Capital City Politics in Latin America: Democratization and Empowerment 9781626371286

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CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA Democratization and Empowerment EDITED BY

David J. Myers and Henry A. Dietz

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2002 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2002 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Capital city politics in Latin America : democratization and empowerment / edited by David J. Myers and Henry A. Dietz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 1-58826-040-2 (hc : alk. paper) 1. Municipal government—Latin America. 2. Capitals (Cities)—Latin America. 3. Community power—Latin America. 4. Democracy—Latin America. I. Myers, David J. II. Dietz, Henry A. JS2061.C37 2002 320.8'5'098—dc21 2002018878 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

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The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984. 5

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Contents

vii

Acknowledgments

1 The Dynamics of Local Empowerment: An Overview David J. Myers

1

2 Bogotá: Progress Within a Hostile Environment Alan G. Gilbert and Julio D. Dávila

29

3 Buenos Aires: The Evolution of Local Governance Miguel De Luca, Mark P. Jones, and María Inés Tula

65

4 Caracas: Incomplete Empowerment Amid Geopolitical Feudalism Steve Ellner and David J. Myers

95

5 Guatemala City: Mayors and the Struggle for Political Autonomy David Jickling and Alexandra Garcia-Iragorri

133

6 Havana: The Dynamics of Local Executive Power Joseph L. Scarpaci

163

7 Lima: Centralized Authority vs. the Struggle for Autonomy Henry A. Dietz and Martín Tanaka

193

8 Mexico City: The Local-National Dynamics of Democratization Diane E. Davis

227

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CONTENTS

9 Santiago: Municipal Decentralization in a Centralized Political System Peter M. Siavelis, Esteban Valenzuela Van Treek, and Giorgio Martelli

265

10 São Paulo: Tensions Between Clientelism and Participatory Democracy Lawrence S. Graham and Pedro Jacobi

297

11 Conclusions Henry A. Dietz and David J. Myers

325

Bibliography The Contributors Index About the Book

367 389 393 408

Acknowledgments

This work has been some time in the making, and we would like to acknowledge the assistance of the people who helped, as well as the considerable institutional support we received. David Myers would in particular like to thank Angie Leisure for her diligence in gathering statistical materials used in preparing the maps. Steven Matthews and his team at the Penn State Population Research Center drew the maps. Myers also received financial assistance from the Department of Political Science and from the Research Office of the College of Liberal Arts, both of Penn State. Henry Dietz had initial assistance from Joanne Drzewienicki in Lima and help in a variety of forms from Rob Barr. He received financial support from the Humanities Support Fund and a Special Research Grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research, both of the University of Texas at Austin. Earlier versions of parts of the book were presented as professional papers at meetings of the Latin American Studies Association, the American Political Science Association, and the Midwest Political Science Association. Both editors thank Sally Glover and Shena Redmond at Lynne Rienner Publishers and Jody Berman for her careful copyediting. —David J. Myers Henry A. Dietz

vii

1 The Dynamics of Local Empowerment: An Overview David J. Myers

The circuitous path toward deepened democracy in Latin America has changed politics in the capital cities. Municipal political institutions, especially local executives and municipal councils, have become stronger. Groups based on activities centered in the capital city region have gained influence, and new patterns of political behavior have crystallized. However, long dominant national political institutions, such as the president, centralized bureaucracies, and national political parties, still remain important, and traditional elites still influence public policy. Thus, while Latin American capital city politics in recent decades has broken new ground, it also exhibits important links to the past. Throughout much of the twentieth century, the national executive controlled local government in Latin America’s capital cities (see Figure 1.1). Municipal executives were all but invisible. Presidents inaugurated the monumental urban public works, claimed credit for improving local services, launched programs to control crime, and promised more and better jobs to migrants who had recently arrived. Only when other issues distracted the national executive from his fixation on the national capital did presidents pass responsibility for city governance to municipal officials. Local authorities would then make policy until some new capital city project or issue caught the president’s attention. The municipal executive in Latin American capital cities has been called by a variety of titles—mayor, intendente, federal district governor, and prefect. Regardless of their official title, most municipal executives in Latin America’s capital cities served at the pleasure of the president until the shift to democracy in the 1980s. 1

2

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

Figure 1.1 The Capital Cities

•

Mexico City

•

•

Havana

Guatemala City

•

•

•

Bogotá

1,000

•

Lima

Brasília

••

Rio de Janeiro

•

0

Caracas

Santiago

2,000

•

São Paulo Buenos Aires

3,000

Kilometers

Until the middle of the twentieth century, there was little opposition to presidential control over the capital city’s political institutions. In most of Latin America, the capital city was also a primate city, which meant that the nationally dominant economic and cultural elites resided at the same location as the political elites.1 Coups and revolutions were always a con-

LOCAL EMPOWERMENT

3

cern, and loss of control over the location from which the president exercised power usually led to loss of control over the country (Alvarez 1996; Eisenstadt and Shachar 1987; Hardoy 1993; Taylor, Legnellé, and Andrew 1993; Rowat 1973). Not surprisingly, presidents always named an individual of unquestioned loyalty to be the capital city municipal executive. Appointed capital city mayors normally left office at the same time as the president who selected them, although presidents did not hesitate to remove a capital city mayor who outlived his usefulness. Few appointed capital city executives played an important political role after they left city hall.2 The role and importance of mayors and municipal councils in Latin America’s capital cities changed in the 1980s. The region’s bureaucratic dictatorships fell and democrats returned to power. These empowered democrats selected institutional arrangements that they hoped would undermine traditional political centralism. One of their choices was to strengthen regional and municipal governments. The implementation of decentralization in the capital city changed how municipal executives were chosen and how groups concerted political influence into action (Nickson 1995). Presidential appointment gave way to the popular election of mayors. In most cases the new institutional designs made the capital city a single member district in which victory went to the mayoral candidate who received the most votes. Elected capital city mayors became the country’s second most important political executive and the object of intense lobbying by powerful interests. Success in the most important local electoral arena gave capital city mayors high status and visibility. Instead of being a dead end, the office became a launching pad for national leadership. Elected mayors contended for the presidency in many of the capitals whose politics this volume examines. The first elected mayor of Buenos Aires, Fernando De La Rúa, was elected president of Argentina in 1999. His victory illustrates how profoundly institutional changes in the 1980s had enhanced the power and influence of Latin America’s capital city mayors. In order to understand the implications of this development, this volume examines post–World War II relationships between capital city mayors and their institutional environment. This environment includes the national executive, the national legislature, the municipal council, and the city’s neighborhood assemblies (juntas communales). It also encompasses interest groups and political parties. Elected capital city mayors, more so than their appointed predecessors, broker demands made by two groupings of interests that reside in the capital city: one whose basic concerns are nationwide and another whose

4

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

importance derives from its influence inside of the city. The first grouping has seven principal members: the leaders of national political parties, high-ranking military officers, large entrepreneurs, international traders, prominent professionals, powerful labor leaders, and lobbyists for regions of the interior. The second includes shopkeepers, middle- and lower-level bureaucrats, professionals, workers, and urban marginals (Borja 1992; Davis 1994b, chap. 5; Pease García 1992). The political interests of the two groupings often conflict. Prior to the shift from selection by presidential appointment to popular election, two broad political and economic trends shaped the role of capital city mayor. First was the acceptance or rejection of an economic policy that Latin American governments experimented with initially in the late 1920s, import substitution industrialization (ISI). Second was the timing of the waves of democratization and reverse waves of authoritarianism. The ebb and flow in Latin America of these macro trends supports a post–World War II focus for this work. ISI gained popularity during the 1930s and became economic orthodoxy in the 1940s. It promised to decrease economic dependence on agricultural and mineral exports to Europe and the United States (Frieden 1991). The adoption of ISI encouraged cityward migration, much of it directed toward capital cities. This movement of people increased the demand for modern urban amenities, which, in turn, overloaded the capabilities of local governments. Central authorities stepped into the breech. After World War II, central governments in Latin America accelerated these trends by increasing their reliance on ISI. Fascism’s defeat and U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere created pressures on Latin American governments to democratize. When extended to the municipalities, these pressures ran counter to ISI’s state planning tenets. Incompatibilities between demands to democratize local government and to centralize economic planning, however, never became a major political issue. Instead, conflicts revolving around class struggle and the Cold War occupied center stage. These conflicts led to seizures of power by the armed forces during the 1960s, and in some countries military rule lasted for more than two decades. Although the generals viewed municipal officials as subordinates in a hierarchical chain of command, some military governments did increase the capabilities of municipal institutions by allowing them to experiment with local initiatives when implementing policy. These delegations of authority were efficiency oriented, confined to technical matters centering on service delivery. Even here, central bureaucrats monitored municipal institutions as a safeguard against their behavior, threatening military control of the state.

LOCAL EMPOWERMENT

5

Democratic reformers in the 1980s built on the limited discretion conceded to local governments during military rule. Their redesign of basic municipal institutions transferred additional powers from the central government, increased local autonomy, and made city officials accountable to local electorates. In states where ousted military governments had only marginally strengthened local political institutions, enhancing municipal government proved difficult. Even so, reforms laid the foundation for invigorating municipal political life. New “organic” legislation also empowered local governments in two countries whose post–World War II democracies did not fall to military plotters in the 1970s, Venezuela and Colombia (Silverman 1991).3 This volume examines six decades of politics in the capital cities of Latin America. The research into this topic is sparse. Still, it does allow us to identify important themes that shaped municipal empowerment, the most critical change that occurred after 1940. The cities whose local politics are discussed in the following chapters are Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Guatemala City, Havana, Lima, Mexico City, Santiago, and São Paulo. These nine cities provide evidence from each of Latin America’s major geographical subregions: Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Andean South America, the Southern Cone, and Brazil. All of our Hispanic American cities were the administrative center of a major territorial unit at the end of the colonial period, and each became the capital of a newly independent country. São Paulo, as we will discuss at length, is the exception in our universe of cases. This universe does not include capital cities in countries whose heritage is English, French, or Dutch. However, we believe that we examine the most important Latin American capitals from the countries that share the region’s dominant political tradition. A brief explanation is due here about the inclusion of São Paulo. Although Rio de Janeiro and Brasília have been capitals of Brazil for the twentieth century, since 1940 São Paulo has been Brazil’s largest and most important economic center, and its politics (especially since the 1960s) have been more influential and critical in shaping national development than Brasília’s. Thus, while metropolitan São Paulo is not the formal seat of national power, its relationship with national politics more nearly resembles the rest of the case studies included in this volume.

The Cities The capital cities of Latin America, with a few exceptions, trace their origin from Spain and Portugal’s occupation of the New World. The victori-

6

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

ous Iberian intruders imposed hierarchical systems of strategic settlements on the territories they conquered, and these systems changed little during the colonial era. In fact, they have retained their essential original configuration. Hence, economic factors were secondary in locating contemporary Latin America’s capital cities (Eisenstadt and Shachar 1987; Haring 1947, chap. 9; Nickson 1995). The Ibero-American colonial period spanned more than three centuries, and for much of that time Spain and Portugal ruled their New World empires from three great urban centers. Mexico City, capital of the viceroyalty of New Spain, oversaw territory that stretched from Costa Rica and the Caribbean Sea to northern California. The viceregal capital of Peru, Lima, exercised authority over half of South America—from Panama, along the west coast, to Tierra del Fuego in the south. Finally, from the Brazilian city of Salvador, Portugal governed the other half of South America. But in 1763, the Portuguese crown relocated Brazil’s capital from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro, a site preferable for controlling the lucrative commerce in gold and checking Spanish advances from Buenos Aires (Santos Vilhena 1996). During the eighteenth century, Spain’s new Bourbon monarchs reorganized their New World empire in a vain attempt to rule more effectively. Royal reformers increased to four the number of viceroyalties and strengthened the autonomy of the captaincies-general. Captaincies-general were embedded geopolitical units consisting of territories over which the viceroyalties in Mexico City and Lima had exercised indirect control. The leaner viceroyalty of New Spain no longer had even nominal authority over the captaincies-general of Guatemala (Central America) or Cuba. The Bourbons also separated the viceroyalty of New Grenada (Colombia and Ecuador) and the viceroyalty of the Plate River (Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and part of Bolivia) from the viceroyalty of Peru. Finally, Venezuela and Chile became captaincies-general (Hardoy 1993). This new areal structure persisted until spillover from the Napoleonic Wars ended the colonial era. The administrative centers of Spain’s four viceroys and four captaincies-general, along with Rio de Janeiro, each became the capital of a newly independent country after Spain and Portugal lost their American empires. Throughout the nineteenth century, these nine cities were the dominant political, economic, and cultural hubs of their respective countries—in other words, primate cities. In 1960 Brazil again moved its seat of government, from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília (Holston 1989; Evanson 1973). As noted earlier, São Paulo had already emerged as Brazil’s most important economic locale (Santos 1996). Arnold Whittick discusses the

LOCAL EMPOWERMENT

7

possibility of separate economic and political capital cities in the Encyclopedia of Urban Planning, where he defines a capital city as “the chief city or town of a country, generally the seat of government.” Whittick also explains how a country may have “two capitals,” one the seat of government and another the “commercial center.” Examples include The Hague and Amsterdam in the Netherlands; Bern and Zurich in Switzerland; Quito and Guayaquil in Ecuador; Ottawa and Toronto in Canada; Rabat and Casablanca in Morocco; and Washington, D.C., and New York in the United States. Whittick’s expansion of the concept of capital city to include separate political, economic, and (possibly) cultural locations suggests that Brazil might have three capital cities: Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. Yet most discussions of capital cities and their mayors confine themselves to locations where mayors share jurisdiction over the city with presidents, the seat of national government. This is the most common situation in Latin America and throughout the world. Table 1.1 reveals that as recently as 1930 only four of these Latin American capital cities (Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Mexico City) boasted more than 1 million inhabitants and that the population of two (Caracas and Guatemala City) remained below 200,000. This situation changed in the decades that followed. The twenty-first century begins with the number of inhabitants in the metropolitan regions encompassing these cities ranging from 2.1 million (Greater Guatemala City— municipality of Guatemala City and the other sixteen municipalities of Department of Guatemala) to 25.8 million (Greater Mexico City—federal district and seventeen additional municipalities in the state of Mexico). In other words, Latin American capital city regions are some of the world’s largest and most important urban centers. The population of the countries that these cities dominate varies from 170 million (Brazil) to 12 million (Cuba and Guatemala). Capital cities and capital city regions are atypical within each country, and from this perspective each is a unique case.4 But in almost all Latin American countries, the municipalities encasing political capital cities and their suburbs are by far the most important. National political authority emanates from them, and they are home to the most important elites. What happens in these locations not only orients local politics, economics, and culture, but it also sets national trends and standards. Indeed, since colonial times Latin America’s capital city residents have played a decisive role in shaping systemwide political change. This suggests that while capital city municipalities are unique inside each country, they play similar roles within the region’s nation-states.

8

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

Table 1.1 Population of Selected Latin American Capital City Regions, 1910–2000 1960 City

1910

1930

Mexico City

471,000a 1,049,000

Havana

364,000a

Lima Guatemala City

728,527

City

Metro

City

Metro

3,167,000

4,870,876

4,902,370

6,874,165

9,011,771

1,223,899

N/A

1,448,000

N/A

1,786,522

156,000

265,000

a

1,050,000

338,918

1,632,370

354,292

2,556,645

86,000

155,000a

400,000

506,000

544,000

700,504

978,992

2,377,451

3,307,163

4,800,000

4,251,918

7,097,211

Rio de Janeiro

1,446,000

1,480,000

Brasília

N/A

N/A

São Paulo

N/A

N/A

Caracas

1950

1970

79,000a

181,000a

40,000a

N/A

140,165

N/A

537,492

3,825,351

4,791,004

5,273,604

7,201,907

680,000a 1,351,108

2,198,096

1,570,378

2,158,611

2,500,040

2,966,634

6,739,045

2,972,453

8,352,900

736,000

1,722,000

1,741,980

2,855,000

2,881,454

1,430,000

647,513

2,437,425

517,513

3,727,790

2,101,000a 5,251,000

Buenos Aires

1,575,000

Bogotá

144,000

356,000

Santiago

461,000

857,000

Source: Compiled by the author from census data, personal interviews, municipal studies, various years. Note: a. Estimated. continues

Capital Cities and Waves of Democracy This volume, as suggested earlier, sets changes in the local political institutions of capital cities within the broader context of global democratization. In The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, Samuel Huntington (1991) portrays global democratization as having occurred over the past two centuries in three broad waves and two reverse waves. The dates of these waves or changes in political regime fall more or less as follows: First long wave of democratization First reverse wave Second short wave of democratization Second reverse wave Third wave of democratization

1828–1926 1922–1943 1944–1962 1958–1975 1978–present5

9

LOCAL EMPOWERMENT

Table 1.1 continued 1980

1990

2000

City

Metro

City

Metro

City

Metro

Mexico City

8,029,498

10,203,209

8,235,744

14,976,453

8,489,007

25,801,160

Havana

N/A

1,929,432

N/A

2,040,000a

2,210,000a

N/A a

9,140,000a

Lima

282,870

4,164,597

340,422

5,706,127

350,000

Guatemala City

754,243

1,160,158

823,301

1,582,392

1,015,303

2,263,663

5,093,232

9,018,637

5,480,768

10,389,441

5,850,544

14,367,225

Rio de Janeiro Brasília São Paulo

N/A

1,176,935

N/A

1,601,094

N/A

8,493,226

12,588,435

9,646,185

15,354,581

10,406,166

2,043,169 20,100,000a

Caracas

2,573,330

3,156,610

2,625,952

3,450,427

3,246,084

4,488,579

Buenos Aires

2,992,829

9,766,030

2,960,976

10,911,403

3,042,000

13,180,000a

Bogotá

4,351,000

4,396,212

5,737,000

5,794,112

6,173,096

6,530,000a

232,667

4,006,338

230,977

5,257,127

N/A

5,260,000a

Santiago

The first wave of democracy gained momentum slowly, between 1828 and 1926, with most democratic regimes emerging in Europe and North America. After World War I, this early tide gave way to a reverse wave of authoritarianism that spawned numerous fascist governments. The second wave of democratization crystallized as fascist Germany, Italy, and Japan went down to defeat in World War II.6 Only three of the Latin American political regimes associated with this second wave (Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela) survived the second reverse wave of authoritarianism. Reverse wave military regimes, in turn, fell before a third wave of democratization twenty years later. This third wave, global in reach, even forced some liberalization in communist Cuba. The triumph of democracy embodied in the second wave became an occasion for global economic restructuring. Latin American governments pressured the industrialized countries to support policies, especially ISI, which would shield their economies from global cycles of contraction and expansion. Central ISI tenets included rejecting free trade, reducing penetration by transnational corporations, and crafting tariffs to protect domes-

10

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

tic manufacturing from foreign competition (Alexander 1967; Prebisch 1976; Sloan 1984). The implementation of ISI policies in Latin America expanded the public sector. Governments provided start-up capital, trained managers, recruited industrial workers, and built infrastructures of supportive public services. This addition of economic responsibilities to traditional political functions gave central governments unprecedented power and influence.7 Governments located most ISI factories in urban areas. The promise of new jobs attracted workers from the countryside (Gilbert 1998, chap. 3), and cityward migration stressed the capability of urban municipalities to provide public services. Until then, local governments had concentrated on maintaining public services in the central business districts and affluent residential neighborhoods. Few slums boasted running water, sewers, paved streets, or electricity, but until the 1940s only a minority lived in these marginal areas. After World War II, the visibility of Latin America’s capital city poor increased dramatically (Geisse and Sabatini 1988). National leaders became alarmed at the potential for crime and violence posed by the migrants who crowded into established slums and squatted on vacant public land. Also, the lack of basic sanitation services in poor areas jeopardized the health of all capital city residents. National politicians dealt with these deficiencies by assuming direct control over vital municipal services. They tasked the central bureaucracy with managing electricity, water, education, health, transportation, and in some instances city planning. In a few countries, however, the central government experimented with growing the service delivery capabilities of the municipal bureaucracies. But the required magnitude of subsidization quickly exceeded expectations. Central government oversight became so intrusive as to constitute de facto control over local administrative institutions (Gilbert 1998, chaps. 5, 6; Nickson 1995, chap. 4). Throughout the region, municipal bureaucracies were confined to such low-level activities as repairing streets, fighting fires, collecting garbage, and operating slaughterhouses. During the ascendancy of the second wave of democracy (1944–1962), national elites viewed the ethos of municipal politics negatively: local bosses striking personally advantageous bargains among themselves with little regard for law or the public interest. This behavior, what capital city elites labeled “barbarism,” had characterized politics throughout the “interior” during times of dictatorship.8 Democratic ISI modernizers, not surprisingly, rejected empowering local governments in the interior. As for capital cities, cityward migration after 1945 increased perceptions among traditional residents that the squatter settlements constituted a serious threat to public order. National elites no longer viewed

11

LOCAL EMPOWERMENT

Table 1.2 Capital City Political Institutions in Second Wave Democracy, 1944–1962 Percent of Metropolitan Area Power Manner of Selection: Population in Sharing Mayors of Other Municipality of with Municipalities Capital City Municipal Elected Appointed Elected Appointed Mixed Mayor (1960) Council Manner of Selection: Capital City Mayor

Capital City

Mexico City Havana Lima Guatemala City Rio de Janeiro Brasília São Paulo Caracas Buenos Aires Bogotá Santiago de Chile

X X

X X

X X

X X

X X

X X X

X X X X X

X X X X

99 N/A 21 93 69 100 80 86 44 99 27

no some yes yes yes yes yes partial partial yes yes

Source: Data found in this table was calculated from data found in Table 1.1.

the seat of national government as a secure island of “civilization” from which they could exercise power over the entire state. Second wave democrats opposed popular municipal elections in the capital and meaningful autonomy for the capital city political institutions. Table 1.2 profiles the lack of autonomy that was characteristic of capital city municipalities during this time. To summarize, second wave democrats simply did not trust local politicians to implement modernization. Dependent municipal governments offered little resistance when the military seized power. The authoritarian governments of the second reverse wave wanted municipal institutions that could deliver services efficiently and maintain order. This desire accounts for the anomaly of military politicians steeped in hierarchy who increased the capabilities of municipal bureaucracies, even in the politically sensitive capital cities. But the armed forces’ hold on power was always tenuous, and from the moment that they seized power, military politicians encountered significant opposition. Dissidents in the capital city were an especially serious concern. Their propinquity to the physical location of central government institutions magnified their ability to paralyze the exercise of political authority. Thus, military presidents drew a clear line between the responsibility that they would delegate

12

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

to capital city municipal institutions for service delivery improvement and all other forms of empowerment. This policy perpetuated municipal dependence. Second reverse wave authoritarian governments ruled at a time when ISI was falling out of favor. Few of the state corporations or gargantuan public works built by ISI practitioners had turned a profit (Scott 1998, chaps. 9, 10). Some were outmoded within a few years of coming on line, leading many military governments to embrace free trade and economic privatization prior to their demise. Approvingly, the U.S. government cautioned that ongoing access to Western technologies and capital depended upon consolidating regimes of market capitalism. In all of Latin America, only Cuba openly resisted these forces. Latin America’s democrats of the third wave distrusted central authority to an extent that would have bewildered their second wave predecessors. Distrust embodied more than disillusionment with ISI and the return to favor of global capitalism. It reflected concern that centralization during reverse wave military rule had fostered corruption and human rights abuses. Yet, as noted above, second reverse wave governments did strengthen the technical capability of local political institutions to implement rules and regulations, and they assisted in the formation of grassroots community organizations. These neighborhood associations were supported originally with an eye to penetrate and control community activists, but they evolved in unanticipated directions. They became centers of autonomous political demands and played an important role in undermining rule by the armed forces (Dietz 1998b; Gilbert 1998; Bervejillo 1991; Nickson 1992; Rofman 1990).9 They also provided support for the idea of strengthening municipal government once third wave democracy triumphed.10 Table 1.3 highlights specific important aspects of capital city municipal government that illustrate the above trends, but it also profiles important exceptions.

Themes of Change Five themes characterized political change after 1945 in Latin American capital cities. First, local institutions and groups gained new power and authority. This development originated in the decline of statist approaches to economic modernization and it opened the way to decentralization. However, resistance appeared when empowerment was extended to policing in the capital city. This was the second theme. It reflects concern for the physical security of the national government and a lack of confidence

13

LOCAL EMPOWERMENT

Table 1.3 Capital City Political Institutions and Third Wave Democracy (1978–present) Selection of Mayors: Capital Cities

City Mexico City Havanaa Lima Guatemala City Rio de Janeiro Brasília São Paulo Caracas Buenos Aires Bogotá Santiago de Chile

Elected

Apptd

X

Selection of Mayors: Other Municipalities

Metro Area: Municipal Council Powers Capital City and Compared with Second Wave Nation, 1990 Democracy (capital city)

Elected

Metro as City as % of % of Apptd Nation Metro

X

18%

55%

X

X

X X

X X

19% 25% 19%

N/A 6% 52%

X

X

X

7%

53%

X

X X X

X X

100% 63% 76% 27%

X X X

X

1% 11% 19% 33%

X X

17% 39%

99% 4%

X X

X X

X X

X

No Increase Decrease Change

X X

X

Source: Data in this table was calculated from data found in Table 1.1 and census data for selected cities. Note: a. Percentages for Havana are reported from an estimate of the nation in 1993 and an estimate of metropolitan Havana from 1990.

in elected mayors to deal with rioting and rebellion. Third, attitudes of entitlement among capital city residents restricted the mayors’ options. Most significantly, residents continued to view themselves as deserving of subsidies to maintain a privileged lifestyle. This attitude subverted the autonomy of elected capital city mayors by obliging them to solicit resources from national leaders. The fourth theme of change was the evolving balance of power among political groups residing in and around the capital. As suggested earlier, competition crystallized after World War II between one alliance of interests oriented on the nation and a second that focused on the metropolitan region. In this milieu, elected capital city mayors and municipal councils became increasingly autonomous brokers of political interests. Finally, urban form lost much of its capability to transmit “high-level” national meaning. This discouraged presidents and local executives from constructing monumental projects. Instead, they

14

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

focused on modifications to the built environment that reinforced the capitals’ status as settings in which to pursue the good life. We will explore these themes in depth. Empowering Municipal Political Institutions Latin American municipalities were weak and dependent on central authority until the 1980s. This characteristic, as discussed earlier, had roots in the region’s colonial past. Support for centralized governance meshed nicely with the emphasis in ISI on strengthening the capabilities of national bureaucracies to operate state enterprises. In addition, the promise of ISI to develop an autonomous industrial base that would shield Latin American states from global capitalism appealed to the nationalist shibboleth of reducing dependence on Western Europe and the United States (Rogowski 1989). Some countries in Latin America began to implement ISI policies on the eve of the Great Depression. Others waited until after World War II. Regardless of the time frame, national elites used ISI’s advocacy of centralized economic planning to justify added controls over capital cities and regional governments in the interior (Violich 1987). These controls rendered meaningless the half-hearted efforts by democrats between 1944 and 1965 to create participatory municipal political institutions. Unchallenged central power enabled authoritarian governments of the second reverse wave to crush pockets of local resistance with ease. The economic downturn that rocked Latin America after 1973 deprived authoritarian governments of the resources that they needed to continue with ISI. The generals reacted by experimenting with privatization and soliciting foreign investment. Yet before these policies could have a significant impact, the third wave of democratization washed over the region. Newly triumphant democrats implemented political reforms while continuing with economic privatization. These choices removed major barriers to state decentralization (Gereffi 1989), which became a rallying point for those who believed that strengthened regional institutions would impede the reimposition of authoritarianism. Political decentralization invigorated municipal politics. Local governments received increased authority to tax, appointed municipal executives gave way to elected ones, and municipal councils gained new powers. But capital city municipalities and the municipalities of their environs were unique. In these localities resided the nation’s most influential elites and a politically aware middle class. The workers and marginals in capital city municipalities were viewed by national governments as more easily

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mobilized than their counterparts in the interior. Concerns that capital city residents would take control of municipal government and implement programs opposed by national leaders led second wave democratic presidents and reverse wave military rulers to resist demands to create elected local governments for the capital cities. However, the trend toward deepened local democracy in the 1980s proved irresistible. Third wave democrats bestowed most of the same powers on local governments in the capital city that they gave to municipalities elsewhere. The most striking consequence of this empowerment was the emergence of elected capital city mayors as the second most important political leader in most countries. Security Concerns Alan Gilbert found that although more episodes of violence occurred in urban Latin America than in European or United States cities since the 1980s, “not all that many more” took place (1998). Nevertheless, public opinion polling over time shows that the residents of Latin America’s large cities view crime, violence, and personal security as among the most important problems that they face. Urban residents expect political authorities to maintain public order and provide personal security, and their failure to do so undermines the political regime’s legitimacy. Most of the violent episodes in urban Latin America since 1960 have stemmed from community protests over specific problems. They were not, as some observers predicted, harbingers of revolutionary social movements. Manuel Castells (1987), for example, argued that as urbanization proceeded and city living became more complicated, increased demand for housing, public services, and education would give rise to true social movements. Once institutionalized, these movements would radically restructure politics because existing political structures could not broker their demands. This scenario of urban political decay failed to unfold. The most important instances of urban violence in Latin America since the 1960s have crystallized as opposition to specific government actions or policies (Gilbert 1998). Disturbances occurred over migrant access to urban terrains (Santiago, Chile—1970), price hikes in public transportation (Caracas, Venezuela—1989), demolition of established homes (Bogotá, Colombia—1978), and lethargic governmental response to human need following a major natural disaster (Mexico City—1985). In addition, military governments have employed violence to intimidate citybased opposition groups (Huggins 1998). The armed forces of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua even mounted large-scale operations against neighborhoods suspected of harboring urban insurgents during the 1980s.

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On the one hand, third wave democrats designed institutions that would protect human rights. On the other hand, they assigned a high priority to preventing and containing capital city violence. They developed plans to protect national leaders, secure government buildings, and maintain order. One lesson from the past that shaped these plans was the finding that success in controlling riots, confronting looters, and restoring order depended on rapidly deploying powerful security forces.11 Third wave democrats believed that presidents should control these forces. Thus, contemporary democratic constitutions and municipal ordinances keep control of the most powerful police forces of capital cities in the hands of the national executive (Nickson 1995). The policing powers of elected local executives are limited to regulating traffic and investigating neighborhood crime. In other words, contemporary capital city mayors exercise less authority over policing than over other municipal services (e.g., transportation, fire fighting, garbage collection, and water supply). Attitudes of Entitlement as Constraints on Capital City Mayors Residents of capital cities in Latin America share feelings of superiority and a sense of entitlement that date from colonial times. Most have long enjoyed elite status, first as agents of Iberian imperialism and subsequently as the rulers of independent states. The exceptions included servants and a small, service-oriented middle class. For many centuries the wealth of capital city elites derived from agricultural activity undertaken on estates located in the hinterland. Culturally, though, capital city elites identified with Europe. The truly affluent maintained overseas residences in glittering locations like Paris, London, Madrid, and Lisbon. Upon returning home they schemed to re-create the cosmopolitan flare of urban Europe. Capital city elites spent vast sums on projects that transformed zones of their capital cities into foreign enclaves (Violich 1987). The nation as a whole subsidized this transformation. Capital city elites had few qualms about investing the lion’s share of the national budget in their hometown. They saw the countryside (the “interior”) as a region of backwardness, barbarism, and danger.12 This view, as discussed earlier, legitimated traditional patterns of centralized state control. Resentment against the privileges claimed by capital city residents gave rise to new political demands from secondary city elites in the second half of the twentieth century. The core of these demands was for more public investment in the interior in order to reduce the gap in life quality between the capital and the rest of the country.

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Political demands from groups in the interior yielded positive results after 1970. Most second reverse wave military governments viewed capital cities as hostile and dangerous. They were more sympathetic toward investing elsewhere. In the transitions to third wave democracy, middleclass professionals, often from secondary cities, took the lead in pushing for decentralization and municipal empowerment (Fox 1994). Their success strengthened modernizing forces throughout the interior. Regional leaders took advantage of the new balance of power to alter further the areal distribution of public resources. They insisted that capital city residents pay the true costs of their privileged lifestyle. This demand intensified during the economically stagnant 1980s (Nickson 1995) and continued throughout the 1990s. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the quality of life in many secondary urban centers approached that of the national capitals. Municipal code revisions imposed by third wave democrats gave local governments in Latin America significant new powers to tax (D’Alessandro 1987). This provided municipalities with the means to replace funds that were increasingly difficult to obtain from the central government. Capital city residents, however, behaved as if subsidies would not be reduced (Borja 1992). Elected capital city mayors encountered widespread opposition when they floated trial balloons proposing ordinances that would take advantage of the municipalities’ new powers to tax. In more than one instance this led to their defeat at the polls, suggesting that it is almost impossible for contemporary capital city politicians to build a local political machine if they rely only on local resources. Therefore, to provide the expected level of public services, capital city politicians must return to the traditional practice of soliciting resources from the central government, thereby restoring the relationship of municipal dependence on the national government. In other words, the president, national bureaucrats, and the congress exercise far more influence over capital city policymaking than is apparent from reading the texts of recently rewritten municipal codes. Changing Influence of Interest Groups on Capital City Politics Problems related to governing Latin American capital cities have troubled national leaders since independence. In the nineteenth century, capital city elites struggled with forces from the interior for national political supremacy (Wiarda and Kline 1996). The latter often triumphed, and when they did, they reorganized the national territory. In the larger countries leaders from the interior created a new geopolitical entity, the federal

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district. The boundaries of these federal districts separated elites in the capital cities from their hinterlands, where they held the resources that enabled them to contend for national power. In other words, triumphant provincials imposed federal districts to diminish the capabilities of their vanquished rivals to influence the central government. National executives closely monitored activities inside of the federal district, as well as relations between the federal district and contiguous geopolitical units. Reversals of fortune periodically restored capital city elites to national power. Struggles to retake control convinced them that they, too, needed a secure location from which to exercise political authority. As a result, most elites from the capital city, as well as from the interior, came to favor encasing capital cities in federal districts. This volume studies five countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela) that exhibit some degree of federal organization. Each possesses a federal district. This volume also examines four states organized along unitary lines: Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, and Peru. Each unitary constitution gives the national government special powers to control and govern the capital city municipality.13 Urbanization in Latin America after 1944 strengthened the national influence of capital cities and transformed the balance of power among their resident elites (Friedmann 1973; Greenfield 1994). Until World War II, the only important actors in capital city politics identified themselves as national leaders. They descended from protagonists in the nineteenthcentury struggles for national supremacy and saw power over the capital city within the context of presidentially managed central authority. Their ranks included national party leaders, top bureaucrats, large industrialists and merchants, the agents of transnational corporations, and the national leaders of important interest groups (e.g., organized labor and professional associations). A different kind of elite grouping coalesced in Latin American capitals after World War II.14 Its members derived their influence from activities that were centered in the capital city region. This urban-oriented grouping became politically influential as the region’s wealth and status increased. Prominent members included residents of the central city (largely the middle class), historic preservationists, lower- and intermediate-level civil servants, shopkeepers, small industrialists, and spokespersons for the city’s poor. Competition between these newer interests and historic elites (whose geopolitical frame of reference was national) characterized the politics of resource allocation in capital cities after 1950. Elites oriented on the nation favored investments in the capital city that reinforced nationalism and central government dominance. In addi-

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tion, they desired an urban environment that was attractive to transnational corporations and symbolized economic progress. When evaluating the desirability of any project, these elites gave the highest consideration to its potential for increasing or conserving their influence over the country and their primacy as national bargainers with foreign elites. The critical capital city investment priorities for this first grouping included physical security, services that favorably impressed foreign investors, and architecture that symbolized modernity.15 Elites oriented on the capital ignored the interior except in times of crisis. Their most salient demands included the maintenance and development of basic urban services (water, electricity, sanitation, and mass transportation), additions to the stock of housing, and the creation of parks and recreational facilities. They also supported better policing and additions to the built environment that fostered a sense of community (Gilbert 1998). These preferences were by no means incompatible with those held by more nationally oriented elites, but the two groupings ordered them differently. Indeed, city-based interests frequently convinced their nationally oriented counterparts to support projects located inside of the capital region, especially when business elites could turn a profit. Projects that appealed to both groupings included low-income housing, mass transit, and even urban renewal. However, any hint of massive investment in the national capital drew opposition from one organized interest primed to guard against just this contingency: the agents of other regions who resided in the capital city for the purpose of lobbying the central government. City-oriented interests remain less influential than nationally focused ones. Both groupings were always loose alliances, and since the transition to third wave democracy, members have broken ranks with increasing frequency. This has opened the way for cross-grouping, ad hoc coalitions based on specific demands (Ward 1993). For example, it is common for businesses to ally with the urban poor to secure approval for important public works. Large contractors regularly incorporate features that strengthen neighborhood cohesion into nationally visible projects, such as subways and high-rise housing. In Mexico City (during the 1960s) and in Caracas (during the 1970s), an alliance between large national contractors and the urban poor that favored construction of a metro overrode the concerns of small and medium shopkeepers who feared that dislocations during construction would harm their enterprises. In both cases the style of interest group politics was more pragmatic than ideological. National executives, as we have seen, established the agenda for capital city politics until the 1980s. Nevertheless, presidents have always attempted to create support for their capital city policies before acting.

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CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

Appointed municipal executives have played an important role in gaining support for presidential initiatives from groups whose potential to oppose them could create serious problems. On balance this procedure has favored the preferences of elites in the nationally oriented grouping (Dietz 1978; MacDonald 1949). An important exception occurred when the appointed mayor owed his selection to the leaders of a powerful institution to which the president was also beholden (usually a political party, but during the reverse authoritarian wave it was the military). The prerogatives of the mayor under these conditions depended on his or her ability to retain support inside of the political party or the military and on those institutions’ influence with the president. Thus, on occasion appointed local executives could act as political brokers in their own right. The advent of mayoral elections in capital cities greatly empowered the municipal executive and increased the influence of locally oriented groups. Mayors whose ascension to power depended on capital city electorates responded to what voters considered important, and the local political issues with high salience included personal security, service delivery, and infrastructure development. The local political issues to which capital city mayors responded sometimes conflicted with the president’s national agenda (Friedland 1997). However, neither the central nor the local government controlled capital city resource allocation in third wave democracy. The earlier style of closed and hierarchical policymaking had given way to one that was open and participatory. The concerting of influence into action required that mayors, presidents, congresspersons and members of municipal councils bargained with party leaders and interest groups. In this context the appearance of municipal legislators as firstorder participants in capital city politics merits special recognition. After 1990 many capital city municipal councils were able to modify mayoral initiatives. They also functioned as an autonomous voice for local interests. Finally, agreement between the municipal executive and the legislature in the capital city could focus unprecedented pressure on national political leaders. This change in power capabilities created an environment in which elites associated with the nationally oriented and cityfocused groupings were often detached from their customary moorings. The appearance of popularly elected mayors, empowered municipal councils, and participatory neighborhood assemblies, as suggested above, created new pressure points for influencing capital city policy (Davis 1994b). At first glance, multiple pressure points would seem to make shaping policy more difficult for presidents or mayors. In many instances it did. However, the ability of centralized political parties to direct the political behavior of its members remained critical in many countries.

