ABSTRACT
The article examined the crisis of so-called Latin American 'progressive governments' as part of a regional political process in which the dominant local elites ally with the United States in a political offensive to block the access of leftist forces to the executive branch throughout the region. It is argued that governments as disparate as Lula's in Brazil, Chávez's in Venezuela, Morales's in Bolivia, and the Kirchner couple in Argentina, among others, have strong features in common, among which: strengthening the role of the state in the economy, the emphasis on social policies, and the search for greater external autonomy. Those projects continued through successive presidential mandates and provided significant social advances, but ended up in crisis, in a process attributed in part both to the limitations inherent to this political option and to the pressures of US imperialism and its allies. In the end, the notion of 'end of cycle' is discarded and the difficulty of consolidating liberal-conservative projects as an alternative to the progressive experiences in the region is pointed out.
KEYWORDS
Latin America; Politics; Government