Reclaiming Latin America: Experiments in Radical Social Democracy
276
Reclaiming Latin America: Experiments in Radical Social Democracy
276Paperback
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Overview
At the end of the Cold War, and through decades of neoliberal domination and the 'Washington Consensus' it seemed that the left could do nothing but beat a ragged retreat in Latin America. Yet this book looks at the new opportunities that sprang up through electoral politics and mass action during that period.
The chapters here warn against over-simplification of the so-called 'pink wave'. Instead, through detailed historical analysis of Latin America as a whole and country-specific case studies, the book demonstrates the variety of approaches to establishing a lasting social justice. From the anti-imperialism of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas in Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba, to the more gradualist routes being taken in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, Reclaiming Latin America gives a real sense of the plurality of political responses to popular discontent.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781848131835 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publication date: | 06/11/2009 |
| Pages: | 276 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Steve Ludlam is a Senior Lecturer in politics at the University of Sheffield. He has researched on labour history and politics in Britain and Cuba. He was a founder member of the Political Studies Association's Labour Movements Specialists Groups, and is a member of the Society for Latin American Studies and the Cuba Research Forum. He edits the series Critical Labour Studies. Recent co-edited books include Labour, the State, Social Movements and the Challenge of Neo-liberal Globalization (2007); Governing as New Labour (2004) and Interpreting the Labour Party (2003).
Geraldine Lievesley is a Senior Lecturer in politics at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on Latin American and Cuban politics. She is a member of the Society for Latin American Studies and the Cuba Research Forum. Recent books include the co-edited In the Hands of Women: Paradigms of Citizenship (2006); The Cuban Revolution (2004); and Democracy in Latin America (1999).
Steve Ludlam is a Senior Lecturer in politics at the University of Sheffield. He has researched on labour history and politics in Britain and Cuba. He was a founder member of the Political Studies Association's Labour Movements Specialists Groups, and is a member of the Society for Latin American Studies and the Cuba Research Forum. He edits the series Critical Labour Studies. Recent co-edited books include Labour, the State, Social Movements and the Challenge of Neo-liberal Globalization (2007); Governing as New Labour (2004) and Interpreting the Labour Party (2003).
Read an Excerpt
Reclaiming Latin America
Experiments in Radical Social Democracy
By Geraldine Lievesley, Steve Ludlam
Zed Books Ltd
Copyright © 2009 Geraldine Lievesley & Steve LudlamAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84813-183-5
CHAPTER 1
Is Latin America moving leftwards? Problems and prospects
GERALDINE LIEVESLEY
Suppose we rave a bit? Let's set our sights beyond the abominations of today to divine another possible world. (Galeano, E. 2000: 334)
When Tabaré Vázquez and the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) won the October 2004 general election in Uruguay, their success was hailed by Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, as 'another step on the road to building ... a new Latin America, a new world' (Navarrate 2005: 1). A sense of momentous events taking place was underscored with victories for left-of-centre governments in 2006, 2007 and 2008 in Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Argentina, Guatemala and Paraguay, in addition to the re-election of both Chávez and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil in 2006. The seemingly inexorable progress of radical social democracy had, however, appeared less sure in the year before the Brazilian poll when the legitimacy of the ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, the Workers' Party) was put into doubt by a major corruption scandal which convulsed its upper echelons, while Chávez's inaugural commitment to introduce 'Twenty-First Century Socialism' was dealt a serious blow by the December 2007 referendum defeat of his proposed constitutional amendments, and Evo Morales faced threats of secession from four dissident provinces throughout 2008. Additionally, there was a resurgence of right-wing political parties and think tanks – backed by the US government – across Latin America as elites organized to resist popular empowerment and to defend their control over natural resources (Zibechi 2008; Dangl 2008).