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When the capital city mayor belonged to a centralized political party, and when that party also dominated the municipal council or controlled the city’s neighborhood assemblies, a powerful political machine existed for the mayor to command. At its helm, the skillful local executive could become the worthy rival of any president in matters affecting the capital. Yet financial constraints related to attitudes of entitlement can limit mayoral power. An additional constraint was the extent to which the local executive could act autonomously from national party leaders. Finally, when the capital city mayor and the president belonged to opposing political parties, the basic issues that divided their parties complicated relations between them (Calvert 1998; Alvarez 1996; Dietz 1998a). One response by national elites to the possible emergence of capital city political machines has been indifference or even hostility toward the consolidation of metropolitan-area government. Pressure for consolidation originated with planners and bureaucrats who argued in the debate over institutional design for third wave democracies that it would be more efficient to have a single local government capable of coordinating resource allocation throughout the capital region (Violich 1987, chap. 1). They pointed out that capital city built environments now stretched beyond the original boundaries of federal districts or capital city municipalities. Indeed, as early as 1970 most national demographic publications contained an entry for some form of “capital region.” Few contemporary Latin American constitutions, however, have provisions for capital city metropolitan-area government. The issue was so contentious that third wave democrats decided that they could tackle it only after the new political system was up and running. Thus, most capital city mayors govern only a minority of the capital region’s inhabitants. This fragmentation has forced them into competition with elected local executives from neighboring municipalities in the struggle for resources from the central government. It also has diluted the relative influence of capital city interests, both the city oriented as well as the nationally oriented, in their competition with forces from the interior. Not surprisingly, presidents tend to be comfortable with this fragmentation. It gives them greater discretion in the areal distribution of resources. To summarize, the growth and diversification of capital cities after 1940 strengthened groups that derived their status from activities inside of the capital region. They became formidable competitors with nationally oriented elites in the struggle to develop Latin America’s capital cities. In addition, the decentralized and competitive policymaking designed by third wave democracies led municipal and national leaders to assemble, on an issue-by-issue basis, coalitions capable of influencing city-shaping

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CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

actions. This style undermined cohesion within the two post-1940 groupings of interests that had structured capital politics during the era when presidents appointed the mayors and municipal councils were weak or nonexistent. The Urban Built Environment Built environments possess cultural and political attributes that authorities exploit in order to legitimate their rule (Kostof 1991; Zukin 1997). Latin American governments have used the built environment for this purpose since independence. Well into the twentieth century, political elites renovated their capitals with an eye to projecting political symbols. They drew upon three relevant attributes of cityscapes. First, cityscapes could display specific political preferences that elites aspired to embed within them. Second, cityscapes contained public works to which groups and individuals could attach shared common meanings. Third, urban forms and buildings communicated meanings: national identity, modernity, purpose, pride, and aspiration—and the repertories that they evoked. Second wave democrats inherited capital cities composed of multilayered-built environments. The oldest layer was the colonial district. It varied in size according to the city’s importance during Spanish or Portuguese rule.16 Governments in Madrid and Lisbon had intended that the streets, buildings, monuments, and public works of these zones communicate imperial power and domination. Between 1910 and 1930, modernizing elites added a layer that imitated turn-of-the-century Paris or London. Their additions to the built environment communicated a commitment to undo the destruction of post-independence civil strife and emulate Europe and North America. A third layer, one dominated by modernist projects, appeared in the 1930s. Its architecture proclaimed state activism on behalf of economic development (Scott 1998, chap. 1). Second wave democrats and their authoritarian successors, at least for a time, sought to embed the political preferences of modernism in the changes that they made to the capital city’s built environment. Appointed capital city mayors played an important role in these efforts. Secondary cities in Latin America remained relatively provincial until the 1960s. After 1970 they grew at a faster rate than the primary urban centers (Rondinelli 1983). This change helped secondary city elites to acquire new influence, and they used it to chip away at the capital’s privileged status. The addition of a modernist layer to Hispanic America’s secondary cities was one important consequence of these actions. In Brazil, with its continental city system, reduction in primate city influence fol-

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lowed a different course. Throughout the nineteenth century, Rio de Janeiro exercised political, economic, and cultural dominance. Its primacy began to dissipate after 1900, as São Paulo became the center of coffee production. President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–1961) acted on demands by regional elites envious of Rio de Janeiro when he built the new political capital city of Brasília (at a site some 800 miles to the northwest). Kubitschek’s successors, military and civilian modernizers, invested heavily in Brasília’s physical infrastructure, and urban planners have described the city’s built environment as the last great modernist experiment (Evanson 1973; Holston 1989). Its buildings and urban forms were intended to symbolize Brazilian modernization and upward international mobility. In addition, the transfer to Brasília of state corporations in the 1970s confirmed ongoing dissatisfaction by key regional politicians with the economic influence exercised by Rio de Janeiro. Hence, decisions that reflected antagonism toward Rio’s pretensions of uniqueness bear an important resemblance to policies that in Spanish America redirected resources from primate to secondary cities. The growth of secondary cities had little impact on the tendency of national elites to treat capitals as “front regions” for the state. They still attempted to communicate messages directed to all citizens from these locations (Myers 1978; Segre 1984).Yet by the early 1980s, the authoritarian governments that had pursued policies intended to mobilize citizens around shared goals were discredited. This undermined the capability of official messages to persuade, regardless of the locations from which they originated. Also, new diversity among the peoples of Latin America has rendered most prescriptive communication ambiguous. Even within the individual countries, there remain few lexical symbols, and shared cultural essence is declining. Turning to the high-level meanings that elites seek to attach to built environments, late twentieth-century trends have complicated the crafting of unambiguous linkages (Lasswell 1979). Prior to 1950, when national leaders still had concerns about regional challenges to national unity, central governments used signature projects for political socialization. Correspondingly, they raised up Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, Guatemala City’s Palacio Nacional, the Simón Bolívar Center in Caracas, and European-style avenues and parks throughout Buenos Aires. Later, during the second reverse wave of authoritarianism, military politicians stressed order, national unity, economic power, and bureaucratic control. Their statist ideology found expression in signature projects that strengthened public sector control over the economy: hydroelectric dams, steel mills, arms industries, and irrigation systems (Schneider 1991). By and

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large, these authoritarian regimes assigned a low priority to modifying the built environments of capital cities. Nevertheless, in several countries they made substantial investments in mass transit, public housing, and networks for distributing electricity and water. Third wave democracies have emphasized responsiveness, accountable government, rule by law, human rights, equality, and efficient services. These items, with the possible exception of efficient services, do not lend themselves to physical expression (Ward 1993). In other words, contemporary built environments exhibit a reduced capability to serve as objects to which groups and individuals can attach civic values. Elected capital city mayors have attempted to use structures such as hotels, office buildings, airports, parks, and universities for this purpose, and in so doing to establish an independent identity. These efforts have been only marginally successful (Barnard 1984). Lack of clarity in the concept, variability of interpretations, and conflicting values have made the transmission of political messages through design difficult, if not impossible. This highlights an important difference in the strategies available to present-day democrats, in comparison with their predecessors, when they seek to legitimate political authority through public works. Only modernization (understood as catching up with the industrialized countries) retains a widely shared meaning in Latin America. To communicate modernization, governments have given the central zones of their capitals higher standards of services, skyscrapers, mass transit, airports, retail outlets, hotels, national libraries, and universities. State-ofthe-art communications, international banking and business headquarters, and the presence of substantial expatriate communities also underscore capital city centrality in contacts with the larger world. Yet extreme differences persist between the central zones and the rest of the capital city region, especially the squatter settlements. The location of glittering projects in the central city while the poor inhabit zones that are cramped, disease ridden, and unsafe breeds envy and feeds political conflict (Rappoport 1981). The third political attribute of urban physical infrastructure, its capability to communicate high-level meaning, declined after 1950. Actions and alternative symbolic systems (constitutions, other organic documents, legal codes, and bureaucratic requirements) seemed better able to convey democratic values such as freedom, equality, fairness, and the rule of law. In third wave democracies, capital cities are settings for activities intended to provide and safeguard an agreeable standard of living (Castells 1987). This contrasts with earlier times when the cities were artifacts in themselves, essential components of the system of authority or, at least, a mate-

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rial embodiment of it. In those days cityscapes projected high style and aspirations that encoded cultural values and aspirations through repertories of culture-specific elements. However, the capability to project depended on shared schemata and tight control. The former is now absent, and the latter is out of favor. Contemporary city planning and even architectural design involve innumerable negotiations and compromises. The special function of capital cities in Latin America endures, and in general they remain the desired location; still dominant; still contrasting with the periphery as the place where one must be to succeed on a national scale; and still the source of values, fashions, lifestyles, manners, and so on. But the physical embodiments of urban morphology are less pronounced. In other words, although function remains significant, and in some cases even more than in the past, morphology is less important (Rappoport 1993). The capital cities of third wave democracy project power, but not so much because of their built environments. Recent attempts to impose monumentality, as in the National Administrative Center of Bogotá, have drawn negative reactions, possibly because government today appears increasingly like a corporation. Citizens play the dual role of shareholders and consumers of the end product: government, good or bad. Democracies are expected to be competitive, provide competent management, and give value for money, each citizen judging success or failure. If dissatisfied, they oust the management, as authority is only delegated. The setting for this style of political activity may well be the office tower or suburban corporate center. Nevertheless, the view persists that the capital city must somehow act as a unifying symbol that embodies national identity and power (Kostof 1992).

Conclusions Third wave democrats invigorated capital city politics in Latin America. They transformed the mayoralty, historically a dependency of the national executive, into a stronger institution accountable to the local electorate. They also empowered the municipal councils and created neighborhood assemblies. Capital city mayors and municipal councilpersons became powerful political brokers in their own right. Chapters 2 through 10 provide accounts of how these and other changes in capital city politics took shape after 1944 in nine Latin American capital cities (Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Guatemala City, Havana, Lima, Mexico City, Santiago de Chile, and São Paulo). The individual city case studies set these changes in their national historical context. They also identify the characteristics of

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capital city politics that are unique to each urban political system. The main thrust of the nine cases, though, is to explore how the five basic themes identified in this overview found expression in capital city politics. To repeat, these themes are (1) the strengthening of municipal political institutions; (2) the reluctance to empower elected mayors to police the capitals; (3) the constraining impact of attitudes of entitlement on mayoral power; (4) the changes in capabilities and tactics used by interest groups to influence capital city politics; and (5) the declining capability of the urban built environment to project high-level meaning. The task of each case study chapter is to explore the ways in which these five themes, separately and in combination, have contributed to local empowerment in Latin American capital cities. If the impact of the five themes has been otherwise in an individual case, that chapter’s examination of local politics will explain why and identify the alternative patterns and consequences. Finally, each chapter will seek to identify other important themes that may have contributed to local political change. The closing chapter of this volume, Chapter 11, draws upon the nine accounts of changing capital city politics to develop hypotheses that specify relationships embedded in the above themes. The intent is to suggest directions for future research on capital city politics, especially in regard to the relationships between preferences and institutions. As the individual contributions that follow demonstrate, the way forward must take distinct but complementary directions: in-depth applications of particular theories and systematic comparisons of different cases. Theoretically informed cases yield a deeper knowledge of structure and processes, whereas generalizations conditioned on time/space depend on carefully designed comparisons.

Notes 1. For a succinct discussion of primate cities, see Gilbert 1988, pp. 34–37. Brazil, of course, has no primate city. But his volume contrasts Brazil’s continental city system (that is, its separate economic and political capital cities) to the primate configuration that prevails in Spanish America. 2. The concept of “role” as used in this volume is discussed in Kenneth J. Holsti, “Toward a Theory of Foreign Policy: Making a Case for Role Analysis,” in Walker 1987, especially pp. 8–11. 3. The term organic law (ley orgánica) is used in Latin America for legislation that creates a new institutional regime, such as a municipality or a metropolitan district. The closest approximation in Anglo-Saxon law is the concept of charter law.

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4. Case study methodology is discussed in Collier 1993 and Geddis 1990. 5. These dates, although arbitrary, are nevertheless useful. For a more detailed analysis, see Huntington 1991, pp. 16–30. 6. Huntington’s first wave of democratization began in 1828 and had its roots in the American and French revolutions. It gave way to a first reverse wave after World War I, and this reverse wave dissipated as the military fortunes of the Axis powers plummeted. For a more complete discussion, see Huntington 1991, pp. 16–18. 7. For a good summary, see Chilcote 1994, chap. 7, “Theories of Development and Underdevelopment”; for a classical presentation, see Furtado 1971. 8. This is a central theme of Rómulo Gallegos’s classic novel Doña Barbara. 9. Table 2.1 of Nickson (1992, 27) profiles these third wave revisions in Latin American local governments. 10. In a few special cases, as with Mexico City’s Ernesto Uruchurtu (Davis 1994b, 122–179), some appointed capital city mayors were important national figures in their own right. However, their dependent status made it impossible for them to pursue policies at odds with those of the president on a sustained basis. 11. Fabricio Ojeda makes this point in his discussion of how the February 1989 Caracas riots unfolded. See El Nacional, 28, 29 February and 1 March 1998. 12. Vallenilla Lanz (1967) offers a perceptive analysis of this outlook and its political consequences. 13. Bestowal of special status upon capital city local governments characterizes a broad range of unitary political regimes. Segre, Coyula, and Scarpaci (1997) make this point in comparing Havana before and after Fidel Castro’s revolution, pp. 159–182. 14. Davis’s account (1994b, 164–173) of the opposing interests supporting President Díaz Ordaz and Mexico City mayor Ernesto Uruchurtu in their conflict over construction of the Mexico City subway provides a masterful case study of political conflict between one grouping of elites oriented on the capital city and the other on the nation as a whole. The core of this clash was over whether to build the Mexico City metro. 15. These priorities emerge in the discussion by Holston (1989, chap. 3) of the Brazilian national elites’ plan for their new capital city, Brasília. 16. This discussion does not examine the debate over how much prominence should be given to uncovering the built environment layer constructed by Amerindians in centers like Mexico City and Cuzco.

2 Bogotá: Progress Within a Hostile Environment Alan G. Gilbert Julio D. Dávila

Bogotá has grown from a small city with 350,000 inhabitants in 1938 to one with approximately 7 million people today. Its rapid growth increased its share of Colombia’s population from 4 percent to 16 percent (Table 2.1). In the process it added to its existing status as the national capital by becoming the country’s major financial center, the largest industrial city, and the center of culture. In that respect it became more like Buenos Aires, Caracas, Lima, Mexico City, and Santiago, cities that dominate the rest of their nations’ economic and social life. Unlike those capitals, however, Bogotá never became a primate city. It was more like La Paz, São Paulo, Guayaquil, and Tegucigalpa in that it still had to compete with a number of vibrant provincial rivals.1 Since 1950, the Colombian population grew considerably, and because no government embraced serious agrarian reform, rural poverty became acute. Many responded by moving to the cities, a process further encouraged by regular outbreaks of rural violence and guerrilla activity. Bogotá provided a home for many of these migrants and struggled to cope with the influx. Local elites sometimes blamed the migrants for the city’s poverty, its poor housing, and the increasing numbers of street workers. Despite its rapid growth, Bogotá’s problems should not be exaggerated. Although it is a typical Latin American city insofar as many people live badly, the problems have rarely been so severe that Bogotá’s economy and society were threatened with breakdown. There has only been one major outbreak of political violence (the bogotazo of 1948) and no serious losses of life through warfare, natural disaster, or epidemic. While poverty has been all too common, it fell during the 1970s and 1980s and arguably 29

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Table 2.1 Bogotá: Population Growth, 1905–1997

Year

Population (thousands)

Annual Growth (%)

Bogota/National Population (%)

1905 1918 1938 1951 1964 1973 1985 1993 1997

100 144 356 736a 1,722a 2,855a 4,351a 5,737a 6,315a

— 2.8 4.6 5.5 6.8 5.8 3.6 3.5 3.1

2.4 2.5 4.1 6.2 9.8 12.5 14.5 15.2 15.7

Source: Population censuses and Moreno-Chavez (1998, 15). Note: a. Includes Soacha.

only increased in the late 1990s (Londoño de la Cuesta 1992; SarmientoPalacio 1999). Until 1997, economic growth created jobs at a rapid rate, kept unemployment at a level lower than in most of the other major cities, and raised the quality of life of the average citizen (Gilbert 1997).2 At the same time, Bogotá continued to face some special difficulties. High rates of crime and violence were perhaps the most prominent of these, in part a consequence of the country’s peculiar political history.3

The City’s Changing Boundaries For many years, Bogotá was a mere municipality, part of the surrounding Department of Cundinamarca (Figure 2.1). The city always wanted independence, but the department long feared for its financial health if its major source of income were removed. This conflict of interest resulted in the administrative status of the city changing several times during the twentieth century (Vidal-Perdomo 1994). In 1905, Bogotá was made into a capital district. In 1909, it was returned to the department. A constitutional reform in 1945 permitted Bogotá to withdraw from Cundinamarca, and in 1954 this separation became reality.4 In 1991, the new national constitution again made Bogotá into a capital district. When Bogotá became a special district in 1954, the city acquired greater autonomy and also extended its administrative boundaries. The absorption of six Cundinamarca municipios (municipalities) meant that Bogotá was close to unique among the other major cities of Latin America insofar as all of its population was living in a single administrative

31 Figure 2.1 Municipalities of Greater Bogotá

21

7 1

13

14

24

8

19

23 6

27 2

3

5 25

22

15 9

20

11

17

26 4

10

12

18 16

Engativa

Fontibón Kennedy

Bosa

Tunjuelito

1 Bojacá 2 Cajicá 3 Chía 4 Chocontá 5 Cogua 6 Cota 7 Facatativá 8 Funza 9 Gachancipá 10 Guasca 11 Guatavita 12 La Calera 13 Madrid 14 Mosquera

Ciudad Bolívar

15 Nemocón 16 Santafe de Bogota D.C. 17 Sesquilé 18 Sibaté 19 Soacha 20 Sopó 21 Subachoque 22 Suesca 23 Tabio 24 Tenjo 25 Tocancipá 26 Villapinzón 27 Zipaquira 0

Suba

Usaquém Chapinero

Santa Fe

San Cristóbal

Population Density (per square km) < 1,000

1,000 - 10,000 > 10,000

Capital District

10 20 30 Kilometers

32

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

area. Unlike the situation in Buenos Aires, Caracas, or Mexico City, one political authority governed the whole city; the special district even included an area for future expansion of water supplies. Since 1954, of course, the city has grown inexorably outward, and the metropolitan area has spread into certainly one, Soacha, and arguably into another eight neighboring municipalities (Forero et al. 1995) (see Figure 2.1).5 Today, between 300,000 and 600,000 residents of Bogotá live outside the city’s administrative boundaries (González-Murillo 1998). Some of the problems this might have caused have been overcome by the fact that the main utility companies have contracts with the neighboring municipalities to service their populations. However, a number of difficulties remain. One is that planning regulations in Bogotá are different from those in the neighboring areas; another is that the city loses some of its rightful tax revenues to the Department of Cundinamarca. A third is that the departmental government is a regular opponent of Bogotá’s major initiatives.6 When it was constituted a capital district in 1991, the city acquired three new rights. First, it became a separate electoral area, sending independent representatives to the national Congress.7 Second, it obtained complete administrative autonomy from the Department of Cundinamarca. Finally, it obtained much greater control over its own budget. What did not change were its boundaries. The hostility that the city faces from both Congress and the Department of Cundinamarca, a topic about which mayors of virtually every political complexion have frequently waxed lyrical, makes that change virtually impossible under a democratic regime (APROBIS 1988). In the future, therefore, conflicts between Bogotá and the neighboring municipalities and the department will continue to complicate life for the city mayor. Admittedly, Mayor Enrique Peñalosa (1998–2000) regularly consulted neighboring municipalities (Rodríguez 1998), but past history and recent mayoral statements suggest that consensus will be difficult to achieve. Toward the end of his period of administration, Peñalosa banned Soacha’s buses from Bogotá, suggesting that vehicles from neighboring municipalities should pay a toll to enter the city, and he was having a lively discussion with the governor about the virtues of including Soacha in an enlarged “metropolitan area.”8

The Government of Bogotá The Chief Executive The chief executive of Bogotá is the mayor. Until 1988, the capital was different from any other Colombian city because the mayor was appointed

BOGOTÁ

33

directly by the national president. Elsewhere, mayors were appointed by the governor of the department, the governor being a direct nominee of the president. The authoritarian system of appointment can be explained in terms of Colombia’s torrid history of political violence and the attempts to resolve that violence through the system of the National Front (1958– 1974).9 Underpinning that agreement was a simple compromise: The major two parties were to take four, four-year turns in the presidency and to divide all top jobs equally, although in practice the agreement extended downward as far as street cleaners. Wholly free elections for the national presidency began only in 1974. The first election for mayor did not occur until March 1988, a policy introduced throughout Colombia as part of the constitutional reforms of 1986 (see Table 2.2). These reforms were prompted by the idea that decentralization would reduce the level of violence in the country at large (Hoskin 1998). Only by returning some degree of legitimacy to the state and to the discredited partisan system could the dangers of civic strikes, guerrilla movements, and drug-related violence be confronted. In Colombia, therefore, the decision to encourage political decentralization preceded the decision to replace import substitution industrialization by some four years. When President César Gaviria Trujillo embraced economic opening, he also encouraged political decentralization, even if the two processes were in many respects quite distinct.10 After 1988, mayors were to be elected for two years and were not eligible for immediate re-election. The 1991 constitution extended the period of office to three years starting in 1994, but the immediate re-election clause was retained. Six mayors have been elected to office in Bogotá since 1988, only two of whom have been from the same party as the national president.11 The City Council From 1954 until 1972, the council consisted of sixteen councilors, each elected for two-year periods. Although they were subject to election, the National Front agreement established that the two main political parties would have equal representation on the council. The main changes since 1972 have been that the number of councilors was increased in line with the city’s growing population (to twenty in 1972, twenty-eight in 1994, and forty in 1997), that councilors were appointed through free elections after 1974, and that their period of office was extended to three years in 1994. Until 1972, half the councilors were Liberals and half Conservatives, although this did not maintain harmony insofar as anapistas entered the

34 Table 2.2 The Mayors of Bogatá, 1961–present Period in Office

Birthplace

Previously Councilor

Alberto Lleras Camargo (Liberal), Guillermo León Valencia (Conservative), and Carlos Lleras Restrepo (Liberal)

New York

Yes

Liberal

Carlos Lleras Restrepo (Liberal)

Cúcuta

No

Emilio Urrea D.

Liberal

Carlos Lleras Restrepo (Liberal)

Honda

Yes

1970–1973

Carlos Albán Holguín

Conservative

Misael Pastrana Borrero (Conservative)

Cali

No

1973–1974

Aníbal Fernández de Soto

Conservative

Misael Pastrana Borrero (Conservative)

Popayán

Yes

1974–1975

Alfonso Palacio Rudas

Liberal

Alfonso López Michelsen (Liberal)

Honda

No

1975–1976

Luis Prieto Ocampo

Liberal

Alfonso López Michelsen (Liberal)

Manizales

No

1976–1978

Bernardo Gaitán Mahecha

Liberal

Alfonso López Michelsen (Liberal)

Caparrapí, Cundinamarca

No

1978–1982

Hernando Durán Dussán

Liberal

Julio César Turbay Ayala (Liberal)

Bogotá

No

1982–1984

Augusto Ramírez Ocampo

Conservative

Belisario Betancur (Conservative)

Bogotá

Yes

1984–1985

Hisnardo Ardila

Conservative

Belisario Betancur (Conservative)

Zapatoca, Santander

Yes

1985–1986 (28 days)

Diego Pardo Koppel

Conservative

Belisario Betancur (Conservative)

Bogotá

No

1986

Rafael de Zubiría

Conservative

Belisario Betancur (Conservative)

Cartagena

Yes

1986–1988

Julio César Sánchez

Liberal

Virgilio Barco Vargas (Liberal)

La Mesa, Cundinamarca

Yes

1988–1989

Andrés Pastrana Arangoa

Conservative

Virgilio Barco Vargas (Liberal)

Bogotá

Yes

1990–1991

Juan Martín Caicedo Ferrera

Liberal

César Gaviria Trujillo (Liberal)

Cali

No

1991

Sonia Durán

Liberal

César Gaviria Trujillo (Liberal)

Bogotá

No

1992–1994

Jaime Castroa

Liberal

César Gaviria Trujillo (Liberal)

Moniquirá, Boyacá

No

1995–1997

Antanas Mockusa

Independent

Ernesto Samper Pizano (Liberal)

Bogotá

No

1997

Paul Bromberg

Independent

Ernesto Samper Pizano (Liberal)

Bogotá

No

1998–2000

Enrique Peñalosa Londoñoa

Independent

Andrés Pastrana Arango (Conservative)

Washington, D.C.

Yes

2001–2003

Antanas Mockusa

Independent

Andrés Pastrana Arango (Conservative)

Bogotá

No

Mayor

Party

1961–1966

Jorge Gaitán Cortés

Liberal

1966–1969

Virgilio Barco Vargas

1969–1970

Note: a. Elected mayors.

National President and Party

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35

Conservative ranks after 1964.12 The introduction of proper elections further influenced the political affiliation of the council, and there have been major fluctuations in party representation ever since. In 1974, for example, there were twelve Liberals, three Conservatives, three anapistas, and two representatives of the National Opposition Union (Union Nacional de Oposición, or UNO). In 1980, there was even greater diversity, with eight Liberals representing four different Liberal factions, seven Conservatives representing four different Conservative factions, and individual representatives of another four groupings. In 1998–2000, the council included nineteen Liberals, twelve Conservatives, and nine other councilors, each representing a different constituency. The relationship between the mayor and the council has always been different from that in most other Latin American cities (Ward 1996). From the creation of the special district until 1988, the mayor was appointed directly by the president, almost always from the president’s party and sometimes from a different party to that of the governor of Cundinamarca. The mayor has never been an appointee of the council nor indeed has he been a member of it while simultaneously serving as mayor. Not surprisingly, this has stimulated a great deal of conflict. In 1993, the Bogotá statute changed the relationship between the mayor and the council insofar as it removed the requirement of co-administration and gave the mayor sufficient autonomy from council restrictions to run the city.13 Now, according to Jaime Castro, “it is the mayor who governs and the council that . . . legislates” (Castro and Garavito 1994, 56). It was hoped that this rationalization of functions would also improve the traditionally tempestuous relationship between the mayor and the council. Unfortunately, as we shall show, there are limited signs that the relationship has improved greatly. The City Administration When Bogotá formed part of the Department of Cundinamarca, most of its functions were carried out either by employees of the department or by rather ineffectual municipal offices. This administrative arrangement was ineffectual in terms of providing the city with adequate services, and it was only when the city’s status was changed in 1954 that a more efficient system was devised. Perhaps the most important change was the establishment of semi-independent public utilities (Díaz-Arbeláez 1988). The major utilities, the water and sewerage company, the electricity agency, and the telephone company were reconstituted in a way that was intended to insulate them from day-to-day political interference. They were estab-

36

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

lished as “decentralized institutes” of the Bogotá government with their own independent boards of directors. Further administrative changes were made in the major reforms introduced in 1968 and 1987. Both reforms attempted to improve the financial health of the city and the efficiency of its administration, albeit with limited success. Additional changes occurred in 1991 when the new national constitution made Bogotá into a Capital District and in 1993 with the introduction of the organic law. The reforms of the 1990s improved the financial position of the city and modified the way in which the decentralized institutes were organized. Responsibilities of Bogotá’s Government If the way in which the city’s administration is organized has changed significantly over the years, the government’s relationship with the private sector and with national government has changed much less. Although the city’s government gradually absorbed more functions after the special district was established in 1954, and new autonomous public agencies were established to help run the buses, to clean the streets, to run the city’s own university, and later to administer the building of roads and public works, such modifications barely changed the balance between the private and public sectors. The city government continued to run most of the buses, the taxis, most secondary schools and universities, and the bulk of primary health care. The private sector also provided most of the houses, both through formal sector construction and, more controversially, through illegal subdivisions. Most bogotanos also worked for private companies. The fever of privatization that has swept much of Latin America has only recently affected the balance of responsibility in Bogotá. Street cleaning and rubbish collection were partially privatized in 1989, and after a major struggle, the public agency created for this purpose was closed down in 1993. The collection of taxes was also privatized in 1993, together with the responsibility for issuing vehicle number plates and administering mechanical checks on buses and trucks (Castro and Garavito 1994; Piza, n.d.). The electricity company was partially privatized in 1997, and the new generating and distribution companies now operate according to commercial principles (Calderón-Zuleta 1997). Attempts to sell off the telephone company, although delayed by political opposition and by the declining interest of international investors, are still continuing, admittedly now with less enthusiasm. But in comparison to what has occurred in many other parts of Latin America, privatization has not been

BOGOTÁ

37

a major feature of government in Bogotá. Indeed, the public sector still provides most of the primary schools, telephones, water and sanitation, roads, and police. If the provision of many urban services has remained in the hands of the city authorities, the nation has always been responsible for a number of other public services. Over the years, national government agencies have built numerous houses in Bogotá, supplied most of the limited social security, run the police force, and operated the city’s largest university. Some of these responsibilities are only gradually shifting to the sphere of local government under the decentralization program that began in 1986.

The Office of Mayor Time in Office One of the principal constraints on any mayor is the short time that the average incumbent holds office. Between 1931 and 1954, the average stay was only nine months; only three mayors survived for more than two years. When the city became a special district, the mean tenure increased to twenty-two months. Since elections were introduced in 1988, the average time in office has remained constant; the last seven mayors each served an average of twenty-two months.14 This turnover of mayors of Bogotá is highly damaging to the city. The short period in office reduces the authority of each incumbent and also leads to constant replacements in most of the city’s important administrative posts. Because each incumbent wants to appoint his own confidants to the top posts, there is constant flux in most of the top directorates and secretariats. Virgilio Barco bitterly criticized his presidential predecessor on this count: “The government of Belisario Betancur gave itself the luxury of naming four mayors of Bogotá, each mayor in turn naming new directors and new boards of directors” (APROBIS 1988, 82). Who Becomes Mayor? The mayor of Bogotá is almost always a man. There has been just one female incumbent, Sonia Durán, and she only achieved office when Juan Martín Caicedo was sent to jail.15 The gender balance has not changed since the mayors began to be elected; indeed, in the five mayoral elections since 1988 only two female candidates have stood for office.16

38

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

Another consistent feature of the mayorship, at least until elections began, was that appointees were almost always trusted associates of the president. Between 1958 and 1988, only one mayor, Jorge Gaitán Cortés (1961–1966), ever served under a president of another party.17 Most appointees were not only from the same party but were trusted lieutenants of the president. Virgilio Barco and Emilio Urrea were confidants of Carlos Lleras Restrepo, Augusto Ramírez Ocampo was close to Belisario Betancur, Carlos Albán Holguín was Misael Pastrana’s electoral campaign manager, and Rafael de Zubiría was Belisario Betancur’s minister of health. Because the national capital was an important source of votes, every president wanted to minimize any embarrassment that might be created by an opposition mayor on the doorstep.18 The other advantage was that the president could assume that a confidant would do everything to ensure that his party would win the city in the next election. Of course, in a country with little or no party discipline, the president was well advised to appoint a mayor not only from his party but also one from his own political faction (until 1958, a military junta was in power). The loyalty of the mayor could be virtually guaranteed until 1988 because the president appointed him directly. The only real constraint on the president’s choice was the feeling that because Bogotá was a city that traditionally votes Liberal, the mayor should be from that party.19 If most of the voters were Liberal, it appeared to be too partisan an act to appoint a Conservative mayor. Nevertheless, Misael Pastrana appointed two Conservative mayors between 1970 and 1974, and Belisario Betancur appointed four Conservatives between 1982 and 1986. The electoral dangers that might be caused by having a Liberal mayor on the doorstep clearly outweighed any other consideration for these Conservative presidents. The introduction of popular elections in 1988 brought important changes. A Conservative, Andrés Pastrana, won the first mayoral election and served under the presidency of a Liberal, Virglio Barco Vargas. How far that was a vote against the Liberals and how far a vote of sympathy for a popular broadcaster who had recently been kidnapped by a drug cartel are open questions.20 In any event, the Liberals reasserted their control over the city in the next two elections even if this did not produce a trusted lieutenant of the president; in 1992 Jaime Castro won the mayorship because he won the primary election against the official candidate (Castro and Garavito 1994).21 And when the Liberals managed to lose in 1994, they lost not to the Conservatives but to an independent candidate, Antanas Mockus. This former rector of the National University was voted into office precisely because he was not a traditional party politician. In

BOGOTÁ

39

his campaign, his popularity was attributed to the fact that he did not represent any party, did not really campaign, and because he was irreverent and radical.22 He was followed by another independent, admittedly one who had been the Liberal’s official candidate in the previous two elections.23 Mockus’s re-election in 2000 was again as an independent, albeit one who supported his predecessor’s programs. Until recently, many of the mayors had another feature in common: Rather few had been born in Bogotá. Insofar as Bogotá is the most Colombian of cities, the one where Colombians from every region live and work, the lack of bogotano mayors may be considered to be thoroughly appropriate.24 Nevertheless, it is surprising that only three out of the thirteen mayors between 1961 and 1986 had actually been born in Bogotá or the Department of Cundinamarca (Table 2.2). Admittedly, some of the “strangers” had spent most of their youth in the city, but among the three natives there was one, Hernando Durán Dussán, who was widely suspected of being a closet llanero (from the plains) (APROBIS 1988).25 Admittedly, the proportion of real native-born (cachacos auténticos) has risen since mayors began to be elected in 1988, but this probably only reflects the growing proportion of the city’s inhabitants who have been born in Bogotá rather than in the rest of the country. Demography has increasingly shifted the odds in favor of a cachaco becoming mayor.26 Most of the mayors had held important political posts before becoming mayor, and quite a number had held very high office. Jaime Castro had been a minister under both Pastrana and López Michelsen and minister of government under Betancur, and Virgilio Barco had held the finance, public works, and agriculture portfolios. Hernando Durán Dussán had also held ministerial office three times, Rafael de Zubiría was minister of health when appointed by Betancur, and Juan Martín Caicedo had been minister of labor under Barco. What is surprising, given the high political profile of the mayor and the frequent assertion that the mayorship is the second most important political post in the country, is how few of the mayors have ever become national president. Indeed, since the city was established as a special district in 1954, only Virgilio Barco and Andrés Pastrana have reached the very top. A number of mayors have managed to leave office with sufficient acclaim to aspire to the national presidency, and several have subsequently sought the support of their party to run for the presidency (e.g., Fernando Mazuera and Julio César Sánchez).27 But the majority has continued to be influential only at a less elevated level. Although ex-mayors have become ministers, senators, congressmen, councilors, and ambassa-

40

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

dors, most have fallen by the presidential wayside. In a number of cases, their period of office probably marked the apex of their career (for example, Jaime Castro, Juan Martín Caicedo, and Augusto Ramírez Ocampo).

Mayoral Opportunities and Constraints Power of the Mayor Relative to the National Administration Until 1988, the fact that the mayor was appointed to office by the national president gave the incumbent considerable authority over the city. It also meant that there were few real conflicts between the mayor and the president and that sometimes there was even a degree of complementarity between local and national plans. The relationship certainly helped the city’s financial situation; as ex-Mayor Jaime Castro puts it, when the mayor is adopting policies close to the heart of the president, “loans appear as in a dream” (Castro and Garavito 1994, 139). The extensive road-building programs of the early 1970s were certainly backed by the national administration because they were compatible with the emphasis on construction as a development strategy in President Pastrana’s Four Strategies Development Plan.28 Similarly, the construction of new parks and the illumination of the city under Virgilio Barco, together with the administrative reforms of 1968, were clearly compatible with the modernizing vision of Carlos Lleras Restrepo. Equally, the development of Ciudad Bolívar in the late 1980s complemented the social mission that lay at the heart of Belisario Betancur’s administration. But even the close links between the mayor and the national president did not always prevent conflict between national and local administrators. The national housing agency was a particular bête noire of Bogotá administrations because it built several public housing estates in places where the local planners did not want them. On one famous occasion, the city’s utility companies refused to service a new estate. Since 1988, the national-local relationship has been much more delicate because the mayor has rarely been a trusted ally of the president. Perhaps for this reason, Jaime Castro (1992–1994) complains bitterly about how Bogotá was treated by César Gaviria’s finance minister, Rudolf Hommes (Castro and Garavito 1994).29 Of course, the city has sometimes been given support by the nation despite the differences in political affiliation. This has typically occurred when the needs of the city have been too critical for the president or mayor to play party politics or when it has suited the national administration to help the city. For example, the agree-

BOGOTÁ

41

ment over the nation’s contribution to the cost of constructing the TransMilenio project is perhaps the most recent example of necessary collaboration.30 Nevertheless, few of the elected mayors seem to have left office mouthing pleasant words about the national administration. Bogotá Versus Congress In commenting about their period in office, former mayors of Bogotá are unanimous about virtually nothing except that Congress goes out of its way to oppose the interests of the capital. One former Conservative mayor, Hisnardo Ardila, claims that “in the Senate I discovered that it is difficult to do anything for Bogotá” (APROBIS 1988, 71). Similarly, a recent Liberal mayor laments that “in every country of the world, except Colombia, governments help their capital city” (Castro and Garavito 1994, 131). Congressional hostility to the capital seemingly stems from several sources. First, Bogotá suffers from the exaggerated feelings of hostility that all Colombians born outside the city feel toward “their” capital. In a centralized country with strong regions, provincial politicians elected to Congress are expected to do all they can for their regions and do nothing to help Bogotá. In the Senate, Hisnardo Ardila maintains that “regional interests override any other consideration” (APROBIS 1988, 71). Second, nobody in Congress sees much advantage in trying to solve the problems of the city: “Bogotá is everyone’s but isn’t anybody’s” (La Rebeca 1998a, 47). For years, this situation was blamed on the fact that Bogotá did not have its own representatives in Congress. The electorate of Bogotá still voted for senators and representatives for Cundinamarca and, according to Aníbal Fernández de Soto, this was a major disadvantage in countering opposition from regional politicians: “Bogotá has never had enough representatives in Congress; a group has not formed to defend its economic interests” (APROBIS 1988, 66). Things have changed little since 1992 when Bogotá was given eighteen representatives in the House of Representatives and two senators in the upper house. Seemingly, the city’s own congressmen have paid little attention to the needs of Bogotá (La Rebeca 1998b, 44–49). Roberto Salázar Gómez, the first mayor of the special district, offers another explanation for the lack of political support: The inhabitants of Bogotá do not often put the needs of the city first. In part, they find the city an alienating place, a feeling accentuated by the fact that so many families retain a loyalty to somewhere else. “There are thousands of families, natives of other regions, who have lived in Bogotá for ever but feel

42

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

that their origin still ties them to a territory to which they no longer belong. It is an attitude that is passed from fathers to sons. Consequently, we find vallecaucanos whose fathers and grandfathers were born in Bogotá” (APROBIS 1988, 102). Whatever the precise cause of this lack of political support in Congress, Bogotá was long kept short of money. Until 1993, at least, Congress could guarantee that Bogotá did not receive its rightful share of national funding. A recurrent accusation was that Congress refused to accept the findings of the 1973 and 1985 censuses because regional politicians wanted to stick to the earlier 1964 figures. Because Bogotá had a higher proportion of the Colombian population in 1990 than it had in 1964, congressional refusal to accept the later censuses cost Bogotá a lot of money. Gaillermo Fernández de Soto (1994) claims that although Bogotá contained 15 percent of Colombia’s people in 1993, it received only 9.3 percent of the national fiscal allocation (situado fiscal) and 7.4 percent of the municipal transfers. Congress only accepted the results of the 1993 census after they were officially published in 1996. Relationship with Neighboring Areas If few national politicians support the interests of Bogotá, the city also gets little backing from the departmental politicians of neighboring Cundinamarca. The latter have never forgiven the city for being made into a special district, which, they argue, has led to the department losing money.31 In turn, the city authorities blame Cundinamarca for a multitude of problems. While the city pays for the city’s hospitals, many cundinamarqueses use them for free. They also use the roads and facilities of the city without contributing to their cost.32 Sometimes, the ownership of properties in Bogotá is used to upset planning in the city. The most famous example was the large area of land close to the center of Bogotá (El Salitre) that the Beneficencia de Cundinamarca refused to sell to the city for many years. It was only in the late 1980s that an agreement was struck and new housing estates were developed on the land. While Bogotá does suffer from its relationship with Cundinamarca, the case can be made that Cundinamarca suffers more from Bogotá than the other way round (Dávila 1974). The sewerage that pours into the River Bogotá severely pollutes the environment of many of the municipalities that lie downstream from the city. Similarly, the power wielded by the large utility companies in Cundinamarca, particularly their ability to build major dams, causes huge problems for some nearby municipalities. Only

BOGOTÁ

43

recently have the utilities begun to compensate by providing affected areas with services. Power Vis-à-Vis the City Council The Council of Bogotá is a good place for aspirant politicians to develop their muscles and to seek to win votes for forthcoming national elections. Perhaps this is why so many national presidents have served on the council before their final elevation (Mariano Ospina Pérez, Laureano Gómez, Alfonso López Michelsen, Carlos Lleras Restrepo, Julio César Turbay, Andrés Pastrana, and Ernesto Samper) as well as others who nearly became president or who achieved high political office (Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento, Alvaro Gómez Hurtado, Carlos Lemos Simmonds, and Dario Echandía). One consequence is that the council has long been used as a political debating chamber. When the mayor presents a project, it is a good opportunity for a councilor to attract political attention. For the mayor this can be bad news, particularly when the council is made up of an opposition majority. The two Conservative mayors of the early 1970s faced a combined opposition of ten Liberals and several anapistas. The Liberals opposed the mayors because they were Conservatives in a Liberal city, the anapistas because they were objecting to the electoral fraud that they claimed had allowed Misael Pastrana to occupy the presidency. The four Conservative mayors appointed by Belisario Betancur later faced equally ferocious opposition; one, Diego Pardo, left office after twenty-eight days because of accusations (later proven to be false) about receiving money from a drug dealer. Even when a Liberal mayor faced a council with a Liberal majority (for example, between 1974 and 1976), the “friendly” councilors were likely to split into warring factions. Hernando Durán Dussán, for example, had terrible problems with the council when he tried to increase the yield of the property tax. Matters do not seem to have improved since mayors have been elected. Much of the council bitterly opposed Jaime Castro over the Bogotá statute, which they felt would reduce their political patronage.33 Antanas Mockus as an independent had few supporters in the council during his first term and ran into innumerable problems when he refused to appoint government employees at councilors’ behest.34 His predecessor, Juan Martín Caicedo, tried hard not to offend the city council but ended up in jail as a consequence. Given the fragmented nature of party politics in Colombia, and particularly the lack of party discipline, it is in the interest of many councilors

44

CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

to give the mayor a hard time. Few councilors can be relied upon to support the mayor; practically every vote has to be won. How that vote is to be won is a real problem insofar as it has frequently required the granting of favors. The mayor is expected to help secure public contracts, to direct public works projects to selected barrios, and to find jobs for councilors’ friends and allies. As Roberto Salazar Gómez, a former mayor, puts it: “It is necessary to listen constantly to forty councilors who in Bogotá represent between twelve and fourteen distinct political tendencies. And there the complications begin. The councilors feel that they have the right to present candidates for posts and they get annoyed if those candidates are not named” (APROBIS 1988, 110).35 In the past, relations between the mayor and the council were complicated by the overlapping responsibilities of the two entities. The 1993 statute tried to remedy this situation, making the council responsible for legislation and for overseeing the actions of the executive and putting the mayor in charge of administering the city. Whether it has achieved a desirable balance is uncertain, although a jubilant Jaime Castro is certain that it is the correct move: “Until recently the councillors were the bosses of the city. Now that has changed completely” (Castro and Garavito 1994, 56). So far, however, the new division of responsibilities does not seem to have reduced the amount of conflict. Antanas Mockus faced severe problems with the council during his first term, and although relations with Enrique Peñalosa were more amicable, he, too, faced opposition over his budgets. The City Budget For years, every mayor of Bogotá complained that he had far too little money to do what was required of him. How could he mend the holes in the roads or service the burgeoning population with the limited resources available? There were two options: Provide fewer services or run a budget deficit. In practice, both approaches were used and too little was done, but more was spent than could be covered by the city revenues. Eventually, a real crisis point was reached. As the difficulties of the water and electricity sectors mounted during the 1980s, the city’s accumulated deficit grew to unmanageable proportions. In 1992, when the city owed some U.S.$2.6 billion, Bogotá was effectively bankrupt (Castro and Garavito 1992); when it tried to borrow money to pay its foreign interest payments, the national government refused to guarantee the loan. In response, local creditors stopped advancing payments even on existing loans (Castro and Garavito 1994; Cárdenas, Zarama, and Lanzetta, n.d.).

