ABSTRACT
For decades now, Latin America has been identified as one of the most recurring sites of emergence and crystallization of populist leaderships and movements in the 20th and 21st centuries. Scholars studying politics in the region have identified the recurrent emergence of populism, in various waves, usually defined as “early”, “classical”, “neoliberal” and more recently “radical” populism. Reading through generations of academic work on this phenomenon, it seems that populism has been one of the most enduring styles of politics in the entire region. Yet, this observation prompts awareness of an often-ignored anomaly within the region; namely, the almost complete lack of theoretical and case study literature on Central American populism, at least until recent years, when Daniel Ortega’s political strategy and style in Nicaragua were addressed as populist, drawing on the same analytical categories applied to Hugo Chávez and other Chavista leaders and movements.