Of fundamental concern is that some politicians labelled as 'pink tide' offer very indistinct and ambiguous political identities. Known as the 'red bishop' (he abandoned the priesthood in 2007 to run for office), Fernando Lugo was elected president of Paraguay in April 2008. His electoral victory brought to an end the rule of the Colorado party and its six decades of corruption and repression. During the campaign, Lugo's Patriotic Alliance for Change stressed the need to attend to the grievances of the rural poor and indigenous communities and resolved to secure a fair price for the country's natural resources (particularly hydroelectricity and soya beans), but also promised to attract foreign investment and privatize public companies. The new Congress had a Colorado majority, which would likely block progressive legislation, and the Patriotic Alliance is a loose and possibly fractious bloc of Liberals, dissident Colorados, socialists and social movements. Lugo, who described himself as a 'man of the Centre who has a certain distance from Left and Right but with the capacity to unite both', may find his optimism to be unfounded (Hennigan 2008: 41). Sending out similarly mixed signals was the front-runner for the 2009 elections in El Salvador. Representing the Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (FMLN, Farabundo Martí Liberation Front) which waged a guerrilla struggle against the authoritarian Salvadorean state over many years, Mauricio Funes, an ex-journalist, was neither a fighter nor indeed a member of the front-turned-political-party. He described himself as embodying 'the left of hope, we are a sensible left, a reasonable left, a left that is betting on change, a stable change ... We do not aspire to build socialism in El Salvador' (Shank 2008: 2–3). His government would not stand close to either Venezuela or the United States. It would withdraw the country's troops from Iraq but would not withdraw from the Free Trade Agreement with Washington. In reading remarks by both Lugo and Funes, one is left with the impression that these politicians are trying to appeal to everyone while not offending anyone.
The trend leftwards has also been blocked by the defeat of centre-left candidates in Mexico, Peru and Colombia. The ex-mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, lost a highly contested (and many would argue fraudulent) election in July 2006. He had identified himself as a centrist but had promised to renegotiate the neoliberal North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and reduce US influence, and his election would have been a strategic blow to Washington. The candidate of the incumbent Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN, the National Action Party) government, Felipe Calderón, was finally declared the victor by the National Electoral Commission in late 2006 after López Obrador supporters had occupied the main squares and avenues of the capital city. The political situation was further complicated by the fact that the Zapatistas (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, the Zapatista National Liberation Army) refused to support López Obrador and the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD, the Party of the Democratic Revolution), and refused to engage in electoral politics and conducted their own 'other campaign', concentrating upon popular empowerment.
In June 2006, Alan García's narrow defeat of Ollanta Huamala in the Peruvian presidential elections led some commentators to suggest that the 'Chávez effect' could be counterproductive as García (previously president between 1985 and 1990 and an avid neoliberal acolyte) made political capital in describing Chávez's strident support for Huamala as interference in another state's domestic politics. Huamala's politics were indistinct: broadly populist, anti-imperialist (he had promised to nationalize multinational companies operating in Peru) and indigenous. His heartland was the impoverished south and the shanty towns surrounding Lima and other cities where demands for social justice have become increasingly vocal. Although he was defeated this time, the intense polarization of Peruvian society may cause more radical candidates to emerge. Indeed, at the People's Summit held in Lima in May 2008, Peru's indigenous associations announced that they would field their own presidential candidate in 2011. Their goal, according to one leader, was to 'elect a Peruvian Evo Morales' (Salazar 2008).
The most decisive setback for radical social democracy came in May 2006 when, having rewritten the Colombian constitution in order to stand for a second presidential term, Alvaro Uribe obtained a comfortable victory with 62 per cent of the vote. Left-wing senator Carlos Gavria came a dismal second with 22 per cent. Colombia is the USA's closest ally in the Americas and Washington has invested huge amounts in Bogotá's counter-insurgency and drug eradication programmes. The guerrilla war waged by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Colombianas (FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) since the 1960s may be winding down following the death of its veteran leader Manuel Marulanda in May 2008, an event shortly followed by Hugo Chávez calling upon the fighters to lay down their arms. The consolidation of an organized radical social democratic organization with social movement support has been impeded by the widespread state and paramilitary repression that has characterized Colombia for many decades. Colombia will be the hardest nut for the 'pink tide' to crack.