BOGOTÁ

45

Some pinned the blame on the national government. First, the nation took much more money from Bogotá than it spent in the city. Although Bogotá generated a large share of the country’s tax revenues, it received relatively little back from the national government. According to Jaime Castro, “Bogotá gives the nation half of what it collects in taxes” (Castro and Garavito 1994, 140); according to Eduardo Sarmiento (n.d., 64), Bogotá gets back only “one third of its tax contribution.” In addition, the city was overdependent on the goodwill of the president and the finance minister when it came to finding money for major projects. According to ex-mayor Alfonso Palacio Rudas: “Without the goodwill of the two . . . the city can be paralysed” (APROBIS 1988, 121). Second, when Bogotá was still administratively part of the Department of Cundinamarca, it received much less per capita from the departmental authorities than was given to other municipalities in the department, a problem that was only partially resolved when Bogotá became a special district. Similarly, the delays, sometimes stretching over years, before Congress approved the population census meant that fast-growing Bogotá received much less money than the slow-growing municipalities of the department (APROBIS 1988). Although Bogotá did lose out for these reasons, the city’s chronically poor financial situation was principally due to its own reluctance to increase taxes. Even though incomes had risen considerably, the average bogotano was paying the same amount in taxes in 1993 as in 1961 (Castro and Garavito 1994; Fernández 1994). In 1985, taxes amounted to only 1.9 percent of the city’s gross regional product; in 1991 it was 2.1 percent (Piza, n.d.). Revenues per capita were well below those of Medellín and Cali (Cárdenas, Zarama, and Lanzetta, n.d.). During the 1980s and early 1990s, the government relied on credit to balance the books and took on new loans to soften its debt payments (Pachón and Associates 1992). In 1985, 10 percent of the city’s revenue came from borrowing, in 1991 23 percent (Piza, n.d.). Tax revenues had not increased for a whole series of reasons. Collection of the property tax was hugely inefficient, and the efforts of several administrations to reform the system failed miserably. The cadastral data were out of date, many properties were excluded, and because owners negotiated individually with officials about how much they owed, too much money disappeared corruptly (APROBIS 1988). In addition, valorization taxes, used widely in other Colombian cities, could not be used in Bogotá after 1985 (Piza, n.d.). The tax on industry and commerce yielded far less than it should have done, with the collection system again being vitiated by fraud and corruption (APROBIS 1988).

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Various mayors tried to put the city’s finances on a sounder footing but failed because of political opposition from the city council and from Congress. Alfonso Palacio Rudas made some progress but ultimately suffered from his lack of autonomy with respect to Congress and the national government. Hernando Durán Dussán made a noble effort to raise the yield from property taxes in the early 1980s, but he was forced to back down. Andrés Pastrana tried to raise income through an improved cadastre, but his decree was overthrown a few weeks after being approved. Juan Martín Caicedo argued the case for implementing valorization taxes but was not permitted to use them. Of course, insufficient taxation was only part of the problem. Eduardo Sarmiento argues that the city’s principal problem was the dreadful way in which the income was spent. Although it is true that its tax revenue was not increasing very much, government expenditure during the 1980s soared. “Overflowing bureaucratisation” resulted in more and more public employees being on the city’s payroll (Sarmiento, n.d., 71). The final straw was the cost overruns on the major water and electricity projects and devaluation of the peso. Fortunately, the financial situation was transformed after 1993. First, President Betancur’s decentralization program meant that up to half of the national sales tax was to be transferred to municipalities by 1992. Although this was modified in the 1991 constitution, the municipalities would still benefit by the transfer of “a specified portion of the national government’s current income to municipalities—4 percent in 1993, increasing annually until reaching 22 percent in 2002” (Hoskin 1998, 105). Second, Congress eventually agreed to accept the 1993 population census, thereby giving Bogotá a higher proportion of tax transfers. Third, approval of the organic law in 1993 enabled new sources of income to be tapped. Jaime Castro’s reforms increased the sums that could be generated by the general valorization tax, improved the procedure for assessing property values, and allowed the mayor to apply a levy on the price of gasoline. Although the Bogotá authorities were not permitted to collect any additional taxes, better use of existing sources meant that the city’s revenues improved dramatically (Castro and Garavito 1994). Finally, after many years of construction, the hugely overbudget Guavio project finally ceased to be a drain on the city’s finances in 1993 (Otero and Avella 1995). The amazing turnaround in the city’s finances can be shown in several ways. First, Bogotá’s tax revenues increased 77 percent in real terms between 1993 and 1994 as income from the property tax, the tax on indus-

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try and commerce, and car-vehicle licensing soared (Piza, n.d.). Second, as a result of the decentralization reforms, the city’s share of the national value-added tax increased by half in 1992 and doubled in 1993 and 1994 (Sarmiento, n.d.). Third, the budget surplus before the payment of interest improved dramatically relative to the cost of debt servicing, rising from 0.91 in 1991 to 3.71 in 1994 (Cardenas et al., n.d.). According to Enrique Peñalosa, the central budget deficit of 4.9 billion pesos in 1993 was transformed into a surplus of 25 billion pesos in 1996 (La Rebeca 1998a). Rather than harming Bogotá, political decentralization and the related shift in budget allocations may well have helped it. How long this healthy financial position will continue is uncertain.36 If the quality of services in the city is to be improved, heavy investment is required in health, education, sewerage, and transport. The city needs to increase its income if it is to continue expansion of the new TransMilenio bus system and to fund the decontamination plant on the River Bogotá. Persuading the council of the need for higher taxes will never be easy. Antanas Mockus faced major difficulties in getting the council to agree to a gasoline surcharge. Some of Peñalosa’s projects were thwarted by the failed sale of the telephone company. Currently, the Mockus administration is complaining that it will have to cut the rate of investment if the council does not allow tax increases. Similarly, Bogotá needs more resources from the national government. This is most clearly demonstrated in the case of the metro, where after long negotiations the national government seemed finally to have agreed to finance 70 percent of the total cost of the project in June 1998 only to bury it afterward in the face of a rapidly mounting national fiscal deficit. Bogotá can afford to finance major projects only through higher borrowing or through acquiring more resources from the national government.37 The financial health of the city will also depend on improving the efficiency of Bogotá’s administration. If it continues to close down inefficient agencies, to fire corrupt employees like the traffic police, and to reduce fraud in tax collection, the future looks good. The introduction of competition in the telecommunications market has improved efficiency and dramatically reduced prices, while efficiency improvements in the partially privatized electricity company resulted in the government returning some capital to its shareholders in 2000. The water agency remains entirely in public hands, but its performance is weighed down (and rates boosted) by a large and growing pension burden partly resulting from generous concessions to its workers by successive administrations.38 It is also suffering from a growing problem of nonpayment for its services.39

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The Effectiveness of the Mayors In light of this series of constraints, it is perhaps surprising that any mayor has ever achieved anything in his short time in office. And yet, despite all the signs of chaos and corruption, most have achieved something. Certainly, the quality of infrastructure and service delivery improved from 1951 until 1985 (Table 2.3). Between 1960 and 1980, electricity generation increased annually by 8.3 percent (Otero and Avella 1995), and between 1971 and 1991, the water company supplied three million additional people with water (Yepes 1993). The public transport system was never very good, but Bogotá has always had a good network of roads. Indeed, by the standards of most Latin American cities, the provision of public services in Bogotá by the middle 1980s was really rather good (Gilbert 1996). Unfortunately, there have been many warnings since the mid-1980s that all is not well (Gilbert 1990; Otero and Avella 1993; Yepes 1993; Cardenas et al., n.d.). Public health and education provisions continued to be atrocious and probably deteriorated during the 1990s (Sarmiento, n.d.). A series of major electricity blackouts occurred during 1992, and many neighborhoods were without water for part of the day during both 1997 and 1998. The volume of complaints about road conditions reached a crescendo in 1998, and alarm about personal safety and crime continues to rise even though there are recent signs of hope on that front.40 The improvements and subsequent deterioration in service delivery reveal a great deal about how the city is managed. One explanation for the improvements in the 1960s and 1970s is that there was always a certain amount of continuity across administrations. To provide the city with electricity, water, and telephones, it was necessary to engage in long-term planning. If policy changed every year, the city would be unable to build the dams, roads, and telephone exchanges that it needed in a period of rapid growth. External funding also meant that the authorities had to account to institutions such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank for their actions. This could only be guaranteed if the top executives of the service agencies retained their jobs across political administrations. It is to this form of continuity that ex-mayor Aníbal Fernández de Soto refers when he claims that “Bogotá had only one government for many years” (APROBIS 1988, 66). The management of most large projects continued unchanged across administrations, and most large-scale projects in the city have been managed according to technical rather than political criteria. Indeed, one of the continuing debates among the political and administrative elite of the city is about the need to put the

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Table 2.3 Bogotá: Housing Indicators, 1951–1993 (in percent) Indicator

1951

1964

1973

1985

1993

Water Electricity Sewerage All three services Without any service Tenure Population living four persons to a room Homes built of flimsy materials

85.8 81.9 80.0 n.a. n.a. 42.7

89.5 88.1 87.6 n.a. 2.7 46.2

91.8 95.3 91.7 87.1 2.4 41.9

95.9 98.4 95.6 93.5 0.7 57.1

97.9 99.3 91.1 n.a. 1.8 54.0

7.6 9.5

18.5 7.6

23.0 7.0

14.9 3.2

7.6 3.1

Sources: Jaramillo (1990); Moreno-Chaves (1998, 16); Desarrollo Urbano en Cifras 1, 34; and 1993 Census: resumen nacional, 131.

pragmatism of political convenience below the application of technical criteria. Most former mayors are vehement in declaring that they were strong advocates of technical management and that they always opposed political populism.41 The most obvious sign of this commitment to technical management in Bogotá was the way that the large decentralized public service agencies were transformed during the 1950s and 1960s. Their decentralization gave them financial autonomy insofar as they could raise money without council approval. Their independence relied on the make-up of their boards of directors; for many years, the majority of the directors were representatives of major financial institutions and none were councilors. These principles were incorporated into the structure of the water and sewerage company, when it was established in 1955 and were successful in establishing an extremely effective enterprise. One indicator of the solidity of the water company was the stability of its top management. Between 1964 and 1975, the company had only three chief executives. In contrast, between 1962 and 1979, the director of the community action department changed seventeen times (Gilbert and Ward 1985). If the electricity, water, and telephone agencies were, by Colombian standards, effective during the 1960s and 1970s (Avendaño 1997), there was decreasing evidence to support that claim during the 1980s. A series of problems developed and came to public attention during the early 1990s. By 1993, the water company could not account for 42 percent of its water and could not service its external debt (Avendaño 1997).42 In addition, the electricity company was responsible for the disastrous El

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Guavio project—“the prototype of corruption in Colombia,” as Jaime Castro has described it (Castro and Garavito 1994, 109). Blame for the decline of the major decentralized agencies is sometimes laid at the door of Aníbal Fernández de Soto, who in 1974 persuaded the council of state to allow the mayor to appoint the heads of the enterprises rather than the boards of directors. As a result, more and more of the agency heads were regarded as political appointees, and in hindsight some of the appointments were certainly ill judged.43 These politicized appointments, combined with too little control from the boards of directors, have been blamed for many of the failings of the agencies. Virgilio Barco was firmly of the view that “one of the most important factors in the deterioration of the empresas is the instability of the juntas . . . they change like one changes one’s shirt” (APROBIS 1988, 82). Hernando Durán Dussán clearly felt similarly when he complained that the managers and boards of directors of the large enterprises followed “the seesaw of politics” (APROBIS 1988, 124). Whatever the precise cause, it is clear that the decentralized enterprises became more and more like the rest of the city administration. A financial crisis undermined both the water and electricity companies.44 The frequency with which the heads of the corporations changed increased.45 It is also claimed that corruption became more common and contracts were issued on the basis of political criteria or worse. The unions took over the enterprises, and while employees’ working conditions and pension rights improved, any attempt to increase efficiency was undermined (Pachón and Associates 1992). Jaime Castro has even accused the employees of the telephone and water companies of running their own parallel services (Castro and Garavito 1994). By the 1980s, the difference between the efficient technical agency and the politicized and corrupt agencies like the tax department had all but disappeared. The reforms included in the Bogotá statute seemed to have helped rectify the situation and improved the performance of the city administration. The decree sought to improve the management of the decentralized service agencies, both through privatization and by changing the way that appointments were made to the boards of directors. Today, councilors can no longer act as directors on boards of the decentralized institutes, nor can they appoint their own representatives. Two-thirds of the boards are now appointees of the mayor and the remaining one-third delegates of users, civic organizations, trades unions, or the community. The power of the directors has also been reduced and full responsibility for negotiating contracts given to the chief executive. The agencies were also turned into industrial and commercial companies, which (it was hoped) would improve

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their accounting and management systems and encourage them to collaborate more with the private sector (Cárdenas and Olaya 1994). Finally, an ombudsman was appointed to oversee the efficiency and honesty of government. Certainly evidence from the last four administrations provides considerable reason to believe that the quality of Bogotá’s administration has improved immensely. Its financial situation is much sounder, there are fewer accusations of fraud and corruption, and public services are again being provided on a scale that promises to match demand (DAPD 1999). The Goals of the Mayors Every mayor would like to do something for which the electorate will remain eternally grateful. If a mayor is to achieve higher office, it is vital to garner popular support during the period of his mayorship. The traditional way of both increasing personal popularity and demonstrating a permanent improvement to the city has been for mayors to leave some concrete memorial to their time in office. Not only is such a memorial difficult to erase, but its construction creates jobs and offers the mayor various opportunities for patronage. Many of the city’s major public works are associated with the names of particular mayors. Fernando Mazuera (1957–1958) is remembered for the dual carriageway and bridges that link the road (Calle 26) from the airport to the central city.46 Virgilio Barco (1967–1969) illuminated the city and completed Avenidas 19 and 68 in time for the first visit by any pope to Latin America. Construction of the Avenida de los Cerros is associated with Carlos Albán (1970–1973) and Aníbal Fernández de Soto (1973–1974). And Hernando Durán Dussán is remembered for the numerous flyovers he built over the major road junctions (Semana, 25 February 1992). The situation seems to have changed little since the mayor began to be elected in 1988 insofar as each of the elected mayors has attempted to leave his signature on the city. However, thus far, this mark has less often taken the form of a concrete memorial. Perhaps because of the short time they have in office, each of the first four mayors prioritized some other kind of goal. Andrés Pastrana wanted to privatize the rubbish collection service and to attack the growing drug culture in the city; Jaime Castro’s legacy was to improve the financial situation and make the city more manageable. In his first term, Antanas Mockus wanted above all to improve civic culture. Only Juan Martín Caicedo’s creation of the dedicated bus lanes along Avenida Caracas and Enrique Peñalosa’s concern with the new and highly successful TransMilenio bus system can in any meaningful

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sense be classified as following the strategy of creating a concrete memorial.47 One of the themes developed in Chapter 1 of this volume proposes that the election of mayors discourages the building of concrete memorials because they do not obviously benefit the electorate. And yet, in Bogotá, mayors have always claimed that their public works have done just that. Not only have they created jobs, but the projects have also helped to modernize the city. Perhaps the lack of concrete memorials during the first four elected mayorships was due to new forms of public accountability. More likely their absence simply reflected the fact that the city had no money. In 1992, Bogotá was effectively bankrupt. In 1997 and 1998, when the city’s coffers were bulging, the metro and the TransMilenio were again filling newspaper headlines. Whatever the logic behind the signature projects, Box 2.1 suggests that there was little sign of continuity between the first three elected administrations. If in the past a case could be made that there was one government in Bogotá, it is not easy to make such a case since mayors first began to be elected. It is only during the last two or three mayorships that real signs of continuity have appeared. Recent mayors have tended to praise the achievements of their predecessor and promised to carry forward their major projects. In campaigning for his second term, Antanas Mockus made a virtue of continuity and indeed has delivered on his promise to reappoint many of his predecessor’s officials. Both Mockus and Peñalosa have recognized Castro’s structural and budgetary reforms.

Conclusions Bogotá poses a number of contradictions to the five central themes of this book. Perhaps this is because the city’s recent history, and the history of Colombia generally, fit uneasily into wider Latin American patterns. First, Colombia did not experience classical third wave democratization because it never suffered from bureaucratic authoritarianism during the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, Colombia has not experienced military rule since General Rojas Pinilla’s regime faded away in 1957. As Gary Hoskin (1998, 91) puts it, “a democratic system, however restricted and distorted at times, has prevailed in Colombia during most of the twentieth century, a record unsurpassed in Latin America.” Of course, the period of the National Front government (1958–1974) was arguably a mild form of bureaucratic authoritarianism. While Congress was democratically elected, the choice of president was heavily constrained by the constitu-

BOGOTÁ

Box 2.1 Aims and Achievements of the Elected Mayors of Bogotá Andrés Pastrana was Bogotá’s first democratically elected mayor. He was also a Conservative mayor in a Liberal city. He was voted in largely as a result of his misfortune of being kidnapped allegedly by the Medellín drug cartel. His main achievements were to privatize the city’s rubbish collection and to run a highly successful Concert of Concerts in the main football stadium as part of an ongoing antidrug campaign. The major areas of criticism of his period in office were the poor design and implementation of the Avenida Caracas bus corridor and “the awful quality” of the Calle 92 flyover, part of which was subsequently demolished. Juan Martín Caicedo Ferrer will unfortunately be remembered for being sent to jail during his period of office. He was convicted for giving the city’s councilors the auxilios (grants) that they customarily received from the mayor and that they distributed as “good works” in their constituencies. Unfortunately, the new national constitution of 1991 had prohibited this practice, and the council sought a way round by giving the auxilios a different name. Caicedo’s error was in accepting this agreement and distributing the auxilios. It was claimed on Caicedo’s behalf that if he had not distributed this largesse, he would have received no support from the council at all (he particularly needed support to increase the city’s taxes and was recommending a resumption of the use of valorization). His own account, however, says that he struck no deal with the councilors. Jaime Castro was either one of the best mayors of the city or one of the worst. He was lambasted in the press, his opponents demanded his resignation, and a major protest was held against him in the Plaza Bolívar. His critics accused him of doing nothing while the holes in the road grew larger and the traffic jams worsened. He has always argued that, because he inherited a city that was virtually bankrupt, his priority was to improve the finances of the city and thereby to make it manageable. He succeeded in doing this by getting the national government to approve the organic law of 1993. Taxes could be raised much more easily through valorization taxes, a gasoline surcharge, and the land tax. The statute also limited the role of councilors so they could no longer intervene in the management of the city; their role was limited to establishing the policy of the city, leaving the mayor and the city administration to run the city. He also claims to have improved the level of efficiency of the city, encouraging decentralization, removing corrupt employees, and increasing the productivity of city workers. Certainly, the finances of the city have been very much healthier since his period in office. In 1992, lenders were refusing to give it money; in October 1996 Bogotá was given a BBB risk rating by Standard and Poor’s, something that had never previously been achieved by a Latin American city (Semana, 22 October 1996).48 Antanas Mockus’s main aim during his first term was to improve civic culture in Bogotá. As Hoskin (1998, 108) argues, “He orchestrated a civic cam-

53

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paign, under the label ciudadanía en formación, designed to elicit widespread citizen participation in local government and improve governmental efficiency. Mockus emerged triumphant because of his independent stature, widespread disillusionment with traditional politicians, and an unorthodox, albeit effective, campaign.” During his mayorship, he certainly put a lot of effort into increasing local involvement in decisionmaking, particularly in encouraging communities to come up with ideas for new projects. But to a considerable degree, his attempts to appeal to the wider populace brought as much criticism as support. His use of clowns on the streets to teach drivers and pedestrians how to improve their use of Bogotá’s roads was no better acclaimed than was the giant carrot that he hung in his office to signify his commitment to the boring notion of asceticism, responsibility, and honesty in government. His enthusiasm for his chosen priorities was unquestioned, although many doubted his ability as a city manager and he was widely criticized when he left office early so that he could attempt to run for the presidency. Enrique Peñalosa was elected as an independent candidate, having stood as the official Liberal candidate in the previous two elections. That he won was attributed to the “unelectability” of the Conservative candidate but above all to “the weak leadership and disorganization of the Liberal party,” which won only 2.5 percent of the vote (Hoskin 1998, 112). His image was of the technocrat determined to put Bogotá’s ills to rights. In that respect, he can claim a great deal of credit from his three years in office. His main achievements were to establish the TransMilenio bus system, to improve the parks, reclaim the public areas of the city, to introduce cycle routes, and to establish new cultural facilities for the poor such as mega-libraries. His principal failure was not being able to reduce the public’s feeling of insecurity in the city and to get most of his tax initiatives approved. He was not afraid to take on opponents to his plans, for example, the street traders in the center of the city, the taxi drivers, or the Department of Cundinamarca. He left office with a majority of the public thinking that he had done a good job; one columnist even called him “the best mayor in the history of the capital” (El Tiempo, 19 December 2000; 27 August 2000). Antanas Mockus returned to office in January 2001 committed to continuing the good work of his predecessor. He reappointed many of the officers appointed by Enrique Peñalosa and embraced most of his predecessor’s projects. The main changes appear to lie in the way in which civic culture is to be improved, in the modifications being made to the housing programs of Metrovivienda, and in the low priority given to the sale of the telephone company (Semana, 16 August 2001). His principal challenges are to generate the resources to implement his programs during a time of acute economic difficulty and to establish amicable relations with the council. It is too early to evaluate Mockus’s achievements, although some newspaper accounts suggest that his administration got off to a somewhat slower start than anticipated and that his pedagogic approach is no longer as innovative or as popular as it once was.

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tional pact between the two parties. And insofar as the National Front attempted to modernize the country, it constructed a highly centralized and nominally technical bureaucracy to rule it. Yet however it is viewed, Colombia has been atypical of the political experience of most of Latin America. Second, although there have been genuine attempts to increase the amount of popular participation, to reduce the level of abstention in national and local elections, and to decentralize power to local government, these shifts have had little to do with the demise of ISI. Indeed, the first steps toward decentralization were taken four years before the Gaviria government embraced neoliberalism in 1990. The constitutional reform of 1986, which permitted mayors to be elected, and the new constitution of 1991, which gave more responsibility and resources to local government, arose more from attempts to counter the problem of drugs and violence in civil society than from any rejection of protectionism. Third, despite Colombia’s efforts at improving the quality of its democracy, its success has been limited by a series of internal problems. Although the national elite attempted to decentralize power, to widen the provision of infrastructure and services, to establish guarantees for human rights, and to increase state efficiency, the country’s reputation for democracy, human rights, and corruption has been worsening. The combined activities of drug gangs, guerrillas, and paramilitaries have turned Colombia into one of the pariahs of human rights organizations. During the 1989 election, three presidential candidates were assassinated. Several times in the 1990s, international organizations have placed Colombia among the most corrupt countries in the world, and its last president was accused of accepting drug money into his campaign funds. If the quality of democracy in Bogotá improved during the 1990s, it was not typical of what was happening in much of the rest of the country. Fourth, although Colombia does not fit the Latin American economic reform pattern insofar as it began to embrace economic liberalism seriously only in 1990, recent governments have been attempting to modify the economy in internationally approved fashion. They have been trying to make the economic system more efficient, to liberalize trade, to reduce the state’s economic role, and to attract more foreign investment. But even here there is a difference with most of the rest of Latin America. Unlike most of its neighbors, Colombia never really suffered from a debt crisis, and its economy fared rather well during the 1980s and much of the 1990s.49 It never needed to renegotiate its foreign debt, never suffered from hyperinflation, and real incomes never fell as spectacularly as they did in, say, Mexico or Peru. It is only since 1997 that this record of sus-

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tained economic growth and the widespread reputation that Colombia has established for highly efficient financial management have been questioned as a result of the severe recession that has currently hit the country. Nevertheless, Colombia’s difficulties are much less stark than those of Argentina, Peru, or Venezuela. If the recent economic and political history of Colombia does not fit well into the wider Latin American model, the history of its capital city is also somewhat different. First, Bogotá is not a primate city and certainly does not dominate Colombia in the way that Buenos Aires overshadows Argentina or Lima controls Peru. Colombia still contains many highly influential regional elites (for example, the coffee producers, the landowners of the Atlantic coast, and the industrialists of Antioquia) whose influence substantially reduces Bogotá’s political power. Certainly, Bogotá has relatively little influence in Congress, where regional elites strive to maintain their hold on power. Of course, bogotanos have enormous political clout, but it is not easy to define quite who constitutes its elite. Colombians refer to the political influence of the north of Bogotá, but many of the people who live there have strong regional affiliations. One of the problems with Bogotá is that so few people living there are prepared to battle to improve living conditions in the city. Certainly, the elite of Bogotá is not so easily defined as is the elite of Medellín. Unlike the country’s regional elites, the elite of Bogotá rarely link their political interests to the city where they live—perhaps because their economic interests are played out on a national and, increasingly, international stage. Second, Bogotá is unlike most other large Latin American cities insofar as its population continues to grow rapidly, during the 1980s at around 4 percent per annum (Gilbert 1998). Such growth is both a testimony to the normal vibrancy of its economy and to the terrible violence that is occurring in so much of rural Colombia. Undoubtedly, the arrival of so many migrants is putting pressure on the infrastructure and services of the city. But until recently it could be argued that Bogotá was at least coping with its problems. Employment was expanding rapidly, and the economy was extremely healthy. Of course, the obscenely unequal distribution of income and wealth may even have increased, but the relative numbers of people living in poverty declined as large numbers of jobs were created by the buoyant national economy.50 And if the national economic recession that began in 1998 hit Bogotá hard, the city has still managed better than most of its regional rivals. Third, in terms of managing the urban area, the authorities in Bogotá have long benefited from a major advantage. Unlike Mexico City or Caracas, a single government authority has administered most of the metro-

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politan area ever since 1954. The city has also benefited from a degree of continuity in management. The constant arguments between the political parties and between the different factions of those parties have not been allowed to interfere with the long-term development of the city. Despite much evidence to the contrary, mayors have generally taken over responsibility for the implementation of major projects from their predecessors. In addition, the major public utilities have been largely insulated from the day-to-day bickering of local politicians. For decades, the building of dams and main roads and the installation of electricity and telephone lines have been considered to be far too important to the city’s development to be damaged by the electioneering of local councilors and popular representatives. Bogotá’s economic interests have been protected by an undemocratic and technical bureaucracy that was, for a time, highly effective in improving the city’s services. If the quality of the city government declined during the 1980s, it undoubtedly improved during the 1990s as a succession of mayors built on the achievements of their predecessors and made genuine improvements to the quality of urban management. Fourth, if the authorities constantly claim that the national government has given them insufficient resources to manage the city, their own failure to collect more taxes and to control expenditure more carefully was equally culpable. And despite constant bickering in Congress and in the council, Bogotá has usually found a way of marshaling the resources it needs. Since the early 1970s, it has had the option of borrowing money from abroad to finance its major investment projects. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank have funded numerous projects in the city. These projects have allowed the city to accommodate and service the growing population. Because the country has had a reasonable record of economic growth and has been highly responsible in repaying its foreign loans, this source of funding has rarely been threatened. It has been a critical ingredient in the city’s development and has never been more evident than in the last few years. The whole area of city-oriented groups and their effects on Bogotá is problematic, and the city does not seem to support the notion that unlike the appointed mayors, the popularly elected mayors have championed the priorities of city-oriented groups. Jaime Castro and Antanas Mockus seemed to go out of their way to risk their popularity by taking on certain city-oriented groups (e.g., taxi drivers, bus companies, rubbish collectors, car drivers, and nightclub owners). Similarly, Enrique Peñalosa seemed to take a real risk with his removal of street traders from the central area of Bogotá and with his attempts to control use of private cars. Of course, one problem is to determine precisely who city-oriented groups actually are and to iden-

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tify their main interests. The most plausible explanation of the behavior of at least the last five mayors is that they have actually been trying to improve the quality of life in the city. All of them would argue that their priority was to make life in the city better for the majority of the population. Whether this is an outcome of democratic elections is uncertain, but coincidence or otherwise, something in the state of Bogotá has changed. In these respects, Bogotá has been a relatively privileged city, and these advantages should have made the task of managing it much easier. However, although some ex-mayors claim that Bogotá has long been a well-run city, most former office holders, and virtually every newspaper article, give the opposite impression. The bureaucracy was difficult to control, and efficient management is complicated by interference from local politicians. The mayor’s life was complicated by an uncontrollable and irresponsible council. In a predominantly Liberal city, even Liberal councilors regularly voted against Liberal mayors. National elites consistently acted against the city’s interests. Congress was dominated by provincial politicians, dedicated to the task of “stealing” money from Bogotá. No one in Congress or, for that matter, in the national government saw much political profit from helping the capital. Certainly, this is part of the truth, but if it were the whole truth, Bogotá would not have coped as well as it has. Where does this leave the city in terms of its future? Will it be able to cope with continued population growth and with the challenge of improving living conditions and the quality of services? In terms of service expansion, its record was very good during the 1960s and 1970s, deteriorated during the 1980s and early 1990s, and improved again in the past few years. Privatization of some public services seems to have improved the quality of performance, and the public administration generally seems to have become more efficient. In terms of taxation, recent reforms have made it easier to provide future administrations with the funds that they need to improve the city, although the power of the local and national politicians complicates the process of generating higher tax revenues. Decentralization has also given the city’s authorities more power and resources, although it has also opened up the administration to more criticism from the grassroots. In the future, the political battle that has long been waged between Bogotá and the rest of the country is likely to become more muted. It is more and more difficult to distinguish the city elite from the national elite. In the past, most bogotanos were newcomers, their sentiments strongly favoring their home regions. Today, with more and more Colombians

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being born in Bogotá, this tendency is bound to decline. Relations between Colombia and its capital should be more amicable in the future than they have been. And yet the challenges to Bogotá are formidable. The curse of the private car and an anarchic private bus system are helping to convince the city that radical solutions are needed, even if this means taking on the entrenched interests of bus companies and taxi drivers. Although much improved compared to the 1980s and 1990s, crime continues to pose a major threat to the social fabric (a challenge that a more professional police force appears to have taken on with some effectiveness, despite a severe recession). Nor can the positive economic environment, which created so many jobs in the early 1990s, be guaranteed in the future; indeed, unemployment soared from 6 percent in 1995 to 11 percent in 1998 (DANE 1998) and 18 percent in June 2001.51 In the new economic age, every city has to compete internationally, and so far Bogotá has shown too little evidence of becoming an effective export producer (Dávila 1996; Monitor Company 1997). In addition, there is the dilemma that democracy so often poses, that national and local executives represent different constituencies. Since elections for mayor were introduced in 1988, only two of the six mayors have come from the same party as the national president (and even one of those was drawn from a different faction of the Liberal Party). At least four of these mayors were elected because they offered some kind of alternative to traditional politics. Insofar as national presidents have continued to represent the established political elite, there is a potential area for conflict.52 We will have to see whether this potential source of conflict will create real tension in the future.

Notes The authors would like to thank Alfonso Dávila Ortiz and Raúl Velásquez for their comments on an earlier draft. We are also grateful to Margarita Jaramillo de Botero, from Corposur, who gave us useful material, and to Juan Carlos Gaitán and Antonio Piñol who provided some research assistance. Alan Gilbert owes a special debt of gratitude to the late Hans Rother who was a fount of knowledge about planning in Bogotá. 1. In 1997, greater Medellín had approximately 2.8 million inhabitants, Cali 2.3 million, and Barranquilla 1.6 million (Moreno-Chavez 1998). The metropolitan areas of Bucaramanga, Cúcuta, Pereira, and Cartagena all contained more than 500,000 people. 2. The rise in unemployment since 1995 is bound to have accentuated poverty but is probably a short-term problem.

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CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

3. In 1997, there were 2,820 murders in Bogotá, a rate of 45 murders per 100,000 people (DAPD 1999, 94). This is an appalling rate but hugely better than the rate of 435 per 100,000 recorded in Medellín in 1991, the 108 in Bucaramanga, or the rate of 63 in Bogotá the same year (Gaitán and Afanador 1996). Fortunately, the decline in the murder rate seems to have continued in Bogotá; in 2000 only 2,238 murders were recorded, the equivalent of some 32 per 100,000 (El Tiempo, 10 May 2001). 4. Political opposition in Congress was no longer effective during a period of military government (1953–1957). General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla decreed that Bogotá should become a special district, and the city’s leaders gratefully acknowledged at least one benefit of military government. This had not occurred in 1945 because the governor of Cundinamarca, Parmenio Cardenas, completely opposed it (Vidal-Perdomo 1979). When Bogotá became a special district in 1954, the governor of Cundinamarca lost his right to appoint the mayor, and the city gained a series of other advantages in terms of running its own affairs. 5. Cajica, Chia, Cota, La Calera, Funza, Madrid, Mosquera, and Sibate (González-Murillo 1998). 6. This is mainly because the problems of overspill arguably affect Bogotá less than they affect the neighboring areas. The latter complain vociferously that Bogotá’s service agencies build projects in the areas under their jurisdiction without permission and sometimes without even informing the local administration. For example, the water company allegedly built the San Rafael Dam in La Calera without telling the municipal council (El Espectador, 14 July 1998). 7. Under the new constitution, senators do not represent constituencies but are representatives of the whole country. 8. Mayor Antanas Mockus has continued to threaten the owners of vehicles living in neighboring municipalities with paying tolls when they entered the city. 9. This pact was the only way that the two main parties could return to power and remove Rojas Pinilla. 10. Gaviria also put his political weight behind a constituent assembly (constituyente), which redrafted the national constitution in 1991 (the first reform since it was established in 1886). The constituyente that gave more financial clout to local and state government was a very different kind of body from the national government that reduced import tariffs and quotas. 11. However, there have been eight mayors since 1988 because two mayors left office and were replaced by their deputies. 12. Anapistas is the name given to the followers of ex-dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Despite supporting Rojas, they were designated Conservatives because otherwise they would be excluded from power under the bipartisan National Front agreement. 13. For example, it allowed the mayor to introduce changes in the central administration without seeking approval from the council. Mayor Mockus used this new power to eliminate the traffic police (personal communication from Raúl Velásquez). 14. The electoral period of the first four mayors was two years; it was then

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raised to three. However, two mayors have retired early: One was put in jail, and the other decided to run for national office. 15. Caicedo was convicted for distributing auxilios to individual councilors at a time when the constitution prohibited this practice (he was cleared of the charge later). The distribution of auxilios was an important way in which councilors maintained their political support. Under threat of a jail sentence themselves, most of the councilors eventually returned the auxilios. 16. María Emma Mejía and Claudia de Castellanos stood in the campaign of 2000. The lack of women candidates says less about politics in Bogotá than about politics in Colombia or even about gender roles in the whole of the Americas. Few women have ever achieved high office in Colombia until relatively recently. The first female minister was appointed by Gustavo Rojas Pinilla in 1955, and the second was appointed by Alberto Lleras in 1958. In the current cabinet, there are only two women. The only presidential contenders have been the daughter of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla in 1974 and Noemí Sanín in 1998. 17. It is said that he was never invited inside the presidential palace (APROBIS 1988, 60) although his widow says this is untrue (Dávila 2000). 18. Although Mariano Ospina was forced to call back Fernando Mazuera six days after the bogotazo to keep a lid on the situation. This was one lesson, it is claimed by ex-Mayor Hisnardo Ardila, of the bogotazo of 1948 (APROBIS 1988). 19. Between 1974 and 1990, three-fifths of bogotanos have voted for the Liberal candidate to the presidency compared to only one-quarter voting for the Conservative candidate (Hoskin 1998, Table 4). In the seven free elections since 1974, a Conservative presidential candidate won in the city only in 1982 and in 1998. 20. Allegedly he was kidnapped by the Medellín drug cartel. 21. He claims that he was a lopista (follower of Lopez) prepared to be a gavirista (follower of Gaviria) (Castro and Garavito 1994, 140). 22. Perhaps this was best symbolized by the huge notoriety and popularity he gained by mooning a heckler during a debate during his first mayoral campaign, an act that was captured on video and portrayed on television. 23. Enrique Peñalosa did not want to lose the election because of the unpopularity of the Liberal Party. Nevertheless, it is clear that most Liberal voters gave him their support. 24. Aníbal Fernández de Soto certainly argues that because “Bogotá belongs to all Colombians . . . place of birth and origin counts for little” (APROBIS 1988, 65). 25. Someone from the eastern plains of Colombia. He admits to having represented the interests of that region and has a large farm there. 26. If many of the mayors have not been from Bogotá, a few like de Zubiría and Prieto Ocampo have not even been all that familiar with the city. Similarly, the majority had never served on the council before they became mayor (Table 2.2). 27. Peñalosa’s prestige as an executive mayor has placed him in good stead to aspire to high office, though in July 2001 he denied that he would stand for office in the 2002 national election (El Tiempo, 15 July 2001).

