Cosponsor: Department of Global Labor and Work Latin America’s “left turn” at the beginning of the twenty-first century was unprecedented in its scope and duration, producing 32 presidential victories by left-of-center parties or leaders in 11 different countries between 1998 and 2015. Despite notable achievements in reducing poverty and extreme inequalities, leftist parties found it difficult to “deepen” democracy by empowering popular majorities, and they suffered a series of agonizing political defeats between 2015 and 2019 that allowed conservative forces to reclaim their customary hold on state power. This project traces the different origins and trajectories in power of “populist” and “social democratic” currents within the Latin American left. Through a comparative analysis of several leftist cases, it also examines how their alternative conceptions of democracy carried the seeds of their own demise, setting the stage for new forms of political polarization in the region. Santiago Anria is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Labor and Work at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He is the author of When Movements Become Parties: The Bolivian MAS in Comparative Perspective.

eCornell Keynote: Freedom at sea is still a dream for hundreds of thousands of workers in commercial fishing and seafood processing. They are working in forced labor situations around the world — in Asia, in South America, and in the U.S. — and conditions are dire. Jason Judd, Executive Director of the Global Labor Institute at Cornell’s ILR School, aims to end the practice of forced labor and has authored a Handbook for the detection of forced labor in commercial fishing called Towards freedom at sea: Handbook for the detection of forced labour in commercial fishing. “Our shared vision is one of freedom at sea, where forced labor has been relegated to the past and decent work is a reality for all the world’s fishers. It is our hope that this Handbook will serve as a valuable resource for actors throughout the commercial fishing industry who are working to achieve this vision.” — Jason Judd We’ll talk to Mr. Judd as well as reporter and activist Daniel Murphy about the prevalence of forced labor and how to combat it through detection and reporting. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Why forced labor is still an issue in seafood supply chainsWhat works in policy or technology to combat forced labor in fishingHow new tools like the Handbook help authorities pinpoint forced laborHow new journalism and worker organizing can helpSPEAKER Jason Judd EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GLOBAL LABOR INSTITUTE Cornell ILR School