Latin America's Populist Temptation

Russell Crandall

This past October, Bolivian president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was forced to resign as violent protests rocked the capital city of La Paz.  The myriad groups committed to Sánchez de Lozada ’s removal included disgruntled coca farmers displaced by US-supported crop eradication programs, miners unions, and assorted indigenous-based groups.  These disparate groups have been united by indigenous leader Evo Morales whose message of economic nationalism, anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism and anti-globalization resonates among Bolivia’s poor population.  Morales deftly paints himself as the savior of Bolivia’s indigenous peoples, ones neglected by a white government that long ago sold out the country to foreign economic interests and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. 

Evo Morales’ populist rhetoric and policy prescriptions have fueled his rise to political power over the past two years.  In fact, though he lost (just barely) the presidential vote to Sánchez de Lozada in 2002, Evo Morales stands a good chance of winning the upcoming presidential vote, an event that would place Bolivia among the growing group of Latin American countries that in recent years have elected populist governments.  Needless to say, Bolivia is not the only country in Latin America where populism is making a comeback.  Elected presidents Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Lucio Guttiérez in Ecuador, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva (or “Lula”) in Brazil and Nestor Kirchner in Argentina have all been noted in varying degrees for their populist platforms.

The international media has often depicted these populist figures’ electoral successes as a backlash against free market-based policies such as trade liberalization and privatization of public enterprises that are widely (and somewhat erroneously) known as the Washington Consensus.  And there is no doubt that an economic and political malaise has settled in Latin America, one marked by frustration with the lack of economic dynamism and employment that both democracy and economic liberalization were supposed to permanently provide to the region.  Yet, at the same time, there is something deeper than just a rejection of lower tariffs or privatizations that is driving Latin America’s current turn towards populism. Indeed, there is an innate societal inclination towards populist leaders and policies, one that a charismatic leader such as Morales has tapped into so effectively.

What is more, the rise of the populist left in Latin America casts doubt on the belief held by many Beltway pundits and policymakers that democracy would lead to greater political stability. Rather, in what might be seen as the region’s “democratic paradox”, democracy’s greater enfranchisement has thrown the political field wide open, clearing the way for the election of leaders who are either dubious or outright hostile to Washington’s own political, economic and security interests in the region.

The Populist Preference

Since colonial times Latin America has exhibited both a temptation and even inclination for populist political figures and policies.  Populism in Latin America has been bipartisan - used by both political liberals (more often) and conservatives; it has also existed in both undemocratic (such as Argentina’s Juan Peron in the 1950s) and democratic regimes (Peru’s Alan Garcia in the 1980s).  Populist policies have historically been carried out by charismatic individuals who appeal directly to and mobilize the political participation of mass groups such as labor unions and the poor.

It was these leaders that promised to look out for the interests of the masses by directly providing jobs and rhetorical comfort; in return, of course, the population supported these leaders (in some cases such as Mexico under the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI) they were not individuals but parties) with their votes and/or social mobilization.  Latin America’s modern populism can perhaps best be summed up by the aphorism attributed to intermittent Ecuadorian populist José María Velasco Ibarra, “Give me a balcony and the people are mine.” However, Latin American populism has rarely delivered on its lofty promises; in fact, populist policies have often ended up hurting most of the very sectors that it claimed to represent. 

While populism certainly helped Velasco’s political career, all too often the expansionary monetary and fiscal policies implemented to provide promised services in the short run ultimately led to economic crises.  Populism’s ambitions almost always rebuff the economic truth that “there is no free lunch.” Nevertheless, populism and its comforting, paternalistic political leaders remained the most prominent societal narcotic for Latin America throughout its modern history.  This is not to suggest, of course, that only populist governments have poorly managed their economies.  For example, former Argentine president Carlos Menem’s free market “miracle” in the 1990s eliminated the country’s chronic hyperinflation almost overnight, but was predicated on the unsustainable accumulation of public debt, something that eventually sent Argentina’s economy into a depression in 2001.

Today in Latin America, we have the paradoxical situation where many Latin Americans—especially the poor and desperate—continue to vote in democratic elections for populist leaders whose own democratic credentials are at times suspect and whose populist policies hurt the very groups that vaulted these individuals into office.  Take, for example, Alan García who, while wonderfully articulate and persuasive in promoting his nationalist and anti-imperialist views, ran Peru’s economy into the ground.  During Garcia’s five years in power from 1985-1990, Peru’s economy accomplished the dubious feat of recording the country’s highest inflation levels; millions of Peruvians moved into poverty and millions more moved from poverty into extreme poverty. Populism promised Latin Americans greatness but in reality provided inefficiencies, inflation and even more misery.

