South America is at a crossroads. The attack on Caracas, the abduction of Nicolas Maduro, and the US president’s threats against the presidents of Colombia and Mexico are ominous signs for the coming years. In addition to external armed interference, elections have intensified political tensions from La Paz to Santiago and from Buenos Aires to Quito, with the region’s largest democracies set to go to the polls again in late 2026. The unequal dividends of decades of growth, combined with declining state capacity in the wake of the pandemic, are increasing the appeal of a hardline populist response. The danger is not only domestic. The trend toward militarized politics in the region and open threats by the United States have exposed the risk of external influence, a modern-day rehash of banana republic and gunboat diplomacy strategies.
Taken together, these dynamics point to a dangerous convergence. Deteriorating security, hollowing out political representation, and new external coercion mutually reinforce each other, weakening institutions and once again making the region vulnerable to domination rather than self-determination.
Peru is a stark cautionary tale. For two decades, the country had enjoyed above-average economic growth, attracted significant foreign investment, and was on its way to joining the OECD. By early 2026, the Sol will be widely regarded as South America’s most stable currency. However, prosperity is not tied to institutional stability. The fact that seven presidents have taken office in nine years speaks to deeper political dysfunction. Sociologist Julio Kotler has argued that Peru’s elites derive their wealth from exporting raw materials and have little incentive to share profits or build competent and inclusive institutions. The result is a fragile political economy where colonial class systems remain, inequalities persist across gender, class and ethnicity, state services are dysfunctional, and legitimacy and representation are undermined.
That vulnerability now collides with anxiety. In Lima, repeated transport strikes have paralyzed the city due to escalating violence and extortion. Dozens of bus drivers were murdered in broad daylight throughout 2025. In October 2025, protests turned deadly when a rapper and street artist was shot dead near the government palace during a demonstration against new president José Geri. The president of Congress referred to the victims as “telcos” (previously labeled terrorists), illustrating the toxicity of Peru’s political climate. The term is a slur aimed at delegitimizing the protests and demands of dissidents, often indigenous peoples and farmers. This is not an isolated phenomenon, but a symptom of the way political systems treat social conflict as a problem to police, something to be suppressed rather than addressed.
Peru’s response was to militarize public space. Under Yeri, the government declared a state of emergency and sent soldiers to patrol the streets “until the security situation is resolved.” Ecuador has attempted something similar, going so far as to declare an “internal armed conflict,” leading to an increase in human rights abuses. When political demands are marginalized in favor of military and police power, political representation collapses into patronage and fear. The Peruvian Congress exemplifies this breakdown in representation. Instead of a place where the nation can carry out necessary reforms to meet the demands of its people, it has become a plutocratic trading company where vested interests fly around.
The 2026 Peruvian presidential election campaign amplifies this logic. Powerful figures are promising mega-prisons, drone surveillance and even the transfer of inmates to prisons in El Salvador. Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, has openly invoked “mano dura” (a militarized response to a crisis of state and representation). Across the Andes, “order” is returning as a magic solution and political proposition, reinforced by US support for repression as a policy response, but the causes of violence – social exclusion, impunity and hollowing out of the state – are rarely resolved.
Chile provides a cautionary example. The hymns to Pinochet heard after José Antonio Casto’s election victory speak to a nostalgia for the certainty of authoritarianism and dictatorship sponsored by US intervention. But the appeal of ruling with a “strong hand” lies less in ideology than in disillusionment with political parties and governments that people feel are out of touch with them and self-serving. When elites ignore the needs of the people, hardline positions are implemented on behalf of political representatives. The military is politicized and society is militarized. From this change, authoritarian arrangements become entrenched and a shortcut to a symbiosis in which politicians and military personnel protect predatory interests, local or foreign, under the banner of security, while soldiers receive a “warrior’s dividend.”
The resurgence of hardline populism in the region resonates with a broader resurgence of militarized responses to social and political problems, as well as overt U.S. military intervention and bombing. The resurgence of the Monroe Doctrine, violations of international law, and outright use of force in the Caribbean, the so-called “Donism,” demonstrate a governing logic that replaces political legitimacy with coercion. The financial pressures seen in Argentina’s recent parliamentary elections and the summary executions of suspected drug traffickers follow the same pattern. These are not isolated phenomena, but variations of the same reaction: gaslighting social problems through force. Ultimately, this creates weak states, divided societies, and politicized militaries that undermine the very capabilities needed to achieve security, equity, and democracy, and make external intervention easier, not harder.
As the region’s leaders pursue militarization as a means of suppressing dissent, they are weakening states and putting them in a similar position to when banana republics first emerged. Weak institutions, corrupt parliaments, and politicized security forces are once again defining political life. Now, as the fallout from the missile and Nicolás Maduro abduction in Venezuela shows, the script has been updated to be more explicit, graphic, and transactional.
Other methods are possible, but it starts with correctly stating the problem. Violence is real, but security without legitimacy is temporary, and force without institution building is weak. The Andes will not be able to escape its current trends of insecurity and instability, even by doubling emergency powers, enlarging prisons, and sweeping the streets with soldiers in full gear. The only way to avoid this path is to invest in justice and address the institutionalized inequalities that enable and profit from violence. This cannot happen without reshaping political expression from the current predatory dynamics.
If the region continues its cry of right-wing populism in 2026, there will be more states of emergency, more “internal conflicts,” more militarized campaigns, and inevitably more room for foreign actors to set conditions and priorities in the region. Reboot of Banana Republic with “Security” add-on. It may give the US president a kind of geopolitical success fee equivalent to the FIFA Peace Prize, but it ultimately fails in reality. The only way out of this trajectory is to ensure that politics is conducted without the shadow of uniformity or populism, and that the voices of the people are not drowned out by the interests of factions and short-sighted elites. This challenge will become even more difficult given the pressure from the United States for deals that disregard democracy, human rights, and legitimacy.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
