It may not be a return of the “Pink Tide,” but the region’s left has been showing signs of a revival. Perhaps more than questions of right and left, though, what most characterizes South America today is a sense of instability and democratic fragility. What’s next for the continent?
Depictions of Niger, Sudan and other African states as mere backdrops to geopolitical conflicts between distant outsiders neglect the role played by regional institutions, neighboring states and nonstate actors, while distracting from wider regional trends that will ultimately have a global impact of their own.