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28. Albeit that the main architect of the development strategy was hostile to the Avenida de los Cerros because it undermined his concept of how cities should be organized internally (Gilbert 1978). 29. “The Minister of Finance, a native of Bogotá, frequently acted, and I ought to say it frankly, against the interests of the capital. That is, in my opinion, one of the stains on the Gaviria government record” (Castro and Garavito 1994, 133). 30. The government had earlier agreed to contribute to the cost of financing a new rapid rail system but backed down in 2000 due to financial pressures. Despite that decision, Enrique Peñalosa continued to believe in the president’s “good intentions” (El Tiempo, 29 May 2000). 31. For a long time, the department had to maintain hospitals and schools in Bogotá that were used principally by the inhabitants of the capital (Dávila 1972; 1974). 32. Both Mayor Peñalosa and his successor have seriously looked into the possibility of setting up tolls on the main roads leading into the city to overcome this problem, thus straining relationships with the provincial governor. 33. Castro includes in his attack Liberals belonging to what he calls la clase política. An M19 councilor told him that opposition to him was the only thing that had united that political group (Castro and Garavito 1994, 219). 34. Whether relations during his second term will be better is uncertain; he has already prohibited any private meetings between officials and councilors (Semana,16 August 2001). 35. It has long been eminently clear that several branches of government in Bogotá did little more than to provide jobs for political appointees. The garbage collection service collected very little rubbish and was described by one mayor as “that useless and corrupt white elephant” (Castro and Garavito 1994, 89). The transport company was even less efficient, employing large numbers of people but managing to run very few buses. 36. Halfway through his term, the Peñalosa administration already claimed that the financial situation was less than healthy (El Espectador, 9 April 1999), while one of Mockus’s challenges in his second term in office is a major tax reform to replenish the city’s coffers. 37. This was illustrated by the recent contracting of U.S.$218 million of loans from Washington and the declarations of the Mockus administration that it would be difficult to maintain the desired rate of investment with the current resources available to them (El Tiempo, 26 and 27 June 2001). 38. Personal communication from Héctor Parra, who was CEO in the 1960s. 39. Its customers owed 129,500 million pesos in December 2000, which prompted the company to declare a policy of suspending the service to indebted users (El Tiempo, 4 December 2000). 40. See the opinion poll conducted by El Tiempo, 24 August 1997, and 1 September 1997. Fortunately, violent crime seems to have declined somewhat in the late 1990s, and there are some signs of an improvement in the quality of the police. 41. Virgilio Barco and Hernando Durán Dussán have both argued strongly for the need for technical competence and continuity in management of the large pub-

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lic agencies and, rather more emotively, Carlos Albán Holguín claims that “certainly, I was more technical than political” (APROBIS 1988, 54). 42. Although it should be noted that Thames Water in England has a similar loss rate. 43. For example, the appointment as head of the water and sewerage agency in 1982 of Fabio Puyo, a former head of the garbage collection service, who was subsequently accused of corruption on a large scale. Colombia has started extradition proceedings to try to remove him from his self-imposed exile in Spain. 44. “At the beginning of the 1990s, 99.5% of residential electricity consumers were being subsidised . . . an upper-middle class family was receiving an annual subsidy of US$250” (Calderón-Zuleta 1997, 20). 45. The water company had only eight heads between 1955 and 1975 but fourteen in the subsequent twenty years (EAAB 1997, 190). 46. He is remembered for these structures even if he resigned before they were completed because of the complaints about the work. This was his third period in office. 47. “Banco Mundial elogia a Transmilenio de Bogotá,” El Tiempo, 25 June 2001. 48. This sign of confidence allows the city to raise money independently on the international markets. Currently, Bogotá has a BB risk rating and an AA rating for the emission of bonds (El Tiempo, 4 May 2001). 49. The gross national product has grown every year since 1970 although the gross domestic product per capita did decline in 1982, 1983, 1999, and 2000. 50. Life expectancy rose by five years between the early 1970s and the early 1990s, and the infant mortality rate fell from fifty per 1,000 in 1971 to twenty-two in 1993 (Rinaudo et al. 1994, 28). The proportion of bogotanos living in poverty declined from 57 percent in 1973 to 17 percent in 1991, those living in misery from 26 percent to 4 percent (Londoño de la Cuesta 1992, 15). Sarmiento’s (n.d., 61) figures show a rise in the proportion of the population living below the poverty line from 29.5 percent in 1986 to 38.1 percent in 1992. 51. Figure obtained through the automated answering system of the Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE, National Administrative Department of Statistics). 52. Insofar as Andrés Pastrana won the last presidential election because he appeared to be much more honest than the main Liberal contender, both he and most of his supporters are clearly members of the traditional political elite. As the son of a recent former president, it would be difficult for him to argue otherwise.

3 Buenos Aires: The Evolution of Local Governance Miguel De Luca Mark P. Jones María Inés Tula The city of Buenos Aires (CBA), capital of the Republic of Argentina, is located on the coast of the Río de la Plata estuary. The CBA has 3 million inhabitants, representing 9 percent of the national population (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos 1993). The CBA’s residents possess a level of income and education that is far superior to the national average. In addition to being the seat of the national government, the CBA is the country’s financial and business center and hosts Argentina’s premier cultural, sports, and medical institutions. Bordering the city on the north, south, and west—and thoroughly integrated with it—is Gran Buenos Aires (GBA) (see Figure 3.1). GBA currently consists of twenty-four counties of the province of Buenos Aires (PBA). The geographic size of GBA is 3,800 square kilometers (compared to the CBA’s 200), and its population is slightly less than 8 million (Pírez 1994). The Buenos Aires metropolitan area (BAMA) (the CBA plus the GBA) contains nearly 11 million inhabitants, representing slightly more than a third of Argentina’s total population (see Table 3.1). The BAMA is the center of Argentina’s administrative, industrial, commercial, cultural, and educational activities and represents one of the ten largest urban agglomerations in the world. In this chapter we examine the evolution of local governance and political practices in the CBA, concentrating on the period since the end of World War II. We pay particular attention to the transformations in the organization and power of the city’s political institutions (with special 65

16

26

21 9

19 17

11 18

20 12

24

10 27

7

23

RIO DE LA PLATA

28

5

14

15

1

2

22 8

3

6 13

25

4

Population Density (per square km) < 1,000 1,000 - 10,000 > 10,000

Federal District

0

10 20 30

Kilometers

1 Almirante Brown 2 Avellaneda 3 Berazategui 4 Berisso 5 Capital Federal 6 Ensenada 7 Esteban Echeverría 8 Florencio Varela 9 General Rodriguez 10 General San Martín 11 General Sarmiento 12 La Matanza 13 La Plata 14 Lanús 15 Lomas de Zamora 16 Lujan 17 Marcos Paz 18 Merlo 19 Moreno 20 Morón 21 Pilar 22 Quilmes 23 San Fernando 24 San Isidro 25 San Vicente 26 Tigre 27 Tres de Febrero 28 Vicente López

66

Figure 3.1 Municipalities of Greater Buenos Aires

67

BUENOS AIRES

Table 3.1 Population Statistics for Argentina: City of Buenos Aires, Gran Buenos Aires, and the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, 1650–1991 (in thousands)

Year

Argentina

CBA

% of National Population

1650 1778 1800 1809 1825 1839 1855 1869 1881 1895 1914 1924 1947 1960 1970 1980 1991

298 421 551 609 766 926 1,000 1,830 2,565 4,045 7,904 9,892 15,894 20,014 23,364 27,950 32,616

92 187 305 664 1,576 1,839 2,981 2,967 2,973 2,923 2,965

9.2 10.2 11.9 16.4 19.9 18.6 18.8 14.8 12.7 10.5 9.1

GBA

% of National Population

BAMA

% of National Population

30

3.0

122

12.2

76 118 458 600 1,741 3,772 5,381 6,843 7,969

3.0 2.9 5.8 6.1 11.0 18.8 23.0 24.5 24.4

381 782 2,034 2,439 4,722 6,739 8,353 9,766 10,935

14.9 19.3 25.7 24.7 29.7 33.7 35.8 35.0 33.5

Source: All data come from the Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos (1993), with the exception of the data for 1855, 1881, and 1924, which are estimates by Sargent (1974). Note: Due to rounding, the entries for BAMA are not identical in all instances to those obtained by summing the entries for the CBA and GBA.

emphasis on local executive power) in the context of the general political changes the country experienced during the second and third waves of democratization, as well as the second reverse wave (see Chapter 1). The chapter is divided into four main sections, each of which examines the evolution of governance in the CBA within the overall political and economic context of four distinct periods. First, we provide a brief review of the city’s history from its founding until its conversion into a federal district, 1536–1880. Second, we examine the period that runs from the consolidation of the Argentine nation-state to the end of the so-called infamous decade (década infame), 1880–1943. Third, we analyze the period 1943–1983 that begins with the rise of Peronism and ends with the most recent military dictatorship. Fourth, we examine the most recent democratic period, beginning in 1983. We conclude with some general observations regarding the relevance of this volume’s central themes outlined in the introductory chapter to the Argentine case.

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From Small Village to National Capital, 1536–1880 Buenos Aires was founded in 1536. This precarious settlement disappeared shortly thereafter due to the serious problems of hunger and disease faced by its inhabitants. A new and more successful settlement was founded in 1580. Initially the village’s development was limited, due primarily to the lack of an indigenous labor force and the absence of precious metals. Development was further hindered by the Spanish mercantilist system that required the colonies to purchase all goods from the state monopoly and to conduct all trade exclusively through Lima (the capital of the viceroyalty of Peru). However, over time contraband and trade steadily increased and Buenos Aires’s population and level of development grew. Under the Bourbon reforms, the prominence of Buenos Aires as a regional administrative and commercial center was recognized through the creation of the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776. Buenos Aires quickly emerged as an important political, administrative, and commercial center. By the end of the eighteenth century, Buenos Aires was the principal provider of imported products to the interior and was receiving a lion’s share of the revenue gained from the taxation of imports and exports. The new direct—and legal—connection to Europe stimulated the development of exports based on cattle, with local producers enjoying considerable comparative advantage due to the fertile pampa grasslands. Finally, the Bourbon reforms helped break the sociocultural isolation of Buenos Aires as recent political, social, and cultural trends from Europe began taking root in the city. From this point onward, Buenos Aires was seen as an enclave of civilization and progress by its residents, who considered themselves vastly superior to the viceroyalty’s other inhabitants. The economic and sociocultural split that developed at this time between Buenos Aires and the interior would continue to be a source of conflict to the present day. When the continent-wide independence struggles began, Buenos Aires led the independence movement in the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1810. From the outset the movement was plagued by a split between those who favored a centralized independent country directed from Buenos Aires and those who demanded a greater level of autonomy for the provinces, that is, the administrative divisions in which the viceroyalty had been divided. In spite of this latent cleavage, the two groups were able to set aside their differences to pursue the common goal of achieving independence from Spanish rule.

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The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata declared its independence in 1816. With the defeat of the Spanish, the underlying unitary-federal cleavage re-emerged, leading to a decade-long civil war between the Unitarios and Federales. This period of instability ended in 1830 when the federal leader Juan Manuel de Rosas became governor of the PBA. Shortly thereafter, the other provincial caudillos recognized the undisputed leadership of Rosas. Rosas held power for more than twenty years. By the end of his rule, he had, in the name of federalism, consolidated both political and economic power under his control, with Buenos Aires the nucleus of this concentration. This new concentration of power, the first establishment of effective institutions since the collapse of Spanish rule, made possible the definitive political organization of the Argentine nation during the following decades (Halperín Donghi 1992). After the fall of Rosas in 1852, the resurgent provincial forces promulgated the constitution of 1853, which established a presidential form of government, a system of checks and balances between the branches of government, federalism, the nationalization of tax revenue, the free circulation of goods and services throughout the country, and the CBA as the capital of the republic. The PBA, unhappy with this attack on its privileges, refused to accept the constitution and seceded from the new Argentine confederation. This secession led to the initiation of armed conflict between the two sides. After considerable conflict in which the provincial forces proved victorious, the two sides reached a compromise in 1859: The PBA agreed to join the Argentine republic under certain political and budgetary guarantees (e.g., the reform of the constitution by a constituent assembly in 1860 and the recognition of the patrimony held by the PBA at that time), and the federal authorities could establish the capital in the CBA.1 From 1859 onward, a succession of national governments gradually was able to consolidate the young republic through the dissolution and cooptation of other centers of power, the repression of uprisings against the national government, and the construction of a government that obtained a considerable level of political legitimacy (Oszlak 1980). By 1879, the PBA represented the only obstacle to the creation of a single national authority. The powerful PBA militia continued to defy the federal authorities, and at the same time the province’s fiscal resources were easily greater than those of the other provinces combined. This political equilibrium was well reflected in the status of the nation’s capital: The president resided in the CBA yet lacked jurisdiction in the city that continued

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to be under the PBA governor’s control. The president was, for all intents and purposes, the “guest” of the governor.2 This bipolarity between the president and PBA governor foreshadowed an ensuing conflict, which finally broke out near the end of the administration of President Nicolás Avellaneda in 1879. The PBA was defeated and, as a result, lost its militia and its capital, the CBA. Under Law 1029, the CBA (with a population of slightly more than 300,000) was converted into a federal district (Botana 1980). Shortly thereafter the PBA moved its capital to La Plata, located 70 kilometers to the south of the CBA.

From Federalization to Gran Buenos Aires, 1880–1943 Following the defeat of the PBA forces, the president became the undisputed national leader. Under the 1853–1860 constitution, the CBA was granted representation in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate under the same conditions as the nation’s provinces. The constitution established that the Argentine provinces were autonomous political entities with their own provincial constitutions and autonomy in all areas not specifically assigned to the national government in the constitution. In contrast, the local government in the CBA remained subject to the legislation emitted by the National Congress. In November 1882, the National Congress sanctioned Law 1260, ley orgánica de la municipalidad. Under this legislation the CBA possessed a mayor and a municipal council (concejo deliberante, or CD). The mayor was nominated by the president, subject to the approval of a majority in the Senate. The mayor was in charge of the city’s local executive branch and occupied the post for a two-year term, with no restrictions on reappointment.3 The mayor enjoyed considerable latitude and powers regarding the designation of municipal employees and possessed the ability to veto all CD initiatives; an override required a two-thirds vote by the CD. The CD was the legislative branch in the CBA and had the power to emit ordinances (which had, however, a legal status inferior to that of a national or provincial law), to approve the budget for the municipal administration, and to impeach the mayor (by a two-thirds vote). The CD was composed of two members from each of the city’s electoral districts who were elected by tax-paying male citizens. The municipal councilors were elected for two-year terms, with half of the CD renewed every other year. Under Law 1260, the federal government maintained control over the Port of Buenos Aires, the administration of justice, the local police, and

BUENOS AIRES

71

the collection of direct taxes. The municipal government was charged with providing public services (e.g., water, public health, and public transportation), organizing transportation, maintaining the public parks, and general urban planning. Between 1882 and 1916, a period labeled by Natalio Botana (1977) as the orden conservador, Argentine politics was characterized by a succession of oligarchic constitutional governments controlled by the National Autonomous Party (Partido Autonomista Nacional, or PAN) governments. The PAN achieved its dominance by fraudulent elections and by reinforcing the power of the national government vis-à-vis the provinces. During this period the CBA’s governmental institutions functioned within the context of violent conflicts between different oligarchic factions, fraudulent elections with minimal popular participation, and confrontations between the mayor and the CD (Antonio and García Molina 1994; Botana 1983; Walter 1974). As a result of these conflicts, the CD was intervened and replaced by a committee of “notables” designated directly by the national executive with the consent of the Senate during 1885–1891, 1901–1908, and 1915–1916 (Antonio and García Molina 1994; Passalacqua 1996). Noteworthy during the 1883–1916 period was the extremely limited tenure of most CBA mayors. During this thirty-three year period, there were twenty-one mayors (both titular and interim; see Table 3.2). Nevertheless, a few of these individuals do stand out because of their effectiveness and the length of their terms (Torcuato de Alvear, Adolfo Bullrich, and Joaquín S. de Anchorena). All three mayors belonged to traditional families of the local elite; Alvear in particular is well remembered for his efforts to transform Buenos Aires into a European-style city (he is considered a local version of Baron Haussmann). These were years of tremendous economic progress in Argentina. The country’s agricultural exports continued to increase, as did the country’s importation of manufactured goods. This growth in turn attracted international capital as well as immigrants from Europe. These immigrants, most of whom came from Italy and Spain, settled primarily in the coastal region, and with their presence the CBA’s population grew exponentially (see Table 3.1). As of 1910, with more than a million inhabitants, the CBA possessed infrastructure, architecture, and public services comparable to those of London and Paris. The orden conservador began to decay when a reformist faction that controlled the government passed the Sáenz Peña Law (Law 8871) in 1912, which provided for free and fair elections. These new rules made possible the electoral victory of Hipólito Yrigoyen in the 1916 presidential election. Yrigoyen was the leader of the Radical Civic Union (Unión

72 Table 3.2 Mayors of the City of Buenos Aires, 1883–1946

Mayor Torcuato de Alvear Antonio F. Crespo Guillermo A. Cranwella Francisco Seeber Francisco P. Bollini Juan J. Montes de Ocaa Miguel Cané Federico Pinedo Emilio V. Bunge Francisco Alcobendas Martín Biedmaa Adolfo J. Bullrich Alberto Cáseres Carlos Roseti Manuel Obarrioa Alberto Casares Manuel Obarrioa Carlos T. de Alvear Manuel J. Güiraldes Joaquín S. de Anchorena Enrique Palacioa Arturo Gramajo Joaquín Llambías Saturnino García Anidoa José Luis Cantilo Juan B. Barnetche Virgilio Tedín Uriburua Carlos M. Noel Horacio Casco Adrián Fernández Castroa José Luis Cantilo José Guerrico Rómulo S. Naón Mariano De Vedia y Mitre Arturo Goyeneche Raúl Savaresea Carlos Alberto Pueyrredór Ernesto E. Padillaa Basilio B. Pertiné César R. Caccia

Start of Term

End of Term

Length in Years/ Months

05/10/1883 05/14/1887 08/14/1888 05/10/1889 06/22/1890 10/31/1892 11/07/1892 06/20/1893 09/14/1894 09/12/1896 09/14/1898 10/20/1898 10/20/1902 10/20/1904 03/16/1906 03/22/1906 11/10/1906 02/08/1907 01/25/1908 10/20/1910 10/26/1914 02/23/1915 11/14/1916 11/15/1919 12/05/1919 10/26/1921 10/13/1922 10/16/1922 05/03/1927 10/12/1928 11/15/1928 09/08/1930 02/20/1932 11/19/1932 02/20/1938 11/26/1940 12/06/1940 06/12/1943 06/15/1943 04/12/1944

05/10/1887 08/14/1888 05/10/1889 06/04/1890 10/31/1892 11/07/1892 06/07/1893 08/20/1894 09/12/1896 09/14/1898 10/20/1898 10/20/1902 10/20/1904 03/16/1906 03/22/1906 11/09/1906 02/07/1907 01/07/1908 10/12/1910 10/24/1914 02/23/1915 11/14/1916 11/14/1919 12/05/1919 10/25/1921 10/12/1922 10/15/1922 05/03/1927 10/12/1928 09/06/1930 09/06/1930 02/20/1932 11/19/1932 02/19/1938 11/26/1940 12/05/1940 06/11/1943 06/15/1943 04/05/1944 06/03/1946

4.0 1.3 0.9 1.1 2.4 0.0 0.7 1.2 2.0 2.0 0.1 4.0 2.0 1.5 0.0 0.8 0.3 0.11 1.8 4.0 0.4 1.8 3.0 0.1 1.11 1.0 0.0 4.7 1.5 0.0 1.9 1.5 0.9 5.3 2.9 0.0 2.6 0.0 0.10 2.2

President(s) Roca, Juárez Celman Juárez Celman Juárez Celman Juárez Celman Juárez Celman, Pellegrini L. Sáenz Peña L. Sáenz Peña L. Sáenz Peña L. Sáenz Peña, J. E. Uriburu J. E. Uriburu J. E. Uriburu, Roca Roca Roca, Quintana Quintana, Figueroa Alcorta Figueroa Alcorta Figueroa Alcorta Figueroa Alcorta Figueroa Alcorta Figueroa Alcorta R. Sáenz Peña, De la Plaza De la Plaza De la Plaza, Yrigoyen Yrigoyen Yrigoyen Yrigoyen Yrigoyen Alvear Alvear Alvear Yrigoyen Yrigoyen J. F. Uriburu J. F. Uriburu Justo Ortiz Ortiz Ortiz, Castillo Castillo, Ramírez Ramírez, Farrell Farrell

Source: Elaborated by the authors using data from the Honorable Concejo Deliberante de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (1995). Note: a. Interim mayor.

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Cívica Radical, or UCR, often referred to as the Radical Party), a party of liberal ideas founded in 1891, which, unlike any other Argentine political party at the time, enjoyed a high level of popular support. Following the passage of the Sáenz Peña Law, the UCR transformed itself from a protest movement that favored electoral abstention and civil disobedience into a powerful vote-seeking machine. The UCR’s methods succeeded; it governed for almost fifteen years due to its support base among the recently enfranchised mass public (Rock 1974). During the UCR’s tenure, the displaced oligarchy proved incapable of uniting behind a single party to effectively compete against the UCR and instead found itself divided among a variety of primarily provincial-level conservative parties. Yet despite its loss of the presidency, the conservative oligarchy still enjoyed a majority of the seats in the Congress and from there engaged in a fierce resistance to President Yrigoyen’s policy program (Mustapic 1984; Smith 1974). In the CBA, Yrigoyen at first extended the mandate of the previous committee of notables. But in 1917 he attempted to name his own committee, and his nominees were rejected by the Senate based on the argument that all were UCR activists. Eventually, the UCR was able to reestablish the normal functioning of the municipal government, and through Law 10240 it adopted the principles of the Sáenz Peña Law for the election of municipal authorities. The only major UCR-backed reform that failed to receive congressional approval was the popular election of the mayor, which was blocked by the Senate. Starting in 1919, the CD functioned normally throughout the UCR tenure, with thirty members elected through proportional representation (PR). The UCR presidents named as mayors, with the approval of the Senate, only copartisans (see Table 3.2).4 The two beneficiaries of free and fair municipal council elections were the UCR and the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista, or PS), each of which possessed an important party apparatus that was able to get out the vote on election day. During this period, and in contrast to the situation in most of the provinces, political competition in the CBA was unique in terms of its highly competitive nature and the fact that this competition was between two strong, modern, and well-organized political parties (Botana 1983; Rock 1972; Walter 1974). The CD was the venue for numerous important debates that revolved around the regulation and control of the public services concessions (that were in most instances run by foreign companies), the organization of urban transport, the improvement of the mass public’s living conditions, road construction, and the creation of public parks. Yrigoyen and his successor, Marcelo T. de Alvear (1922–1928), continued to follow the general agro-export model that had reigned during the

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CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

orden conservador. This model functioned well until 1929, when the global financial crisis had a hugely negative effect on Argentina’s agroexport economy. As a consequence of the crisis, the second Yrigoyen administration (1928–1930) found itself extremely unpopular and under constant attack from conservative forces (Smith 1987). The end result was a military coup in 1930 that ended Argentina’s nascent democratic experience and ushered in a period of fraudulent elections, corrupt administration, and general abuse of republican principles—the década infame (Ciria 1986). Once in power, the conservative forces, known as the Concordancia, adopted a battery of policies designed to counter the profound economic depression Argentina was experiencing. Prominent among these measures was the stimulation of import substitution industrialization (ISI), with a particular emphasis on consumer goods. These measures generated a rapid expansion of the industrial sector located in the Buenos Aires metropolitan region. They also stimulated a massive increase in migration to Buenos Aires from the countryside. The majority of these immigrants settled in the counties surrounding Buenos Aires, which grew in population at an astounding rate, forming what became known as Gran Buenos Aires (Germani 1955; 1962). In contrast to the experience in the rest of the nation during this period, the CBA held open and competitive elections, in which the UCR and PS obtained a high level of representation in the CD. The PS and UCR councilors, particularly the Socialists, engaged in an often fierce, and successful, opposition to many projects presented by Concordancia-appointed conservative mayors.5 Faced with this strong opposition in the CD, the mayors during this period occasionally bypassed it by having their initiatives approved as law by the Concordancia-dominated National Congress.6 In 1941 the Concordancia government, realizing that the UCR and PS were successfully utilizing the resources of the CD to enhance their political power through the use of patronage, closed the CD, taking advantage of recent corruption scandals involving the conduct of councilors in the granting of an electricity concession and in the allocation of bus lines. A Comisión Interventora de Vecinos, a type of executive committee similar to the committee of notables used during the orden conservador and appointed directly by the president, replaced the CD (Antonio and García Molina 1994). In 1943 a military coup deposed the Concordancia president Ramón S. Castillo and closed the National Congress. In the CBA the new de facto government dissolved the Comisión Interventora de Vecinos and assigned all functions of the CD to the mayor. The buildings that formerly housed

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the CD were occupied shortly thereafter by the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare, run by a then-obscure colonel named Juan Domingo Perón.

From the Rise of Peronism to the Last Dictatorship, 1943–1983 Following the 1943 coup, Colonel Perón assumed greater and greater importance among the governing clique. Supported by the unions and a substantial group of army officers, Perón soon held the positions of secretary of labor and welfare, minister of war, and vice president of the nation, converting himself into the strong man of the new regime. In 1945 pressure from the domestic opposition as well as the United States obliged President Edelmiro J. Farrell (1944–1946) to place Perón under arrest. In response to Perón’s arrest on 17 October 1945, a massive concentration of Perón supporters marched on the presidential palace and demanded Perón’s release. In the face of this unprecedented demonstration of popular support, the military government freed Perón and scheduled a presidential election. In the February 1946 presidential election, Perón defeated José P. Tamborini, the candidate of the Unión Democrática (Democratic Union, UD), a heterogeneous coalition integrated by the UCR, PS, the Progressive Democratic Party (Partido Demócrata Progresista, or PDP), the Communist Party (Partido Comunista de la Argentina, or PCA), and provincial-level conservative forces.7 Thus began Argentina’s participation in the second wave of democratization. Once in office, Perón quickly implemented several dramatic policy reforms, including a substantial increase in the level of state intervention in the economy, the deepening of ISI, and the nationalization of public services (e.g., electricity, railroads, telephone, and water). Perón also promoted a strong social welfare state and carried out reforms to make income distribution more equal and to improve the living standards of the working class. All of these policies received the support of a broad segment of the population, and Perón enjoyed the unconditional support of the Peronist Party and the unions. However, the populist and at times autocratic nature of Perón’s governing style generated a profound and irreconcilable split between Peronists and anti-Peronists (Waldmann 1986). In 1949 Perón obtained the approval of a new constitution that allowed for unlimited presidential re-election and provided a greater concentration of power in the hands of the president. As for the CBA, the prin-

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CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

cipal bastion of anti-Peronism, Perón utilized the 1949 reform to reinforce his powers as the undisputed chief of the city. Under the 1949 constitution, the CD, which had not been re-established since the 1941 closure, was eliminated. Perón saw to it that all CBA mayors were designated directly by the president (without Senate approval between 1949 and 1955) and responded directly and unconditionally to his directives. As was the case with virtually all political leaders and public functionaries during this period, the mayors maintained a very low profile (see Table 3.3).8 None achieved any accomplishment of even minor note. During the Peronist period the national government’s control over the CBA increased substantially, due both to the government’s policy program and need for greater central planning to administer economic growth and the provision of public services as well as for political and symbolic reasons. The transformations in the CBA—and in the country in general—were perceived in distinct manners by the different political groups and social classes. For Peronists, this increased concentration of power in the hands of the national government was seen as a source of considerable political legitimacy. It became a means for reinforcing a greater sense of national identity and for increasing the level of social integration in the country by assisting in the incorporation of the lower classes and recent migrants as equal members of a national society. For the anti-Peronists this concentration of power was a clear manifestation of demagoguery on the part of Perón, and for the upper class and much of the middle class a symbol of the decadence and loss of privilege (as traditional residents of the city), which they associated with Peronism. The economic boom that followed the end of World War II, combined with the economic measures adopted by Perón, led to the re-emergence of the CBA as an attractive destination for immigrants. A majority of the people who migrated to the CBA at this time came from the Argentine interior and from neighboring countries such as Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This new wave of immigration quickly overwhelmed the available housing stock in the CBA. In response to this housing shortage, the Peronist government adopted a dual (and somewhat contradictory) policy of encouraging the construction of apartment buildings but, at the same time, extending the policy of rent control that had been in force since 1943 as well as adopting a policy opposed to evictions (Oszlak 1991; Azaretto 1995). Despite these efforts, few concrete policy measures were adopted to deal with the population explosion and industrial expansion experienced by the CBA and GBA. This lack of a coordinated policy to confront these issues resulted in chaotic urban growth characterized by a noteworthy

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Table 3.3 Mayors of the City of Buenos Aires, 1946–2002

Mayor Emilio P. Siri Juan V. Debenedetti Jorge Sabaté Bernardo Gago Miguel A. Madero Luis M. De la Torre Campos Eduardo Héctor Bergalli Ernesto Florit Roberto Etcheparebordaa Hernán M. Giralt Alberto Prebisch Pedro Carlos Riua Francisco Rabanal Eugenio F. Schettini Manual Iricibar Tomás José Caballero Saturino Montero Ruiz Leopoldo Frenkelb Juan V. Debenedetti José Embrioni Eduardo Alberto Crespic Osvaldo Andrés Cacciatore Guillermo Del Cioppo Julio Cesár Saguier Facundo Suárez Lastra Carlos Grosso Saúl Bouer Jorge Domínguez Fernando De la Rúad Enrique Oliverad Aníbal Ibarrad

Start of Term

End of Term

06/06/1946 11/26/1949 02/20/1952 10/27/1954 09/26/1955 06/08/1956 01/26/1957 09/20/1957 05/01/1958 05/14/1958 06/26/1962 10/12/1963 10/15/1963 07/04/1966 09/08/1967 03/01/1971 03/31/1971 06/05/1973 08/07/1973 08/30/1973 03/25/1976 04/05/1976 04/02/1982 12/10/1983 01/15/1987 07/08/1989 10/27/1992 09/05/1994 08/06/1996 12/10/1999 08/06/2000

11/26/1949 02/19/1952 10/26/1954 09/23/1955 06/08/1956 01/25/1957 09/18/1957 05/01/1958 05/13/1958 06/25/1962 10/11/1963 10/14/1963 06/28/1966 09/06/1967 02/26/1971 03/30/1971 05/28/1973 08/03/1973 08/27/1973 03/22/1976 04/02/1976 04/02/1982 12/09/1983 01/13/1987 07/07/1989 10/26/1992 09/05/1994 08/05/1996 12/09/1999 08/05/2000 to presente

Length in Years/ Months 3.5 2.3 2.8 0.11 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.0 4.1 1.3 0.0 2.8 1.2 3.6 0.1 2.2 0.2 0.1 2.7 0.0 6.0 1.8 3.1 2.6 3.4 1.10 1.11 3.4 0.7

President(s) Perón Perón Perón Perón Lonardi, Aramburu Aramburu Aramburu Aramburu Frondizi Frondizi, Guido Guido Illia Illia Onganía Onganía, Levingston Levingston, Lanusse Lanusse Campora, Lastiri Lastiri, Perón Perón-Martínez de Perón Junta Militar Videla, Viola, Galtieri Galtieri, Bignone Alfonsín Alfonsín Menem Menem Menem Menem De la Rúa De la Rúa

Source: Elaborated by the authors using unpublished data from the Honorable Concejo Deliberante de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (1995) and the Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (1999). Notes: a. Interim mayor. b. Delegate of the national executive branch. c. Delegate of the military junta. d. Chief of government (popularly elected). e. Scheduled to serve until 2004.

increase in slums, severe overcrowding of housing, and pollution and sanitation problems (Torres 1975; 1992). It was at this time that the first villas miserias (slums) formed on public and private land (Pírez 1994; Yujnovsky 1983). These precarious housing settlements, generally lacking most if not all public services (running water, sewage, and electricity) were located in both the CBA and especially in GBA.

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CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

By 1955 the Peronist model had weakened, due both to the economic problems facing Argentina and to the growing and invigorated opposition to Perón by the anti-Peronists, Argentine Catholic Church, and U.S. government. All of these combined with growing anti-Peronist sentiment within the armed forces to produce a military coup that overthrew Perón and sent him into exile. This coup ushered in a twenty-year period characterized by the constant presence of the military as the exclusive referee of political party competition, the proscription of Peronism, the chronic instability of all governments (both civilian and military), an increase in political violence, and a growing radicalization of social protest and demands. In 1958 and 1963, Arturo Frondizi and Arturo Illia (who belonged to opposing UCR factions) were respectively elected president. But each was overthrown by the military prior to the end of their term due to their attempts to reincorporate Peronism into the country’s political system. In the CBA, control of the city government remained concentrated in the hands of the mayor, designated by the military following the overthrow of Perón, until 1958. In 1958, after a seventeen-year hiatus, the local government of the CBA began to function again under the framework established by Law 1260 (Myers, n.d.). With Senate approval, Frondizi and Illia designated as mayors Hernán Giralt and Francisco Rabanal, respectively (see Table 3.3).9 Neither mayor could muster a majority in the CD. As a consequence of the concentration of political powers, the nationalization of public services under Peronism (associated generally with ISI and the second wave of democratization) and the centralized interventionist state model, the municipal government during the 1958–1966 period was unable to regain the powers it had enjoyed during the 1919–1941 period. Under the economic and political models of the day, the provincial and municipal governments were considered incapable of resolving the emerging demands of society. At the same time, the nationalization of public services (electricity, natural gas, water, and telephone) had an extremely adverse effect on provincial and municipal autonomy. Whereas previously these services had been provided by private companies under concessions granted by the local governments (in the CBA by the municipal government), under the new nationalized regime these services were provided by the national government under the supervision of the Congress and national executive branch (Pírez 1997). Furthermore, in 1958 Frondizi signed a law (14.467) that allowed the federal police, which operated under the control of the national government, to try and convict without trial citizens charged with a select number of misdemeanor offenses, such as public drunkenness, prostitution,

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vagrancy, and begging. This controversial legislation, referred to popularly as the edictos policiales, was not modified until 1998. Illia was overthrown in 1966 by the military, which launched a new bureaucratic authoritarian model of government (O’Donnell 1988). This model had clearly failed by the early 1970s, and the military was forced to abandon power in 1973, but not without imposing some conditions on the rules that would govern the new democratic period. In regard to the CBA, the military government established a new municipal regime under Law 19987 that replaced the previous regime enshrined in Law 1260. Under the new rules, the mayor would be designated by the president without Senate approval and would hold office for three years with the possibility of a single reappointment. The CD was rechristened the House of Representatives (Sala de Representantes). This new House would be composed of sixty members elected for a four-year term using a noncompensatory mixed-member electoral system. Twenty-eight of the representatives were to be elected from single-member districts using the plurality rule, with the remaining thirty-two elected from a citywide district using PR. Finally, Law 19987 created fourteen neighborhood councils whose members (nine each) were to be elected using PR. These neighborhood councils were designed to be responsive to citizen demands, to coordinate and stimulate community initiatives, and to inform and advise the mayor about the needs of their constituents. These new municipal institutions began to function in mid-1973 under the new Peronist government. The favorable design of the electoral system enabled the Peronist Party (Partido Justicialista, or PJ) to obtain a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives, in spite of taking only slightly more than one-third of the vote. This second Peronist government soon encountered profound difficulties stemming from severe internal struggles, serious economic problems, Perón’s untimely death in July of 1974, the inexperience of Perón’s successor (his third wife, María Estela “Isabel” Martínez de Perón), and the growing conflict between armed groups taking place in the country. The situation deteriorated sufficiently that there was virtually no initial resistance to the 24 March 1976 military coup that overthrew President Isabel Perón, closed the National Congress, implemented a brutal repression of all political/partisan activities, censured the press, and imposed iron ideological control over the population. In the CBA the armed forces dissolved the House of Representatives and the neighborhood councils and designated as mayor Osvaldo Andrés Cacciatore, an air force brigadier general. In the CBA the military dictatorship attempted to impose, through urban planning and the strategic use of public works, its own conception

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CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

of order. The military also attempted to restore the traditional prestige of the capital, which it felt had been profoundly damaged under Peronism and at the same time to instill a renewed sense of privilege among the city’s inhabitants. Based on these goals, Cacciatore adopted a series of policies that had a significant negative effect on the city’s less wealthy citizens, namely, the popular sectors (Oszlak 1991; Pírez 1994). For example, the government ended rent control and reduced the protections for renters vis-à-vis landlords. The regime also adopted the city’s first-ever urban planning code (Código de Planeamiento Urbano, or CPU), which increased the price of land, the cost of construction, and the amount of real estate taxes paid. The goal of this new code was twofold. First, the military wanted to impose its own conception of order in the city, an “order” that was contrasted with the “chaos” they felt had reigned under Peronism. Second, the military wanted to prevent, to the extent possible, the residence of the popular sectors in the city, thereby reflecting the military’s desire to restore the city’s privileged status. Cacciatore also utilized force to eliminate most of the city’s villas miserias. One consequence of these measures was a massive migration of hundreds of thousands of city residents to GBA, most of whom either had been evicted from their rented homes or were forced to move following the eradication of their villa miseria (Oszlak 1991; Pírez 1994). In addition to housing matters, the Cacciatore administration undertook a variety of ambitious modernization initiatives, including the construction of several urban highways (which entailed massive expropriations), the implementation of programs to improve the flow of transportation in the capital, and the adoption of antipollution programs. During the dictatorship, control over the administration of the subway system, primary schools, and some hospitals was transferred from the national government to the municipal government. Finally, in contrast to virtually all of the previous mayors, who throughout their tenure maintained an extremely low public profile, Cacciatore played a prominent and active public role in the administration of his local government. Cacciatore’s considerable autonomy and highly visible role are best explained by the way in which power was distributed during the 1976–1983 military dictatorship. The armed forces had divided control of the provinces and capital among the three service branches— army, navy, air force—with the provincial governor/capital mayor responsible not to the president but rather to his branch of the service. Thus, Cacciatore, unlike all previous mayors, was not a mere delegate of the president but was a representative of the air force and responsible only to

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his air force superiors. Cacciatore was mayor of the CBA for a period of six years, longer than any of his predecessors or successors.

