Will there be caudillos in 100 years?

For almost the past 200 years, Latin America has transitioned through democracies, dictatorships and numerous points in between. Yet, the concept of caudillo, the charismatic leader, seems to have remained fairly constant throughout. It's a concept that is taught in every Latin American politics, history and literature course.

Is that still true in 2112? Will the region, or parts of it, still be cycling through charismatic populist leaders? This is, of course, an impossible question to answer, but it's fun to speculate. If you believe that progress on better governance can or will happen, then you probably think it is at least possible for the region to move past the caudillo mindset. If you believe that past trends do a pretty good job of predicting future trends, then there's probably more than a few leaders proclaiming themselves the next Simon Bolivar in the century ahead.

Then again, maybe the analytical concept of caudillismo is too simple to use. Today's populist leader isn't the same as the one in 1950 or 1850, but we throw them under the same broad historical framework of "caudillo" to give the analysis a bit of coherence over time. Historians and political scientists may very well use the term caudillo in 2112 to describe some charismatic leader, but it will look nothing like today, much less Facundo.