Carlos de la Torre, 2000, Populist Seduction in Latin America

This classical work on populism sheds light on a less-frequently discussed aspect of the disputed concept: it looks at the lack of universal rights and citizenship in most countries of Latin America, and how conventional survival strategy of the poor and the excluded echoes a specific type of leadership. With detailed narratives on Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra and Abdara Bucaram, two populists in same Ecuador but with distinctive backgrounds and a half-century difference, Carlos de la Torre highlights some common characteristics and refutes irrelevant hypothesis. His work distinguishes itself not by deepening discussion on generalizable concept in absence of context information but rather by building a nuanced understanding of region-wide phenomenon on the base of Latin American scholar’s texts.