From Democratic Transition to Local Autonomy, 1983–Present Due to its failed economic policies and humiliating defeat in the war with the United Kingdom over the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands in 1982, the military dictatorship agreed to a rapid and, for the most part, unconditional transfer of power to a civilian administration to be elected in late 1983. With the 1983 elections—in which the UCR candidate, Raúl Alfonsín, was chosen as president—Argentina began a new democratic period that featured unprecedented stability and success. In the CBA, the institutions of local government were re-established in 1983 according to Law 19987, with some minor modifications. The most important modifications were the re-baptism of the local legislature as the CD and a switch from a mixed member electoral system to one in which the sixty councilors would be elected using PR from a citywide district for four-year terms (with partial renovation every two years). Alfonsín named as his mayors Julio César Saguier (1983–1987) and Facundo Suárez Lastra (1987–1989), both local Radical leaders.10 Saguier and Suárez Lastra concentrated their mayoral efforts on the promotion of democratic values and cultural activities. Both mayors also enjoyed the support of a large UCR majority in the CD throughout most of their terms (see Table 3.4). This absolute majority support, combined with the legislative cooperation of the PJ, facilitated governance by the mayors but at the same time limited the amount of debate over local policy as well as resulted in a strong subordination of local interests to the priorities of the UCR at the national level (Grillo 1988/89). At the midpoint of his term in 1986, Alfonsín launched a new debate over the location of the national capital and overall national development as part of his general policy program of modernization. This debate resulted in the congressional approval of a law (23512) mandating the transfer of the capital from the CBA to a region comprised of the remote southern cities of Viedma, Guardia Mitre (both located in the province of Río Negro), and Carmen de Patagones (located in the PBA). Following the defeat (completely unrelated to this transfer proposal) suffered by the UCR in the 1987 legislative and gubernatorial elections, this plan was abandoned. In 1989, the PJ candidate, Carlos Menem, was elected president. As part of his neoliberal program designed to confront the country’s severe eco-

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CAPITAL CITY POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA

Table 3.4 The Partisan Composition of the Concejo Deliberante: Concejo Seats Held by Two-Year Period, 1983–1997 Political Party Unión Cívica Radical (Radical Civic Union) Partido Justicialista (Justicialist Party) Union of the Democratic Center (UCEDE) and allies Partido Intransigente (Intransigent Party) Unidad Socialista (Socialist Unity) Frente Grande (Broad Front) Others Total

1983–85 1985–87 1987–89 1989–91 1991–93 1993–95 1995–97 38

34

29

24

24

24

10

16

16

16

19

21

21

11

2

5

10

12

9

3

0

4

4

3

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

3

5

3

0

0

0

0

1

5

4

0 60

1 60

2 60

3 60

2 60

2 60

2 30

Source: Elaborated by the authors using unpublished data from the Dirección Nacional Electoral, Ministerio del Interior, República Argentina. Note: The seat distribution is based upon election results. It does not include the small number of defections and mergers that occurred during the period. An agreement was reached following the 1994 constitutional reform to not renew the one-half of the Concejo Deliberante up for election in 1995. Between 1995 and 1997 the concejo therefore functioned with thirty councilors.

nomic and social crisis, Menem immediately initiated a plan to privatize state enterprises and public services. In the CBA this policy program translated into the rapid privatization of the state-run public service companies in the city and the transfer of control over high schools and all national hospitals to the municipal government (Pírez 1994; 1997; Suárez Lastra 1994). The privatizations did not signify an advance in the deconcentration of political power, however, since the national government maintained control over the provision of these services (Pírez 1997; Suárez Lastra 1994). Menem appointed three mayors of Buenos Aires during his tenure in office. His first mayor was Carlos Grosso, the leader of the local branch of the PJ. Grosso was followed by two mayors with technocratic profiles, Saúl Bouer and Jorge Domínguez.11 None of these mayors enjoyed a partisan majority in the CD, although in alliance with minor parties (e.g., the Democratic Central Union [Unión del Centro Democrático, or UCD] and the PDP), they were on many occasions able to obtain the passage of their legislation, particularly between 1989 and 1993 (see Table 3.4). Between 1989 and 1994, the CD was better known for its bitter partisan conflicts, considerable interest in patronage and clientalism, and cor-

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ruption scandals than for the production of legislation and representation of the citizenry (Azaretto 1995; Carnota and Talpone 1995; Luna 1997; Reato 1996).12 As had been the case since the return to democracy in 1983, the councilors focused their legislative activity on the provision of patronage and favor-trading and on particularistic activities for which they could easily claim credit, such as road repair and making requests for information to the local executive branch on the behalf of citizens. These same legislators also spent a considerable amount of time attending to issues related to building and construction codes with the goal of benefiting specific individuals and companies who returned these favors in the form of cash or other resources.13 Throughout the early 1990s, numerous councilors from both the PJ and UCR were charged with taking bribes, influence peddling, receiving kickbacks, and the unlawful use of public funds (Carnota and Talpone 1995; Reato 1996). The neighborhood councils functioned in a similar manner and were considered by the political parties to be institutional spaces for the reward of minor party functionaries, not institutions for the promotion of attention to citizen concerns (Balaguer 1991; Ulanovsky 1987). During the 1980s and early 1990s, both the CD as well as the National Congress registered an explosion in the number of bills designed to modify various aspects of governance in the CBA. Prominent among these proposed reforms were the popular election of the mayor, the improvement of municipal management, the establishment of a much greater degree of administrative autonomy (i.e., a greater amount of power transferred from the national government to the municipal government), and the correction of the distortions in the method of political representation in the district (i.e., reforms to the electoral system for councilors) (Comisión de Asuntos Municipales 1994; Passalacqua 1996; Poder Ejecutivo Nacional 1993; Seoane 1992). None of the bills presented between 1988 and 1992 aimed at achieving the popular election of the mayor or an increased level of autonomy for the city was authored by Peronists. For example, of the thirteen bills advocating the popular election of the mayor presented between 1988 and 1992, six were drafted by UCR legislators and seven by minor party legislators (Seoane 1992). The CD went so far as to pass a resolution soliciting the popular election of the mayor. A similar bill was passed by the Chamber of Deputies but died in the Senate, where the PJ possessed an absolute majority of the seats. Despite the interest in these reforms, especially for more autonomy to the CBA and the popular election of the mayor, these proposals continued to fail for political reasons stemming from the specific electoral characteristics of the CBA. Since 1983, the CBA has been the one large electoral

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Table 3.5 Electoral Support in Legislative Elections for Argentina’s Largest Third Force in the City of Buenos Aires and at the National Level, 1983–1999

Election Year 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1994 1995 1997 1999

Third Forcea

CBA Vote (%)

National Level Vote (%)

Party’s National Vote Represented by CBA (%)

PI PI UCEDE UCEDE and allies UCEDE MODIN FG FREPASO AR-ND AR

5.9 7.9 18.2 22.1 8.7 4.0 36.0 34.7 16.5 17.8

2.8 6.0 5.7 9.6 4.9 5.8 13.2 20.9 3.7 7.5

27.9 14.6 39.0 28.2 19.9 8.1 33.3 19.6 49.8 25.0

Source: Elaborated by the authors using unpublished data from the Dirección Nacional Electoral, Ministerio del Interior, República Argentina. Notes: a. The party other than the PJ and UCR that won the largest percentage of the national vote in an election, is considered the third force for that election. The 1994 election was for delegates to the constituent assembly. AR: Acción por la República; AR-ND: Acción por la República-Nueva Dirigencia; FG: Frente Grande; FREPASO: Frente País Solidario; MODIN: Movimiento por la Dignidad y la Independencia; PI: Partido Intransigente; UCEDE: Unión del Centro Democrático.

district where the PJ consistently fared poorly in both presidential and legislative elections. For example, in the nine congressional elections held between 1983 and 1999, the percentage of the vote won by the PJ in the CBA was on average 15.4 percent lower than the party’s percentage nationally. Furthermore, since 1983, the CBA has been the focal point of all but one of the country’s significant third party movements. With the exception of Dignity and Independence Movement (Movimiento por la Dignidad y la Independencia, or MODIN), all of these third parties obtained their greatest success in the CBA (see Table 3.5). It was clearly not in the PJ’s best interest to allow either the popular election of the mayor or to grant more autonomy to the city, because adopting these reforms would heighten the risk that the power and visibility of the directly elected mayor, along with the resources provided under the new autonomous status, could promote a powerful opposition leader. Meanwhile, during this same period and in spite of the persistence of important regional management problems, such as health, security, and transportation, the situation in BAMA did not vary much as well. This lack of variance stemmed from institutional, legal, and political factors that were relatively similar to those explaining the lack of reforms in the

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CBA. Finally, just as the CBA had been considered the PJ’s weakest electoral district since 1946, GBA was considered throughout this period as one of the PJ’s principal bailiwicks. For example, since 1983 the PJ has won the mayoralty of an overwhelming majority of the counties in GBA.14 Historically GBA consisted of nineteen counties. During his two terms in office (1991–1999), PBA governor Eduardo Duhalde subdivided several of these counties to create new counties for reasons of administrative efficiency (the populations of the largest counties were over 500,000) and political benefit (subdividing the counties helped to resolve internal conflicts within Duhalde’s Partido Justicialista). Like all PBA governors, Duhalde (and his PJ successor, Carlos Ruckauf, 1999– ) exercised a good deal of influence over the mayors in his province. Nevertheless, Duhalde and Ruckauf’s power vis-à-vis the GBA mayors has been much greater than that of previous governors. This influence derives principally from the greater level of financial resources that these two mayors have had at their disposal. As part of his agreement to run for the governorship in 1991, Duhalde had Menem create a special budget line for the province of approximately U.S.$600 million. The budget legislation provided for no real oversight of this fund nor for rules regarding its disbursement, and the PBA governor is therefore for all intents and purposes able to spend the funds in a discretional manner. For example, PJ-run counties receive disproportionately more funds than UCR-run counties, and PJ mayors aligned with the governor receive more funds than PJ mayors not aligned with him, even if other potential determinants of transfers such as county population size, geographic size, poverty levels, and the like are taken into account. In sum, BAMA is characterized by multiple overlapping legal norms and jurisdictions—national, provincial, and municipal—and a complete absence of any coordination in policy efforts between the CBA mayor and the GBA mayors. The consequence has been a nearly complete failure to address many of the fundamental problems that affect the region in a coordinated manner, including environmental, health, housing, security, and transportation. In his 1993 bid to obtain a constitutional reform to allow for his reelection, President Menem agreed to a number of reforms proposed by the leader of the UCR, Raúl Alfonsín, in exchange for the UCR’s support for the re-election clause and the constitutional reform in general (Jones 1997). The outcome of this agreement between Menem and Alfonsín, known as the Pact of Olivos, included a provision establishing a special status for the CBA. The city would be able to draft its own constitution, and its government would have the power to promulgate its own legisla-

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tion, that is, self-governance. Furthermore, the mayor would be popularly elected. In the debates during the 1994 constituent assembly, the topic of the CBA’s status was one of the greatest sources of conflict between the PJ and the opposition parties, principally the UCR and the Broad Front (Frente Grande, or FG). The PJ governors, many of whom were assembly delegates, feared the city would become a new province and would demand to participate in the country’s national revenue-sharing system. Therefore, they and their supporters opposed giving the CBA full powers (i.e., equal to those held by the provinces) over government, administration, and justice. PBA governor Eduardo Duhalde, at the time the “natural” successor of Menem, led the attempts to restrict the powers granted to the city to the greatest extent possible (Passalacqua 1996). The PJ constituent assembly delegates took advantage of the discussion of the change in status of the city to raise historic provincial demands that CBA residents should, if they received a greater level of autonomy, pay for their higher standard of living through higher taxation. The principal leaders of all of the CBA branches of the political parties, including the PJ, rejected this position and refused to agree to pay for their new powers/autonomy with additional taxes (Passalacqua 1996). Finally, a compromise was reached whereby most of the conflictual decisions were left to be decided by the National Congress as well as the constituent assembly that would draft the city’s new constitution (Cibeira 1995). After the completion of the constitutional reform in August 1994, the Menem government utilized a variety of tactics to delay the transfer of a variety of powers (budget, police, justice, public service regulation) to the CBA and, in fact, continued direct control of specific activities. At the same time, the PJ majority in the National Congress passed two laws relevant to the status of the city. One law established the popular election of local authorities. The second (Law 24588), known as the Cafiero Law, protected the interests of the national government in the city to such an extent that the opposition considered the law a violation of the informal agreement reached at the 1994 constituent assembly. Finally, most of the professional associations’ representing judges were opposed to being transferred from the control of the national government to that of the CBA government. In addition, the federal police authorities rejected any change whatsoever in the status quo, including the creation of a separate CBA police force. All of these factors generated a great deal of uncertainty regarding the institutional future of the newly autonomous city. Nevertheless, Transitory Clause 15 of the 1994 national constitution required elections be held to elect the chief of government (jefe de gobierno, or JG) of the CBA during

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Table 3.6 Results of the 1996 Chief of Government and City of Buenos Aires Constituent Assembly Elections Chief of Government Party Unión Cívica Radical Frepaso Partido Justicialista Nueva Dirigencia Othersa

Constituent Assembly

Candidate

Vote (%)

Vote (%)

Seats

Fernando de la Rúa Norberto La Porta Jorge Domínguez Gustavo Beliz Six candidates

39.9 26.5 18.6 13.1 1.9

27.2 34.7 15.1 8.2 14.8

19 25 11 5 0

Source: Elaborated by the authors using unpublished data from the Dirección Nacional Electoral, Ministerio del Interior, República Argentina. Notes: Four, two, and one minor parties that presented separate constituent assembly lists had De la Rúa, Domínguez, and Beliz, respectively, as their chief of government candidate. a. There were thirteen other constituent assembly lists. None surpassed the threshold (3 percent of all registered voters) necessary to obtain seats. The most successful other lists were the Alianza del Centro (3.6 percent) and the UCEDE (3.0 percent).

1995, and in July 1996, elections were finally held to elect the JG as well as a constituent assembly to draft the CBA’s new constitution. The victor in the 1996 JG election was Fernando de la Rúa, a longtime UCR Party leader.15 De la Rúa won 37.7 percent of the vote, followed by the Front for a Country in Solidarity (Frente País Solidario, or Frepaso) candidate, municipal councilor Norberto La Porta, who garnered 26 percent (see Table 3.6). The PJ candidate, the incumbent mayor Jorge Domínguez, won 17.9 percent. In the concurrent CBA constituent assembly election, Frepaso won twenty-five seats, followed by the UCR with nineteen, the PJ with eleven, and New Leadership (Nueva Dirigencia, or ND) with five. The three opposition parties—Frepaso, UCR, and ND—all of which favored a maximum amount of autonomy for the CBA, thus won forty-nine of the sixty constituent assembly seats. This substantial victory provided the opposition forces with a sufficiently large contingent that they were able to extend to the maximum extent possible the autonomous powers of the city. Using the majority runoff formula, the 1996 constituent assembly created a directly elected JG with considerable constitutional powers. For example, the JG has decree powers similar to those enjoyed by the president and a strong veto that can only be overridden by the vote of twothirds of the members of the legislature. The JG became in effect a unicameral legislature with sixty members and a judicial branch with wide-ranging authority.16 The city’s constitution also established a number of important institutions (City Ombudsman, General Accounting Office,

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Public Services Commission) designed to improve control over the three branches of government as well as to ensure the greatest amount of transparency possible in government activities (Constitución de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires 1996). Since the proclamation of the city’s constitution in September 1996, and because of the distribution of political power at the national and local level, the political dynamics of the CBA are continually the subject of negotiation and conflict among the principal political forces in Argentina. To date, however, the actual powers of the Buenos Aires JG, namely the mayor, have not increased considerably compared to those of his predecessors during the 1983–1996 period. For example, the police, public safety, and transit continue to be under the control of the national government, as is the regulation/supervision of virtually all public services in the city.17 In spite of these limitations, the first directly elected JG, Fernando De la Rúa was able to carry out most of his program, including reorganizing the local public administration, promoting cultural activities, and protecting the parks and plazas. During this same period the CBA legislature passed, with De la Rúa’s support, a new urban planning code and sanctioned a series of important institution-building laws that established citizen initiatives, popular referendums, public hearings, and a judicial branch. It also approved new legislation regulating the functioning and membership of important oversight institutions such as the City Ombudsman, the General Accounting Office, and the Public Services Commission (Rodríguez Yebra 1998; Zaffaroni 1998). De la Rúa used his position as JG as a springboard to the presidency. In November 1998 he soundly defeated Graciela Fernández Meijide (Frepaso) in a primary election to become the presidential candidate of the Alianza, an alliance between the UCR, Frepaso, and several minor parties. In October 1999, De la Rúa was elected president of Argentina with 48.4 percent of the vote, defeating the PJ candidate, Eduardo Duhalde, who garnered 38.7 percent. De la Rúa assumed the presidency on 10 December 1999. His replacement as JG was his vice JG, Enrique Olivera.18 In the May 2000 JG elections, the Alianza candidate, Aníbal Ibarra (Frepaso), handily defeated the candidate of Action for the Republic–New Leadership (Acción por la República–Nueva Dirigencia, or AR-ND), Domingo Cavallo (see Table 3.7).19 Currently the national and CBA governments are negotiating the transfer of control of the police. However, no real progress has been made since 1996. Substantial disagreements between the two sides still exist,

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Table 3.7 Results of the 2000 Chief of Government and City of Buenos Aires Legislature Elections Chief of Government Party

Candidate

Alianza Aníbal Ibarra (Alliance) Encuentro por la Ciudad Domingo Davallo (Encounter for the City) PAIS Irma Roy Izquierda Unida Patricia Walsh (United Left) Buenos Aires para Todos Antonio Cartañá (Buenos Aires for Everyone) Partido Humanista Lía Méndez (Humanist Party) Partido Justicialista Raúl Granillo Ocampo (Justicialist Party) Partido Obrero Pablo Reznik (Workers Party) Othersa Six candidates

Legislative Election

Vote (%)

Vote (%)

Seats

49.3

36.7

24

33.2

30.8

20

4.6 3.4

6.7 4.4

4 2

2.8

3.0

2

1.7

2.2

1

1.7

2.1

1

1.5

2.1

1

1.8

12.0

5

Source: Elaborated by the authors using unpublished data from the Dirección Nacional Electoral, Ministerio del Interior, República Argentina. Notes: Three minor parties that presented separate legislative lists had Ibarra as their chief of government candidate. UCEDE: 4.4 percent and 2 seats; Movimiento de Jubilados y Juventud (Movement of Retirees and Youth): 3.0 percent and 2 seats; De la Generación Intermedia (Intermediate Generation Party): 2.7 percent and 1 seat. a. There were nine other legislative lists.

including the extent of the transfer, the method by which to carry out the transfer, and the manner in which the transfer would be financed.20 Furthermore, to carry out the transfer of the police, the Cafiero Law must be modified, and any such modification will need to be approved by the Senate, where the PJ will continue to have an absolute majority of the seats for the near future. Finally, the local courts continue to have jurisdiction over only minor crimes—misdemeanors and minor felonies—and the CBA still plays no role in the regulation of public services in the city. In spite of the presence of an Alianza president (De la Rúa) and an Alianza JG (Ibarra), the CBA government has not been able to make any significant advances vis-à-vis the city’s autonomy compared to the Menem years, due to the PJ’s continued majority in the Senate as well as fundamental political differences between the UCR and Frepaso.21

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Conclusions In 1880 the CBA was federalized, with its government placed under the control of a mayor designated by the president and an elected legislature with limited legislative powers. At that time, the interior provinces imposed their supremacy and divided the country’s most important and wealthiest city from its most important and wealthiest province. This solution, albeit drastic, made the consolidation of the Argentine nation-state possible. Yet this institutional framework became a source of considerable problems for successive civilian and military governments. By the time of the Concordancia in the 1930s, it had become clear that the institutional design created in the 1880s was not functional for a city whose size and complexity had increased exponentially over fifty years. During the second wave of democratization, the problem of administering the CBA was resolved primarily through the centralization of decisions in the hands of the national government and the provision of public services by national state enterprises. While the continued lack of autonomy under Perón can be explained in part by his national level policy program, it also stemmed from the fact that the CBA represented the principal concentration of anti-Peronism in the country. The military regimes of the 1960s and 1970s carried out their goal of urban modernization through the application of drastic policies that entailed very high social costs. These measures changed some aspects of the city to make them closer to the ideals desired by the military (e.g., the eradication of the villas miseria and the construction of a modern system of highways) but failed to solve the city’s underlying problems. The great inequality between the capital and GBA remained, and with it remained the central problems of the metropolitan region: insufficient public services, housing shortages, chaotic transit, a deficient sewage and storm drainage system, and others. During the third wave of democratization it became clear that the institutions of local government in the CBA inherited from the past were insufficient to satisfy the demands of the citizenry. The combination of a crisis in the national administration, municipal administrative disorder, and local corruption resulted in the collapse of the city’s governance and led to an unsustainable institutional situation. Finally, with the 1994 constitutional reform, the swing between democratic governments with little inclination to endow the city with autonomy for political reasons and dictatorial governments that were always predisposed to automatically close all democratic institutions, appeared to come to an end.

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While the greater level of autonomy provided to the CBA in 1994 originated in elite level agreements, and not as the product of popular demands, it is undeniable that the pressures characteristic of the third wave of democratization played a critical role in increasing the level of municipal autonomy. In particular, the transformation of the Argentine economic model from ISI to free market, coupled with the financial crisis battering the Argentine state, are vitally important to understanding the increased autonomous powers received by the CBA. The end of an economic development model centered on the state obviated many of the arguments in favor of the concentration of power in the hands of the national government, thereby removing an important obstacle to political devolution. With the 1994 constitutional reforms and the modified status of the CBA, Laws 1260 and 19987, which together had provided the institutional framework for the governance of the CBA for over a century, were definitively relegated to the history books. Under these laws, in virtually all instances, the mayors were simple delegates of the president, while free and open competition in the municipal legislature was the exception, not the rule (see Figure 3.2). Under these circumstances the political power of the mayor was minimal. During this period the political forces that enjoyed majority status at the national level were often not electorally dominant in the CBA. CBA residents have frequently gone against the grain and supported opposition forces, whether under democratic, oligarchic, or fraudulent elections. This has often led to the status of the CBA being a prominent point of conflict between the national government and opposition, with the national government most often opposing efforts to grant the CBA a greater level of autonomy. This conflict took place as early as the 1880s (between the provincial forces of President Julio Argentino Roca and the PBA forces of Bartolomé Mitre) and as late as the 1990s (between the PJ of President Menem and the UCR). In between, similar conflicts occurred between President Yrigoyen and the conservative-dominated Congress, between the Concordancia presidents and the PS municipal councilors, and between the Perón government and the anti-Peronist opposition. These conflicts almost always resulted in a victory for the anti-autonomy national executive branch. This success stemmed not only from the considerable power advantage held by the national government and the position of the mayors as mere delegates of the national executive branch. At least as important, mayors lacked solid party support in the CD. In theory such support could have given mayors enough backing to resist the efforts by the national government to manage governance in the city.

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Figure 3.2 Political Competition in the Legislature and Presidential Control over Mayoral Designation

Political Competition in the City Legislature Continuous, fair, and free

1973–1976

1983–1996

1919–1930 1932–1941

Quasi-continuous, fair, but with some restrictions

1958–1966

Intermittent, fraudulent, and restricted

1883–1916

None

1996–

1941–1958 1966–1973

1976–1983

Absolute

High

Moderate

None

(designation by the president without restrictions)

(designation by the president, with only informal restrictions)

(designation by the president, with Senate approval)

(popular election)

Presidential Control over the Designation of the City Mayor

The experience of the CBA since full autonomy in 1996 is interesting from a perspective of democratic institutionalization due to the transformation in the rules of play governing city politics. How recent decentralization will evolve in terms of the actual autonomy of the CBA still depends to a considerable extent on future developments in the relations between the national and CBA governments and how these two entities resolve current issues of dispute, such as the control of the police and public services and the administration of justice.

Notes 1. Prominent among the modifications made in 1860 as part of the agreement with the PBA included the removal of the article stating that the CBA was the Argentine capital; in the future this designation would be statutory. 2. During this period, even the city police remained under the governor’s control.

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3. In 1907, Law 5098 changed the term of office for the mayor to three years. The law also fixed the number of municipal councilors at twenty-two and established that henceforth the councilors would be elected from a single citywide district for four-year terms, with one-half of the members renewing their mandates every two years. 4. The one exception was José Luis Cantilo, who became mayor in 1928 without Senate approval (Azaretto 1995; Mayochi, Luna, and Petit de Murat 1985). 5. Between 1932 and 1943, the mayors were designated by the president, with the approval of the Senate (there was no Congress between 1930 and 1932 and 1943 and 1946). Of the nine mayors who served during this time, the most prominent was Mariano de Vedia y Mitre, who concentrated on improving the city’s infrastructure, particularly transit issues. 6. The most important of these initiatives (Law 12.311) created, in 1935, the City of Buenos Aires Transport Company, a quasi-nongovernmental organization (QUANGO) with a monopoly control over urban transportation. Once established, this QUANGO, in its management of local transport, favored a British streetcar company in detriment to the interests of local bus owners (Garcia Heras 1992). 7. Perón won 54 percent of the vote and 304 of the 376 seats in the electoral college, while Tamborini won 44 percent of the vote and 72 seats. 8. Prior to assuming office as mayor, Emilio Siri was a UCR national deputy from the PBA between 1924 and 1930 as well as the UCR mayor of a municipality in the interior of the province. In the 1946 presidential election, he had supported Perón’s candidacy. Juan Debenedetti was an undersecretary in the national Ministry of Public Works between 1945 and 1949 and secretary of Public Works in the CBA in 1949. Jorge Sabate had been president of the Central Society of Architecture between 1938 and 1941. Bernardo Gago was a leader of the banking workers union in the 1930s and 1940s, mayor of a PBA municipality between 1948 and 1952, and a national deputy from the PBA between 1952 and 1954; he was president of the Municipal Affairs Commission in the Chamber of Deputies. 9. Giralt was a businessman and personal friend of Frondizi but lacked any political or party experience. Rabanal, in contrast, was a powerful UCR ward boss from the Mataderos district of the city and served as a municipal councilor between 1938 and 1942 and as a national deputy between 1948 and 1955 and between 1960 and 1962 (Myers, n.d.). 10. Throughout Alfonsín’s tenure the CBA branch of the UCR maintained a considerable level of autonomy vis-à-vis Alfonsín and the national party. 11. Under Menem the CBA’s branch of the PJ steadily lost autonomy. At first the local PJ remained under the control of a local party leader (Grosso). However, Menem progressively gained control through the intervention of the branch and the appointment of his followers in leadership positions. 12. Similar charges of patronage, clientelism, and corruption also applied to the municipal executive branch, especially during the Grosso administration. 13. For example, between 1983 and 1991 the CD approved a total of 691 exceptions to the city’s building code, with a majority of these exceptions (351)

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allowing the construction of buildings that were larger than those permitted under the code (Reato 1996). 14. The principal exceptions are the counties of Tigre, San Isidro, and Vicente López; the latter two are GBA’s wealthiest counties and have been controlled by the UCR since 1983. 15. De la Rúa had been elected as a national senator three times (1973, 1983, 1992) and as a national deputy once (1991). 16. The first legislature election was held in October 1997. The UCR-Frepaso alliance won thirty-seven seats, the PJ eleven seats, the AR-ND alliance eleven seats, and a minor party one seat. 17. Even the transit police continue to be under the control of the national government. The control over the municipal transit police has oscillated between the national and city government over time. Up until the end of the década infame, the transit police were under the national government. In 1943 this control was transferred to the municipality, where it remained until the 1966 military coup when the national government resumed responsibility by placing the transit police under the federal police. During the second Peronist period (1973–1976), control over the transit police returned to the municipality. Following the 1976 coup, control returned to the national government (under the federal police), where it has remained to this day. 18. Olivera was a longtime De la Rúa confidant. Prior to being vice JG, he had served as secretary of tourism in the national executive branch (1988–1989) and as a national deputy (1991–1995). 19. Ibarra was a federal prosecutor between 1986 and 1990, a municipal councilor between 1991 and 1995, and since 1997 had been the speaker of the CBA legislature. 20. The CBA budget is currently U.S.$3.3 billion. The national government annually spends approximately U.S.$800 million to provide the CBA with security and judicial services. 21. In the CBA legislature, disagreements between the UCR and Frepaso have delayed important legislation related to the city’s electoral rules and political-administrative organization.

4 Caracas: Incomplete Empowerment Amid Geopolitical Feudalism Steve Ellner David J. Myers

For more than 200 years, Caracas has been the place to be for anyone who wanted to influence Venezuela’s politics, economics, and culture. In 1811 the city’s criollo (born in the New World) elite gathered in an extraordinary public meeting of the municipal council and proclaimed Venezuela independent from Spain. The devastation subsequently visited upon Caracas when royalists and patriots clashed to control the capital foreshadowed a century-long downward spiral of political violence that crippled Venezuela and erased more than a century of economic development. City and country became backwaters as technological progress and industrial growth changed the outside world. In the 1950s, General Marcos Pérez Jiménez marshaled income from the sale of petroleum to transform Caracas, a project that showcased his intention to modernize Venezuela. However, the programs to transform Caracas were imposed with little consultation, creating tensions that contributed to the discontent that forced Pérez Jiménez from power on 23 January 1958. The inauguration on 1 January 1959 of the popularly elected Rómulo Betancourt as president made Venezuela part of Latin America’s ascendant democratic community. Caracas was the central stage on which post-1958 democrats sealed their triumph over authoritarian forces on the right, Leninists on the left. The city grew and developed for almost three decades under social democratic and Christian democratic governments. The quality of life improved not only for caraqueños (inhabitants of Caracas) but also for all 95

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Venezuelans. When this trend slowed and reversed in the 1980s, middleclass caraqueños spearheaded efforts at political and economic reform. The poor remained hopeful that the dominant political parties, Democratic Action (Acción Democrática, or AD) and the Social Christians (Partido Socialcristiano, or COPEI) would deliver on their promises to develop the country. However, conditions worsened and the poor became desperate. On 28 February 1989, following the announcement by President Carlos Andrés Pérez (AD) of increases in the price of public transportation, the slums of Caracas exploded. Rioting lasted for three days and spread to Venezuela’s other large cities. The AD and COPEI responded to the crisis with neoliberal economic policies. The economy as a whole began to turn around, but living standards for most Venezuelans remained abysmal. Again, caraqueños cut the Gordian knot. They voted massively and overwhelmingly for Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frías in the presidential elections of December 1998 and again in July 2000. Chávez promised to end the forty-year experiment with representative democracy and to dislodge from authority members of the political elite. He kept this promise. The new constitution of 1999 envisions a more egalitarian and “direct” democracy but at the same time centralizes rule from Caracas. Geography plays a central role in the dominance that Caracas exercises over Venezuela. The city lies nine degrees north of the equator, on the northeastern coast of South America, between the country’s eastern and western regions. From colonial times until the mid-twentieth century, the built environment of Caracas fit inside of the narrow, east-west Caracas Valley, some eight miles south of the Caribbean Sea.1 The valley’s temperatures are springlike, and its urbanizable terrain lies between 2,500 and 3,000 feet above sea level. Few tropical diseases flourish at this altitude, and until the advent of modern medicine, Caracas and its environs were one of the few healthy locations in the country. Even today it remains a privileged site in a tropical country where air conditioning is the prerogative of a wealthy few. This chapter examines capital city politics in Venezuela. Its focuses on developments since 18 October 1945, when young revolutionaries ousted a government of elitist modernizers in a short but bloody coup d’état. The 1945 revolution accelerated mass mobilization and democratization. In Caracas these processes influenced the five themes that Chapter 1 explored. Mass mobilization and democratic development in Caracas also incorporated some uniquely Venezuelan themes, such as the availability of petroleum income. The first and most important theme presented in Chapter 1 is the empowerment of local government in the capital city. Local government changed more slowly in Caracas than in most Latin

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American capitals. This delay derived from the decade-long effort by leftist guerrillas to turn the poor of Caracas against the fledgling political regime, referred to in Venezuela as Punto Fijo democracy, that second wave democrats struggled to consolidate between 1958 and 1974.2 Pressures to empower local governments, including in Caracas, became irresistible after urban riots during February 1989. The other four themes of Chapter 1 unfold with some distinctly Venezuelan twists, but they more closely approximate the trajectories sketched in the first chapter. The second theme, in some ways a variant of the first, explores central government reluctance to extend policing powers to local security forces in the capital, except in matters of traffic control and routine crime. Neither Punto Fijo democrats nor the government of President Hugo Chávez Frías (1999–present) tolerated challenges to their control over policing in Caracas. The consequences of attitudes of entitlement ingrained in capital city residents constitute the third theme. In Venezuela’s capital, these attitudes presented problems for empowered municipal politicians when they sought to use their new prerogatives. The fourth theme, changes in the balance of power among capital city interest groups, became important in the 1960s, the first decade of Punto Fijo democracy. The fifth and final theme involves the declining utility of public works to infuse “high-level” meaning and legitimate political authority. To the extent that Venezuelan governments take into account symbolic meaning in their decisions to construct public works, they look for capability to proclaim elite concern for residents’ quality of life. However, decisions taken to reconstruct poor neighborhoods in 1999 following a natural disaster confirmed that the built environment of Caracas retains its capability to convey national ideals and legitimate policy. This chapter examines these five themes in local Caracas politics over four periods. The first period begins in 1810, when the Caracas open municipal council (cabildo abierto) declared independence. It ends with the coup d’état of 18 October 1945 that ushered in an era of mass politics. The second period lasted from that coup until the first government of Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974–1979). Struggle to normalize representative democracy marked those years, and success came at a high price in blood and treasure. The third period (1978–1998) began on a note of political optimism and economic prosperity. It ended amidst political decay and economic depression. Capital city politics during those years centered on projects for local empowerment in the face of declining resources. It was also a time when caraqueños became alienated from second wave (Punto Fijo) democracy. Caraqueños played a major role in its destruction. The inauguration of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frías in February 1999,

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and subsequent efforts to build a “different” democracy, kicked off the fourth period, one that continues to evolve. Chávez Frías’s regime, known as the Movement of the Fifth Republic (Movimiento de la Quinta República, MVR) strives to be more directly participatory and egalitarian than its predecessor. Nevertheless, the themes that dominate local politics in twenty-first-century Caracas are essentially the same as in 1945.

Caracas Under the Traditional Elite Caracas began the postcolonial era as one of several important cities in Gran Colombia, a country that encompassed the former Spanish viceroyalty of Nueva Granada. In 1830, after two decades of destructive warfare, Venezuela achieved independence; since then Caracas has been the national capital. Thirty thousand resided in Caracas at that time, representing a decrease of 40 percent from the population recorded in 1812, just before the independence wars. Even after becoming the national capital, Caracas was slow to recover. Power rested in the hands of caudillos, antagonistic regional chieftains, rather than a cohesive national elite. Periods of stability alternated with civil wars that killed many and destroyed much of the physical infrastructure that had survived the independence wars (Vallenilla Lanz 1967). There was little interest in developing Caracas until General Antonio Guzmán Blanco consolidated power in 1870. The population of Caracas in 1870 remained below the level recorded in 1812. President Guzmán Blanco restored order and began to reintegrate Venezuela into the North Atlantic trading system. Modernizing Caracas was one of his highest priorities. Guzmán contracted architects to design monuments, plazas, and public buildings in the style of European cities (Nuñez 1967); he also improved the municipal water system and built the Teatro Municipal, which became a cultural point of reference for the nation. He favored projects that impressed foreigners and provided modern amenities for the ruling class. These considerations determined the kinds of public works that governments built in Caracas until the 1945 coup d’état. Guzmán Blanco’s efforts, however, did not compensate for sixty years of inertia. Caracas had not kept pace with other Latin American capitals, and the city remained small, backward, and isolated. When civil wars again engulfed Venezuela at the close of the nineteenth century, Caracas fell even further behind. The twentieth century opened in Venezuela with Cipriano Castro and his Andeans struggling to take control. Castro broke the regional caudil-

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los’ power in bloody fighting between 1901 and 1903, but five years later General Juan Vicente Gómez, Castro’s military field commander, seized power. Gómez disliked cities, distrusted the Caracas elite, and ruled for twenty-seven years. He felt most at home in rural surroundings that reminded him of his Andean upbringing. Thus, after crushing his enemies, Gómez withdrew to the village of Maracay, some sixty miles west of Caracas. Maracay served as the de facto national capital for more than twenty-five years. Gómez also located Venezuela’s most important military bases in Maracay, away from the intrigues of Caracas but close enough to occupy the city in less than a day. Juan Vicente Gómez always selected the governor of Caracas from among his most trusted confidants. Caracas experienced meaningful growth after 1920 (Troconis de Veracoechea 1993). Political stability encouraged the capital’s development, and the discovery of large petroleum reserves attracted foreign investment. Members of traditional landowning families entered into business ventures with entrepreneurs from Europe and the United States. Residence abroad convinced them that the government should create a built environment in Caracas that resembled the cityscapes of Paris, London, and New York. General Gómez, however, had no interest in transforming Caracas. The brutal order that Juan Vicente Gómez maintained set the stage for political change, but it denied personal security to everyone. His successor, General Eleazar López Contreras (1935–1941), ended this rule of terror by exiling the entire Gómez clan. Still, the generation that had enforced the telluric dictator’s policies ruled for one more decade. Governments led by López and General Isaías Medina Angarita (1941–1945), both Gómez confidants, favored change that was managed and incremental. López Contreras returned the government to Caracas, which became again the city from which presidents exercised national power. López and Medina implemented policies that modernized government and integrated Venezuela into the global economy. In addition, Medina began to address the problems of capital city growth by investing in public works that would improve residents’ living standards (Alexander 1982, chap. 7; Betancourt 1962, chap. 2; Coronil 1997). His working-class housing project that rebuilt the capital’s El Silencio zone ranked as a model for all of Latin America. The exile of the Gómez clan sparked intermittent violence that lasted for the better part of two years. The Andeans viewed control of Caracas as critical for maintaining their preeminence. President López Contreras showed his concern when he guided legislation through the Congress that modernized local government in the federal district. Venezuela’s federal district dated from 1864. It encompassed the western two-thirds of the

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Caracas Valley and the port of La Guaira. Regional caudillos had created the district after they conquered the province of Caracas. They viewed the federal district as necessary to prevent caraqueños from exercising political authority at the seat of national power. The federal district, created in 1864, separated caraqueños from the geopolitical jurisdiction (the province of Caracas), where they held land and controlled large numbers of peasants (Porras 1967). Petare, then a small village seven miles to the east of the federal district, became the capital of the province of Caracas. In 1936, when President López’s new organic law for the federal district entered into force, the district still encased the city of Caracas.3 The 1936 law that established political institutions for the federal district persisted until 1986. During these years, Venezuela experienced four political regimes, each with its own set of political rules. These were (1) liberalizing elitism in the aftermath of Juan Vicente Gómez’s dictatorship (1935–1945); (2) revolutionary modernization (1945–1948, known as el trienio); (3) populist dictatorship under General Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1948–1958); and (4) representative democracy (the Punto Fijo system).4 The longevity of the 1936 political institutions suggests that a broad range of political leaders shared the vision of how Caracas should be governed and controlled. This vision began with a calculation that the exercise of national authority required absolute control over the capital city. It was driven by the concern for political stability that permeated Venezuelan politics between 1936 and the 1970s. The 1936 organic law of the federal district divided local government activities into two broad categories: “law and order” and “economic and administrative.” The former category gave the president of the republic maximum authority for upholding the law and maintaining order in the federal district. In practice, however, presidents assumed direct control over the district only in times of emergency. Emergencies were not uncommon after 1936. The most critical included the uprisings of 18–19 October 1945 (against President Isaías Medina Angarita) and on 22–23 January 1958 (against General Pérez Jiménez). Under normal circumstances the governor, a member of the president’s cabinet whom the chief executive appointed and removed unilaterally, exercised authority over the federal district. The 1936 law gave the president authority freely to appoint and remove the federal district’s chief law enforcement officials, the prefects of the Libertador and Vargas Departments.5 The statutes of the 1936 organic law that dealt with economic and administrative matters also made the appointed local executive dominant. The governor, assisted by the municipal bureaucracy, was to apply laws and ordinances passed by the federal district municipal council. The gov-

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ernor, however, possessed a veto power over legislation that the council passed. Overrides of the governor’s veto by the municipal council required a three-fourths majority (Article 14 of the organic law). But an override of the governor’s veto challenged the national executive’s ultimate authority over the federal district and raised constitutional questions concerning the federal district governor’s obligation to enforce legislation that he opposed. This issue remained unresolved during the five decades that the 1936 organic law remained in force.6 The organic law of 1936 gave the federal district governor a wide range of financial powers.7 Most important, he prepared the annual budget. The federal district municipal council played a secondary role in budgeting; it “discussed and approved which additions or modifications might be appropriate” (Article 14 of the organic law). Roughly half of the federal district government’s operating budget derived from local sources, and 40 percent came from a constitutionally mandated allocation (situado) distributed by the national government (Valera 1967). The 1936 law directed the governor to make an annual report of local government expenditures and activities to the municipal council (Article 15). The expenditures of local government in the federal district regularly exceeded the amount disbursed by all other municipal governments in the country.8 The federal district municipal council created in 1936 was weaker than Venezuela’s other municipal councils. In almost every respect, it was under the tutelage of the federal district governor. The most important municipal bureaucracies of the federal district, also an exception from the situation in other municipalities, worked for the governor, not for the council. In other words, President López Contreras intended that the role of the federal district municipal council be largely symbolic. During his presidency, and that of General Medina, candidates for the federal district municipal council members ran in single member districts. At that time only 10 percent of adult males could vote, but several nationally renowned opponents of the government gained seats on the council. The López and Medina governments were the last hurrah for traditional elite rule, though they also initiated progressive change. The October 1945 revolution brought new forces and ideologies to power. In Caracas, recent migrant arrivals were overwhelming the city’s infrastructure, and personal insecurity increased. The expanding middle class demanded new and better public services. At the same time, other regional leaders became more assertive in their opposition to policies that created a European-like ambience in the capital while the rest of the country remained much as it had been during the nineteenth century. These forces played out in new and unexpected ways to shape the development of Caracas. Those

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who governed the capital city after 1945 retained the 1936 organic law, but they used it to implement and enforce policies quite distinct from those favored by the traditional elite.

