24 October 2018
In studying Latin America, it is imperative to analyze its politics through the lens of structures and patterns. Path dependence is a prominent feature of the region, in which how an institution works often reflects previous historical outcomes rather than current conditions. Significant off-path changes that occur at critical junctures, whether they be political struggles or social revolutions, are often the only vehicles that shift the direction of an institution’s evolution. Accordingly, salient qualities of certain Latin American institutions recur throughout the region’s political history. The structures and processes perhaps the most intertwined with Latin America’s development include clientelism, caudillismo, authoritarianism, corporatism, populism, democratization, neoliberalism, and neopopulism. Defining these formal and informal institutions, understanding how they emerge, and analyzing their functions demonstrates their connections (or lack thereof) to one another and how they specifically contribute to Latin American politics.
Clientelism is perhaps the most pervasive feature of Latin American political society. It refers to an informal power structure that depends on asymmetrical relations of patronage. In practice, clientelism involves a patron who extends a favor to a client, which the client typically repays through their allegiance to the patron. While not always the case, patrons are often elites who possess strategic, privileged political positioning that grants them access to valuable resources, such as money, connections, or institutional power. On the other hand, clients usually possess less privileged positions in society as members of the lower and middle classes or as workers for the elites.
While it is difficult to pinpoint the exact emergence of clientelism, several early Latin American structures promoted its development. For instance, haciendas, which were formal institutions that trace back to the sixteenth century, largely employed patron-client relations in their functioning. Haciendas were large estates that the Spanish Crown granted to conquerors and elites who played a role in the colonization of Latin America. The owners of these haciendas granted their workers favors in the form of [insert favors]; in turn, the workers pledged their allegiance to the owners and effectively mobilized around their loyalty to the estates. In this way, haciendas were just one historical structure that allowed Latin American clientelism to thrive. Other factors that have promoted similar patron-client relations include the general concentration of power into notables, a regional legacy of localism, and the suppression and exploitation of mixed-race individuals.
In part due to its historical entrenchment in society, clientelism is a key feature in nearly all Latin American political institutions. While the nuances of its compatibility with different structures and processes vary, the core attributes of clientelism remain: asymmetric patron-client relations that claim to mutually benefit both the patron and the client.
Accordingly, caudillismo is one such political institution that actively employs clientelism in its implementation. Caudillos are local politico-military bosses who rose to prominence in the nineteenth century during Latin America’s fight for independence from Spain. The emergence of caudillo rule came as a result of a breakdown of consensus among domestic political elites that existed when everyone worked to eradicate the colonizers. As the elites turned on each other in the weak, newly independent state, law and order disintegrated and the economy began to falter; however, it is at this critical juncture that “personalist, patrimonial, strongman leaders” entered the picture to attempt to reestablish political stability.
As such, caudillos were often charismatic yet coercive leaders that built their support from a regional base. They touted their militant prowess and tended to the material needs of their followers, acting as patrons to their clients. In this way, caudillos employed clientelism as a mechanism for garnering allegiances that legitimated their power. Patron-client relations similarly impacted caudillismo as an informal political institution, as caudillos staffed the state with their loyalists and used government to preserve their power. However, due to the personalistic nature of caudillo-rule, in which the individual will of the ruler counted for more than laws and structures, caudillismo largely prevented the building of stable government institutions. As a result of the constant instability and turnovers in leadership, opposition to caudillo government eventually grew and support for a stronger, more centralized authority developed.
Today in Latin America, the term caudillo is more broadly applied to charismatic, patrimonial political leaders. Rather than utilizing military force to gain power, contemporary caudillos rise through legitimate institutions, like elections. However, they often still exert political coercion through bureaucratic and legal vehicles. In Nicaragua’s 1996 elections, for example, Arnoldo Alemán of the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista was elected legitimately; however, by using tax inspectors to harass non-governmental organizations he felt were aligned with his opponents, he still exhibited the qualities of a caudillo.
