Tradition, Geopolitical Constraints, and Leadership Styles in Latin American Populist Foreign Policy (original) (raw)

POPULISM IN LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS

This chapter explores how scholars have conceptualized the relationship between Latin American populism and democracy. It analyzes different approaches to populism such as modernization and dependency theory, and current approaches that focus on discourse analysis and/or political strategies. The chapter focuses on the current wave of radical populism to explore the continuities and differences between " classical " populism of leaders such as Juan Pero´n, the " neopopulism " of Alberto Fujimori, and the radical populism of Hugo Cha´vez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa. Gino Germani an Italian-born sociologist who sought refuge from Mussolini's jail in Argentina set the research agenda for the study of Latin American populism. He argued that national populist regimes, such as Peronism, were a phase in the transition to modernity. Relying on mass society he claimed that abrupt process of modernization such as urbanization and industrialization produced masses in a state of anomie that

The resurgence of populism in Latin America

Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2000

Contemporary manifestations of`neopopulisma are situated in an analysis of the role of political institutions in capitalist societies, and the idea of structural and institutional crisis. It is argued that`populista and`neopopulista discourse alike must be understood in terms of their relationship to speci"c conjunctural projects for the reorientation of capitalist reproduction. This approach directs attention back to the contrasting conjunctures in which classical populist and contemporary neopopulist political projects were launched. It also provides a basis on which contemporary projects which adopt elements of populist strategy and discourse can be compared and evaluated. : S 0 2 6 1 -3 0 5 0 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 7 6 -5

Exploring the foreign policies of populist governments: (Latin) America First [fragments]

Journal of International Relations and Development, 2021

How do populists conduct foreign policy? The existing literature on populism focuses mainly on domestic patterns, and until recently the foreign dimension of populism has been largely overlooked. This paper aims to fill theoretical and empirical lacunae by mapping patterns of change and continuity in the formulation of geopolitical and economic international policy among Latin-American populist governments. Striving to conduct a systematic comparative analysis, this paper explores three waves of populist foreign policies in Latin America (classic, neoliberal, and progressive). While it is difficult to highlight a unified phenomenon, the findings reveal that several ‘unifying’ elements indeed exist: they are manifest in the tendency of such governments to jointly (re)construct transnational solidarities for legitimation purposes and to adopt economic foreign policies with a pragmatic bent. Moreover, in opposition to the two first waves of populist governments, the most recent wave has embraced personalist styles, emotional public diplomacy, and clientelist techniques with support networks abroad, thus actively projecting the domestic patterns of populism to the regional and global levels in an attempt to leverage both domestic and international legitimacy. This study offers critical lessons for IR scholarship’s increasing engagement with populism, contributing to the lively debate regarding the rise of populist trends across the globe.

Populism and Democracy in Latin America

Ethics and International Affairs, 2009

Paraphrasing Karl Marx, a specter is haunting Latin America—the specter of ‘‘populism.’’ This label has been attached to a wave of radical left leaders in the region, including Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. The term is normatively charged. The Mexican politician and scholar Jorge Castañeda contrasts radical populist leaders (such as Chávez and Morales), whom he characterizes as less convinced of the intrinsic value of democracy and human rights, with moderate left-wingers (such as Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay), who embrace representative democracy and respect human rights. This division of the Latin American left between ‘‘good’’ social democrats and ‘‘bad’’ populists is open to challenge.

Exploring the Foreign Policies of Populist Governments: (Latin) America First, Journal of International Relations and Development 24:1, 651–680

Journal of International Relations and Development, 2021

How do populists conduct foreign policy? Extant literature on populism focuses mainly on domestic patterns, and until recently the foreign dimension of populism has been largely overlooked. This paper aims to fill theoretical and empirical lacunae by mapping patterns of change and continuity in the formulation of geopolitical and economic international policy among Latin-American populist governments. Striving to conduct a systematic comparative analysis, this paper explores three waves of populist foreign policies in Latin America (classic, neoliberal, and progressive). While it is difficult to highlight a unified phenomenon, the findings reveal that several ‘unifying’ elements indeed exist: these are manifest in the tendency of such governments to jointly (re)construct transnational solidarities for legitimation purposes and to adopt economic foreign policies with a pragmatic bent. Moreover, in opposition to the two first waves of populist governments, the most recent wave has embraced personalist styles, emotional public diplomacy, and clientelist techniques with support networks abroad, thus actively projecting the domestic patterns of populism to the regional and global levels in an attempt to leverage both domestic and international legitimacy. This study offers critical lessons for IR scholarship's increasing engagement with populism, contributing to the lively debate regarding the rise of populist trends across the globe.

Latin American Politics: The Foundations of the Populist Turn

The Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies , 2023

This article explores the normative foundations of the contemporary populist turn in Latin America from a theoretical perspective. We argue that the ongoing structural crisis of representative democracy, defined by its inability to identify and respond to growing social demands to provide valuable results for the majority of the population, negatively affects its legitimacy. This facilitates the irruption of a more radical political project, which, in the case of Latin America, is based on a populist discourse. The discussion focuses on the theoretical determination of the arguments used by populism to justify political action.

