Populisms old and new: the Peruvian case (original) (raw)

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

Chapter 20: Populist Parties of Latin America: The Cases of Argentina and Ecuador

Political Populism, 2021

In Chapter 19 in this Handbook titled 'Populist and Programmatic Parties in Latin American Party Systems', we presented the argument that populism was compatible with party-building and stable party systems in Latin America. This chapter will present empirical evidence to sustain that theoretical claim. The rest of the chapter analyses two successful examples of populist party institutionalisation: Peronism in Argentina and PAIS Alliance (Alianza País) in Ecuador. The statement about the institutionalisation of these two parties might seem counterintuitive, given the defeat of Peronism in 2015 and the fact that Rafael Correa's successor, his vice-president Lenin Moreno, has publicly repudiated his former mentor. However, as we will show, even out of power these two populist parties are more resilient than previously thought: Peronism went on to win its way back to power in 2019; Rafael Correa continues to be the most popular opposition figure in Ecuador and the polls place him as the presumptive winner if he was allowed to compete and, unlike previous presidents, his political coalition did not vanish as soon as he left power. The efforts that these populist leaders have made at partybuilding, sui generis as they are, have paid off for them. We have tried to balance the synchronic and diachronic dimensions in this respect; that is, we have treated Peronism and Alianza País as something more than data points that can be neatly classified into 'programmatic' or 'populist', as many scholars tend to do. 1 However, the dichotomous and synchronic distribution of cases is likely to mask two relevant phenomena. First, they might prioritise differences between the cases, thereby deemphasising or overlooking similarities. Second, they obscure diachronic transformations in the parties themselves. Programmatic parties, movement parties and populist machine parties are not immovable entities but modes of linkage-building that evolve and change over time. As Michael Coppedge suggests: 'Most Latin American party-systems are changing, and changing often, in several dimensions at once, all on staggered timetables' (Coppedge 1998, 550). A party that starts as more programmatically oriented can evolve into a more pragmatic, machine-like one, and vice versa-in fact, political parties more often than not fluctuate between these two poles. Moreover, as Kurt Weyland and Carlos de la Torre argue, a populist 'style' of leadership and domination is part of 'normal' politics worldwide. Neo-populist leaders such as Carlos Menem in Argentina, Álvaro Uribe in Colombia and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy have utilised a variety of 1 For instance, Steven Levitsky and Kenneth Roberts created a set of four 'boxes'. Governments can belong to 'established party organisations' or 'new political movements' on one dimension; on the other dimension, they can have a centralised or diffused locus of power (Levitsky and Roberts 2013, 13).

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.

Populist Redemption and the Unfinished Democratization of Latin America

Constellations, 1998

The re-elections of Carlos Menem in Argentina and Alberto Fujimori in Peru, and the unstable and corrupt presidencies of Fernando Collor in Brazil and Abdalá Bucaram in Ecuador, have brought back the discussion on Latin American populism. 1 Contrary to the dominant views of populism as a phase in the region's history, understood either as a transitory stage towards modernization, or as a political phenomenon linked to import substitution industrialization, the re-emergence of populist leaders poses again fundamental political problems. Continuing the unresolved issues raised by debates on classical populism, the questions that need to be addressed from an empirical and normative standpoint are: What is the relationship between Latin American populism and democracy? What is the pattern of incorporation of the popular sectors into the national political community, and how do they differ from the Western experience? And what are the specificities of really existing Latin American democracies? Differently from the Western pattern of inclusion through the progressive extension and deepening of citizenship rights, the Latin American masses were incorporated by populist appeals to "el pueblo" 2 and weak citizenship rights. Citizenship is not the only, or the main, relationship between individuals and the state. The poor and the excluded have been incorporated through charismatic political movements. These movements have used clientelism and corporatism to give resources to the poor, not as citizenship rights, but as personal favors of politicians, or as corporatist concessions to privileged groups. The institutionalization of these two mediations between state and society-weak and incomplete citizenship and strong appeals to el pueblo-have produced a specific version of democracy. Guillermo O'Donnell has characterized these electoral regimes, which transform electoral winners into the nation's savior, and which do not respect democratic procedures and civil rights, as "delegative democracies." 3 This essay is divided into two sections. The first reviews existent theories of Latin American populism, and presents a new approach to its study. This research strategy analyzes the institutionalization of different mediations between the state and society at the time of the transition from "the politics of notables" to "mass politics." The second section studies recently re-established democracies in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru. These democracies do not respect civil rights, and/or liberal democratic procedures. Differently from the West,

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.