Left-wing Populism: Inclusion and Authoritarianism in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.pdf (original) (raw)
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Populism and Its Authoritarian Tendencies: The Politics of Division in Bolivia
Latin American Perspectives, 2021
Evo Morales rose to power on the shoulders of Bolivia’s most powerful social movements, ostracizing the neoliberal elite with a progressive-left populist discourse that swept through Latin America. After nearly 14 years in power, Morales’s caudillo-style leadership shifted toward authoritarianism and a politics of division that ultimately led to his ouster as president. While many have been quick to adopt the narrative of a coup d’état, this perspective plays directly into the oversimplified binary politics used by the Morales administration, overlooking the complexity and fluidity of social forces and the changing state-society dynamics over time. Evo Morales suffered a crisis of legitimacy that was years in the making. His authoritarian tendencies, alliances with classes of capital, and reliance on the extractive economy ultimately led to his downfall as he lost support from his social bases and was unwilling to give up state power. The electoral scandal in October 2019 and the su...
European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies | Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe
The regimes of Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa undermine contestation while simultaneously increasing the material inclusion of the poor and the excluded. These regimes that are usually lumped together show distinct patterns in fostering participation. Whereas in Ecuador participation is reduced to voting in elections, participatory institutions were created in Venezuela and Bolivia. And whereas mobilization in Bolivia comes mostly from the bottom up, in Venezuela and Ecuador it comes from the top-down. To compare their divergent patterns this paper analyses: 1) the strength of subaltern organizations when these leaders were elected; 2) the confrontation between governments and the oppositions; and 3) the views of democratization of the coalitions that brought these regimes to power.
The regimes of Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa undermine contestation while simultaneously increasing the material inclusion of the poor and the excluded. These regimes that are usually lumped together show distinct patterns in fostering participation. Whereas in Ecuador participation is reduced to voting in elections, participatory institutions were created in Venezuela and Bolivia. And whereas mobilization in Bolivia comes mostly from the bottom up, in Venezuela and Ecuador it comes from the top-down. To compare their divergent patterns this paper analyses: 1) the strength of subaltern organizations when these leaders were elected; 2) the confrontation between governments and the oppositions; and 3) the views of democratization of the coalitions that brought these regimes to power. Resumen: En nombre del pueblo: democratización, organizaciones populares y populismo en Venezuela, Bolivia y Ecuador Los regímenes de Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales y Rafael Correa atentan en contra del plura-lismo a la vez que incluyen materialmente a los pobres y a los excluidos. Estos regímenes que por lo general son aglutinados en un mismo saco tienen diferentes patrones para promo-ver la participación política. Es así que mientras que en Ecuador la participación se reduce a votar en elecciones, en Venezuela y Bolivia se crearon instituciones participativas. Mientras que en Bolivia la participación viene en gran medida desde las bases, en Ecuador y Vene-zuela viene desde arriba hacia abajo. Para comparar los diferentes patrones este trabajo estu-dia: 1) la fuerza de organizaciones de los subalternos cuando estos líderes fueron electos; 2) la confrontación entre el gobierno y las oposiciones; 3) las visiones sobre democratización de las coaliciones que llevaron al poder a estos líderes. Palabras clave: populismo, mo-vimientos sociales, autoritarismo, democratización.
Political theorist Sofia Näström reminds us that "the people" is "one of the more used and abused concepts in the history of politics" 1 . Perhaps its vagueness, the fact that it can be given alternative and even contradictory meanings, explains why it could be used so efficiently as a mobilizing tool. This category is central for conceptions of democracy, nationalism, and populism. Yet it is difficult to point out who the people are. Contrary to assertions of politicians, activists, and some folklorists, "the people" is not a primary datum 2 . It is not there, waiting for someone to discover its essence, or for someone to represent or to embody its interests. The people is foremost a discursive construct, and a claim made in struggles between politicians, activists, and intellectuals.
Social movements and acts of protest have played significant roles in charting the path of Bolivian history. Massive waves of protest against neoliberalism led to the overthrow of two presidents from office and culminated in the victory of Evo Morales. The stability of the Morales government stands in stark contrast to the chronic political instability of the neoliberal era. This paper deals with the paradox of the persistence of acts of protest all over Bolivia and the stability of the political regime of Evo Morales. The paradox is explained through the use of the distinction between populist and institutionalist politics made by Ernesto Laclau. Politics in the neoliberal era was populist, where society was divided into two opposed camps through the construction of a 'people' against the regime. The era after the election of Evo Morales is characterized by institutionalist politics where each political demand is separately and unevenly absorbed into the system. The potential of acts of protest to cause political transformations at various levels depends on their ability to construct a hegemonic chain of equivalence against the system, and the failure to construct it has frustrated efforts to create a more radical alternative to the current government.
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.
THE PARADOX OF LATIN AMERICAN POPULISM: A VIEW FROM BOLIVIA
The Socialist Register, 2025
Populism has been the main idiom through which reformism has found expression in the Latin American context since at least the 1930s. This article offers a theoretical framework for understanding Latin American populism together with an extended case study of the Bolivian scenario from 2000-2025
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?
Journal of Political Ideologies Populism and the politics of the extraordinary in Latin America
Building on past and current experiences of populism in Latin America, this article makes four arguments. First, whereas populist movements seeking power promise to democratize society by challenging the legitimacy of exclusionary institutions, populist governments often include the excluded at the cost of disfiguring democracy. Second, during populist events the meanings of the ambiguous term ‘the people’ are disputed. When social movements are weak, and when the institutions of liberal democracy are discredited, a populist leader could attempt to become the embodiment of the will of the people. Third, even though the concept of the people is central to populism, it could be constructed differently. It could be imagined as heterogeneous and plural, or as the people-as-one, as an entity that shares one identity and interest that could be embodied in a leader. Fourth, populism shares with fascism an imaginary construction of the people-as-one. Yet differently from fascism, which staged extraordinary politics as war against internal and external enemies, populists staged their extraordinariness as winning popular elections and did not establish dictatorships.
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.