Caracas and the Consolidation of Second Wave Democracy Second wave democracy unfolded differently in Venezuela than in most of Latin America. The October 1945 uprising was one of the earliest post–World War II breakthroughs for democracy in the hemisphere. It was also one of the shortest lived. In November 1948 General Marcos Pérez Jiménez seized power and, as noted earlier, imposed a populist dictatorship. An uprising on 23 January 1958 returned the ousted democratic leaders to power. In addition to the power-sharing arrangements agreed to in the Pact of Punto Fijo, two events assured long-term stability. First, in 1968 President Raúl Leoni (AD) passed power peacefully to the victorious presidential candidate of the COPEI political party (Rafael Caldera). Five years later, Caldera acted in kind when he quickly recognized the victory of Carlos Andrés Pérez, the AD presidential candidate. These transfers convinced Venezuelans that elections could be honest and that their results would be respected. Second, after 1973, unprecedented petroleum income provided the resources that enabled democratic political leaders to make progress in modernizing the country. Punto Fijo democrats used income from petroleum sales to offer generous rewards in exchange for support. The policy succeeded in that Venezuela resisted what Samuel Huntington labeled the “second reverse wave” of authoritarianism, a trend that replaced most second wave democracies in Latin America with bureaucratic authoritarian dictatorships (Huntington 1991, 16). Municipal political institutions remained subordinate to the national executive during the struggle to consolidate second wave democracy, though less so than during Gómez’s dictatorship. No government or political regime that held power between 1945 and the middle 1970s was immune from plots to seize power by force. On numerous occasions guerrillas appeared in Caracas, committed acts of terrorism, and either disappeared into the slums or the surrounding mountains. The delicate state of political order ensured that the central government would want to retain direct control over what municipal governments did in the capital. In the tradition of General Gómez, his successors named a trusted confidant to the post of federal district governor. Normally, this individual belonged to a group whose support the president wanted and needed.9

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General Pérez Jiménez relied on Guillermo Pacanins, a retired air force officer turned businessman. Pacanins linked Pérez Jiménez with the contractors and implemented his urban development policies. Presidents Rómulo Betancourt (AD, 1959–1964), Raúl Leoni (AD, 1964–1969), and Rafael Caldera (COPEI, 1969–1974) entrusted the federal district governorship to prestigious civilians allied with their respective political parties. Typical among this talented group was Raúl Valera, the corporate lawyer who served as federal district governor during most of Raúl Leoni’s presidency. Valera’s crowning achievement was his conduct of negotiations with the Caracas Electric Company that resolved a longstanding debt owed by the municipality for public lighting. The conflict between the electric company and the municipality was more serious than it appeared. Leftist opponents of the reconciliation tact taken by Punto Fijo democrats intended to use issues raised by this debt to force a potentially regime-destabilizing confrontation between the ruling AD political party and the business community (Myers 1969, chap. 4). President Leoni made the critical decisions that defused this looming crisis, but he depended on his appointee, Governor Valera, to do the negotiating. During his first administration, President Carlos Andrés Pérez appointed a close personal adviser, Diego Arria, as federal district governor. Arria oversaw the bidding among contractors for hugely expensive public works projects in Caracas, and he managed Pérez’s relations with his private sector backers. This was at a time when windfall petroleum income led Pérez to promise that he would advance Venezuelan development by fifty years during his five-year presidency. To summarize, the tasks given to federal district governors between 1945 and the 1970s, and the kinds of individuals appointed to this office, suggest that a president viewed naming the federal district governor to be one of his three or four most important appointments.10 The federal district municipal council was the other major Caracas institution discussed at length in the 1936 organic law. In the 1950s, forces loyal to General Pérez Jiménez dominated the council, which served as a rubber stamp for the dictator. During all but a few years of Punto Fijo governments, the council boasted twenty-three members, all of them elected at large on closed party lists. The federal district municipal council was the only institution that collectively represented the people of Caracas.11 This status gave the council, despite its restricted powers, a prestige that other municipal councils lacked. Caracas voters favored opponents of the ruling AD and COPEI political parties between 1958 and 1974 (Martz and Harkins 1973), and the federal district municipal council reflected their hostility. Many prominent council members consistently challenged the

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national government, sometimes on matters that complicated plans to consolidate the democratic system (Myers 1977). Not surprisingly, AD and COPEI leaders of the period had little sympathy for proposals that would have strengthened the council. Turning to theme of policing, the 1936 organic law again set the basic parameters. It stated that immediate supervision of the police rested with two prefects, one who oversaw the coastal area of the federal district (Vargas Department) and the other the western Caracas Valley (Libertador Department). The president nominated the prefects, and the federal district governor was required to appoint those nominees to the positions. Prefects were immune from removal by the governor, and not until 1964 did a prefect openly appeal to the president over the governor’s head.12 President Raúl Leoni rebuffed this appeal, and subsequent prefects did not challenge the governor’s authority. During his first administration, Rafael Caldera orchestrated an agreement (mancomunidad) that unified policing in metropolitan Caracas. From a strictly legal perspective, this involved a formal delegation of powers by the municipal government of eastern Caracas (known then as the sucre district) and federal district government to the newly created Metropolitan Police Force (Policía Metropolitana, or PM). The federal district governor commanded the PM, which focused on traffic management and local crime. In broader matters the PM coordinated with the national police forces, the most important of which reported to the Ministry of the Interior. Thus, should the situation so demand, the national government quickly could assume control of all capital city policing. The power balance among capital city interest groups, the third theme, changed after the 1945 coup d’état. Until then groups oriented toward Venezuela as a whole determined how Caracas developed. Power rested with the military, the church, and traditional economic elites. The latter included owners of the great landed estates, large merchants, industrialists, and top professionals. When they made demands upon the central government to act in Caracas, their demands normally reflected national interests. The style of making demands was corporatist, and to exert influence effectively a group needed to be part of the government-sanctioned resource allocation network. Perhaps the most important cause of the 1948 military coup was the AD’s exclusion of traditional elites and the church hierarchy from this network. General Pérez Jiménez’s system of resource allocation was also exclusionary and it became corrupt. Subsequently, as noted earlier, second wave democrats agreed to shared power in a corporatist alliance managed by the AD and COPEI political parties. Groups whose visibility increased because of changing socioeconomic conditions in the capital, especially the urban poor, became impor-

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tant political actors in the final years of General Pérez Jiménez’s dictatorship. The general constructed massive, high-rise housing projects for the poor of Caracas in an effort to eliminate their jerry-built, slumlike shacks (ranchos), an environment that long-term residents found threatening. When rancho dwellers resisted, the National Guard relocated them by force. The poor retaliated by turning the housing projects (and the remaining rancho neighborhoods) into safe havens for the underground that toppled Pérez Jiménez (Doyle 1973; Ray 1969). Some housing projects and rancho neighborhoods also became safe havens for the leftist guerrillas when they attempted to take political power in the middle 1960s. Not until the dominant AD and COPEI political parties marshaled income from petroleum to subsidize goods and services for the poor did they accept the presence of the PM (Myers 1977). It was ten years before Punto Fijo democrats controlled the Caracas ranchos. Other interest groups oriented on the capital, as opposed to the nation, included middle-level bureaucrats, shopkeepers, and professionals. They also appeared on the political landscape during the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship. These middle sectors gained influence as Caracas developed. Like almost everyone else in the capital, they joined in the uprising that toppled General Pérez Jiménez. Subsequently, during the land invasions of 1959 and 1960, the middle sectors recoiled in horror when President Rómulo Betancourt (AD) looked the other way as migrants from the interior seized open land in established neighborhoods. At that time, many in the AD (whose electoral strength was outside of the capital) were arguing that the central government should not “waste” resources on the capital city (Myers interview with city planner Antonio Cruz Fernández, Caracas, 15 August 1966). This faction reasoned that if conditions in the capital did not improve, recent migrant arrivals could be persuaded to return to the interior. Resentment in Caracas against the AD ran deep. The city’s middle sectors, almost until the end, supported Pérez Jiménez. They distrusted the AD when it ruled in the 1940s, and they voted against the party in the national elections of 1958, 1963, and 1968. On the one hand, middle-sector caraqueños detected resentment within the AD’s ranks against their lifestyle, which was privileged when contrasted with conditions in the small towns from which many AD leaders came. On the other hand, the Caracas middle sectors projected disdain for the AD. Not only were its leaders of humble origin, the party acted as spokesmen for the interior. Along with the upper class, the capital’s middle sectors viewed themselves as superior to residents of the interior and deserving of special privileges. Tensions between caraqueños and the AD diminished during the

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halcyon days of the petroleum bonanza, but they remained a political fact of life throughout the Punto Fijo era. Caracas grew rapidly between the 1945 coup d’état and the 1970s’ petroleum bonanza. During those years, governments invested heavily to transform the city’s built environment, the fifth theme of Chapter 1. Political leaders had two overriding goals when they considered allocating public works: providing amenities for the growing population and demonstrating progress in catching up with countries in the North Atlantic region. The capital region of Venezuela contained roughly 90 percent of Venezuela’s incipient industrial infrastructure in 1945 (Sosa 1971). Policies of import substitution industrialization (ISI) added manufacturing facilities, but until the late 1960s most investment was concentrated in and around Caracas. General Pérez Jiménez built a potpourri of public works in the capital, including freeways, tunnels to the coast, high-rise public housing, new buildings to accommodate the growing bureaucracy, and nationalistic monuments. Projects in Caracas consumed almost 70 percent of the national budget. In addition, the dictatorship forced the foreign oil companies to transfer their national headquarters from Maracaibo to Caracas (Alexander 1982; Betancourt 1962). One consequence of these transformations was to increase internal migration, which further strained the capital’s physical infrastructure. President Rómulo Betancourt found Caracas in desperate straits. Government buildings were in a state of disrepair. Pérez Jiménez’s vaunted public housing projects lacked commercial and recreational facilities. Public transportation was in shambles, and half of the water supplied to the city disappeared without a trace. Given these conditions, merely restoring the existing urban infrastructure stressed public sector capabilities. The infrastructure, however, even if restored, could not adequately service a population that included hundreds of thousands of recently arrived migrants. Government planners calculated the Caracas housing deficit at 110,000 units in 1962 (Ministerio de Obras Públicas de Venezuela 1971). The city’s reservoirs could hold only a three-day reserve of water, and notorious traffic jams clogged the poorly planned transportation network. On the positive side, the economy began to turn around in 1962, and the U.S. government’s Alliance for Progress foreign aid program had singled out Venezuela for special attention (Alexander 1964). The AD party, despite its poor showing in Caracas, courted the city’s voters intensely during the 1963 presidential campaign. AD electoral propaganda highlighted restorations of the capital’s infrastructure and covered up decisions that funneled resources to party strongholds in the

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interior. A new self-help program to improve the Caracas ranchos received top billing, and voters were reminded that President Betancourt had championed construction of the popular Park of the East. However, neither Betancourt nor his AD successor, Raúl Leoni, undertook projects in Caracas that rivaled those built by General Pérez Jiménez. Not only did financial constraints and the politics of managing center-periphery tensions rule them out, little open terrain remained on which to build them. Many caraqueños remained positive toward Pérez Jiménez in the early 1960s. Punto Fijo democrats, despite their loathing of the ousted dictator, carried on with some of his projects. The Betancourt administration provided necessary but hitherto omitted services for the signature “23 of January” housing complex even after they realized that making improvements reminded residents of the dictatorship’s concern for them (Myers interview with President Betancourt’s housing czar, Luis Lander, Caracas, 1 September 1966). Yet three monumental Caracas projects identified with General Pérez Jiménez provided democrats with opportunities to discredit the dictatorship. These were the mountaintop Humboldt Hotel, the Heliocoide shopping center, and urban renewal along Bolívar Avenue in center city. President Betancourt closed the Humbolt, allowed it to deteriorate, but kept the tram that linked it to Caracas running so that caraqueños could visit and view the dictator’s white elephant. Like the Humboldt Hotel atop the clouds, the abandoned Heliocoide became a symbol of Pérez Jiménez’s corruption and incompetence. This was also true of the half-completed urban renewal project along Bolívar Avenue in central Caracas. However, a prime location in the middle of the capital, unlike the Heliocoide or Humboldt Hotel, could not be allowed to remain indefinitely in a state of disrepair. The longer that Bolívar Avenue continued as General Pérez Jiménez left it, the more this eyesore was identified with the inertia of Punto Fijo governments. Indeed, by the end of the 1960s, the AD and COPEI were locked in a competition to build public works along Bolívar Avenue that would be identified with their respective political parties. Presidential elections in 1968 and 1978 brought two COPEI presidents to power at times when major decisions were being made on the kinds of projects that would dominate urban renewal in this area. Thus, today’s sprawling Parque Central, with its multiple-use towers of more than seventy stories, reflects COPEI’s commitment to housing the Caracas middle class and to concentrating the bureaucracy in the national capital. In summary, after 1945 the built environment of Caracas changed dramatically. The city acquired numerous projects that symbolized government’s commitment to provide a good quality of life and to catch up with

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Table 4.1 Population Growth in the Caracas Region, 1941–2000

Federal District: Libertador Vargas 1941 1950 1961 1971 1981 1990 2000e

380,099d 709,602d 1,116,245 141,270 1,658,500 199,042 1,816,901 253,841 1,823,222 280,439 1,975,787 309,134

Special Sucre District of Miranda Statea 34,307 80,854 234,863 500,111 756,429 802,730 1,270,297

Caracas

b

414,802 790,456 1,492,378 2,357,653 2,827,171 2,906,391 3,555,218

Caracas as a Other Capital Percent of Region Venezuela Municipalitiesc 10.8 15.7 19.8 22.0 19.5 16.1 14.4

Rural at that time Rural at that time 78,000e 142,387 329,439 544,036 933,361

Sources: Compiled with the help of Rafael Rojas Moronta of the Centro de Documentación e Información of the DF Gobernación. El Censo 71 (Area Metropolitano); El Censo 90 (Miranda); El Censo 90 (DF); Oficina Central de Estadísticas e Información, Proyecciones de Población, 1980–2000 (1986); Anuario Estadístico de la Gobernación del DF (1996). Notes: a. In 1989, following passage of the new organic law of the municipality, the Sucre District split into four municipalities, Baruta, Chacao, El Hatillo, and Sucre. b. Caracas includes Libertador, Vargas, and the special Sucre District, which was divided into four municipalities. c. Carrizal, Los Salias, Plaza, Zamora, Cristóbal Rojas, and Guaicaipuro. d. The combined population of the Libertador and Vargas Departments. e. Estimated.

the United States and Western Europe. Leaders intended that these projects would legitimate the political regime and gain votes for their political parties. However, the capital grew rapidly and demands by caraqueños for housing, public transportation, and other services exceeded the government’s capability to deliver them. This gap diminished the potential of public works to have a major role in reinforcing political legitimacy. Table 4.1 reveals that the population of Caracas (officially the “capital region”) grew to roughly 3.5 million (or 14.4 percent of the total national population) at century’s end. Three decades earlier, the federal district and the Sucre District alone boasted 22 percent of all Venezuelans.

Capital City Politics Amid Political Decay Venezuela was prosperous and peaceful in 1978. Luis Herrera Campins of COPEI defeated the AD candidate, Luis Piñerua Ordaz, in a hotly contested but civil presidential election. Shortly after Herrera’s inauguration, petroleum prices doubled, but this second income bonanza lasted less than three years. Elites responded to the end of good times by taking their

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money out of the country. In early 1983 the economy went into a tailspin, and in December Jaime Lusinchi reclaimed the presidency for the AD. The following year, Venezuela’s economy stabilized. Several repeats of this sequence (economic crisis, contraction, and stabilization at a lower level) during Lusinchi’s presidency erased most of the previous decade’s economic gains. Subsequently, the second Pérez government (1989–1993) attempted to break the cycle with neoliberal reforms. The hardship that these reforms imposed on most people discredited Carlos Andrés Pérez. Widespread alienation from his government encouraged junior military officers to mount two unsuccessful coup d’états in 1992. Nevertheless, presidential elections occurred on schedule in December 1993. Voters gave Rafael Caldera, one of the fathers of Punto Fijo democracy, a second presidency. Very little changed. Thus, whereas in 1978 Venezuela boasted one of Latin America’s largest middle classes, at the close of Caldera’s government (February 1999) more than 80 percent of all Venezuelans lived below the poverty line. The economic failure of Punto Fijo democracy after 1983 led to its demise. Death came at the hand of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frías, the leader of one of the 1992 coup attempts. His eighteen-month campaign for the presidency ended with a resounding victory on 5 December 1998. Once in office Chávez organized two referenda in which voters elected a constituent assembly and approved a new constitution. The 1999 constitution imposed a democracy that was “direct,” centralized, and highly personal. In addition, legislation passed by the constituent assembly reorganized local government in Caracas; however, this legislation has yet to be fully implemented. The politics surrounding implementation include efforts to modify the 1999 reforms themselves. This section examines the struggle between 1978 and 1998 to “deepen” local democracy in Caracas. Deepening in this context subsumes the themes in Chapter 1 of strengthening local political institutions, controlling the police, accommodating attitudes of entitlement, and responding to changes in the power balance among capital city interest groups. The final theme, high-level meanings projected by the built environment, was less important in this period than before. The built environment of Caracas in 1978 already proclaimed successes in modernizing the capital city and in developing the country. Subsequently, there were not enough resources to construct new signature projects or to improve the level of public services in Caracas so as to approximate conditions in the cities of Europe and North America.13 The built environment, in other words, had limited capabilities to enhance the legitimacy of any political regime after 1978.

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Strengthening Local Political Institutions Legislation to reform Venezuelan municipal governments came in two surges. The first peaked in the 1970s, during the petroleum bonanza.14 At that time, central authorities planned to use abundant state revenue for ISI development programs and to cover the costs of improving municipal services with increases in the situado. The Punto Fijo system appeared to be consolidated and national politicians perceived no threat to their control from empowering citizens to influence the municipal governments. The 1978 organic law of municipalities, the first such legislation in 121 years (Carrasquero and Hanes de Acevedo 1993), established mechanisms for citizen participation. It also gave authority over municipal service delivery to apolitical technocrats. New electoral legislation accompanied these institutional reforms. Beginning in 1979, voters chose municipal councilmen in separate elections. However, the influence of centralized national institutions over local government, especially that of the political parties, undermined the effectiveness of the 1978 reforms. A second surge of legislation to strengthen municipalities flowed from work undertaken by the Commission for State Reform (COPRE) that President Jaime Lusinchi established in 1984. Advocacy by COPRE led to the direct election of governors, the creation of the figure of mayor (also elected by the people), and the decentralization of specific services and sectors. The most important legislation for Caracas was the 1986 organic law of the federal district (ley orgánica del distrito federal, or LODF).15 This legislation went a long way in eliminating the heretofore confusing division of labor between the federal district government and the municipality of Caracas (Libertador), and it improved the administrative capabilities of both institutions (Ellner interview with Nieves Sánchez, director of Proyectos y Planes de Gobernación of DF, Caracas, 16 March 1998; Vallmitjana 1993). Also, the municipal council of Caracas received authority to administer its own budget; and assets long controlled by the governorship, including office space and vehicles, were transferred to the municipality. The municipality also assumed responsibility for “local development planning” and such services as local aqueducts, drainage systems, urban public transportation, public markets, and cemeteries. The federal district governorship retained considerable authority under the LODF of 1986. It continued to control the three sectors that generated by far the most employment: the city’s police force, health, and education. The municipal council of the federal district was left with secondary responsibilities for these sectors. Its Commission on Public Security, for instance, had helped regulate the PM. From 1969 until the end of

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the Punto Fijo system an arrangement of intermunicipal cooperation between the governors of Miranda and the federal district gave the latter the dominant role in controlling the PM, as previously discussed. In addition, the five municipal councils of the municipalities in which the PM operated received regular reports from its commander. As a counterpart to reducing the federal district governor’s administrative responsibility at lower levels, the new LODF sought to enhance his role as representative of the capital city in the national executive. The law authorized the governor to participate in cabinet meetings with “voice and vote” in decisions related to the federal district and to countersign presidential legislation in these same matters, and it required him to submit an annual report for congressional approval. However, a Supreme Court decision in August 1989 took away the governor’s voting rights in the cabinet and in so doing, in the words of one journalist, “stripped the governor of ministerial ranking” (Diario de Caracas 1989, 20). The most pressing challenge facing legislators concerned with Caracas in the 1990s was to overcome the ambiguity regarding the city’s exceptional status (Suárez 1994). The 1961 constitution contributed to this confusion since it asserted that Caracas was autonomous, just as any other municipality, but at the same time indicated that the capital city was subject to a special set of laws, which in effect limited its autonomy. Indeed, the 1986 LODF stipulated that the special legislation governing Caracas took precedence over municipal laws that regulated local political institutions in all other Venezuelan cities. Decentralization in the capital implied the transference of authority exclusively to the municipal government, and not to the federal district. Indeed, since the federal district was not a state, it was not subject to the decentralization law. Furthermore, the federal district could not be considered autonomous because its executive authority was not popularly elected, as were the governors in the states. It was the municipal government, with its popularly elected city council and (after 1989) mayor, and not the federal district governorship, that responded to local interests. Thus, the movement to deepen the nation’s democracy focused on efforts that would enhance the powers of the mayor at the expense of the governor. In the mid-1980s, a special commission of the national Congress to reform the federal district, under the chairmanship of Deputy Johan Rodríguez Perozo, advanced this perspective when it drafted legislation that would have transferred to the capital city responsibility for such important services as health and education, ones which the decentralization law had assigned to state governments (Ellner interview with Rodríguez Perozo, Caracas, 8 May 1998).

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Local Executive Power The 1989 municipal reform law, as noted above, created the office of elected mayor. Mayors replaced municipal council presidents as the local executive in all municipalities except the federal district. In the district, whose basic statutes had been rewritten in 1986, the 1989 law divided local executive power between the governorship and the mayorality.16 Between 1989 and 1999, the dividing line between the powers of these institutions was unclear. In theory, agreement existed that the mayor would function as the local executive when “municipal” issues were in play, and the governor would take charge of “district” problems (Vallmitjana 1993). Operationally, however, this distinction was clear-cut only in the area of public order. Otherwise, overlap of the municipal and district personalities bred confrontation between the appointed governor and the popularly elected mayor. Confrontation sometimes occasioned paralysis. Alternatively, the president settled the issue unilaterally, which usually meant strengthening the governorship at the expense of the mayoralty. In no area did the governorship experience less diminution of its authority than in the policing of metropolitan Caracas. While the elected mayors of Caracas did create their own police forces in the 1990s, these institutions confined their activity to traffic control and low-level crime. The PM, the most visible policing institution in the Caracas region, remained under presidential control, with operational authority delegated to the federal district governor (Vallmitjana 1993). Finally, in providing for the contingency that military units might have to enter Caracas to preserve order, federal district governors planned for joint operations with the National Guard. Public order in Caracas broke down on numerous occasions during the 1990s as the city became a focus of opposition to the central government. Four days of rioting in February 1989, the worst urban violence in half a century, set the tone (Hellinger 1991). On two occasions in 1992, unsuccessful coup attempts plunged the capital into chaos. Not surprisingly, the national executive viewed the fragility of public order in Caracas as a major threat. More than ever, presidents appointed as federal district governor individuals whose loyalty was unquestioned and whom they trusted to deploy overwhelming force when opponents resorted to violence (Myers interview with Senator/retired General Alberto Müler Rojas, Caracas, 23 August 1998). In addition, many governors belonged to the president’s faction within his respective party. This was the case with Rodolfo José Cárdenas (under President Herrera Campins), Carmelo Lauría (under Lusinchi), Virgilio Avila Vivas and Antonio Ledezma (during

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Table 4.2 Federal District Governors, 1953–Present Appointing President

Federal District Governors

Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1953–1958) Provisional Revolutionary Junta (1958–1959)

Guillermo Pacanins A. Miguel R. De La Rosa Julio Dia Jesus Gámez Francisco Carrillo Batalla Alejandro Oropeza Castillo Manuel Perera Raul Valera Enrique Justo Veluttini Carlos Guinán Baldó Gullermo Alvarez Bajarez Diego Arria Salicetti Manuel Montilla Caceres Luis Augusto Benedettti Enrique Pérez Olivares Luciano Valero Rodolfo José Cardenas Miguel Angel Hernández Ocanto Carmelo Lauría Lesseur Miguel Angel Contras Laguado Adolfo Ramirez Torres Virgilion Avila Vivas Antonio Ledezma Cesar Rodriguez Berrizbeitia Adrubal Aguiar Aranguren Abdon Vivas Teran Moisés Orozco Graterol Hernán Grüber Odremán

Rómulo Betancourt (1959–1964)

Raúl Leoni (1964–1969) Rafael Caldera (1969–1974) Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974–1979) Luis Herrera Campins (1979–1984)

Jaime Lusinchi (1984–1989)

Carlos Andrés Pérez (1989–1993) Ramon J. Valásquez (1993–1994) Rafael Caldera (1994–1999)

Hugo Chávez Frías (1999– )

Source: Direción de Ceremonial y Protocolo de la Gobernación del Distrito Federal, various issues.

Carlos Andrés Pérez’s second term), and Vivas Terán (during Caldera’s second term) (see Table 4.2). All of the others were close confidants of the president. The 1989 reforms assumed that the mayor would dominate administrative and economic policy in the municipalities throughout the nation. However, tradition, inertia, and concern for public order led federal district governors to insert themselves into these areas to such an extent that the mayor’s role was often secondary. After leaving office, Mayor Aristóbulo Istúriz (1993–1996) summed up his frustration at being excluded from meaningful participation in health policy: “We assigned resources in an effort to cooperate with hospitals run by the [Ministry of]

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Table 4.3 Party Results in Caracas (Libertador) Municipal Elections, 1989–2000 Year 1989 Percentage of votes for mayor Number of city councilmen 1992 Percentage of votes for mayor Number of city councilmen 1995 Percentage of votes for mayor Number of city councilmen 2000 Percentage of votes for mayor Number of city councilmen

AD

COPEI Causa R

MAS

MVR

Other

42.1 17

24.2 10

— 7

17.8

— —

15.9 2

32.1 5

13.0 3

34.6 13

16.1 3

— —

4.2 —

40.1 15

7.0 2

32.5 5

8.8 3

— —

1.4 —

a

—

2.0 2

1.9

47.3 7

— 3

1

b

c

Notes: Causa R (Radical Cause); MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo, Movement Toward Socialism). a. Antonio Ledezma, formerly of the AD, received 42.1 percent. b. COPEI allied with the AD. c. MAS allied with the MVR.

Health and the Governor’s office, but in the end they [the hospitals] did not belong to us, and so our role was strictly that of a generous donor” (Ellner interview with Aristóbulo Istúriz, Caracas, 27 April 1998).17 Proposals that would give the municipal institutions (mayor and city council) of Libertador clear responsibility for managing these services remained stalled in Congress throughout the 1990s. Nevertheless, candidates for the Caracas mayoralty included some of Venezuela’s best-known political leaders.18 The three elected as mayor of the city during the Punto Fijo regime (Claudio Fermín, 1990–1993; Aristóbulo Istúriz, 1993–1996; and Antonio Ledezma, 1996–2000) ran on platforms that promised assertive decentralization, increased efficiency, and heightened accountability. They differed on taxes, popular participation, and education. All had mixed records as mayor. Nevertheless, upon leaving office, Fermín and Istúriz went on to occupy the highest level of leadership in their respective political parties.19 Ledezma abandoned the AD after an unsuccessful attempt to gain control of the party and lost his bid for re-election in the political earthquake of July 2000 to a protégé of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frías. In the 1990s, more than other cities throughout Venezuela, Caracas broke with the traditional voting pattern of polarization between AD and COPEI candidates. Mayors Fermín and Ledezma belonged to AD, but, as Table 4.3 shows, COPEI gradually disappeared in the course of the decade. In addition, Ledezma left the AD, thus depriving that party of

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much of its influence in the city. Finally, in the November 1998 national legislative elections, Hugo Chávez’s MVR did better in Caracas than elsewhere in the nation and elected both of the federal district’s senators. Caracas’ voting pattern in the 1990s shaped relations between the city’s mayors and the national executive. Only during the tenure of Claudio Fermín did the same political party (AD) occupy the offices of mayor and governor. Even though Fermín and President Carlos Andrés Pérez belonged to the same faction within the AD, friction between the two surfaced during the 1992 mayoral campaign when Fermín enraged President Pérez by proposing amnesty for military officers involved in the abortive coup staged on 4 February of that year. Fermín failed in his bid for re-election at the hands of the Causa R’s (Radical Cause) Aristóbulo Istúriz, as Mayor Istúriz got on surprisingly well with President Rafael Caldera’s federal district governors, although they opposed his efforts to empower neighborhood councils. These cordial relations undermined Istúriz’s standing within his own political party and the resultant internal friction undercut his bid for re-election in 1995. More central to his defeat were efforts to update the cadastral registry that would have forced Caracas residents to pay higher property taxes. Relations between his successor, Mayor Antonio Ledezma (AD), and President Rafael Caldera varied. The two agreed on reversing Aristóbulo Istúriz’s efforts to encourage neighborhood input into municipal decisions. However, President Caldera instructed his federal district governors to exclude the mayor from many of the undertakings that would have enhanced Ledezma’s political power and reputation. The ideologies and personal ambitions of Fermín, Istúriz, and Ledezma had an impact on the municipal institutions of Caracas and gave each mayoral administration a distinctive character. Fermín, the pragmatic representative of a new generation of social democrats, created a patchwork of populist programs that propelled him to the AD presidential nomination in 1993. Istúriz believed strongly in local control. He attempted to implement fundamental reforms that would deepen participation and demonstrate that direct democracy could foster efficient municipal government. Ledezma rose within the party having made his early career in the state of Guárico, before President Carlos Andrés Pérez appointed him to the post of federal district governor in 1992. After his bid to take control of the AD failed, Ledezma used his position as mayor of Caracas to create a new urban political party. To summarize, Claudio Fermín, Aristobulo Istúriz, and Antonio Ledezma were the first local executives in Caracas to exercise autonomous political power. National economic decline, political instabil-

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ity, and the tradition of dependence on the central government weakened their ability to wield that power. Despite holding distinctive perspectives, all three were forced into similar kinds of compromises with the federal district governor. The prerogatives retained by the governorship ensured that interest groups residing in Caracas would remain focused more on the national executive than on the municipality. None of Libertador’s elected mayors developed a local political machine.

Institutional Changes in Metropolitan Governance Until now we have looked at Caracas politics from the perspective of the federal district, or more specifically that part of the district that encompasses the western two-thirds of the Caracas Valley, Libertador. The other zone of the historic federal district, Vargas, is a narrow coastal plain that encompasses the port of La Guaira and areas to the east and west. Libertador, the location of Caracas’s traditional core, boasted 1.98 million inhabitants in 2000, or roughly 41 percent of the 4.49 million inhabitants of the capital region. (The capital region is a geographical construct used only for national planning; it lacks legal status.) Over previous decades, Libertador’s population as a percentage of that of the capital region has declined substantially. In the 1961 census, the first of the democratic period, Libertador’s 1.12 million inhabitants accounted for 70 percent of the region’s population. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, most caraqueños resided in two geopolitical entities, the municipality of Libertador and the state of Miranda. Fifteen Miranda municipalities, along with Libertador, make up the capital region.20 Between 1936 and 1989, four of the Miranda fifteen, all located in the eastern third of the Caracas Valley, were merged into the special Sucre District. A single municipal council governed the district (Figure 4.1 profiles the boundaries of the Libertador municipality and the fifteen Miranda state municipalities of the Caracas region).21 National trends toward citizen empowerment and local participation in the 1980s changed municipal government in the eastern third of the Caracas Valley. New institutions brought municipal policymaking closer to the people, but it also walled off affluent populations in privileged enclaves, such as the municipality of Chacao. Local governments in poor areas provided few amenities. In addition, metropolitan-area planning all but disappeared. Thus, when President Hugo Chávez’s team wrote the constitution of 1999, they also drafted legislation to change how Caracas was governed. They wanted efficient institutions that would tie the capital

117 Figure 4.1 Municipalities of Greater Caracas

CARIBBEAN SEA

16

2 3

4

10

1

6

14

5

7

12 11 13

15

17

8

9

Population Density (per square km)

< 1,000 1,000 - 10,000 >10,000 Capital district 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Baruta Libertador Carrizal Chacao Cristóbal Rojas El Hatillo Guaicaipuro Independencia Lander

0

10

20

30

Kilometers

10 Los Salias 11 Paz Castillo 12 Plaza 13 Simón Bolívar 14 Sucre 15 Urdaneta 16 Vargas 17 Zamora

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region together without abandoning reforms from the 1990s that enhanced citizen participation. The core problem in governing greater Caracas during the 1990s was how to coordinate public services in Libertador and the four municipalities of eastern Caracas. Local government changed dramatically in both zones. We are interested in how these changes influenced efforts in 1999 by President Hugo Chávez to restructure local political authority in the capital region. Many conditions that made change urgent were never addressed. This failure foreshadowed the difficulties that political leaders currently are experiencing as they legislate new institutional arrangements for capital city government. To summarize, examining how and why unsatisfactory municipal reform in eastern Caracas led to metropolitanarea restructuring is the task at hand. This concern leads us again to the five post–World War II themes that have dominated capital city politics in Latin America. Local Political Institutions Discontent with the Sucre District’s political institutions surfaced periodically throughout the Punto Fijo era. Concern over corruption was perennial. In 1989 dissatisfaction intensified. The national government had reduced transfer payments that subsidized services for the poor, and pressures to compensate by increasing local taxes escalated tensions between the classes. The district’s poor clustered disproportionately around Petare, a village that was heavily urbanized. The more affluent resided to the west, in what would become the municipality of Chacao. When the Sucre District municipal council raised taxes, community leaders in Chacao objected that only 10 percent of the funds collected in their zone found their way back to Chacao (Ellner interview with national deputy Johan Rodríguez Perozo, 8 May 1996). Businessmen, who chafed at the high municipal taxes on commercial establishments, and all the major political parties in Chacao, favored separation from the Sucre District. In lobbying for the breakup of Sucre many neighborhood leaders in Chacao and elsewhere embraced the slogan “the smaller the better” as a valid principle for local government (Ellner 1999, 89–90). The state government of Miranda replaced the special Sucre District with four new municipalities—Chacao, El Hatillo, Baruta, and Sucre—soon after the municipal reform law of 1989 entered into force (Vallmitjana 1993). Separation of the special Sucre District into four regular municipalities threw the newly diminished Sucre municipal government into a financial crisis. Ranchos made up almost half of Sucre’s housing stock, and rancho

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dwellers paid minimal property taxes or none at all. Thus, more so than in the breakaway municipalities, local services in Sucre depended on the taxing of industry and commerce (patente de industria y comercio). The Sucre municipal government had no choice but to clamp down on the evasion of real estate taxes, estimated at 80 percent of all housing units. New ordinances levied fines for nonpayment of taxes ranging from 10 to 60 percent (Vallmitjana 1993), but economic deterioration and the tenuous state of political order made collecting them difficult if not impossible. To compound matters, community leaders in Sucre’s industrial zone, Leonzo Martínez, which represented its greatest source of revenue, also threatened to seek separate municipal status. The new municipal governments in the more affluent municipalities of El Hatillo, Baruta, and particularly Chacao fared better. Chacao, with its efficient public services, became a model city and helped to catapult the twice-elected mayor Irene Sáez (1992 and 1995) onto the national stage as a major presidential candidate in the 1998 elections. The capital region underwent additional fragmentation when the coastal Vargas zone separated from Libertador. In 1986, President Lusinchi signed legislation that created the autonomous municipality of Vargas, but this change failed to defuse demands for statehood status. Unlike the three municipalities that broke off from Sucre, Vargas was not wealthy, but its residents resented domination of the federal district government by Libertador. They also complained that Vargas’s seaside location (conducive to tourism, fishing, and agriculture) had not been adequately exploited. Even more important, Vargas had to share tax revenue from the zone’s impressive physical installations (the international airport in Maiquetía, the port of La Guaira, and the main electric generation plant for central Venezuela) with Libertador. President Caldera opposed breaking up the federal district, but economic and political crises undermined his power. The national Congress granted statehood status to Vargas in 1998. Elsewhere, beyond the Caracas Valley, lay lands where urbanization had been adding to the built environment of Caracas since the 1950s. Thirty years later the cities of Guarenas (Plaza municipality), Guatire (Zamora municipality), Charallave (Cristóbal Rojas municipality), and Los Teques (Guaicaipuro municipality) had become bedroom communities for Caracas. Subsequently, the municipalities of Los Salias and Carrizal absorbed commercial activities and residences that the crowded Caracas valley could not accommodate. As the twentieth century drew to a close, caraqueños found themselves enveloped by a crazy quilt of geopolitical entities. The populated areas of the Caracas region stretched from Guatire in the east, through Los Teques in the southwest, to El Jun-

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quito in the west, and down to La Guaira on the north coast. Executive political authority was divided among the president and his federal district governor, two state governors, and depending on which municipalities one included, as many as twenty mayors. Intermunicipal cooperation between local governments in Caracas has never been easy. The most notable mancomunidad was signed in1972. It established a unified city planning authority for the federal district and special Sucre District (Vallmitjana 1993). This authority disappeared in 1993 when the successor municipalities to the special Sucre District withdrew funding. There were other attempts at intermunicipal coordination during the 1990s. A mancomunidad between the municipalities of the former special Sucre District that would have unified fire stations foundered over the choice of a commanding officer and the allocation of financial responsibilities. Similarly, five capital region municipalities created the mancomunidad for waste disposal in 1993, but only the city of Caracas (Libertador) made regular payments. Four years later, the governor of Miranda state invited all capital region municipalities to negotiate collectively over public transit fare increases, which the Ministry of Transportation and Communication managed prior to 1990. Most public transportation lines, however, originated in central Caracas and were registered in Libertador. Mindful that rate hikes in public transportation had triggered urban rioting in 1989, the Miranda mayors refused to involve themselves in pricing public transportation (Ellner interview with COPEI municipal councilwoman Josefina Nieto, Caracas, 3 November 1997). The mayors of the Caracas region made one limited effort to cooperate in the 1990s. They requested that the national government institutionalize contacts among them, and interim president Ramón J. Velásquez (June 1993–February 1994) created the Council of the Government of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas (Consejo del Gobierno de la Area Metropolitana de Caracas, CGAMC). President Velásquez’s decree envisioned the CGAMC as overseer and coordinator of orderly decentralization. At its first meeting, the CGAMC established committees to coordinate transportation, urban planning, public security, public health, garbage collection, and urban maintenance. The CGAMC’s mayors also called for the municipalization of such services as water supply, garbage collection, and public transportation. However, problems of finance and control prevented action, as the governors of the federal district and Miranda state, rather than the mayors themselves, paid the lion’s share of the council’s expenses (Urdaneta 1995). The obvious limitations of voluntary forms of intermunicipal cooperation prompted periodic proposals for a maximum legal authority, called

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the “superior mayoralty” (alcaldía mayor), to coordinate the municipalities of greater Caracas. In 1996 President Rafael Caldera offered a plan that would have created executive and legislative institutions to govern the entire capital region. Other “lesser mayors” (alcaldes menores) and their respective municipal councils would have addressed more limited concerns.22 The mayors of Libertador (Caracas) and Sucre were generally receptive to the president’s proposal. Community leaders in Chacao, El Hatillo, and Baruta staunchly opposed the idea, characterizing it as a step backward in the direction of centralization (Zambrano 1995). More important, residents of these affluent municipalities feared a regional government would force them to underwrite services in the low-income zones. Nevertheless, former Caracas (Libertador) mayor Aristóbulo Istúriz defended the proposition by pointing out the capital needed a strong and cohesive local government. He also argued that the creation of such a government required abolition of the presidentially appointed office of federal district governor (Istúriz 1995). Debate between proponents and opponents of an alcaldía mayor stalemated, and the issue faded from view during the 1998 presidential election campaign. President Hugo Chávez viewed the 1990s decentralization initiatives as dysfunctional. The constituent assembly that drafted the new constitution during his first year in office also took up the challenge of designing metropolitan government for Caracas. Chávez’s forces in the constituent assembly proposed uniting the most densely populated core of the capital region (the municipalities of Libertador, Chacao, Baruta, Sucre, and El Hatillo) into a “Metropolitan District of Caracas.” An elected alcalde mayor and legislative council would govern the district. At the same time, the federal district governorship would be eliminated and its dependencies would become part of the alcaldía mayor. President Chávez wanted Caracas residents to vote in a referendum on this plan, and he opposed giving individual municipalities a veto on the matter. The Chávez plan to unify metropolitan Caracas unleashed a firestorm. Governor Enrique Mendoza (Miranda state—COPEI) led the opposition that included some of the president’s important allies. Demonstrators from Miranda, many of whom were residents of middle-class neighborhoods, marched at the site where the constituent assembly was meeting. Mendoza protested that the separation of four municipalities in eastern Caracas from Miranda would cost the state 40 percent of its revenue and 46 percent of its population. In the end, he could not prevent the creation of the Metropolitan District of Caracas, the office of alcalde mayor, or the district legislative council. But Mendoza secured changes that undercut the metropolitan district government’s powers.

