Most analyses of the recent wave of left-wing governments in Latin America in the Anglo-Saxon academic literature have come from scholars who can be roughly placed within the liberal, pluralist tradition. James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer's What's Left in Latin America? looks at the so-called Pink Tide from the standpoint of the radical Left, or as they rather differently put it, from a class analysis perspective. Their overall assessment of the left-of-centre (LOC) governments that have come to office over the past decade is highly critical. Leaving aside the governments of Cuba and Venezuela, to which they are more sympathetic (although by no means uncritical), they subject LOC governments to a number of charges that can be summarised along the following lines: by the turn of the century conditions were exceptionally favourable for truly progressive regimes to set in motion processes of revolutionary change. The economy, and in some places the state, was in crisis, the right was in disarray and neoliberalism was on the defensive. And yet, far from being the gravediggers of neoliberalism, LOC governments became its saviours. Enjoying some of the most favourable economic and fiscal conditions in recent history to effect radical economic and political change, these governments, rather than moving beyond or away from neoliberalism, implemented a new round of neoliberal policies. LOC regimes have failed to use windfall revenues accrued from the commodities boom to benefit the poor or to alter the productive conditions of their countries. In the process they have weakened the social movements and the revolutionary Left that prompted them into government and strengthened the Right, which is now resurgent throughout the region on the back of its economic control of commodity production and its political control of regional redoubts. The authors substantiate their arguments with an analysis of recent trends in Latin American economic development and social spending, and with case studies of Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela.

LOC governments have adopted, adapted and rejected, in different mixes, the economic policies of the governments they succeeded. Whether by doing so LOC governments have followed the neoliberal path depends on definitions of neoliberalism, which the authors fail to make explicit. If neoliberalism is understood as ‘market fundamentalism’, then no LOC government can be accused of that sin, as all have increased state intervention in the economy. If alternatively we refer to neoliberalism in terms of the holy trinity of privatisation, deregulation and economic opening, no LOC government has followed these prescriptions to any significant degree. If instead we believe that neoliberalism is a model of development characterised by its dependence on international trade relations that make developing countries heavily dependent on commodity exports, then Venezuela is the most neoliberal country of them all. Paradoxically, Argentina and Bolivia, the two LOC governments analysed in the book, have moved away from the neoliberal model much further than the LOC governments of Brazil and Uruguay: Argentina adopted a neo-developmentalist model based on a competitive exchange rate, higher levels of protectionism, subsidies and price controls, the re-nationalisation of the pension funds and extensive state intervention; Bolivia renationalised oil and gas resources, increased royalties and greatly increased social spending. Whether these policies will or will not promote sustainable development is open to question, but market fundamentalist they are not.

On the charge of failing to improve the life of the poor and promote development, most scholars would agree that favourable international trade and financial conditions rather than the political colour of governments account for most of the strong economic growth experienced by Latin America between 2003 and 2008. They would also agree that recent growth trends have not yet put the Latin American countries, including those on the centre-left, on a long-term sustainable path to development, which would require more substantial transformations in those countries' social, economic and political structures. That said, the same period has also witnessed significant social progress marked by a substantial fall in poverty (which the authors half-acknowledge) and a less substantial one in inequality (which the authors deny). There is, however, no clear evidence that the economic and social policies of LOC governments have produced higher rates of economic growth or better socio-economic results than those of the centre-right, and structural inequalities remain deeply rooted.

What about the arguments about the betrayal of the revolution and the resurgence of the Right? By the turn of the century some Latin American countries, most notably Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador, were in deep political and economic turmoil, but in Argentina and Ecuador these were crises of a political order rather than revolutionary moments. Perhaps the country that came closest to experiencing a revolutionary conjuncture was Bolivia. Surprisingly, Petras and Velmeyer offer an extremely negative and one-sided analysis of Bolivia's progress under Morales' presidency. In doing so they ignore the deep political changes undergone by the country over the past four years, which, if not revolutionary, have certainly changed the balance of class power in favour of the popular sectors. The conflict between the government and the regional elites of the ‘half-moon provinces’ is taken by the authors as a prime example of their ‘resurgence of the Right’ thesis, but this claim can hardly be sustained in light of Morales' decisive victory in the December 2009 election. More broadly, Latin America is set to experience 14 presidential elections between 2009 and 2011. Some of these elections, as has happened in Chile, are likely to be won by candidates of the centre-right for a combination of reasons more complex than those suggested by the authors' arguments, but the likely outcome of the new electoral cycle is increasing political heterogeneity in the region rather than a decisive shift to the right.

In short, it is possible to disagree with the book's main arguments and to suggest that many of the criticisms directed at the LOC governments are unfair and unbalanced, yet still acknowledge that the authors make a number of valid points that must be taken seriously. Whether the solutions they propose for Latin America's many social and economic problems are the right ones is an entirely different matter.