Critical Debates Populism in Latin America: Past, Present, and Future

Populism in Latin America: Past, Present and Future, 2019

Although populism has been growing in prominence in intellectual circles, the phenomenon is not new. Some academics assert that populism began with the People’s Party in the United States, the narodniki movement in Russia, or Boulangism in France (Judis 2016; Rovira Kaltwasser et al. 2017). Others trace its roots to Peronism in Argentina (Germani [1978] 2003; Finchelstein 2017) and populist mobilization in Peru (Jansen 2017). Although in Europe and the United States populism is normally viewed as a recent phenomenon associated with the radical right and postmaterialism (Inglehart and Norris 2017; Mudde 2014), in Latin America, populism has had a long, varied history. Literature on the subject has identified three populist waves in the region: classic populism (1930‒1950), characterized by a strong, charismatic leader and working-class mobilization (Di Tella 1965; Germani [1978] 2003); neopopulism in the 1990s, which saw a paradoxical alliance between populism and neoliberalism (Weyland 1996, 2001); and early twenty-first-century populism, linked with the appearance of a radical left (Collins 2014; Ellner 2003). As this brief survey suggests, analyzing Latin American populism is a complex task. Given the quantity and variety of populisms Latin America has experienced over its history (de la Torre 2017), studying the contemporary intellectual debate surrounding populism is particularly important. Therefore, this essay takes up the study of populism in Latin America, divided in three parts. First, it describes the principal theoretical approaches to populism; namely, the structural, discursive, political-strategic, ideational, and sociocultural approaches. Second, it briefly examines four recent books on populism in Latin America, written by a political scientist (Barr), a communications scholar (Block), a historian (Finchelstein), and a sociologist (Jansen). Third, it proposes some considerations for future research based on the four works reviewed and our own ideas, drawn from recent trends in the international literature on populism.

The Resurgence of Radical Populism in Latin America

Constellations, 2007

A specter is haunting Latin America: radical populism. Former presidents such as Fernando Henrique Cardoso and respectable media analysts have cautioned us about the dangers of charismatic and plebiscitary domination for democracy. They have warned us of the risks of irresponsible economic policies. A holy alliance is trying to exorcize the ghost of populism that periodically reappears even though its death has been constantly announced and predicted. 1 In contrast to the apocalyptic warnings of the media analysts and politicians we have an accumulated knowledge of populism that can help us arrive to more nuanced conclusions about its relationships to democracy. Over the last three decades we have seen a renaissance of studies. If previous scholarship based on modernization and dependency theories tied populism to specific economic and social forces, 2 this new wave of research has uncoupled politics from what were understood as deeper structural determinants. Scholars have shown that populism is not necessarily linked to the transition to modernity or to import-substitution industrialization. The unexpected affinities between populism and neoliberalism stimulated research on the politics of structural adjustment under neo-populist leadership. 3 More recently, the nationalist and anti-imperialist rhetoric of Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador have provoked passionate debates on whether or not we are experiencing a rebirth of radical-national populism. 4 Unsurprisingly, scholars have tended to reproduce the cleavages produced by populist leaders. What for some are authentic forms of expression of the popular will by leaders who empowered those previously disenfranchised, for others are forms of charismatic, authoritarian, and messianic domination. Behind the smoke screen provoked by the praise for national populism or its condemnation we can identify important debates over the meanings and interpretations of democracy. Instead of arguing that populism is the negation or the essence of democracy this article draws on current experiences to explore the uneasy and ambiguous relations between populism and liberal democracy. Populism has been an important democratizing force that has mobilized those previously excluded. It has incorporated common people into the political community. However, the distinctiveness of these processes of inclusion and democratization needs to be specified. What are the forms of political participation and representation privileged by populism? How is democracy understood by the friends and foes of populism? What are the effects of populist rhetoric for the democratization of society? Why do common folk continue to support populist leaders?

Left-Wing Populists in Latin America?

Albeit usual in Social Sciences, the concept of populism has multiple meanings despite no strictness in its applicability. Scholars have been sighting to improve its concept in order to apply it in the present context of numerous left wing governments in Latin America. There seems to be a consensus among these scholars that some governments are populists such as Venezuela and Bolivia, but the concept of populism continues without a single definition. Most criteria, however, if applied to European Governments labeled as Social Democratic, would also leave them to be seen as populists. This paper appraises their most institution-centered criteria to the formulation of a concept of a populist government. From the formulation of a common concept to the one used by these authors, we analyze Hugo Chávez's and Evo Morales' experiences in Venezuela and Bolivia. From the angle of their relation with the institutions, it becomes clear that both Chávez and Morales represent distinct phenomena, and that only the former could be considered a populist according to the adopted definition of the concept.