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The new Metropolitan District of Caracas lacked the unambiguous legal personality that President Chávez originally proposed. Instead of separating the municipalities of Sucre, Chacao, El Hatillo, and Baruta from the state of Miranda, the constitution placed them in a position where for some purposes they responded to the governor of that state and for others to the metropolitan district’s alcaldía mayor. Many operational guidelines dividing authority between the governor and the superior mayor remained undefined, to be legislated after the 1999 constitution entered into force. The first elections held under the new constitution (30 July 2000) saw independent journalist Alfred Peña elected to the office of superior mayor of Caracas (see Table 4.4). Peña ran with President Chávez’s endorsement, and the president’s political allies (the MVR and MAS political parties) gained a majority on the district council. But after his election, Alfred Peña became something of a rival to the president. In turn, President Chávez directed preferential funding for city-enhancing projects to Freddy Bernal, the mayor of Libertador. Bernal belonged to the president’s political party, the MVR, and unexpectedly had defeated the popular incumbent, Antonio Ledezma. With a rival to the president holding the office of high mayor, and a party loyalist ensconced as mayor of Libertador, resolve in the governing MVR for strengthening the alcaldía mayor flagged. Legislation intended to delineate the boundary of authority between the superior mayor and the governor of Miranda, not to mention boundaries between the alcaldía mayor and the mayoralties that composed the metropolitan district, languish in the National Assembly as of this writing. Beyond Strengthening Local Political Institutions The conflicts over strengthening local government for Caracas intruded into the other themes of capital city politics (policing, attitudes of entitlement, interest group power, and messages projected by the built environment). Demands for political action that emanated from these themes after 1999 mobilized interest group coalitions from earlier times. Our discussion of these responses begins with the theme of policing. Plans advanced by the national executive in 2001 that would have restructured local police forces in Caracas drew opposition from the alcaldía mayor and from the five alcaldías of the Metropolitan District of Caracas. At the same time, the National Assembly was dragging its heels on President Chávez’s plan to reorganize the national police. Caracas residents, however, were less concerned with how the police should be organized than with the lack of personal security and escalating crime. The local police forces of the Libertador, Sucre, Chacao, Baruta, and El Hatillo

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Table 4.4 Party Results of the Municipal Elections in Caracas’s Metropolitan District, 2000

Superior mayor candidate Percent of votes Metropolitan district councilmen

AD-COPEI

MVR-MAS

Causa R

Rosana Ordóñez 13.1 1

Alfredo Peña 64.8 7

Enrique Ochoaa 21.3 2

Justicia Primeroc —

1

Others Lorenzo Tovarb 0.8 2d

Notes: Null votes were 11.6 percent. a. Also the candidate of Izquierda Democrática and Patria Para Todos. b. Independent. c. A political grouping concentrated in the middle-class areas of Miranda state. d. Miranda electors—personalist organization of the governor of Miranda state.

municipalities could not deal with these problems. They were small and underfunded. The metropolitan district’s alcaldía mayor controlled the much larger Metropolitan Police (PM) force, which it had inherited from the defunct federal district governorship.23 Soon after his inauguration the alcalde mayor Alfredo Peña launched a program to modernize and strengthen the PM, especially its capability to control neighborhood crime. His actions included contracting William Bratton, the highly regarded former police chief of New York City. Nationalists criticized this move, but Peña replied that he would contract the best people available anywhere in order to deal with a problem that was only getting worse.24 This confrontational, lone-wolf style became a trademark of the alcaldía mayor, and it emboldened Peña’s detractors. The national executive put the alcaldía mayor on a tight financial leash. This forced Peña to sign an agreement with the National Guard, the institution charged with responsibility for restoring order in crisis situations, in order to deal with day-to-day crime. Thus, President Chávez gained more control over Caracas despite the National Assembly’s failure to approve new policing legislation or to clarify the responsibilities of the metropolitan-area district government.25 The sense of entitlement among caraqueños that after World War II politicized long-standing tensions between capital city residents and the interior remained dormant during the transition to the Fifth Republic. Hugo Chávez’s elevation to the presidency and popular support for ending Punto Fijo democracy derived from outrage that democratic leaders had “stolen” Venezuela’s petroleum wealth. President Chávez promised to punish the guilty, and he communicated this intention on a daily basis. Center-periphery issues remained in the background.

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The fourth theme, shifting power balances among interests, played out to the benefit of groups in Caracas that Punto Fijo democrats had not favored, especially the poor. President Chávez envisioned his Fifth Republic as a direct democracy, and the 1999 constitution (see Article 182) provided for local planning councils to inform government of what the people wanted and to ensure that public institutions (both national and local) were responsive. After the elections of 5 December 2000, forces and individuals supportive of President Chávez dominated the neighborhood councils (juntas parroquiales) in the marginal and working-class neighborhoods of the capital. In the middle-class areas (especially the municipalities of El Hatillo, Baruta, and Chacao, and of the neighboring Miranda municipality of Los Salias), groups and individuals opposed to President Chávez held the majority. While the political parties did not control Caracas’s juntas parrochiales, members who supported the president looked to the ruling MVR for guidance. Opponents took their cues from the several local political parties that dominated the middle-class municipalities (interview with pollster Alfredo Torres Uribe, president of COMO C.A., 3 June 2001). Because President Chávez’s inner circle regarded most middle-sector groups as disloyal and exploitative, the government tended to ignore their political demands. Turning to the final theme, the built environment, we find actions that reflect President Chávez’s commitment to modernization and nationalistic populism. Central governments of the Punto Fijo period viewed the Caracas metro as one of the country’s most important public works. They used it to demonstrate the capability of their political regime to modernize and to improve the quality of life in the capital. In November 2000, President Chávez appointed Colonel Luis Felipe Sánchez, a close confidant, to the position of president of the Caracas metro (El Universal, 22 November 2000). Soon after assuming control, Sánchez opened bidding on an extension of rail lines to Los Teques, capital of the state of Miranda, and committed to the construction of an additional line to relieve congestion in the Caracas valley (El Universal, 14 March 2001; 25 May 2001). The costs of these new works are unknown, but the experience with other Caracas metro lines argues that they will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Competing projects for these resources are legion, but in the calculations of central authorities few would seem to have the metro’s potential for linking them to the aspirations of caraqueños for a better life. The politics of rebuilding after the natural disaster of 15 December 1999 confirmed the built environment’s capability to transmit political meaning. Following several days of torrential rains, sections of the Avila Mountain gave way and buried several miles of “invaded” coastline in the

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Vargas zone. Death and devastation were unprecedented, and most victims lived in marginal (rancho) neighborhoods. Destruction extended from the port of La Guaira to coastal resorts in the municipality of Naiguata.26 Responding to a request from Venezuelan defense minister Raúl Salazar, the U.S. government agreed to send a battalion of army engineers to Caracas for the purpose of opening and rebuilding the coastal highway. Nationalistic leftists immediately pressured President Chávez to withdraw the invitation. Chávez then announced that he would accept the army’s roadbuilding equipment, but not the combat engineers who operated it. However, there were no Venezuelans trained in using the equipment, and U.S. law prohibited loaning it to a third party. President Bill Clinton had no choice but to recall the mission, even though a ship carrying the equipment and Corps of Engineers personnel had already set sail from the United States (El Universal, 11, 14 January 2001). The Venezuelan government rejected assistance because the Chávez team wanted to distance the Fifth Republic from the United States. Pictures of grateful survivors working side by side with United States soldiers to open roads and restore public services in Caracas would reinforce perceptions around the globe that Venezuela was a dependency of Washington.27 This did not fit with official portrayals of Venezuela as a leader in the new multipolar world. Thus, unexpectedly, the theme of the high meaning of the built environment in the capital returned to center stage as part of the struggle to reorient public policy.

Conclusions Caracas has received a unique treatment from political elites over the years. It has benefited materially from this attention, but at the same time it has been allowed less self-rule than other Venezuelan cities. National caudillos, such as Guzmán Blanco in the nineteenth century and Pérez Jiménez in the twentieth, showcased the privileged status of Caracas by undertaking public works that projected an image of national strength and modernity and bolstered political legitimacy. In the case of Pérez Jiménez, massive investment also aggravated social problems and spurred massive disorderly urbanization. Almost a century earlier, leaders concerned with the possibility of disorder created the federal district to encase Caracas; and in 1936 President López Contreras signed into law a statute that updated the federal district’s status as a special dependency of the central government. López intended to give the central government authority over situations in the capital that earlier legislation had not anticipated. His goal

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remained to avoid violence that could threaten the national government. Nevertheless, Caracas-based uprisings in 1945, 1958, and 1989 shook the city and destabilized the nation. The 1958 insurrection opened the way for a political regime that was part of the regionwide wave of democratization that followed World War II. Known as Punto Fijo democracy, this regime resisted the reverse wave of authoritarianism that crested in the late 1960s. Abundant revenue from petroleum exports enabled Venezuela’s second wave democrats to launch a massive development effort that relied heavily on the public sector. In the 1980s, however, the drop in oil prices dried up the income that central governments had used to create industries and subsidize modern services. This decline in public sector distributive capacity prompted calls for economic privatization and political decentralization. Reform legislation empowered regional and local governments, and the trend carried into the municipalities of the Caracas region. The creation of the office of a popularly elected mayor and empowerment of the municipal council curtailed the national executive’s domination of the federal district. To the east, the state government of Miranda subdivided the special Sucre District into four autonomous municipalities, each with an elected mayor and city council. These developments support the observation in Chapter 1 that movement toward a market economy and general political decentralization stimulated reforms in the local governments of Latin American capital cities. Over the final decade of Punto Fijo, the mayors of Caracas (Libertador municipality) were the most important actors representing local interests at the national level. They also promoted decentralization, in spite of legal barriers (due to the capital’s status as the federal district) that prevented the mayors from taking full advantage of municipal empowerment. The three elected mayors had ideological and partisan differences. But they all supported strengthening metropolitan-area cooperation. However, the decentralization process provoked extreme responses in the form of the emergence of community groups with a parochial outlook that were suspicious of all forms of centralism even at the municipal level. These activists, especially in the wealthy areas of eastern Caracas, unleashed a struggle in the 1970s and 1980s against the municipal government of the special Sucre District, which they viewed as unresponsive and corrupt. Their repudiation of consolidated municipal governance went hand in hand with their suspicion of the dominant national political parties, the AD and COPEI. In short, decentralization in Caracas pitted two groupings against each other. On one side, the mayors of Libertador and Venezuela’s national political parties favored an effective and coordinated metropolitan government that would assume responsibilities for the capital region

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from the central government.28 On the other, community organizations in wealthy areas, while embracing the language of decentralization, spurned intermunicipal agreements and adamantly opposed the unification of Caracas in any form (Ellner 1999). The Caracas case confirms the political significance of capital city– built environments. National elites of varying persuasions looked on the urban built environment of Caracas as an important milieu in which to make statements about their goals and capabilities. In the 1950s General Pérez Jiménez constructed freeways, monumental public works, and highrise apartments for recent migrants from the interior in hope of legitimating his political rule. Presidents during the Punto Fijo period, as anticipated, downplayed modifications to the built environment that symbolized abstract national values except modernization. Nevertheless, at the height of the petroleum boom President Luis Herrera Campins did invest heavily in expanding the National Pantheon of Caracas, the final resting place of Simón Bolívar. This was the exception to concentrating public works investment in projects that reinforced perceptions of the capital city as a location in which to pursue the good life. After the municipal reforms of 1989, occupants of the newly created office of Caracas (Libertador) mayor competed with the presidentially appointed federal district governor to make urban built environment modifications that would strengthen their political influence. In matters of public order and policing, however, the 1986 federal district organic law, and practice, confirmed the federal district governor’s supremacy throughout the entire Caracas region. The formation and politics of interest groups to influence resource allocation in Caracas diverged in two aspects from the generalizations in the introductory chapter. Venezuela’s capital city developed into a large urban center more than half a century after this change occurred in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City. This delayed the accumulation of influence by the social and economic groups that typically form grassroots organizations focused on improvements within the city, rather than on projects located in the capital that symbolize national civic virtue and progress. Interests that made the city-oriented grouping in Caracas included shopkeepers, lower- and middle-level civil servants, small industrialists, and the urban poor. Those in the nationally oriented grouping included high central government officials, national party leaders, highranking military officers, national labor leaders, big business, and international traders. The latter grouping totally dominated capital city policymaking in Venezuela until the advent of Punto Fijo democracy. Second, primitive authoritarian traditions persisted longer in Venezuela than in most other countries of Latin America, well after 1935

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petroleum provided massive resources to the central government. Until the 1990s, presidents shaped Caracas with little regard for grassroots preferences. General Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the military dictator most associated with developing Caracas, invested 70 percent of the national budget in the city between 1953 and 1958. He plunged into multiple projects with minimal planning. Appeals to his vague new national ideal ideology justified allocations in Caracas that transmitted “high” national meanings, as well as investments that improved residents’ quality of life. Until the final year of Pérez Jiménez’s rule, the government had sufficient revenue to pay for almost everything that the dictator wanted to do. Economic and political circumstances encouraged clientelism and discouraged pluralistic interest group politics. The second wave democrats that consolidated their rule after 1959 created some of the strongest and best organized political parties ever to appear in Latin America. Leaders of the dominant AD party attacked the fallen dictator’s waste of resources on monumental “white elephant” projects in Caracas, but party leaders themselves quickly began courting capital city voters. The AD appealed to workers, lower-middle-class bureaucrats, and the urban poor, interests usually associated with urban quality of life issues. The rival COPEI political party courted the same groups, but also targeted the middle sectors. Neither political party invested in nationally oriented mega-projects embodying civic virtues. However, the crown jewels of each party’s investment to improve Caracas, the subway and the Parque Central multipurpose urban renewal project, consumed massive amounts of resources over several decades. Their high costs evoked criticisms of disproportionate investment in the capital, similar to ones leveled against Pérez Jimenez. During the 1990s, public investment in Caracas, as in much of urban Latin America, prioritized health, education, and public transportation. Municipal institutions played a more important role in allocating resources. However, the strategy of strengthening Venezuelan municipalities, unlike the dominant Latin American pattern, was not a reaction to abuses by authoritarian military government. It reflected dissatisfaction with corrupt and centralized political parties and national bureaucracies. The empowered municipalities of Caracas initiated no projects that symbolized civic virtue or national identity. Elites residing in the city, but oriented on Venezuela at large, distanced themselves from local politics; but they did pay attention when the national government made costly investments in the urban infrastructure. Groups focused on local political institutions made new demands on elected mayors and municipal councils. However, the three elected mayors of Libertador, and their counterparts in

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eastern Caracas, seldom experienced opposing sets of demands from one coalition of interest groups oriented on quality of life concerns in the city and another seeking to do things in the capital that would benefit the nation as a whole. The Fifth Republic’s local political institutions in Caracas are new and untested. The National Assembly has yet to pass legislation to implement the law that created the special metropolitan district for the Caracas region. When this is done, and with the passage of time, demand focused on local government in Caracas will become less ad-hoc and more predictable. Finally, as anticipated, resistance to taxes constrained elected officials and empowered local executives in the municipalities of Caracas during the 1990s. The habit of looking to the national government for municipal subsidies undermined each elected mayor’s attempt to build a municipal political machine, although the mayors of Libertador became important figures in the national organizations of their respective political parties. Mayor Istúriz’s efforts to update and expand the property tax base in Caracas met staunch political resistance, as manifested in the electoral programs of various rival mayoral candidates, including that of his successor in 1995. Similar resistance appears to be forcing alcalde mayor Alfredo Peña into heavy dependence on the central government. When all is said and done, the national executive’s desire to maintain control and the capital city electorate’s unwillingness to pay the true cost of its privileged lifestyle remain as major limitations on Venezuela’s most important municipal executive.

Notes 1. By 1950 the growing population of Caracas had spilled out of the main valley in all directions. To the north, after reaching the sea, newly built-up areas followed the coast west from the colonial port of La Guaira to Chichiriviche de la Costa and to the east as far as Los Caracas. While roughly fifty miles (as the crow flies) separate Chichiriviche de la Costa and Los Caracas, the winding coast between these locations alternates between narrow strips of habitable land and steep mountains that rise directly out of the sea. A wall of mountains, the Cerro de Avila and the Cordillera de la Costa (Coast Range), soars to 7,000 feet and separates this coastal zone, called Vargas, from the Caracas Valley. First footpaths, then winding roads, and after 1954 a modern freeway have linked coast and valley. Most inhabitants of the capital region reside in the Caracas Valley, but each subregion retains its distinctive personality. 2. Punto Fijo is the name of the house, belonging to Rafael Caldera, where second wave democrats negotiated the pact that facilitated the transition to second wave democracy.

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3. The term organic law (ley orgánico) is used throughout Latin America as a label for legal statutes that establish institutions and define their powers. 4. The Punto Fijo democratic system lasted until 1999. It is discussed at length in subsequent sections. 5. The official designation of the zone of the federal district that encompassed the western two-thirds of the Caracas Valley was the Libertador Department. The Vargas Department included the port city of La Guaira and its environs. 6. The 1986 federal district organic law created separate municipalities for the Vargas and Libertador Departments. Three years later a new organic law of municipal reform created the office of mayor for all Venezuelan municipalities. 7. Without the council’s approval, the governor was empowered to execute public works whose cost did not exceed 100,000 bolívares. Until 1982, when inflation accelerated, this amounted to slightly over U.S.$20,000. Subsequently it became meaningless. 8. For example, the municipal budget for the federal district government in 1965 was 343,721,406 bolívares. All municipal budgets in Venezuela, for that year, totaled 645,849,318 bolívares (Dirección General de Estadística y Censos Nacionales 1967, 297). 9. For a complete listing of federal district governors since 1953, see Table 4.2. 10. Analysis of the more complex situation in which Caracas had both a mayor and federal district governor appears in the next section, “Capital City Politics Amid Political Decay.” 11. Following the return of electoral democracy in 1958, the same vote that elected candidates on a party’s list for senator and congressmen also elected candidates on party lists for municipal councilmen. Separate municipal council elections first occurred in 1979, mandated by the 1978 municipal reforms. In these elections, however, councilmen continued to be elected at large, on closed party lists. The system was modified in the 1990s when single-member electoral districts were created at the municipal level. 12. The struggle between Governor Rául Valera and the Libertador Department prefect made front-page headlines during June 1965. 13. President Jaime Lusinchi began work on a massive urban renewal project in central Caracas (Parque Vargas). Lack of funds forced his government to abandon the effort and some of its components remain half finished as of this writing. 14. Rafael Caldera’s first administration (1969–1974) made changes in the federal district that anticipated this initial surge of municipal reform. He transferred responsibility for routine matters from his federal district governor to the civil leaders whom he appointed for each of Caracas’s twenty-three parishes. 15. The architects of the 1986 LODF discarded the possibility of reforming the existing “anachronistic” LODF of exactly fifty years before, “which followed the model of Juan Vicente Gómez’s 1926 LODF” (El Universal 1984, 1, 12). 16. Comprehensive municipal reform legislation entered into force in 1979. The law vested responsibility for running the municipality in an apolitical city manager. City managers, however, quickly discovered that their tenure in office depended not on the quality of their professional judgments but on their willing-

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ness to accept party discipline. This unforeseen consequence led reformers to create the position of mayor, the most important single innovation in the 1989 municipal reform law. 17. As a corrective, the Special Commission for the Reform of the Federal District, under the chairmanship of Deputy Johan Rodríguez Perozo, drafted a bill in the mid-1990s for the purpose of transferring to the capital city the major services that the LODF of 1989 had assigned to the states. 18. Claudio Fermín, Teodoro Petkoff, and Antonio Ledezma aspired for the national presidency. Other mayoral candidates of national stature have included Pompeyo Márquez (MAS), Aristóbulo Istúriz (Causa R), Nelson Chitty La Roche (COPEI), and Miguel Henrique Otero (pro-COPEI). 19. Because of the constituent assembly elections of July 1999, the term of Antonio Ledezma, as well as all other municipal officials, was extended until the new constitutional arrangements were in place. 20. The Vargas zone, once part of the federal district and now a state, is included in the capital region for the purpose of national planning. Only 5 percent of the capital region’s inhabitants currently reside in Vargas. See Table 4.1. 21. President López Contraras mandated creation of the Sucre District as part of the institutional modernization that he initiated following the death of General Juan Vicente Gómez. López favored placing all inhabitants of the capital in a single geopolitical unit, but changing the boundaries of the federal district was difficult and time-consuming. Unification of the municipalities of eastern Caracas into a single district was his second choice (Myers interview with Cruz Fernández 15 August 1996). The military dictatorship that seized power in 1948 issued a decree that acknowledged the importance of Caracas’s expansion into Miranda by recognizing for the first time the Greater Caracas metropolitan area. Nevertheless, the decree stopped short of establishing an administrative infrastructure and limited itself to the collection of data. 22. Which capital region municipalities would fall under the jurisdiction of the alcaldía mayor varied among proposals, but the list always contained Caracas, Sucre, Baruta, El Hatillo, and Chacao. 23. The Ministry of Interior argued that it should control the Policía Metropolitana because it had previously been controlled by the national executive in the form of the governor. However, the National Assembly agreed with superior mayor Peña that the PM should be controlled by the new Caracas metropolitan government. 24. Peña made a comprehensive defense of his first ten months in office in a wide-ranging interview published in El Nacional, 10 June 2001. 25. The impasse over legislation to reform the national police is discussed in El Nacional, 20 June 2001. 26. Detailed accounts of the disaster appeared in the Caracas press between 17 and 20 December 1999. 27. Confidential interview with a member of the cabinet of President Chávez, 26 May 2000. 28. This consensus, however, did not extend to creating the elective office of superior mayor with powers that might make its occupant the country’s second most important political leader.

5 Guatemala City: Mayors and the Struggle for Political Autonomy David Jickling Alexandra Garcia-Iragorri

Guatemala City represents a distinctive case among the other cities studied in this volume. Because Guatemala City is a city-state, politics in the country and its capital city are strongly intertwined. To explore the themes set forth in Chapter 1, we will divide the study of Guatemala’s politics by discussing its development at the national and capital city levels. Our basic task is to examine the evolution of municipal government in Guatemala, with special emphasis on the years since 1944 and on the institution of mayor (alcalde) in Guatemala City and in the surrounding municipalities. Our analysis focuses on the relationships of mayors with other political leaders and institutions—local as well as national—on the most important challenges that the mayors face in governing Guatemala City and on the mayors’ accomplishments. These concerns provide data that shed light on the five general themes about Latin American capital city mayors set forth in the introductory chapter. Although Guatemala was among the first Latin American countries to start the process of political and administrative decentralization, in general municipal institutions have not been able to actualize their potential political strength. As with other cases of decentralization, a lack of a permanent and adequate source of funding has prevented municipalities from reaching the desired level of political and administrative autonomy. Hence, municipalities are left to depend on national funds to fulfill their basic functions. In the case of Guatemala City, partisan relationships 133

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between national and capital city officials have affected the type of actions that the city government has been able to pursue. The chapter is organized chronologically. We start with an overview and follow with several sections that explain the type of political regime found in each period. Next we discuss the political and administrative characteristics present in the country as a whole and in Guatemala City in particular.

Historical Overview Spain’s colonial administrators founded La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción (present-day Guatemala City) in 1776. But in actuality it was the colony’s fourth capital city. La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción nestles in a large mountain valley at 4,900 feet near the geographic center of the country. It enjoys a springlike climate with temperatures ranging from 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year. The site of present-day Guatemala City marks a cultural divide among Guatemala’s highland populations, between the Maya who reside to the west and the Ladinos who live to the east (Elbow 1994). With an important middle class and a population that exceeds 2 million, contemporary Guatemala City is Central America’s most influential and cosmopolitan city. Before the move to La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, Guatemala was governed from three other locations. Floods, mudslides, and an earthquake destroyed the first two colonial capitals in 1541–1542 soon after their founding. The following year the Spanish crown began work at a different location on a third capital city, Santiago de Guatemala (Antigua of today), and for more than 200 years it was the largest and most important Spanish urban center between Mexico and Lima (Lutz 1982; Jickling 1987). However, in 1773 yet another earthquake devastated Guatemala’s capital, and colonial authorities sought a new location from which to govern. They chose the site of the present capital, some twenty-five miles to the northeast of Antigua Guatemala.1 The territorial organization of present-day Guatemala resembles that of the Fifth French Republic. Guatemala is divided in eight regions, the regions into twenty-two departments, and the departments into 324 municipalities. And although each department has an appointed governor, each municipality boasts an elected mayor. The decision to elect local government executives reflects the intent of democratic reformers to decentralize and deepen municipal autonomy following the overthrow of General Jorge Ubico’s centralized government in 1944. Nevertheless,

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from independence until the late 1980s, Guatemalan municipal government, especially in the capital, remained tightly controlled by the central authorities. Geography and Politics: From Colonial Times to the Second Wave of Democracy With more than 10 million inhabitants and 42,042 square miles, Guatemala is Central America’s most populous country and second largest state. It boasts a diverse topography that consists of four major geographical divisions. The first, the narrow Pacific Coastal Lowland, grows bananas, sugarcane, cacao, and maize; so also does the second, consisting of the deep, wet valleys that drain out to the Caribbean. The third region, Guatemala’s highlands, is home to numerous volcanoes, including the highest mountain in Central America, Mount Tajumulco. These highlands have been the site of all four Guatemalan capital cities; its rich volcanic soils favor the cultivation of coffee. Finally, the heavily forested Yucatán Peninsula constitutes Guatemala’s fourth region. Two racial and cultural groups dominate Guatemala: Amerindians and Ladinos (mestizos, or mixed Indian/Caucasians), though there are small numbers of blacks in the coastal lowlands and a few “pure” Caucasians around Guatemala City. Approximately half of all Guatemaltecos are descendants of the Maya, creators of a great pre-Colombian civilization in the New World. Most Maya reside in the countryside. The Maya of Guatemala maintain close ties with members of their ethnic community in Mexico and Honduras. To a remarkable degree, all Maya retain their traditional culture, despite 400 years of Ladino/Spanish domination. Guatemala’s Ladinos are largely urban, Spanish-speaking, and fit easily into the general mold of Latin American society. The urban built environment of what is now Guatemala City coalesced slowly during most of the nineteenth century. Some activities remained at Santiago de Guatemala, and funds to develop the new capital’s infrastructure were scarce (Elbow 1994). Political uncertainty and economic difficulties also delayed construction at La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción. Between independence (1821) and the Liberal Revolution of 1871, the city changed little and colonial patterns persisted. However, following the liberal reforms of the 1880s, Guatemala City experienced rapid growth as commercial diversification, industrial development, and governmental expansion pushed its population above 50,000. Railroad construction that connected Guatemala City with the Caribbean coast also contributed to this growth (Elbow 1994).

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Table 5.1 Growth of Guatemala City, 1880–1996

Year 1880 1893 1921 1950 1964 1973 1981 1994

Guatemala City Populationa 50,522 61,951 115,447 284,922 572,937 700,504 754,243 1,167,000b

Republic of Guatemala Population

Guatemala City as a Percentage of the Republic

1,224,602 1,364,678 2,004,900 2,788,122 4,287,997 5,160,221 6,054,227 9,462,172

4.12 4.53 5.75 10.22 13.36 13.57 12.46 12.33

Sources: Elbow 1994, p. 280; 1994 census; Banks 1998. Notes: a. Guatemala City and metropolitan Guatemala. b. Expected number for 1995.

Following the colonial tradition, Guatemala City developed around the central plaza, where Spanish authorities located governmental offices, the cathedral, military installations, and commercial establishments.2 After 1880, however, Guatemala spilled out beyond its colonial core. Public and private activities relocated away from the historic central plaza, and upper-class residents moved out even further. After 1918, following a series of earthquakes that destroyed hundreds of homes and commercial buildings, the city experienced major changes. New construction created signature projects that transformed the urban built environment to the south of the historic central plaza. Additional construction during the authoritarian rule of General Jorge Ubico (1931–1944) quickened the pace of transformation to the south, although Ubico also constructed a monumental executive office building, the Palacio Verde, on the central plaza. Ubico’s building is one example of how leaders attempt to legitimate their rule by creating a new and modern built environment for the capital city, as one of the central themes of this book suggests. The population of Guatemala City increased dramatically between 1981 and 1994 at roughly the same rate as the entire country (see Table 5.1). By 2000, its metropolitan-area population approached 2.2 million. Metropolitan Guatemala City encompasses the city proper (the municipio of Guatemala) as well as additional municipios that legally make up the capital region. These surrounding municipios include Mixco, Villa Nueva, Chinautla, Villa Canales, and four others that are largely vacant (see Figure 5.1). The national census office estimates that the metropolitan area is growing at 6 percent per year: 4 percent due to migration from the inte-

137 Figure 5.1 Municipalities of Greater Guatemala City

3

14

11

2

13

6 17 1

9

12

7

5 15

8

Population Density (per square km)

< 1,000 1,000 - 10,000 >10,000

1 Amatitlán 2 Chinautla 3 Chuarrancho 4 Fraijanes 5 Guatemala 6 Mixco 7 Palencia 8 Petapa 9 San José del Golfo

10

4 16

0

10

20

30 Kilometers

10 San José Pinula 11 San Juan Sacatepéquez 12 San Pedro Ayampuc 13 San Pedro Sacatepéquez 14 San Raymundo 15 Santa Catarina Pinula 16 Villa Canales 17 Villa Nueva

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rior of the country (largely ethnic Mayans) and 2 percent from natural growth. Measures enacted by liberal reformers in the late nineteenth century transformed Guatemala’s economy and society and shaped the kind of political coalitions that hold power to this day. These reformers, long an important faction within the Ladino elites, triumphed over proclerical conservatives and took control of the government in 1878. They quickly finagled a massive transfer of land from the Amerindians to themselves. This seizure impoverished the ethnic Mayas, who have held their properties in common since before the arrival of the Spaniards. To preempt possible opposition from conservatives to this seizure, the liberals allowed the Roman Catholic Church to retain its vast landed properties. This tactic proved successful, and liberal Ladinos encountered little effective opposition when they formed their newly acquired properties into plantations that would produce coffee for export. Once the newly created plantations began to produce coffee, the Ladino elites passed vagrancy laws that restricted the Maya’s freedom of movement. This legislation made it easier to recruit indigenous villagers as coffee pickers. In other words, elite collaboration facilitated “domination of the largely indigenous working classes” (Trudeau 1993, 19). Guatemala became a major exporter of coffee soon after the liberal restructuring of society took effect. To repeat, the coffee economy rested on oligarchic control of the land, cheap labor, and state protection of the new landowning elites. From the beginning, the coffee plantations attracted foreign investment, and investors from North America and Europe provided access to international markets. This alliance of local elites and foreign capitalists dominated Guatemala throughout most of the twentieth century. In Trudeau’s words: The Liberal Reforms assured that more of Guatemala’s land would be accessible for coffee cultivation, that an adequate supply of labor would be available, and that the fiscal and other state policies would support the developmental model. The success of these policies meant that within a few years, Guatemala’s coffee oligarchy had consolidated its economic power. Land and labor institutions had been reorganized to stimulate export production, and the result was both greater economic development and greater social inequity. (1993,19)

The development that accompanied consolidation of the coffee economy increased the size of Guatemala’s middle class, most of whom resided in Guatemala City. Middle-class Guatemaltecos desired the amenities that characterized urban life in Western Europe and the United States.

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Wealth from the coffee trade raised the living standards of middle- and upper-class Ladinos, while the working classes (largely ethnic Maya but including some Ladinos) sank ever deeper into poverty. The ruling elites—Liberal and Conservative—tolerated no challenge to their power. The Great Depression took its toll on Guatemala’s economy after 1930. Foreign investment dried up and international markets contracted dramatically. Inside Guatemala the Ladino middle class, including the military, suffered greater reductions in their living standards than the traditional elites. This decline led middle-class merchants and professionals to join with the army officer corps to change the political regime. Following the military coup of 1930, General Jorge Ubico’s dictatorship forced the landed elites to share resources with the upper-middle class. However, Ubico’s regime was repressive and tended to exclude upwardly mobile professionals, many of whom were the first in their families to obtain a university degree. Leaders from this stratum became the democratic nationalists who seized power in the October revolution of 1944.3 Their overthrow of General Ubico paved the way for Guatemala’s transition to the second wave of democracy. Second Wave of Democracy, 1945–1954 The second wave of democracy in Guatemala saw free and open elections that in 1945 propelled one of the country’s most prominent intellectuals, Juan José Arévalo, to the presidency (Gleijeses 1991). Arévalo’s revolutionary government (1945–1951) enacted laws that protected organized labor, created a social security system that included health benefits for workers, guaranteed university autonomy, and granted suffrage to women and illiterates (i.e., the Mayas and poor Ladinos). In addition, second wave democrats rewrote organic municipal legislation to provide new powers and unprecedented autonomy to local governments (Gleijeses 1991; Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982). Colonel Jacobo Arbenz, a close associate of President Arévalo, won the presidential elections of December 1950, and for the first time in Guatemalan history power passed from one popularly elected president to another. President Arbenz (1951–1954) continued the social transformations initiated by his predecessor. In addition, Arbenz intensified agrarian reform, which immediately won him the animosity of the large landowners. The United Fruit Company, a major producer of bananas for export, became a bitter opponent of the Arbenz government after it expropriated 83,000 of the company’s 200,000 hectares (Gibson 1989). United Fruit Company executives lobbied against President Arbenz in the United

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States and encouraged opponents of the 1944 democratic revolution in Guatemala. Disloyal opposition to the Arbenz government increased during 1953. The landowning coffee elites joined with the United Fruit Company in a conspiracy to weaken Guatemala’s second wave democracy. In 1954, when President Arbenz purchased weapons from Czechoslovakia (at that time a socialist state), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States entered into the conspiracy. The CIA encouraged dissident army officers to revolt against President Arbenz, and after a brief struggle Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas assumed the presidency in the name of traditional values and anticommunism (Trudeau 1993; Leonard 1998).4 Guatemala’s reverse wave of authoritarianism would last for more than four decades. Second Wave Municipal Development One paradox of Guatemala’s political development is that after more than a century of centralized authoritarian government, it became the first state in Latin America to implement popular elections of municipal authorities. The government of General Jorge Ubico increased the importance of municipal government in 1931, although throughout his regime municipalities remained largely administrative subdivisions of the national government. Democratic reformers during the Arévalo government, as indicated earlier, conceded significant autonomy to municipal institutions soon after coming to power (Nickson 1995). The 1945 constitution provided for the election of mayors and city councils, for increased municipal autonomy from central controls, and for broad local participation. Surprisingly, an important increase in decentralization occurred early in the reverse wave of authoritarianism, when a new 1957 municipal code strengthened municipal powers. The core of this enhancement was a new municipal credit system, Institute for Municipal Development (Instituto Nacional de Fomento Municipal, or INFOM) that administered centrally collected taxes on gasoline, beer, and liquor for the benefit of local government. When subsequent national executives of the authoritarian period tightened central control, INFOM became effectively a Ministry of Local Government with paternalistic oversight functions. But at the beginning, it was intended to give meaning and substance to the increased municipal autonomy that flowed from the spirit of the revolution of 1944. Thus, in Guatemala the strengthening of municipal institutions is a process that had already started before the third wave of democracy, which is the time when most other Latin American countries were starting to consider similar administrative moves.

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The Arévalo government also created a National Municipal Association (Asociación Nacional de Municipalidades, or ANAM) to give voice to local concerns at the national level. Initially, the mayor of Guatemala City headed the association; but before long, mayors from the provincial municipalities took control of the ANAM. Departmental (provincial) municipal associations also coalesced in many of Guatemala’s twenty-two departments. The initiative for creating these associations rested with the mayor of each departmental capital city (roughly comparable to a county seat in the United States). Therefore, although legal provisions were in place early on, municipal decentralization was still weak in Guatemala. Guatemala City During Second Wave Democracy Following the 1944 revolution, development in Guatemala was influenced by movement in the national economy away from almost exclusive dependence on exports and foreign investment in agriculture (coffee in the highlands and bananas in the lowlands). A business community centered in the capital city coalesced, and its leaders became a counterweight to the traditional coffee oligarchy (Trudeau 1993). The economic policies pursued by Guatemala City’s entrepreneurs’ sector constituted a mild form of import substitution industrialization (ISI). Guatemala City’s urban built environment began to change during second wave democracy. The national government and private interests, domestic as well as foreign, invested in the urban infrastructure; modern buildings associated with industrial export substitution and integration of the city into the North Atlantic economy sprang up throughout the metropolitan area. In 1950, Guatemala City held the Fourth Central American and Caribbean Olympic games, an event that precipitated construction of what at that time was the largest national stadium of Central America. Although this signature project symbolized Guatemala City’s emergence as the most modern and progressive urban center in the region (Sapia 1959), it was not conceived as a monument to the national leadership of the moment as was the Palacio Verde of General Ubico. Hence, this is a case where the urban built environment is not necessarily used as a legitimation mechanism by the national or city government. Three elected mayors governed Guatemala City between 1946 and 1954 and their term in office was three years. Even though second wave democratic mayors of Guatemala City controlled limited resources, they were able to implement diverse programs that ranged from milk for school children to infrastructure development and public service modernization. They also undertook traditional local government activities like the repair

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Table 5.2 The Mayors of Guatemala City, 1946–1954

Mayor, Term

Political Support

Main Focus During His Administration

Mario Méndez, 1946– 1948

Reform movement Same party as the president

Extending Sixth Avenue and expanding water supply

Martín Prado, 1949– 1951

Coalition of conservative groups and business elite Opposition

Sewers and street paving

Juan L. Lizarralde, 1952–1954

Coalition of conservative groups and business elite Opposition

New city hall and infrastructure

of streets, expansion of the water and sewer systems, and upkeep of the slaughterhouses (see Table 5.2). Residual enthusiasm for the 1944 revolution led to the election in 1945 of Mario Méndez Montenegro as mayor of Guatemala City. However, Mendez, a close ally of President Arévalo, served only one term. The balance of political forces within the capital shifted toward more traditional elements as the revolutionary Arevalo government persisted with its leftist political agenda. Business leaders sponsored local politicians who appealed to the middle sectors, and these forces came to dominate local government in most municipalities of metropolitan Guatemala City. They elected the next two capital city mayors, Martín Prado (1949–1951) and Juan Lizarralde (1952–1954). Therefore, between 1949 and 1954 the national government was in the hands of left-leaning, middle-class reformers, but their opponents controlled the office of mayor in the capital city. During this period there was a change in capabilities and tactics on the part of the mayors of Guatemala City, as they had the strong support of business leaders and their interest groups. As Table 5.2 indicates, most of the actions that these mayors undertook were targeted toward the local infrastructure, and public services needed to foster investment in the capital city. However, during this period the mayors and the president belonged to different political parties, which constrained the range of actions the mayors were able to follow. As it is clear throughout Guatemala City’s history, every time the capital city mayor belongs to the opposition party, there have been consistent difficulties hindering local leadership from making considerable investments of capital in the city. Relations between the mayors of Guatemala City and more leftist municipal councils were contentious during the final five years of the sec-

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ond wave of democracy. Supporters of the 1944 revolution, although divided into warring factions, opposed the local executive at every turn. The city’s municipal charter failed to provide any legal mechanism to overcome this standoff, and it paralyzed local government in Guatemala City between 1949 and 1954. Indeed, the propensity for deadlock between the mayor and city council persisted throughout the subsequent reverse wave of political authoritarianism. Not until the 1980s, as part of the institutional changes associated with third wave democracy, did reform legislation pass that facilitated effective local governance in Guatemala’s capital. This legislation, which is currently in force, established procedures to ensure that the political party of the mayor of Guatemala City would enjoy a majority on the municipal council. Thus, this measure contributes to the strengthening of municipal power, as it allows municipal authorities to have a higher degree of governability and efficiency.

