Latin America’s left turn and the trust in the State: The process of Ecuador

Abstract

The leftist political leaderships emerged at the beginning of the 21st century as a response to the crisis occurred during the last two decades of the 20th century in Latin America, shared the necessity of recovering the confidence in institutions. Slogans such as “Throw them all out!” pointed at the ruling political class as the main responsible for the situation and opened the political arena to new projects. This “newness” had to do not only with the content of the political proposals, but also with the strategy to attain power. Given the crisis of representation experienced in countries like Ecuador, it was made a dangerous choice. It was firstly deepen the institutional crisis, to subsequently propose a new closure of meaning through a political discourse dominated by the need to “regain the fatherland”. A great majority of those who “turned left” and resorted to this political strategy are still in power after several and overwhelming electoral victories.