The Bukele Model: Why It’s Hard to Replicate

The Americas Quarterly Podcast

Voters throughout Latin America are craving solutions to the spread of organized crime. In today's episode, we’ll look in detail at how Nayib Bukele executed the crackdown on gangs in El Salvador, analyze the extent to which the model has been adopted by some politicians around the region and evaluate why that is more difficult than it seems. Our guest is Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez, a doctoral candidate in government at Harvard University. He just co-authored with Alberto Vergara, professor of political and social sciences at the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, a piece entitled "The Bukele Model: Will It Spread?", published in the Journal of Democracy.