ABSTRACT
Throughout Latin America there is a deepening popular disenchantment with neoliberal governments that have entrenched themselves across the continent over the past decade or more. Yet one of the paradoxes confounding analysts of the region's politics has been voter reluctance to repudiate these regimes at the ballot box: Devastating socioeconomic failures have been no obstacle to the election of successor regimes committed to the same kinds of policies. 1 Another paradox is just as striking: Political oppositions that have exploited voter hostility have waged successful election campaigns to oust incumbent neoliberal governments, but once in power, the new regimes have invariably and systematically repudiated their critical electoral posture in favor of deepening the neoliberal agenda of their predecessors.
