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摘要
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During the first two decades of the 21st century, left-wing administrations governed South America in a political trend known as the Pink Tide. Unlike their counterparts in the 1980s and 1990s, these administrations embraced economic and social perspectives that diverged from the neoliberal agenda. This article examines a critical question: How did Latin America’s left-wing governments respond to external debt, particularly the IMF’s conditionalities? This study explores the administrations of Lula da Silva in Brazil, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, comparing how these governments managed debt within the political and social context of the 21st century by balancing debt repayment with social demands.
Drawing on agent-structure theory, this paper situates Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil within both external and internal structural and relational dynamics, with a particular emphasis on “the debt-fiscal-finance” nexus and the interactions among key international and domestic stakeholders. The findings indicate that each government adopted unique strategies: counterbalance, resistance and renegotiation, or adaptation toward independence. These efforts included reducing reliance on multilateral loans, leveraging fiscal, trade, and monetary policies, and exploring alternative financing sources to avoid default, maintain stability, and mitigate social unrest. Embedded within the external and internal structural constraints and pressures, these governments leveraged discourses and mobilized broad social support to challenge IMF oversight. While such strategies mitigated the short-term impacts of austerity, they involved trade-offs between social objectives and fiscal sustainability, indicating that alternative approaches do not guarantee better long-term outcomes than traditional models. |