The origins of the contemporary trend towards radical social democratic governments can be found in municipal victories in Peru and Brazil, among other countries, in the 1980s and 1990s, and national elections in Venezuela (1998, Chávez), Chile (1999, Ricardo Lagos), Brazil (2002, Lula) and Argentina (2003, Kirchner). As the introduction to this book suggests, however, the use of descriptors such as 'radical social democratic', 'left-leaning', 'left of centre' and 'pink tide' suggests a problem of identity and definition. Can these governments and the parties and alliances that support them be grouped together under a common political profile; do they share similar objectives and pursue them through similar strategies? The answer is no. Although all offer commitments to alleviate poverty and to seek regional consensus, they possess a hybrid profile, mixing and matching elements of personalism, populism, nationalism and socialism, and some go about the process of governing in elitist and exclusive ways. Some reject neoliberalism while others regard it as a necessary evil, and Chile embraces it. We need to question how transformative their social programmes have been in terms of improving the quality of life of the poor and whether they have empowered women and indigenous communities. We also need to ask how embedded in their political cultures these governments are. Here questions of legitimacy and policy transparency and the absence of corruption will come into play.
Different strategies, the same objectives?
Lula's domestic programme has been predicated upon reform through market-led growth, while both the Lagos and Bachelet governments in Chile continued the neoliberal model embraced by the Pinochet regime in the 1970s, albeit while inserting a modicum of social justice. Both experiences contrast sharply with Chávez's mobilization of the traditional left's social base, state interventionism and defiance of international capital, and Morales's commitment to land reform and his championing of indigenous rights. Even Chávez and Morales, however, have not yet sought to abolish the essential elements of capitalist production, namely private profits, foreign ownership and profit repatriation, nor have they outlawed future foreign investment. In a sense, what they are doing is normalizing regulatory relations in the face of exceptional profits. Thus, their governments have renegotiated contracts and prices with foreign companies, converted some business relationships into joint ventures and allowed for some form of profit sharing. Given their natural resource richness, astute multinational corporations are likely to agree to such refashioning if they wish to continue doing business with Venezuela and Bolivia. Although Chávez has introduced many radical changes in Venezuelan society – particularly his embrace of participatory democracy – there are limits to what his government can do economically, which may prove problematic in the future. The crux of the matter is whether his – and other governments – are able to balance popular expectations with the delivery of speedy and qualitative reforms.
My analysis of the prospects of these present and possibly future governments has recourse to some thoughts about the classical revolutionary/ reformist socialist debates of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I refer particularly to Lenin and Luxemburg's critiques of Karl Kautsky and of Bernstein's model of evolutionary socialism. The question of whether radical social reform could be implemented through taking state power, inheriting old institutions and practices and then, over time, transforming them in order to maximize social justice and participatory democracy was clearly relevant to earlier experiments in radical social democracy, such as Guatemala under presidents Arevalo and Arbenz (1944–54) and Chile under the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) (1970–73). In both countries elected governments attempted to introduce wide-ranging social reform but were overthrown by the military with the endorsement of the United States. It was also evident in the debates in which the left has been engaged and the changes it has gone through since the 1960s (here it might be more useful to talk about 'the lefts' given the ideological heterogeneity of parties). What are the differences between those times and these? One element that contrasts sharply with earlier times (and, indeed, with the situation in 1914 as the bulk of the Second International surrendered to nationalism and repudiated international solidarity on the eve of the First World War) is that many Latin and Central American states are attempting to create a regional consensus with respect to trade, development and diplomacy. This is an important initiative given a history where such unity has been undermined by, for example, the IMF's refusal to hold collective talks on debt restructuring, preferring to impose conditionality on individual states. The creation of the Bolivarian network, the possibility of an Organization of American States (OAS) in which the USA is no longer hegemonic, the May 2008 establishment of Unasur, a project for the integration of Latin American countries, and the proposed Latin American Defence Council (with the USA being excluded from the last two) are all aspects of this new and dynamic approach.
