Voters throughout Latin America are craving solutions to the spread of organized crime. In today’s episode, we’ll look in detail at how Nayib Bukele executed the crackdown on gangs in El Salvador, analyze the extent to which the model has been adopted by some politicians around the region and evaluate why that is more difficult than it seems. Our guest is Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez, a doctoral candidate in government at Harvard University. He just co-authored with Alberto Vergara, professor of political and social sciences at the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, a piece entitled “The Bukele Model: Will It Spread?”, published in the Journal of Democracy.
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Guest:
Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez is a doctoral candidate in government at
Harvard University
Host:
Brian Winter is the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly
If you’d like to know more:
The Lonely Life of El Salvador’s Opposition by Chase Harrison
AQ Podcast: Is Bukele or Boric the Future of Latin American Politics?
Countering El Salvador’s Democratic Backsliding by Tamara Taraciuk Broner and Noah Bullock
El Salvador’s Economy Will Test Bukele 2.0 by Will Freeman
U.S. Citizens Are Getting Caught Up in El Salvador’s Mass Arrests by Ricardo J. Valencia
