Testing-Time or Testing-Presidents? COVID-19 Challenging Leadership in Latin America

Abstract

This section analyzes government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in five Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and Uruguay. The articles address the pandemic's evolution and emergency policy construction in these countries, emphasizing the dynamics of cooperation and conflict between presidents, congresses, bureaucracies, and subnational governments. The articles point to factors that contributed to varying degrees of governance of the crisis, from presidential leadership to government action's structural limits. In particular, studies allow for a more exhaustive assessment of presidents' responses, ranging from presidential inaction, populist rhetoric, and politically costly decision-making.