As previously mentioned, dissatisfaction with the instability of caudillismo led to support for a stronger, more centralized form of governing. It is here that authoritarianism began to emerge, which refers to strong, relatively autonomous governmental structures that seek to impose interest representation based on enforced limited pluralism. More generally, authoritarian regimes also arose in the face of severe political polarization, impasses between executives and legislatures, institutional decay, and the drying up of patronage resources.
Authoritarian systems, while varied in their leadership type, ideological composition, and stated duration, shared an ultimate goal: order and progress that fosters prosperity. Through a top-down approach to managing instability, authoritarian regimes sought to modernize infrastructure, create a state bureaucracy and markets, and expand revenue extraction, among other things. The privileged principles of authoritarianism are obedience and compliance, resulting not only in a claim of power, but also of authority. As such, the exercise of power, whether it be through coercive military mechanisms or through the systemic oppression of political mobility from the suspension of civil and political rights, comes from above with few checks from below. However, their inherent lack of legitimacy ultimately renders authoritarian regimes difficult to consolidate.
Porfirio Díaz’s reign in Mexico from 1876 to 1911 provides valuable insight into the features of authoritarian regimes as well as their connections to other Latin American political structures and processes. Díaz largely predicated his regime upon political bargaining with other actors in Mexican society. He struck deals with governors of different states to the point of co-governance and his regime quickly became a clientelistic web of pacts and interdependencies. Díaz legitimatized his rule through paternalism and justified it through the system of favors that he granted to his clients. Finally, in true authoritarian nature, Díaz systematically suppressed political mobility in order remain in power, namely through a sham electoral process that prevented effective competition.
Díaz’s reign in Mexico demonstrates that while authoritarian regimes partially arose as a result of the instable power vacuums created by caudillismo, they still maintained several of its personalistic, strongman characteristics. Additionally, clientelism remains an effective mechanism for granting patrons favors in exchange for loyalty and political power. However, such patron-client relations are taken a step further in another recurrent feature of authoritarian regimes: corporate structures.
Corporatism refers to a system of limited interest representation in which state-recognized groups are organized in vertical functional categories and are obliged to interact with the state through designated leaders. Because corporatism is characterized by limited pluralism, it often accompanies authoritarian regimes. As such, authoritarian corporatist regimes respond to the problem of integrating multiple societal interests into a decision-making process that attempts to assure political stability while allowing authoritarian leaders to launch development-oriented policies. In doing so, the intersection of corporatism and authoritarianism results in an internal structure of vertically-organized patron-client networks based on an internal hierarchy of dependency and dominance that pervades the region.
The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in Mexico, a formal political institution consisted of informal groups, provides an excellent example of corporatism in action. The PRI has dominated politics in Mexico City for the past several centuries. It has consistently elected presidents with minimal limits on their power and consists of multiple sub-units that allow for PRI elites to compete with one another within the bounds of the political party. However, in order to limit pluralism and prevent alliances and mobilization from diminishing the party’s power, the PRI employs a vertical system of corporatist interest competition that is organized by different industry spheres. Alongside such high levels of institutionalization, the PRI also utilizes patronage resources in order to consolidate support and garner allegiances.
It is important to place the emergence of authoritarian corporatist regimes in the context of Latin America’s development. Because Latin America developed later than other industrial states, its economics were somewhat dependent upon advanced nations outside of the region. As Latin America integrated into the international capitalist market as a supplier of raw materials and a consumer of manufactured goods, its external dependence upon other countries resulted in an outward-oriented growth model. This delayed dependent development culminated in a hierarchy of dependency structures that are typical of the corporatist model. The most important direct link between delayed dependent development and corporatist authoritarianism was populism, which served as a general regional response to Latin America’s economic situation at the time. This analysis will return to populism at a later point.
Shifting gears from authoritarian regimes and corporatist structures, a wave of democratization (and in some cases, re-democratization) impacts the Latin American region during the 1980s. Democratization refers to the process in which rules and procedures of citizenship are applied to areas that were previously closed off to citizen participation. Citizenship is at the core of democracy, in which all human being are equal in front of the law and collective choices are legitimated by representatives that are elected fairly. Other tasks of democratization include creating a more effective legislature and a more accountable executive, expanding voting rights, and allowing greater diversity of the media.
