Latin America's Left Turns: beyond good and bad

Abstract

In rapid succession leftwing parties have been elected to government in some of the most important countries in the Latin American region. I challenge the view that there are two distinct variants of the left—one populist, the other social democratic—and argue that variation on the left reflects the diverse conditions under which these forces emerge and evolve. I outline common features shared by the left in Latin America; suggest how the concept of populism and analysis of social movements can help explain this variation; and show how the left's commitment to egalitarianism, balancing markets, and, in some cases, its appeals to the constituent power of the people enabled it to benefit from disillusionment with the results of neoliberalism, the poor performance of democratic governments in Latin America, and the evolving international context.

Notes

This paper was presented in a panel on ‘The Latin American Left: Social Actors, Political Parties, and Development Strategies’, Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 6 June 2008. Earlier versions were presented at a CIGI conference on ‘Global Governance and the Contours of Domestic Politics in the Americas’, Waterloo, 3–5 November 2006, and at a Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Exploratory Workshop on ‘Latin America's Left Turns? Political Parties, Insurgent Movements, and Alternative Policies’, University of British Columbia, 25–27 May 2007. I am grateful to participants in these meetings for comments, including Eric Hershberg, Jon Beasley-Murray, Laurence Whitehead and Donna Lee Van Cott. I am especially grateful to Kenneth Sharpe for detailed and penetrating observations on a previous draft. Research for this paper and the workshop at Simon Fraser University was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author is solely responsible for the analysis, including all errors or inaccuracies.

1 CR Balbi, ‘El fenómino humala y la radicalización del electorado Peruano’, paper presented at the colloquium ‘L'Amerique latine aux urnes’, Institut Science Politique–IHEAL, Paris, 14–16 December 2006.

2 See JG Castañeda, ‘Latin America's left turn’, Foreign Affairs, 85 (3), 2006, pp 28–43; MR Cleary, ‘Explaining the left's resurgence’, Journal of Democracy, 17 (4), 2006, pp 35–49; E Hershberg & F Rosen, ‘Turning the tide?’, in Hershberg & Rosen (eds), Latin America after Neoliberalism: Turning the Tide in the 21^st Century?, New York: New Press with North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), 2006; B Arditi, ‘Arguments about the left turn(s) in Latin America: a post liberal politics?’, Latin American Research Review, 43 (3), 2008, pp 59–81; C Lomnitz, ‘Latin America's rebellion: will the new left set a new agenda?’, Boston Review, September/October 2006; JC Moreno-Brid & I Paunovic, ‘The future of economic policy making by left-of-center governments in Latin America: old wine in new bottles?’, Post-Autistic Economics Review, 39 (1), 2006, pp 2–7; F Panizza, ‘Unarmed utopia revisited: the resurgence of left-of-centre politics in Latin America’, Political Studies, 53 (4), 2005, pp 716–734; KM Roberts, ‘Latin America's populist revival’, mimeo, Department of Government, Cornell University, 2006; Roberts, ‘From “the end of politics” to a “new left turn”: populism, social democracy and social movements in Latin America’, paper prepared for presentation at the University of Montreal Conference on ‘Latin America: New Left? New Democracies?’, 29–30 March 2007; H Schamis, ‘Populism, socialism, and democratic institutions’, Journal of Democracy, 17 (4), 2006, pp 20–34; and CM Vilas, ‘The left in South America and the resurgence of national–popular regimes’, in Hershberg & Rosen, Latin America after Neoliberalism.

3 Castañeda, ‘Latin America's left turn’, pp 28–43.

4 Roberts, ‘Latin America's populist revival’, p 13.

5 Cleary, ‘Explaining the left's resurgence’, p 36.

6 Schamis, ‘Populism, socialism, and democratic institutions’, p 20.

7 Ibid.

8 Castañeda, ‘Latin America's left turn’, p 4.

9 Ibid, p 3.

10 Ibid.

11 JL McCoy & DJ Myers (eds), The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.

12 C Toranzo Roca, Rostros de la democracia: una Mirada mestiza, La Paz: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung–ILDIS, 2006.

13 This is not to deny that there is an important element of race consciousness in Chávez's discourse, or that race and class intersect and reinforce each other in Venezuela. See Barry Cannon, ‘Class/race polarisation in Venezuela and the electoral success of Hugo Chávez: a break with the past or the song remains the same?’, Third World Quarterly, 29 (4), 2008, pp 731–748.

14 Cleary, ‘Explaining the left's resurgence’, p 36.

15 Schamis, ‘Populism, socialism, and democratic institutions’, p 21.

16 Panizza, ‘Unarmed utopia revisited’, p 722.

17 Schamis, ‘Populism, socialism, and democratic institutions’, p 32.

18 In the Latin American context, the classic essay is T Di Tella, ‘Populism and reform in Latin America’, in C Veliz (ed), Obstacles to Change in Latin America, London: Oxford University Press, 1965, pp 47–74.

