The image that Latin American democracies are threatened by populist practices hides perceptions and suggests a tangle of questions about the meanings of the two terms. The political landscape is full of examples that those who point out systemic risks to democracy do not always make their conceptions about it explicit. And, more than that, they construct a ghostly spectrum shaped by the meanings of populism to destroy democratic spaces and experiences, even if minimal.
Populism is a central and frequent theme in the political life of Latin American countries. The conceptual imprecision and pejorative aspect of the term are two of the characteristics used to describe a complex phenomenon that is often associated with the weakness of democracy. The ways in which the term “populist” is used to disqualify public figures express something about the conception of democracy and popular participation.
In a simplified and generalized way, it can be stated that populism and its variations express the contradictions of societies in which political and social rights are not consolidated and, at the same time, experience certain freedoms and political practices that exist in democracies. There are so many examples of populist practices, on the right and on the left, that it is most appropriate to speak of this phenomenon in the plural.
The multiple meanings attributed to populism should be analyzed in their historical perspective and, carefully, as an exercise in depreciating popular participation, whether through elections or organized social movements. Populisms are approached as an unfinished operation in the modernization of societies, especially in their citizenship practices, and in the ways in which rights and duties are exercised during the processes of urbanization and industrialization. Consequently, the social body would not be the subject of its political life, but only a legitimizer of the strategies of demagogue politicians who manipulate and deceive people during electoral periods.
Opponents of populist governments often flirted with authoritarianism, dictatorships and the suppression of rights. The “imperfect” democracies of Latin America would be responsible for the creation of deformed regimes that sustained themselves through clientelistic practices and continuous manipulation, in the view of defenders of order and opposed to the emergence of new political forces.
If populism is an obstacle to civic and democratic practices, we must ask ourselves: what would be the ways to overcome them? Deepening democracy and the achievement of rights or going backwards in the name of technical and economic arguments for the withdrawal of rights? The frequency with which the theme appears in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, to remain in the largest countries on the continent, indicates that the existence of populism is functional for political, economic and media groups that do not have enough appeal to occupy decision-making bodies and they feel threatened by other social subjects.
Faced with any expansion of rights, there is an attempt to contain them by denouncing games of manipulation, authoritarian practices and cronyism of legitimation between a leadership and its followers, which would be typical of populists. The clash between a weakened democracy and the emergence of popular leaders highlights a dispute over rights and meanings over power. When traditional and oligarchic groups are replaced by new political forces, the limitations of the internal power and the loss of representation of traditional groups become visible. Therefore, populism as a threat to democracy must be contextualized to ask: which democracy? In Brazil, for example, the rise of Vargas in 1930 was based on the agrarian elite that had administered the country since the early years of the Republic.
A little history
In general terms, it can be said that populisms emerge from multiple issues. The loss of confidence in the political system, for example, is the justification for the emergence of leaders who appear capable of leading reforms and undertaking a new political order that would not be capable of emerging directly through the system itself.
The inefficiency of parliamentary representations, the emptying of the Executive or the fragility of other instances of power are signs of an institutional collapse. The discredit of political forces, corruption scandals or the exhaustion of traditional elites are other signs that there is an impasse ripe for the emergence of new leaders who make anti-politics their political practice. In contexts of this magnitude, the notions of right and left are not sufficient to guide proposals that integrate groups and reorder the functioning of the State.
However, more than an idealization around populist phenomena, it is necessary to understand the historical conditions that lead to their emergence and the existing ambiguities of these practices. In Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, leaders considered populist emerged when oligarchies lost power and new social and political groups occupied spaces in public life.
Between authoritarian practices, resulting from the strong state presence, and demonstrations in support of the insertion of popular movements that presented their demands, populism had great strength in Mexico and Argentina, under the respective governments of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) and Juan Domingo Perón (1946-1955). These movements, including the period 1945-1964 in Brazil, are sometimes seen as processes with common characteristics, with a certain generalization, and sometimes they are seen as very particular processes in each country.
New studies on so-called populist governments allow us to affirm that a common trait characterizes them: the introduction of a new political culture based on the intervening role of the State in social relations. This role represented, at the same time, meeting demands of a social nature (salary improvements, labor legislation, agrarian reform, specifically in the Mexican case) and political (a citizenship based on the recognition of the worker as a subject of history).
One cannot deny the importance of these achievements of the working classes who found answers to their desires, which until then had been neglected by governments and dominant sectors. In this type of explanation, the adherence of the “masses” to such regimes is understood as an option specific to urban and rural workers due to their material and subjective interests. On the other hand, despite focusing on the interests of the popular classes, the centralizing and controlling nature of these policies cannot be lost sight of, which introduced an institutional structure of an authoritarian nature, later used as a mechanism for social and political control.
Risks to democracy
If populisms emerged in times of political, social and economic unrest, it is understandable that they are not the cause of the problems, but the consequence of even more traditional practices that, claiming to be democratic, denied the population's rights.
The risks to democracy, it seems to me, do not arise from the simple accusation that some leadership is populist, but from how they seek to combat populism itself. To purge traces and legacies of Peronism or Vargasism, for example, Argentine and Brazilian leaders confabulated to the point of establishing dictatorships.
The best bet to curb authoritarianism and the temptation to control social and political life, practiced by populist leaders, is not to roll back on the advances that a society has built, but to radicalize in the direction of contemplating more rights and ensuring their fulfillment by the State, without threats or inefficiencies. Otherwise, there are greater risks, such as the reappearance of the narrow-minded argument of nationalism and the emergence of anti-institutional collective movements, which forge the creation of new political identities and subvert the space of leadership and the usual modes of political exercise, with the good pleasure of social networks.
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