Colombia’s Right Turn during Puzzling Times: A Speculative Essay

Colombia constitutes an exception in the current Latin American political context: whereas most of the region’s regimes have turned to the left, Colombia has turned to the right. Since Alvaro Uribe’s presidential election in 2002, the country has become increasingly polarized, and in this course Uribe embodies an emerging right with considerable popular support. This essay explains and characterizes Colombia’s turn to the right, a process that reveals different dimensions such as populism, a criminalization of both the armed and the legal left, and social spending priorities considerably distant from the neoliberal orthodoxy.