Pipeline Populism in Bolivia

The controversial plan to export Bolivia’s vast natural gas reserves (Bolivia holds Latin America’s second-largest gas reserves) through a pipeline that would end at a Chilean port prompted Sánchez de Lozada’s opponents into the streets.  Evo Morales and his supporters painted the pipeline proposal as yet one more way that the country’s economic fortunes were being sacrificed at the altar of globalization.  Morales pressed this case despite the fact that the pipeline would generate numerous jobs and an estimated US$500 million in annual revenue for the Bolivian government, capital that Bolivia desperately needs if it is going to improve its health and education systems. The project will require around US$3 billion in investment, most of which will need to come from foreign sources of capital as Bolivia is a severely capital-deprived country.

Relying on Bolivia’s historic dislike of Chile, following Bolivia’s defeat at the hands of the Chileans in the War of the Pacific in the late 19^th century, Evo Morales instead has demanded that Bolivia must instead “industrialize” the reserves by using the gas in value-added processes.  While this alternative certainly resonates intuitively and emotionally with many in Bolivia who have not fully benefited from the country’s economic liberalization process, there is little to indicate that this strategy would be more beneficial than the pipeline and would likely worsen the situation of the poor majority.  Carlos Mesa, the interim president who replaced Sánchez de Lozada as president, has announced that he will hold a referendum on the pipeline issue. The problem with this solution, however, is that so much of the opposition to the pipeline is based on emotion and hysteria whipped up by the likes of Evo Morales. Compounding the problem even more is that indigenous leaders have promised to return to their “ideology of fury” and “more blood, more fighting and more rebellions” if Mesa does not meet their demands.

There is no question that almost all of the ostensible champions of the poor in Latin America have largely rejected the tenets of the Washington Consensus, arguing that over a decade of implementation has left them worse off.  And there is little dispute that this platform has served them well politically. However, one must be careful not to assume that just because Evo Morales is anti-Washington Consensus, anti-United States, anti-IMF and World Bank, and anti-globalization that his policies will necessarily help the very people that are supporting him right now.  Despite his espoused solidarity with Bolivia’s many long neglected indigenous peoples, if he adopted radical populist measures as president, Evo Morales could very well turn Bolivia back to the days before the 1985 economic liberalization program when the country was the laughing stock of a region already filled with economic basket cases.

This does not mean that Morales’ only practical option is to adopt the tenets of the Washington Consensus hook, line and sinker.  What it does mean, though, is that, time and time again, the type of policies that Evo Morales is promoting has rarely lived up to its billing.  Right now, Bolivia’s majority poor need programs that provide employment and dynamism much more than they need fiery rhetoric based on spurious platforms that promise quick fixes to what are deeply entrenched economic, political and social problems.

Looking Forward

With its paternalism, lofty goals and emotive rhetoric, populism has tended to capture the hearts of Latin Americans as well as observers of Latin America.  Indeed, few non-populist leaders can compete in the romantic category with populists such as Castro, Chávez or even Morales. Yet, while youth around the world might not wear their likenesses on t-shirts or berets, in recent years it has been the more plodding, often charismatically-challenged leaders such as Ernesto Zedillo in Mexico, Ricardo Lagos and Eduardo Frei in Chile, and Brazil’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso who have done the most to address the many ills that face the region’s normal populist constituency—the poor.  In Brazil, for example, hunger alleviation is an integral component of Lula’s current political agenda.  While that goal is certainly noble, it is worth remembering that it is strongly predicated upon the success of President Cardoso’s elimination of hyperinflation in the mid-1990s, which remains Brazil’s most effective social policy in its modern history.

Since they have assumed office, there have been indicators that suggest that presidents Lula and Kirchner are attempting a kind of “pragmatic populism”, a type of “third way” that attempts to balance the pragmatism and efficiencies of economic liberalization with the populism’s greater concern with the social question.  And they are attempting this without resorting to illegal practices such as we saw with Alberto Fujimori in Peru in the 1990s.  It is too soon to judge the ultimate efficacy of this middle road, but just the fact that they are trying is a testament to the current power of both populism and the international economic system.  What is even clearer, however, is that these presidents need to avoid the orthodox populist temptation that over the years has done so much damage to those that it claims its very existence is intended to support.  For the sake of all Bolivians, let us hope that, in the future, Evo Morales will take his cues from Brasilia and Buenos Aires and not Caracas.

Russell Crandall is an assistant professor at Davidson College in North Carolina. He is the author of Driven by Drugs: U.S. Policy Toward Colombia (Lynne Rienner, 2002).