Introduction to thematic issue on COVID-19 and politics in Latin America

COVID-19 has hit Latin America particularly hard, both in terms of contagions and deaths as well as economic effects from the pandemic-associated fallout. Though the region is home to just eight percent of the world’s population, it has suffered more than 30 percent of global COVID deaths. Latin America also experienced in 2020/21 the most severe economic crisis of any region, with a seven percent GDP contraction, compared to a global contraction of 3.3 percent. The pandemic hit the region at a time of rising dissatisfaction with representative politics, frustration that had spilled on to the streets in massive protests across the region starting late 2019. Governments implemented containment measures of varying degrees, established states of health emergency, and assembled economic rescue packages to address the fallout. Protests died out, at least initially, and in some cases, for example Peru and Argentina, public approval of government during early lockdowns measures was extremely high. Almost two years into the pandemic, it is possible to make some systematic assessments of the varying effects of COVID-19 on the political systems in Latin America; how they have exacerbated or allayed existing trends in politics and policy. This rich set of original research addresses some of these dimensions, specifically, on representation and governance, and on communication and political behavior. Three of the articles address government or party strategies. In “Governing a Pandemic: Assessing the Role of Collaboration on Latin American Responses to the COVID-19 Crisis”, Jennifer Cyr, Matías Bianchi, Lucas González and Antonella Perini find, drawing on an original cross-country dataset and case studies of Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, that national governments that were more collaborative -ie