles in the workplaces, schools and streets. By Daniel Denvir.

The new approved Bolilvian constitution, which puts the country's valuable natural resources in public hands and makes future privatisation difficult, marks a major landmark in Bolivian history that will create frissons of excitment throughout Latin America. Commentary by Vincent Bevins and Richard Gott.

Media outlets in the US and Europe have viewed the popular movement that brought Bolivian president Evo Morales to power as the precursor to a dangerous civil war. But Bolivian democratic politics can offer a model to Britain and beyond, argue Samual Grove and Pablo Navarrete.