19 KM Roberts, ‘Neoliberalism and the transformation of populism in Latin America: the Peruvian case’, World Politics, 48, 1995, pp 82–116; Roberts, ‘Repoliticizing Latin America: the revival of populist and leftist alternatives’, Woodrow Wilson Center Update on the Americas, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, 2007, pp 1–11; and K Weyland, ‘Populism in the age of neoliberalism’, in Michael L Conniff (ed), Populism in Latin America, Tuscaloosa, AB: University of Alabama Press, 1999, pp 181–185. Although economists often use populism to refer to unsustainable macroeconomic policies, often involving excessive spending and controls, Latin American leftist governments are generally pursuing fiscally responsible policies. See Moreno-Brid & Paunovic, ‘The future of economic policy making’. Indeed, reducing vulnerability to international shocks through macroeconomic stability is a top priority for most leftist governments.

20 Weyland, ‘Populism in the age of neoliberalism’.

21 Roberts, ‘Latin America's populist revival’, pp 5–6.

22 F Schiwy, ‘”Todos somos presidentes/we are all presidents”: Bolivia and the question of the state’, paper presented at a workshop on ‘Left Turns: Progressive Parties, Insurgent Movements, and Alternative Policies in Latin America’, Simon Fraser University, 18–19 April 2008; and R Stahler-Sholk, ‘Resisting neoliberal homogenization: the Zapatista autonomy movement’, Latin American Perspectives, 34(2), 2007, pp 1–16.

23 DL Van Cott, From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p 216.

24 J French, ‘Understanding the politics of Latin America's plural lefts (Chávez/Lula): social democracy, populism, and convergence on the path to a post-neoliberal world’, paper presented at a workshop on ‘Left Turns: Progressive Parties, Insurgent Movements, and Alternative Policies in Latin America’, Simon Fraser University, 18–19 April 2008, and published in this volume of Third World Quarterly.

25 See JP Luna & F Filgueira, ‘Left turns as multiple paradigmatic crises’, in this issue.

26 On this point, I am more cautious than Cleary, ‘Explaining the left's resurgence’, pp 46–48.

27 RB Collier & D Collier use the term ‘initial incorporation’ in the context of the labour movement to refer to the “first sustained and at least partially successful attempt by the state to legitimate and shape an institutionalized labor movement’. See Collier & Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002, p 783. Luna uses the term ‘second incorporation crisis’ to refer to the combination of socioeconomic exclusion and formal democratic inclusion that he argues gave rise to the left turns in Latin America. One might also speak of the challenge of incorporation of informal labour and indigenous peoples.

28 Hershberg & Rosen, Latin America after Neoliberalism, pp 10–11.

29 Moreno-Brid & Paunovic, ‘The future of economic policy making’, p 1.

30 Latinobarómetro, Informe Latinobarómetro 2007, Santiago de Chile: Corporación Latinobarómetro, pp 27, 30.

31 Lomnitz, ‘Latin America's rebellion’, p 11.

32 J Beasley-Murray, MA Cameron & E Hershberg, ‘Latin America's Left turns: an introduction’, in this issue.

33 The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the most powerful armed group in the region, has achieved a low-level stalemate with the Colombian state.

34 The rise of candidate-centred movements and parties is a notable consequence of the erosion of party systems. See Omar Sanchez, ‘Transformation and decay: the de-institutionalisation of party systems in South America’, Third World Quarterly, 29 (2), 2008, pp 315–318.

35 Lomnitz, ‘Latin America's rebellion’, pp 2–3.

36 A Blanco Muñoz, Habla el Comandante, Caracas: Catedra ‘Pio Tamayo’/CEHA/IIED/FACES/UCV, 1998, pp 528, 530, 533, 534.

37 MA Garretón, ‘The socio-political matriz and economic development in Chile’, Discussion Paper Series 15A, IPPG Programme Office, IDPM School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, October 2007, p 15. See also Garretón's Incomplete Democracy: Political Democratization in Chile and Latin America, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. The Concertación was loath to fundamentally change the constitutional order—much less create a constituent assembly to write a more democratic constitution. Moreover, Chile faced political problems that could be traced at best indirectly to authoritarian features of its constitution. Having survived in power longer than the dictatorship, by the time Bachelet was inaugurated the Concertación appeared bereft of new ideas and energy. Apathy and indifference, especially among youth, contributed to declining electoral turnout.

38 J Rochlin, ‘Latin America's left turn and the new strategic landscape: the case of Bolivia’, Third World Quarterly, 28 (7), 2007, pp 1330–1333.

39 CM Conaghan, ‘Ecuador: Correa's plebiscitary presidency’, Journal of Democracy, 19 (2), 2008, pp 46–60; J McCoy, ‘Chavez and the end of “partyarchy” in Venezuela’, Journal of Democracy, 10 (3), 1999, pp 64–77; and J Corrales & M Penfold-Becerra, ‘Venezuela: crowding out the opposition’, Journal of Democracy, 18 (2), 2007, pp 99–113.

40 See WM Leogrande, ‘A poverty of imagination: George W Bush's policy in Latin America’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 39, 2007, pp 355–385.

41 M Naím, ‘The lost continent’, Foreign Policy, November/December 2006, p 42.