The emergence of democratic processes in Latin America begins with liberalization, in which the government effectuates certain rights that protect both individuals and social groups from arbitrary or illegal acts committed by the state or by third parties. In the 1960s, cleavages within authoritarian regimes, specifically between hardliners and soft-liners, fostered external intervention (often by the military) that sought to restructure society and the state and to begin the slow process of liberalization. Authoritarian legacies present themselves in their transitions to democracy, in which an authoritarian regime ultimately yields or loses its control. For instance, in a pacted transition, which hinges on a negotiated compromise between the authoritarian leadership and members of the opposition, the authoritarian leadership is strong enough to provide key guarantees to actors before they leave power.
This continuation of authoritarian patronage results in a web of pacts and guarantees that stabilizes democracy but also limits its scope. For example, a Liberal-Conservative pact establishing the National Front in Colombia put an end to decades of political violence by instituting that for four electoral periods, the two parties would alternate in the presidency and share legislative seats equally; however, as a result of diminished electoral pressure, both the Conservatives and Liberals lost contact with Colombian citizens, especially the country’s poor. On the other hand, an authoritarian regime may transition by collapsing altogether, in which its leadership cannot dictate the terms of transition. The subtypes of the regime transition model include concession, negotiation, retreat, and intervention.
[insert QUICK transition to discussion of populism?]
While it is difficult to explicitly define the term, several recurrent features of populism in Latin America lend themselves to analysis. One interpretation of populism characterizes it as a political strategy through which a personalistic leader seeks or exercises government power based on direct, unmediated support from large numbers of mostly unorganized followers. Populist discourse often hinges on the perception that society is separated between the people and the elites. As such, populists often seek to win broad, intense support by representing people who feel excluded or marginalized from national political life and by promising to rescue them from crises, threats, and enemies. In building such coalitions, populists often exhibit caudillo-like characteristics, including a charisma that comes with special access to patronage and privileged resources and a propensity to bypass established institutions. While their support is initially informal and unorganized, populists eventually seek to solidify their mass following by introducing elements of party organization or clientelism.
Given its broad characteristics that are not necessarily tied to a specific structure of governing, populism can be identified in a variety of Latin American political contexts. The period between the 1930s and 1940s, for instance, saw an emergence of populism in Latin America that corresponded to an authoritarian wave. As previously mentioned, populism served as a direct link between delayed dependent development and corporatist authoritarianism. It was the product of a highly bureaucratized and largely dependent Latin American middle class that found its position threatened by economic dependence. Accordingly, the goal of the emerging populist movement was a system where the state would control national resources in order to assure their local reinvestment and equitable distribution and ultimately assert national economic independence. In turn, populist leaders mobilized broad popular support on the basis of citizenship and actively sought centrally controlled organizational structures that linked their support groups directly into the state. However, . As a result,
Populism as the link between delayed dependent development and authoritarian corporatist regimes populism fostered authoritarianism in order to handle delayed economic development this was countered by neoliberalism
[new plan: talk about democratization generally, referencing examples of regimes in different democratic transitions]
[somehow pivot to explanation of populism, which already exists]
[describe how given populism’s nature, it can exist in a variety of structures; however, my example will specifically reference the corporatism from before talk about populism as a response to delayed dependent development and ISI]
[insert transition to general discussion of neoliberalism talk about neoliberalism as a response to failing economic policies of ISI, its inherent connection to democratization]
[insert small blurb about neopopulism]
[insert conclusion]
Due to its broad definition, it is hard to draw set-in-stone connections between populism and other structures and patterns. One historical example of how populism has played out in Latin American politics references the previous discussion regarding corporatist authoritarianism.
It is important to note that the aforementioned relationships are not hard and fast truths. [insert example of neoliberal neopopulist that someone was talking about from the readings] Rather, our analysis has identified significant trends in the connections between major Latin American political structures and patterns. [explain significance of doing so]