The Political Economy of the New Left

New Left regimes have been underpinned by a reliance both on labor and nontraditional social groups and on capital interests related to the primary commodity sector, and the state has played an important overseer role in these relationships. These states have attempted to accommodate all these groups by pursuing incompatible populist and pragmatic policies. Study of the particular configuration of these regimes is important because they have become simultaneously more inclusive and closed off, generating heightened social fragmentation. Divisions among the left, the hardening of the right, and economic frailty render these governments unstable.