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Abstract
This article analyses how the interactions between a strong populist government in Ecuador and a weak, divided, and inefficient internal opposition in a context of weak liberal institutions could lead to what Guillermo O'Donnell termed “the slow death of democracy”. Rafael Correa was elected with a substantive project of democratization understood as economic redistribution and social justice. His administration got rid of neoliberal policies and decaying traditional political parties, while simultaneously co-opting social movements, regulating civil society, and colonizing the public sphere. Because the judiciary was subordinated to Correa, social movement activists, journalists, and media owners could not use the legal system to resist Correa's crack down of civil society and regulation of the privately owned media. They took their grievances to supranational organizations like the Organization of American States. When these organizations stepped in to challenge Correa, his government denounced imperialist intervention in his nation's internal affairs, and advocated for the creation of new supranational institutions without US presence.
Notes on contributors
Carlos de la Torre is Professor of Sociology at the University of Kentucky. He was a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His most recent books on populism are his edited volume The Promises and Perils of Populism (2014); Latin American Populism of the Twenty-First Century, co-edited with Cynthia J. Arnson (2013); and Populist Seduction in Latin America (2010).
Andres Ortiz Lemos is professor of Sociology at the Central University, Quito Ecuador. He has a Ph.D. in Political Studies from FLACSO Ecuador, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Sociology at the University of Kentucky. He is the author of The Ecuadorian Civil Society in the Labyrinth of the Citizen’s Revolution (Quito, FLACSO, 2013).
Notes
1. O'Donnell, “Nuevas reflexiones,” 30.
2. Mainwaring Bejarano, and Pizarro, The Crisis of Democratic Representation.
3. Basabe-Serrano and Martínez, “Ecuador”; Mejía Acosta, “Revolución.”
4. Amnistía Internacional, “Para que.”
5. Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán, “Cross-Currents in Latin America,” 116.
6. Basabe-Serrano and Martínez, “Ecuador”; Levistky and Loxton, “Populism and Competitive.”
7. Mainwaring Bejarano, and Pizarro, The Crisis of Democratic Representation.
8. Pachano, “Partidos políiticos,” 73.
9. Conaghan, “Ecuador: Correa's Plebiscitary Democracy,” 262–4.
10. de la Torre and Conaghan, “The Hybrid Campaign,” 339.
11. Conaghan, “Ecuador: Rafael Correa,” 271–2.
12. La Constituyente Avanza, suplemento institucional, El Comercio, Quito, 13 May 2008.
13. Montúfar, “Rafael Correa,” 313.
14. Ospina Peralta, “Radiografía.”
15. Hawkins, “Responding to Radical Populism.”
16. de la Torre and Conaghan, “The Hybrid Campaign.”
17. Basabe-Serrano and Martínez, “Ecuador.”
18. Hernández, “Ecuador,” 23.
19. Basabe-Serrano and Martínez, “Ecuador,” 155.
20. Ibid., 160.
21. Ray and Kozameh, Ecuador's Economy Since 2007.
22. Conaghan, “Ecuador: Correa's Plebiscitary Democracy,” 209.
23. Martín, “El desempeño,” 247.
24. Hawkins, “Responding to Radical Populism.”
25. Martínez Novo, “Introducción.”
26. See Correa, “Interview”; Quintero and Silva, “Ecuador.”
27. See Becker, “The Stormy Relations between Rafael Correa”; Martínez Novo, “The Backlash”; Ortiz, La sociedad.
28. See for example, Correa, “Informe.”
29. Weyland, “The Threat from the Populist Left,” 23.
30. Amnistía Internacional, “Para que.”
31. Conaghan, “Surveil and Sanction.”
32. Tuaza, “La relación.”
33. Ortiz, La sociedad, 257.
34. de la Torre and Sánchez, “The Afro-Ecuadorian,” 144.
35. Ortiz, La Sociedad, 327.
36. de la Torre and Sánchez, “The Afro-Ecuadorian,” 148.
37. Navarro, Poder económico, poder político y poder fáctico, 114–75.
38. de la Torre and Conaghan, “The Hybrid Campaign.”
39. Fundamedios, “El silencio.”
40. Correa, “Interview,” 100.
41. Conaghan, “Ecuador: Correa's Plebiscitary Democracy,” 200.
42. Fundamedios, “El silencio.”
43. Geertz, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma.”
47. Montúfar, “Rafael Correa,” 299–300.
48. See the book written by his former Minister of Foreign Relations Fander Falconí, Al Sur de las Decisiones.
49. Zepeda and Verdesoto, Ecuador.
50. See Latin American Experts, “An Open Letter to the Media.”
51. Correa, “Interview,” 104.
52. Beittel, “Ecuador: Political and Economic Conditions,” 8.
53. Correa, “Interview,” 103.
54. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/06/27/ecuador-us-trade-relations-snowden/2462687/
55. See Levistky and Loxton, “Populism and Competitive”; Rovira Kaltwasser, “The Ambivalence of Populism”; Rovira Kaltwasser and Taggart. “Dealing with Populists in Government.”
56. O'Donnell, “Nuevas reflexiones,” 29.