Venezuela's local elections on November 23 could prove to be a critical turning point for the Bolivarian movement led by President Hugo Chávez—both at home and abroad. If the regrouped opposition makes electoral gains, Chávez's long-term aspirations could be significantly complicated. On the international front, dwindling oil prices and the economic crisis could scuttle Chávez’s ambitious foreign policy agenda.

Venezuela's local elections on November 23 are the first major test for the government of Hugo Chávez since his socialist-oriented constitutional reforms were defeated last year. Although the elections are unlikely to dramatically shift the national balance of power, the results will help gauge the momentum of Chávez's project to create a “twenty-first century socialism."

The leftist FMLN party is the current favorite to win El Salvador's March 2009 presidential elections. Besides the economic downturn, the party's success at the polls is being driven by a series of political innovations that have helped broaden the party's appeal and boost its inclusiveness—both at home and abroad. Could this new strategy make El Salvador the next Latin American country to make a turn to the left?

The U.S. government’s huge new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) was established to battle a new kind of domestic enemy, undocumented immigration. Yet the creation of ICE was not so much motivated by a perceived need to enforce migration policy as by a desire to build up the domestic security apparatus.

When Barack Obama clinched the presidency, pundits immediately began claiming the United States was on its way toward becoming a "post-racial" or "color-blind" society. But Latin America shows how claims of an emerging "racial democracy" easily coexist with mass discrimination and racism. Until racial hierarchies are systematically dismantled, myths of racial democracy will continue to mask and perpetuate injustice—both in Latin America and the United States.

Nowhere in the hemisphere have recent political tensions between progressive and reactionary forces been sharper than in Bolivia. The country has become a flashpoint for international contests over natural-resource exploitation and revenue, constitutional reform, and U.S. influence in Latin America.