Since the 1980s, the election of municipal and national social democratic governments has been accompanied by – and many, this author included, would argue facilitated by – intense and widespread popular mobilization against global capitalism and its application of neoliberal privatization policies. If Latin and Central America are moving leftwards in a substantial and sustainable fashion, then these popular struggles must be seen as vital to the process. Their political influence has been highly significant (to take just one example, the intensity of popular mobilization forced three governments from office – in Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina – between 2001 and 2004) and the momentum of earlier mobilizations was also greatly responsible for the transitions from military and authoritarian regimes to civilian, elected governments which began to take place after 1980. We need to explore the relationship between elected 'left' governments and radical popular movements and to consider whether the policies and development models adopted by social democrats in power can satisfy the needs and aspirations of their poor constituents. Of particular concern is whether such governments can provide a viable alternative to neoliberal orthodoxy; whether they endorse participatory democracy and transparent, responsible government rather than the traditional top-down approach to political rule; and whether they contribute to a redefinition of the political contours and socio-economic structures of Latin and Central America. The global political economy with which these governments interact is inimical to the agendas popular movements endorse. This creates tensions between governments, parties and movements and may also provoke tensions within the latter as they find themselves caught up in the institutional agenda of the state. Such was the case, for example, for the piquetero network (groups of unemployed people who set up roadblocks during and after the 2001–02 economic crisis in Argentina), which suffered severe fragmentation when one of its largest elements – the Federation of Land and Housing – latterly chose to join the Kirchner government. This assured it of access to resources and satisfaction of its demands (although getting into bed with the state does not always bring the outcomes co-opted social movements expect) but at the cost of undermining its credibility within the wider popular movement. Conversely, groups that try to maintain their autonomy have no hope of official legitimization, and this may, over time, cause them to lose cohesion and resolve. People, of course, mobilize out of necessity and often for their very survival, and popular organizations can fragment if they cannot deliver speedily and effectively. The manner in which radical social democratic governments address popular concerns and enhance policy transparency must be seen as central to the way in which their performance is judged and their legitimacy ensured.
Historical antecedents: another form of revisionism?
The theoretical debates of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Marxism were of immense importance in the shaping of the Latin American left's ideological discourse. In his book Evolutionary Socialism (1961 [1899]), Eduard Bernstein argued for the possibility of the working class achieving practical legislative gains within the bourgeois-democratic structures of capitalism without recourse to revolutionary struggle. His views were forcibly rebuffed by Rosa Luxemburg (in Social Reform or Revolution?, published in 1900). She maintained that such a strategy would result only in the proletariat's incorporation into the capitalist system and its acceptance of its ideology and values. A similar debate occurred between Karl Kautsky and Lenin. In The Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1981 [1918]), Kautsky talked about the potential for a radical extension of socialist democracy into the executive arm of the state. Lenin rebutted this perspective; citing the Paris Commune as inspiration, he argued, in The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1970 [1918]), that a proletarian state must sweep away all vestiges of both liberal democracy and capitalism. Luxemburg further contended that any revolution which attempted to replace popular empowerment with the surrogacy of party or state (which she accused the Bolsheviks of doing) was doomed to failure. The question of who controlled the state was central to one of the most contentious political episodes of the century, which was the Chilean Unidad Popular government. After its fall, many on the left criticized it for failing to defend the working and popular sectors against right-wing subversion and for believing that it could recalibrate the structures and purpose of a capitalist state. As Sader has recently commented, the UP 'underestimated the class nature of the state. It neglected ... to institute an alternative power outside the traditional apparatus which ultimately cornered and smothered the executive' (Sader 2008: 4). Many others, of course, including many Chilean socialists, argued that the UP should have accommodated itself even more to the imperatives of liberal democracy.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Reclaiming Latin America by Geraldine Lievesley, Steve Ludlam. Copyright © 2009 Geraldine Lievesley & Steve Ludlam. Excerpted by permission of Zed Books Ltd.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Acronyms Tables & Figures Introduction: A 'pink tide'? - Geraldine Lievesley and Steve Ludlam 1. Is Latin America Moving Leftwards? Problems and Prospects - Geraldine Lievesley 2. The Latin Americanization of the Politics of Emancipation - Francisco Dominguez 3. Venezuela: The Political Evolution of Bolivarianism - Julia Buxton 4. Venezuela: Reinventing Social Democracy from Below? - Sara C. Motta 5. Bolivia: Playing by New Rules - John Crabtree 6. Nicaragua: The Return of Daniel Ortega - David Close 7. Cuba: Recovery and Change - Steve Ludlam 8. Mexico: Political Parties and Local Participation - Valeria Guarneros-Meza 9. Brazil: Has the Dream Ended? - Sue Branford 10. Brazil: Third Ways in the Third World - Guy Burton 11. Chile: Swimming against the Tide? - Patricio Silva 12. Argentina: Reforming Neoliberal Capitalism - Ernesto Vivares, Leonardo Diaz Echenique, and Javier Ozorio Conclusion. Nuestra América, the spectre haunting Washington - Geraldine Lievesley and Steve Ludlam Notes Bibliography Index