Reverse Wave Authoritarianism and the Capital City, 1954–1986 The armed forces controlled Guatemala during the thirty-two years that separated the overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz (in 1954) from the inauguration of President Vinicio Cerezo Guatemala (in 1986). The lone civilian president, Julio César Méndez Montenegro (1966–1970), held power only through a secret agreement that granted overriding authority to the military.5 Industrialization and agricultural diversification made substantial inroads after the 1954 counterrevolution, although Juan Arevalo’s government had supported both policies. Guatemala’s counterrevolution arrived a decade earlier than in the rest of Latin America; thus, the counterrevolutionary political economy responded to international developments that elsewhere in the region impacted on democratic political arenas. In addition, after Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas crushed the Guatemalan left, foreign capital flowed into the country, and much of this investment found its way into ISI projects. In other words, the Castillo government pushed economic policies that resembled those that Chapter 1 associates with second wave democracy. During most of this period of authoritarianism, therefore, ISI policies set the economic tone for Guatemalan development. Guatemala’s nondemocratic governments, however, unlike those of Presidents Arevalo and Arbenz, opposed social reform (Trudeau 1993). Between 1954 and 1986, Guatemala’s ruling coalition reversed many progressive policies implemented after the 1944 revolution. Most signifi-

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cant, the government of Colonel Castillo Armas undid land reform by returning most expropriated parcels to their original owners. Only 0.5 percent of the beneficiaries of Jacobo Arbenz’s land reform policies managed to hang on to their holdings (Adams 1970). The counterrevolution also repealed universal suffrage and canceled many rights that had been given to organized labor (Trudeau 1993). Finally, as another means of restoring the pre-revolutionary status quo, Colonel Castillo orchestrated a campaign of violence and repression designed to intimidate all those who had taken advantage of the participatory practices that were evolving between 1944 and 1954. The new culture of violence consumed its instigators in 1957, when President Carlos Castillo Armas fell before the bullets of assassins. His “elected” successor, General Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, continued the fallen leader’s autocratic style of governance and protected Guatemala’s traditional elites. The aging Ydigoras, a close associate of dictator Jorge Ubico, excluded junior military officers from his inner circle. The resulting split between junior and senior officers led to an unsuccessful coup against the Ydigoras government. The junior officers who mounted the coup attempt went into hiding, and in alliance with other disaffected groups they formed an armed movement that became a major source of political instability in Guatemala over the next thirty-six years. Repressive policies by the government in the 1960s sparked a massive guerrilla uprising in lowland Zacapa. This insurgency spread to Guatemala City in the 1970s and spilled over into the central highlands during the 1980s. The years between 1975 and 1985 were particularly bloody, with half of the casualties (most of them ethnic Mayas) occurring during those years (Leónard 1998). Overall, more then 40,000 people lost their lives in this protracted civil war.6 Perhaps the most brutal government of Guatemala’s authoritarian period was that of General Romero Lucas García (1978–1982). Under his direction the armed forces evacuated ethnic Mayas from their villages in the northern highlands around the guerrilla strongholds at Quiche and Huehuetenango. Adopting procedures developed by the U.S. military in Vietnam, Lucas García herded dislocated villagers into specially prepared camps called “strategic hamlets.” He also increased the number of death squads and targeted Maya leaders suspected of disloyalty to the government. When Lucas’s brutal policies intensified opposition to the central government military, commanders blocked his chosen successor from taking power and handed the presidency over to General Efraín Ríos Montt, a Protestant fundamentalist. Ríos Montt’s government blended pacification with Christian evangelism, but his treatment of the ethnic Mayas was

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only marginally more humane than the policies of his predecessor (Cockcroft 1996). Some positive developments occurred during General Ríos Montt’s eighteen-month government. Urban violence dropped dramatically, military corruption declined, and the national government gave representation to the ethnic Mayas in the council of state. Also, in a move that had important implications for local government, General Ríos Montt initiated a restructuring of Guatemala’s tax system. These improvements, however, failed to end rural violence, and human rights abuses in the countryside remained commonplace. Growing internal opposition to the seemingly endless insurgency, along with pressure from the Roman Catholic Church and the international community, led to the ouster of General Ríos Montt in August of 1983. His downfall initiated Guatemala’s transition to the third wave of democracy. Elections were held for a constituent assembly on 30 May 1985, and the assembly quickly drafted a new constitution. In the general elections that followed, the candidate of the Guatemalan Christian Democratic Party (Partido Democracia Cristiana Guatemalteca, DCG), Vinicio Cerezo, won the presidency with almost 70 percent of the vote. President Cerezo took office in January 1986. Guatemalan Municipalities Under the Generals The authoritarian administrators who governed Guatemala between 1954 and 1986 hoped to improve the capabilities of local government to implement their policies. They viewed efficient municipalities as a critical resource in their efforts to control the countryside. Thus, in 1957 President Carlos Castillo Armas enacted Guatemala’s first modern municipal code. His government also created INFOM, which provided local political institutions with technical support and financial assistance. During the decades of authoritarian military rule, training and technology from INFOM enabled municipal authorities to maintain some independence from central authorities in Guatemala City. Nevertheless, local governments enjoyed only limited financial autonomy, for they lacked authority to levy taxes without obtaining approval from the national authorities. Municipalities as a group did receive small amounts of revenue from export and domestic taxes beginning in 1956. Over the next several years they were allowed to tax gasoline, beer, liquor, and coffee. INFOM used these resources, and loans from the United States Agency for International Development and the Inter-American Development Bank, to provide credit for targeted municipal governments. Most of this funding went to develop water distribution networks, but the emphasis was on repairing

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and expanding existing systems rather than on building new ones (Nickson 1995). Advocates of decentralization made their influence felt in the selectively implemented constitution of 1965. This document provided for the election of mayors, legal prosecutors (síndicos), and city councilmen to two-year terms without the option of immediate re-election. In Guatemala City, however, municipal officials received three-year terms. Also, in certain minor matters, mayors could act as judges and were empowered to administer local services and organize a municipal police force.7 Although most legal provisions apply equally to all municipalities, not all have the same capabilities and institutional strength. By 1985, while urban municipalities were able to coordinate the provision of basic public services, rural areas were serviced only by the national government because the local government does not have the institutional strength that will allow for them to offer such services (Burgos 1998). Although the governments of the generals appeared to favor municipal decentralization and autonomy, in 1982 the process suffered a major setback. After almost forty years of popularly electing mayors, the government of General Ríos Montt suspended all elected municipal executives, replacing them with local administrators chosen by him. This attack on the traditional municipal power structure angered local elites and contributed to General Ríos Montt’s downfall. Even though municipal government institutions were made somewhat more efficient during Ríos Montt’s administration, most basic problems remained unresolved. According to Terry McIntosh (1981), these included local officials’ low level of training, the passive attitude of the citizenry, a weak tax base, a high degree of state centralization, and the bloated size and inefficiency of the national bureaucracy. These institutional legacies dated back to colonial times, and Guatemalan municipalities had yet to overcome them on the eve of the third wave of democratization, a process that began in 1986. To summarize, the second wave of reverse authoritarian governments proved surprisingly tolerant of municipal autonomy. The armed forces allowed local officials to carry out their traditional functions with a minimum of interference. More or less open elections were held for the position of mayor in all municipios, except during the short-lived Ríos Montt government. Otherwise there appears to have been little intervention into municipal affairs. Even in Guatemala City, only one mayor between 1954 and 1985 was a former military officer, Abundio Maldonado, and there is no evidence that during his administration the military high command exercised special influence on policymaking.

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Guatemala City and Its Mayors During Authoritarianism The population of Guatemala City, as shown in Table 5.1, tripled to over 700,000 between 1950 and 1973. In the mid-1970s, Guatemalan city planners described their capital as “dispersed, chaotic, anti-functional, strangled, disorderly and in constant growth.”8 In response to this disorder, they assembled a metropolitan master plan to guide future urbanization and manage the major problems that they had identified. This plan established patterns of land use for shaping the urban built environment; it also emphasized cost-effective networks of roads, bus lines, and other public services. Guatemala City’s urban planners also drafted model laws and regulations that the municipal council could use to guide the structuring of private subdivisions. Finally, echoing the claims made universally by city planning professionals, Guatemala City’s planners promised that adherence to their vision would guarantee a harmonic and functioning city for decades to come (Wyld, n.d.). The military regime never created a single institution whose primary responsibility was to oversee and supervise Guatemala City. Military intelligence performed the policing and security functions, though traffic control remained a local responsibility. When the national government acted jointly with the municipal bureaucracies, initiatives were coordinated through the Ministry of Government (similar to the Ministry of the Interior in other Latin American countries). The administration of President Carlos Araña Osorio used the minister of government to constrain Guatemala City’s politically liberal mayor, Manuel Colom Argueta (1970–1974) when he attempted to use patronage to build a political following. Two years later, President Kjell Laugerud García took effective control of the capital for six months in the aftermath of major earthquake damage to the city. At that time no municipal bureaucracy was capable of restoring Guatemala City’s crippled physical infrastructure. Thus, although Guatemala City had been the object of decentralization measures for a while, this was not enough to create strong municipal institutions capable of restoring the capital when needed. Ten individuals served as mayor of Guatemala City during the nation’s reverse wave of authoritarian governments, and all but one owed his position to popular election. This was also true of the mayors in metropolitan Guatemala City’s other municipalities. However, the mayors in metropolitan Guatemala City during this period were only minimally responsive to voters. They supported programs advanced by military presidents to maintain order, and they limited their initiatives to improving

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Table 5.3 Guatemala City Mayors, 1956–1986

Mayor, Term

Political Support

Main Focus During His Administration

Julio Obiols Gómez, 1956–1959 Luis Galich Lopez, 1959–1962 Francisco Montenegro Sierra, 1963–1965 Julio Maza Castellanos, 1965–1966 Ramiro Ponce Monroy, 1966–1970 Manuel Colom Argueta, 1970–1974

Nonpartisan citizens groups

Improvement of water system

Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario, PR) Nonpartisan citizens groups

Water supply, bus terminal, and market Parking meters and auxiliary mayors Financial reform

Leonel Ponciano León, 1974–1978 Abundio Maldonado Gularte, 1978–1982 José Ángel Lee Duarte, 1982–1985 Jorge Saravia, 1985–1986

Nonpartisan citizens groups Nonpartisan citizens groups A political group that became the Revolutionary United Front (Frente Unido Revolucionario, FUR) Nonpartisan citizens groups Nonpartisan citizens groups Supported by the national government Nonpartisan citizens groups

Water supply and municipal association Social programs and urban planning

Earthquake reconstruction Reconstruction of Central Market Underground parking and pedestrian overpasses Interim mayor

public services. Table 5.3 reveals that between 1956 and 1986, expanding the water system and managing urban growth were common concerns of Guatemala City’s mayors. Institutionally, this was a dead period for the city of Guatemala and the country at large.

The Third Wave of Democracy, 1986 to the Present The constitution of 1985 set the stage for the return of democracy to Guatemala and for the election of President Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo (1986–1991), a Christian Democrat. The regularization of democratic procedures suffered a setback when Cerezo’s successor, President Jorge Serrano, staged an auto coup and attempted to suspend the constitution. National outrage and international pressure, especially from the United States, thwarted Serrano’s attempt to impose dictatorship. President Serrano went into exile, and the Congress passed the presidency to Ramiro de

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León Carpio. León Carpio, who possessed a distinguished record as Guatemala’s civil rights ombudsman, served out the remainder of Serrano’s presidential term. Modernizing Guatemala’s economy is one of the greatest challenges of the nation’s third wave democrats. During President Cerezo’s administration, Guatemala’s impoverished and underdeveloped economy stagnated. Eighty-seven percent of the population lived in poverty, illiteracy was the norm outside of the capital, and the social unrest that kept Guatemala in turmoil for four decades continued to simmer just below the surface. In addition, the weak tax base limited the government’s extractive capabilities, and national government revenues remained heavily dependent on the global market for agricultural products, especially coffee and bananas (Trudeau 1993). The extractive capability of Guatemala’s democratic political institutions today still remains underdeveloped. Citizens in general resist paying taxes, behavior that is reinforced by perceptions that the tax collection bureaucracy is corrupt. Businessmen and landowners have thwarted all efforts to assess their enterprises for the purpose of tax collection, and the middle and lower classes have become quite adept at hiding their income from the government. Indeed, the most important source of national government revenue in the 1990s was the value added tax (VAT) that had been imposed during the government of General Ríos Montt. Ríos Montt’s original proposal had been for a 10 percent VAT on all commercial transactions. Opposition from traditional elites forced a reduction to 7 percent, where it has remained. President Cerezo took office during an upward sweep of economic neoliberalism. He attempted to stimulate economic growth by increasing exports, imposing new taxes, and “unchaining” market forces through privatization. Of course export-oriented policies had been tried earlier, but this time Cerezo focused on expanding nontraditional exports and on creating opportunities for domestic facilities that assembled labor-intensive products. These activities were seen as speeding Guatemala’s integration into the global market. Benefits from these policies came slowly, and economic growth during the first half of Cerezo’s government proved disappointing. Thus, in 1989 the Cerezo government introduced a revised plan, Guatemala 2000, one that returned to earlier trade policies. Guatemala 2000 linked national economic growth to increasing traditional exports— a perspective that shaped economic policymaking for the remainder of Cerezo’s government. But this reliance on income from the sale of agricultural products, like the plan that stressed nontraditional exports, produced mixed results. On a positive note, gross national product increased

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4 percent in 1989. Construction, electricity generation, and transportation were the most dynamic sectors, followed by agriculture, commerce, and industry. On the other hand, coffee and banana prices dropped, and results from the maquila programs—factories that concentrated on products that were labor intensive, such as assembling garments—failed to live up to expectations. In other words, Guatemala’s export-dependent economy appeared weak and vulnerable, regardless of the policies that government adopted (Trudeau 1993). President Cerezo experienced greater success in the political arena, where he gave high priority to ending political violence and establishing the rule of law. He secured agreements from all political parties to craft several institutions to safeguard humans rights, both in the Maya and Ladino communities. The most important innovation for this purpose was the office of ombudsman, an institution that third wave democrats linked directly to a standing committee of the national Congress. Guatemala’s military establishment supported, at least in public, the experiment with third wave democracy. But below the surface, important pockets of disloyal opposition persisted. Renegade officers mounted two unsuccessful coups against President Cerezo between 1987 and 1991. Still, after the strange experience with General Ríos Montt and his Protestant supporters, most military leaders wanted a government that would give its undivided attention to the task of defeating the rural insurgency. The army high command concluded that reliance on force alone to govern was becoming a recipe for political and possibly institutional disaster. In any case, during the Cerezo presidency, military commanders operated as feudal lords over the territories that they administered, most of which were located in regions where ethnic Maya predominated; in these fiefdoms the likelihood of interference by civilian authorities was minimal (Leonard 1998). Even though the Cerezo government failed to reach its announced goal of raising the standard of living for the majority of Guatemalans, it did preside over the country’s first transition in more than forty years from one democratically elected civilian government to another. The new president, Jorge Antonio Serrano (1991–1993), a rightist businessman, campaigned by boasting of his ties to General Ríos Montt. His presidency almost derailed Guatemala’s fledgling democracy when Serrano attempted to dissolve Congress and suspend the constitution after relations between the national executive and legislative powers reached an impasse. The military supported Serrano initially, but in the wake of international pressure (as discussed earlier) the officer corps removed him from office and sent him into exile. The new president, Ramiro De León Carpio, com-

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pleted Serrano’s presidential term. His most notable accomplishment was to insert the United Nations into Guatemala’s seemingly interminable civil war and to negotiate protocols facilitating the resettlement of displaced persons and indigenous rights (USDS/BN March 1998). These protocols helped to calm the countryside, but incidents of violence remained commonplace, especially in regions that were predominantly Maya. In November of 1995, national elections were held for president, Congress, and municipal officers. Álvaro Arzu, an independent who had been mayor of Guatemala City (1986–1990), won the presidential runoff election in 1996. He defeated the candidate backed by General Ríos Montt, Alfonso Portillo of the Guatemalan Republican Front (Frente Republicano Guatemalteco, or FRG), by just over 2 percent of the vote. This election proved to be a watershed for Guatemala; it was the first time since the 1954 revolution that the traditional elite allowed a political party of the left, the New Guatemala Democratic Front (Fuerza Democrática de la Nueva Guatemala, or FDNG) to compete for the presidency. The FDNG presidential candidate won almost 8 percent of the vote, and the party elected six deputies to Congress. Presidential elections proceeded smoothly in November 1999, and this time Alfonso Portillo was successful. His inauguration as president in 2000 suggests that in Guatemala third wave democracy may be becoming the norm. Municipal Development Guatemala’s third wave democrats have attempted to give a larger role to the municipalities by creating an elaborate system of regional and local development committees. Executive Decree No. 52-87 established an especially important cluster of new local political organizations called the Municipal Urban and Rural Development Council (Consejo Municipal de Desarrollo Urbano y Rural). This consejo was intended to coordinate public sector programs among groupings of municipalities at the regional, departmental, municipal, and submunicipal levels. The Consejo Municipal de Desarrollo Urbano y Rural has not lived up to expectations, and the evidence suggests that the key problem lies with the original institutional design. The decree that created the consejos stipulated that its membership would be composed of the same individuals who had won election to the municipal councils in each of the participating municipalities. The central government, however, allocated no funds directly to the development councils; rather, these councils had to depend on resources distributed by the local offices of national ministries. These local offices, however, tended to condition funding for projects on the

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allocation of counterpart monies from municipal budgets. In other words, meaningful authority to allocate resources remained in Guatemala City, exercised through INFOM. The newly created Municipal Urban and Rural Development Council merely “deconcentrated” central government administration while reinforcing traditional limitations on the autonomy of subnational political institutions. Not surprisingly, the municipal councilmen who sat on the Consejo Municipal de Desarrollo Urbano y Rural resisted, and few of INFOM’s plans for the councils were ever implemented (Nickson 1995). One of the strongest constraints on increasing the capabilities of Guatemala’s municipal institutions is related to the central government’s limitation on the municipality’s ability to levy taxes. The inadequate funds that municipal governments had at their disposal during both the second wave of democracy and the subsequent authoritarian period reflected the narrow and poor tax bases available to local government and the central government’s preference for using INFOM for subnational development. The 1985 constitution increased the resources available to the municipalities by providing mandated revenue sharing with regional and municipal governments (aporte constitucional). This “shared” revenue consisted of earmarked funds that were to be used for local public works. Originally set at 8 percent of the national budget, the aporte constitucional was raised in 1996 to 10 percent (Article 257, 1995 constitution). Still, the national legislature retained exclusive power to approve all municipal taxes. Yet revenues distributed through the aporte constitucional infused a new dynamism into local political elites, as did President Cerezo’s decision to institutionalize the transfer to municipal budgets of a designated share of the VAT and the property tax. On the one hand, this agreement gave mayors and municipal councils unprecedented influence. On the other hand, the collection of property taxes for subsequent transfer to local government ran into local opposition. Guatemala’s long history of municipal corruption makes citizens skeptical of government in general, and they remain resistant to paying taxes of any kind. Some institutional measures to strengthen municipal authority have been guided by the ANAM, founded in 1969. At first the ANAM operated as a mechanism through which the president could control the municipalities. However, as the third wave of democracy took shape, the ANAM began to represent local interests before the central government. The ANAM is currently active in defending the right of municipal government to invest the revenue-sharing funds as the mayors and councils see fit (Nickson 1995).

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The relationship between democratic Guatemala’s national government and the municipalities, particularly in regard to the municipality of Guatemala City, is structured to facilitate deconcentration but not decentralization.9 Even though the 1988 municipal code gave the mayor and the council responsibility for coordinating public sector activities, local political institutions have minimal authority to direct public sector activity inside the municipality. Failure to enumerate the specific responsibilities of municipal institutions provided a loophole that has enabled the central government to have its way over a broad range of activities. Also, contrary to the expectations of third wave democrats, cooperation between municipalities has not increased. For mayors and city councils, the problemsolving horizon seldom extends beyond the boundaries of their own municipality. The role of local government is limited in practice to such traditional functions as water supply, local market regulation, solid waste disposal, transportation, street paving, electrification, and low budget social programs. Thus, Guatemalan municipalities have not overcome their traditional dependence on the central government for direction. Even in the face of efforts by recent democratic governments to decentralize, national ministries have battled tenaciously to preserve their influence at the local level, especially in the nation’s capital. In Guatemala City, when the content of policy decision in any municipality matters to the president, the national government acts with little regard to input from citizens or from the institutions of local government. Advocates of decentralization have introduced legislation into the Congress that would grant all municipal governments greater authority to assess property and that would reform the 1988 municipal code so as to reduce the central government’s influence on local resource allocation. This legislation awaits action by the government of President Alfonso Portillo. Guatemala City Under Third Wave Democracy The democratic reformers who gained control of Guatemala in 1985 wanted a more efficient and responsive local government in Guatemala City. They attempted to overcome the long history of stalemate between the mayor and the city council by mandating (in the 1985 constitution) that the political party of the mayor be given an automatic majority in the municipal council.10 This reform not only strengthened the mayor’s influence over the institutions of local government, but it also increased the importance of relations between the mayor and the political parties.

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Henceforth, Guatemala City mayors would devote considerable attention to building local political organizations in the capital and its adjacent municipalities. In other words, third wave democrats envisioned a more autonomous and activist local executive for the national capital. Guatemala’s third wave democrats feared for the security of their fledgling democracy and viewed the potential loss of control over the national capital as a major concern. Thus, they initially kept authority for most forms of Guatemala City policing activities with the president. Modifications were introduced after 1995, when the new national constitution (Article 259) gave control over the traffic police to the mayor. This newly “municipalized” police force also received authority to arrest criminals apprehended during the commission of a crime and to collect fines from citizens who illegally parked their vehicles or who did not wear safety belts. The revenues from these fines went directly into the Guatemala City municipal budget (Prensa Libre, 28 December 1999). However, this is not a settled issue. Recent developments indicate that there is an attempt to withdraw this function from the capital city. The governor of the state of Guatemala, who is appointed by the president, is arguing that the authority to fine citizens resides on the state and not on the city. The mayor of Guatemala is seeking to keep this power mainly because of the resources it provides to the city finances. Guatemala City mayors since 1986 have become notably more proactive. Mayor Álvaro Arzu (1986–1990) developed the country’s first capital city based political machine and institutionalized it as the National Advancement Party (Partido por el Adelantamiento Nacional, PAN). The PAN grew stronger during the 1990s, and in 1996 Álvaro Arzu won the presidency. During his presidential term Álvaro Arzu nourished the PAN infrastructure, enabling it to remain the dominant political force in metropolitan Guatemala City. Local government in Guatemala City, as suggested earlier, was in the hands of the president’s political opponents for long periods after 1944 (see Table 5.4). During these years presidents bypassed mayors and national ministries invested directly in selected capital city development projects. In contrast, between 1996 and 2000, the mayor of Guatemala City and the president of Guatemala both came from the same party for the first time since 1945–1948. During these years the national government made massive investments in the capital but channeled resources through local political institutions. President Arzu supported municipal projects like street cleaning, painting curbs, street side garden areas, and the construction of underpasses, and he relied on the mayor’s office to implement them.

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Table 5.4 Partisan Power Sharing Between Guatemala’s National and Capital City Officials, 1945–2004

Period 1945–1948 1949–1951 1952–1954 1954–1986 1986–1990 1991–1993 1993–1996 1996–2000 2000–2004

Unified Government: President and Mayor of Same Party

Divided Government: President and Mayor of Different Parties

X

N/A

X X N/A X X X

X X

Note: N/A = Authoritarian government was in place for that period. Mayors were chosen by popular election.

The national government’s favorable treatment of the PAN-controlled municipal government in Guatemala City between 1996 and 2000 paid electoral dividends for the party. Its candidate for mayor of Guatemala City in 2000, Fritz Garcia-Gallont, won a decisive victory despite success in the presidential balloting by Alfonso Portillo and his rightist FRG. President Portillo, a long-time opponent of Álvaro Arzu, is beginning to allocate resources inside of Guatemala City in ways designed to weaken the PAN’s grip on the capital. Three mayors have presided over Guatemala City since the third wave of democratization swept over Guatemala in 1985. And although each has promised greater responsiveness and improved public services (see Table 5.5), their records in attaining these goals are mixed. Most recently, in the 1999 mayoral election campaign, Fritz García-Gallont, the victorious candidate, proclaimed his intention to improve such critical public services as policing, water availability, public transportation, and sewage collection. The continuing inadequacy of these services in the city’s squatter settlements is a problem with the potential to destabilize the political system, as it mocks promises made in 1985 by democrats that a better life for all was possible and that representative government would lead to improvements in the quality of life. Residents of Guatemala City view their elected mayors as one of the most important political figures with power to make a difference in their lives. The Guatemala City press echoes these sentiments. In a retrospective that analyzed post-1985 developments in the capital, Prensa Libre (29 August 1998) gave high marks to former mayor Oscar

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Table 5.5 Guatemala City Mayors, 1986–2004

Mayor, Term

Political Support

Álvaro Arzu, 1986–1990

PAN

Álvaro Heredia, 1990 Oscar Berger Perdomo, 1991– 1999

PAN

Fritz Garcia-Gallont, 2000–2004

PAN

Main Focus During His Administration Administrative reform Overpasses and underpasses on the streets Interim mayor Improved public services and stoplights Intercity road development

Berger for his efforts to improve city streets and develop parks. He was also praised for reducing waiting time in lines to obtain the birth certificates required for elementary school attendance. When all this is said and done, however, the truly significant improvements in Guatemala City’s public services and physical infrastructure depend on the willingness of the national government to allocate resources. Capital city mayors who fight with presidents run the risk of accomplishing little and being marginalized. Local Executive Power and Metropolitan Guatemala City The fastest developing areas of the Guatemala City region are the municipalities that surround the city’s traditional core. The Metropolitan Area of Guatemala City, in addition to the historic municipio of Guatemala (La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción), encompasses the municipios of Mixco, Villa Nueva, Chinautla, Villa Canales, and four smaller ones (see Figure 5.1). In 1956 national legislation envisioned the creation of a political entity that would coordinate local government throughout metropolitan Guatemala City, and the constitutions of 1965, 1985, and 1995 incorporated this goal. Congress, however, never passed the necessary implementing legislation. In the early 1970s, Mayor Colom Argueta attempted to negotiate agreements among the metropolitan-area municipalities that would regulate street construction, the design of new public works, and the standards for residential subdivisions. He had also lobbied Congress to approve a mechanism for enforcing a unified zoning code throughout the metropolitan area. This evoked a legal challenge from the surrounding municipalities, led by the mayor of Mixco, metropolitan Guatemala City’s

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fastest growing and most affluent suburb. The courts agreed with the suburban municipalities’ assertion of their autonomy in the face Colom Argueta’s efforts to establish metropolitan-area standards. The closest that Guatemala City came to having a metropolitan-area government was in 1981. At that time, President Lucas García introduced legislation that would have created a central district responsible for coordinating public services and metropolitan-area planning. Opposition from suburban residents and municipalities was so intense that President Lucas, in a departure from his authoritarian style of governing, withdrew the legislation. Again, the mayor of Mixco spearheaded the opposition.11 In other words, like their counterparts in other Latin American capital cities, the affluent of Guatemala City have retreated into protective enclaves and have resisted incorporation into metropolitan-area government. Partisan politics has played a significant role in facilitating (and blocking) cooperation between the municipalities of metropolitan Guatemala City since the transition to democracy. In the late 1990s, the mayors of Guatemala City and Mixco both came from the PAN political party, and cooperation between the two municipalities to plan and develop physical infrastructure was unprecedented. The mayors set in place programs that allowed the municipal public works bureaucracies of their respective municipalities to share equipment and technical information. Their efforts led to unprecedented intermunicipal cooperation in metropolitan Guatemala City to increase the efficient delivery of a broad range of public services, such as fire fighting and garbage collection. However, these programs appear to be linked to ad hoc decisions by the two mayors that are strongly influenced by partisan politics. Institutionalization remains an unrealized goal.

Conclusions Guatemala is the quintessential city-state, and from this perspective the country and its capital are distinct from the others that this volume examines (Ebel 1996). The Guatemalan national elite’s relative homogeneity, a trait stemming largely from the country’s small size, has over time given rise to an intimate style of intra-elite policymaking. We found little evidence for the existence of competitive elite groupings (one focused on the metropolitan region and the other oriented toward the nation in general), a source of municipal political conflict discussed in this volume’s introductory chapter. Not only does all politically meaningful dialogue take place in the capital among a relatively tight-knit group of leaders, but most

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of the country’s economic growth and modernization occurs in metropolitan Guatemala City. The Ladino elites view the development of Guatemala City as the development of Guatemala. The one possible exception involves the landed elites, who export coffee and bananas. This small group resides for the most part in Guatemala City, where they lobby the national government for rulings that increase their capacity to export. Most landed Guatemala elites also have an economic stake in activities located in the capital region. The relationship between the course of ISI and the process of decentralization also appears distinct from what was discussed in the introductory chapter. ISI did not become a development strategy of the Guatemalan government until the 1960s, but then it remained in vogue throughout the remainder of the authoritarian period. Indeed, ISI only fell out of favor in the 1980s, when Guatemala was undergoing its transition to democracy. Guatemala’s well-documented tradition of national government dominance over even the minuscule details of political life dates from colonial times. Even today, the local executive in Guatemala City exercises authority only over restricted municipal functions such as water supply, street repair, fire fighting, and markets. The first meaningful decentralization experiments came during the authoritarian political regime, when ISI was official government policy. More recent efforts to decentralize, including the legislation that established revenue sharing, occurred when elected governments were shifting pragmatically between strategies centered on ISI and on free markets and when the overriding goal was to stimulate economic development by any means possible. In other words, the data from Guatemala City suggest that the replacement of ISI by a willingness to experiment with market capitalism may be irrelevant to the course of political decentralization. Turning to the urban built environment, we find little indication that in Guatemala elected capital city mayors have had greater influence on city shaping than appointed mayors. Guatemala’s status as a city-state makes Guatemala City the only truly national site and the physical location where the president can showcase his accomplishments to everyone who counts. This characteristic has remained constant between 1944 and 2000. It was illustrated by President Castillo Armas’s construction of Liberation Boulevard through central Guatemala City, a signature project that commemorated his overthrow of President Jacabo Arbenz. In contrast, the only addition to Guatemala City’s cityscape that can be identified with an appointed mayor is the rather mundane underground parking

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garage (constructed underneath the city’s Central Park) that Ingeniero José Ángel Lee Duarte built when he served as General Ríos Montt’s appointed mayor. Ambitious elected mayors have had their initiatives stymied when they attempted to build major public works that would leave their personal imprint on Guatemala City. Even the most capable mayors, such as Colom Argueta and Oscar Berger Perdomo, managed to construct only a few new streets, renovate the system of neighborhood open spaces, or improve the water system. Each of these accomplishments, while laudable and important, lacks the drama of signature projects that symbolize major changes and “high” national values. All of Guatemala City’s signature projects, whether they appeared during the term of an appointed or elected mayor, have been portrayed as presidential initiatives. Between 1944 and the 1970s, presidential signature projects proclaimed a commitment to the good life and modernization, as with the national stadium, Liberation Avenue, and the Civic Center. Subsequently, presidents took credit for commercial developments (shopping malls and the increased availability of consumer goods) and for attracting foreign capital that built high-rise towers that transformed the Guatemala City skyline. Such projects, as discussed, symbolize the good life and success in imitating more developed Western nations. As for reluctance to empower elected mayors to police the capitals, Guatemala’s elected mayors, even during normal times, have limited policing powers in comparison with those exercised over other public services. Presidents retain all critical policing powers in the capital during times of political instability and crisis. Indeed, Guatemala’s central authorities, especially civilian presidents, have strengthened the police as an institution, at least in part as an effort to create a countervailing power to the armed forces. Only since 1993 has the mayor of Guatemala City gained control over the municipal traffic police. The tourist police have also become a local responsibility, although their most important function is the protection of foreign visitors. The traffic and tourist police forces have a secondary responsibility to assist the national government in maintaining order and controlling Guatemala City. When this function comes into play, these institutions tend to assume a subordinate posture to the presidentially controlled security forces. One central theme of this volume rests on the distinction between a capital city cluster of elites that focuses on the metropolitan area, and a distinctive group of leaders that orients on the nation as a whole. This general assertion does not fit the Guatemalan case. In addition, there were so few appointed mayors of Guatemala City between 1944 and 2000 that any

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generalization about their relationship with the president, in contrast to that between elected mayors and the president, would be meaningless. Finally, Guatemala City’s elected mayors have interacted consistently through political parties when dealing with presidents, a strategy not given much attention in Chapter 1. If the elected mayor and president belong to the same political party, they tend to cooperate in strengthening their party inside Guatemala City. Coordination orchestrated by the party’s national leaders plays an important role in this context. If the mayor and the president belong to opposing political parties, as discussed, the two compete in an ad hoc courting of capital city voters, for often competing purposes. The Guatemalan City experience fails to support the contention that national elites will seek to constrain the influence of elected capital city mayors by strengthening the capability of the municipal council to act independently of the local executive. Indeed, just the opposite occurred when third wave democratic reformers redesigned Guatemala’s municipal political institutions. They linked the partisan composition of the municipal council to the party affiliation of the mayor, ensuring that the mayor’s political party always controlled the municipal council. Here the dominant consideration was to increase the efficiency of Guatemala City’s municipal government and preventing stalemated policymaking. Four decades of experience with elected mayors failed to convince third wave democrats that the inclination of a capital city mayor to challenge the president was a major political problem. They were confident that the overwhelming difference in the financial resources available to the president and the capital city mayor would ensure the dominance of the president when truly important issues came into play. Changes in the capabilities of interest groups could influence capital city politics as national elites tend to oppose the creation of metropolitan area government as a tactic to ensure presidential domination over the capital city mayor. In other words, the president would prefer to deal with four or five mayors of capital city area municipalities, rather than a single metropolitan area local executive. In the case of Guatemala City, the matter demands further investigation. Clearly, opposition to the creation of a metropolitan-area government for Guatemala City crystallized as legal challenges from the mayors of the surrounding municipalities, especially Mixco. But to what extent these mayors were encouraged and supported in their opposition by the central government and to what extent that opposition reflected spontaneous demands made by municipal residents remain unaddressed questions. There is much support for the latter position. Mixco was more affluent than the municipality of Guatemala City, and many middle- and upper-class residents had moved from the latter to

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the former with the intention of locating in a protected enclave where they would be insulated from pressing urban problems. Chapter 1 portrays capital city residents as possessing a sense of entitlement from the national government and as predisposed to punish elected local officials who raise municipal taxes. Our study of Guatemala City indicates that residents possess a sense of special entitlement, although this also derives from the overwhelming predominance of Ladinos in the capital city. In contrast, as we have seen, Amerindian Mayas dominate in the countryside. This spatial separation of the country’s two pivotal ethnic groups leads capital city residents to look to the national executive, always in the hands of Ladinos, for funding to preserve and expand their Europeanized lifestyle. Guatemala City’s Ladinos view paying separate municipal taxes as being charged twice for the same goods and services. In addition, most Guatemala City residents believe that they already are subsidizing roads, water systems, electricity distribution, and other public services throughout the interior. Municipal politics in Guatemala City have come under the domination of a local machine since 1986, even though most resources allocated inside the city continued to be at the discretion of the president of the republic (Guatemala City currently receives 10 percent of the total national budget). The architect of this urban political machine, to repeat, is former Mayor Álvaro Arzu (1986–1990). Álvaro Arzu’s success rested on skillful maneuvering within the post-1985 political party power balance and on his control over the PAN political party. Between 1996 and 2000, when the PAN controlled both the national presidency and the Guatemala City municipal government, President Álvaro Arzu built up an unequaled network of patronage inside the capital. How this political machine will fare, especially now that one of Álvaro Arzu’s strongest political competitors, Alfonso Portillo, has gained the presidency, remains to be seen. In summary, between 1944 and 2000 the mayors of Guatemala City played second fiddle to the president of the republic in the symphony of resource allocation. Just below the surface the military’s senior officer corps continues to operate an unmatched intelligence network. One important goal of this network is to ensure that capital city politics do not threaten national political stability. The most important activities of Guatemala City’s mayors under third wave democracy, even given their increased powers, have been to improve traditional municipal public services: water, electricity, public markets, slaughterhouses, and street repair. The president and the military dominate the most critical dimensions of public sector resource allocation to Guatemala City—education, health,

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maintenance of order, and social services. There is little likelihood that this will change in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Notes 1. For a history of the city, see Lutz 1982; for a collection of impressions of the city over the centuries, see Jickling 1987. 2. The growth of the city is documented and analyzed in Gellert 1995. The most recent report by the municipality of Guatemala City also chronicles the development of the city as well as current activities of the municipal government (Municipalidad de Guatemala 1996). 3. For a carefully researched, detailed history of the October revolution and its aftermath, see Gleijeses 1991, esp. chap. 2. 4. Trudeau (1993, 23) argues that even though international pressures were an important factor for the counterrevolution, it is the domestic dynamics that made it successful. 5. Francisco Villagran Kramer (1994), a former vice president and active political analyst, spells out these secret agreements by which the military maintained tight control over the political system. 6. See the details reported in the press in April 1998 as a result of the archbishop’s commission to uncover the truth of events during the thirty-five-year war ending with the signing of the peace accords in December 1996. 7. For more information on Guatemala’s political system during 1966, see the Institute for the Comparative Study of Political Systems (1966). 8. Translation provided by the authors. The original text (Wyld n.d.) reads: “La ciudad actual: dispersa caótica antifuncional, estrangulada, desordenada y en pleno crecimiento.” 9. Deconcentration indicates a delegation of functions from the national government to the local or state level. Decentralization entails a transfer of functions, not a mere delegation of them. 10. The municipal council has thirteen members. According to the 1999 electoral results, eight belong to the PAN Party of the new mayor, and four belong to the FRG Party, which won the national elections. One belongs to a local party, Guardianes del Vecindario (Neighborhood Guardians), which has helped victims of kidnappings. All members were elected to four year terms and are elected indirectly through the vote for mayor. The parties divide the seats on the council proportionally to their share of the total vote for mayor. 11. For a discussion of the largely unsuccessful efforts to strengthen metropolitan area government, see “Gestión Metropolitana” in Gellert 1995.

6 Havana: The Dynamics of Local Executive Power Joseph L. Scarpaci

Cuba steadfastly remains a square peg that does not fit into the round holes of political theory. In 1898, it ended its status as the last Spanish colony in the Americas but sixty years later launched a revolution to fortify its fledgling sovereignty. After 1959, the Cuban leadership hitched its economic and political fortunes to the Soviet Union and the Council of Mutual and Economic Assistance, only to see that bloc crash and burn in 1989. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the capital city of Havana has reflected the vicissitudes of these global changes. Its system of government, organization of public and private spaces, and forays into and out of the global economy are well etched into the city’s built environment. This chapter traces the main features of Havana’s governance system. I give special attention to the post-1989 era—Cuba’s so-called Special Period in a Time of Peace—when Soviet subsidies came to a grinding halt, ending the favorable terms of trade, massive economic and technical aid, and the deepening of the welfare state. I argue that limited aspects of Samuel Huntington’s “third wave of democracy” apply to the Havana case. Local executive power remains highly contingent on decisions made at the National Assembly and, in turn, by the Cuban Communist Party. At the same time, small petite bourgeoisie workers (cuentapropistas) and black-market hustlers (jineteros) in the Cuban capital indirectly challenge the state system of control and resource allocation. Havana’s governance, therefore, remains anachronistic in the comparative urban politics literature. Alongside a powerful state company that focuses on historic preservation, habaneros recognize that agents of change reside outside the tra163

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ditional socialist institutions. Instead, they emanate from small entrepreneurs working both in pesos and dollars, as well as the booming tourist trade. In conditions such as these, the traditional system of metropolitan governance with a mayor and a town council hold little import in the lives of habaneros. This chapter begins with a brief review of Havana’s colonial legacy in the Spanish empire. Independence from Spain in 1898 merely transferred economic power from Madrid to Washington, D.C., or more precisely, to New York City’s Wall Street. While it would be far too simplistic to claim that Havana until 1958 reflected more of a neocolonial status than a republican era of full sovereignty, it was inextricably tied to U.S. markets, investments, and segments of organized crime. In response, the post-1960 socialist capital became a symbol of not only anti-capitalism but also, ironically, embodied Fidel Castro’s anti-urban bias in city and regional planning. Except for a hastily improvised public-housing campaign in the early 1960s and the reallocation of bourgeois housing stock into worker and student guest housing, for three long decades Havana was largely ignored. The socialist leadership favored, instead, provincial capitals, secondary towns, and rural hamlets. It was only after the 1989 demise of Moscow’s aid and a need to tap into international tourism that investment in Havana’s tired landscape accelerated. I argue that the locus of empowered individual and household decisionmaking rests not in state-sanctioned grassroots organizations or the political apparatus but in myriad economic transitions—both legal and otherwise—that take place daily. My argument is that the seeds of political change and possible waves of democracy rest more in the demonstration effect generated by a tiny market (and a huge black market) and the presence of nearly 2 million tourists annually than in the extant system of governance.

Havana’s Colonial Legacy San Cristóbal de La Habana, established in 1516, was the fifth of seven original military outposts founded by conquistador and later governor Diego de Velázquez de Cuéllar. Three years later, the crown ended Havana’s short-lived history as a settlement on the southern coast (Caribbean Sea) of the island and moved it to a new site with a deeper port on the north shore (Florida Straits). Yet eastern Cuba and the towns of Bayamo, Baracoa, and Santiago held on to the political and economic might of the island throughout most of the sixteenth century. It was not

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until the outpouring of riches from Mexico’s central highlands that Havana would profit as a port of entry between the New World and Seville. In 1553, an institution of the Spanish colonial government, the Audiencia de Santo Domingo, sanctioned the transfer of the governor of Cuba’s office from Santiago in the east of the island to Havana in the west. Santo Domingo had also lost political influence as the Spanish empire gained its wealth from the former Aztec and Inca empires. Havana came to dominate maritime routes and would serve as a “trampoline” of riches streaming east from Andean South America (via Cartagena, Colombia, and Nombre de Dios, Panama) as well as gold and silver making their way from the Mexican port of Veracruz. Completion of a major aqueduct in 1592, plus Havana’s importance to maritime shipping, led Philip II to give Havana the title of “city.” The city’s coat of arms—the official symbol that Spain had legitimized the settlement as a city—portrays a key and three land areas. The key represents Havana’s facility for “unlocking” seas and lands in continental America, the Caribbean, and the Old World (Arrate 1762). Havana became Mexico’s most important port, and Mexico provided a permanent line of credit to the island that served Cuba well when it called for material for military or naval defense (Santovenia 1943). Despite Havana’s strategic economic and military importance, by 1774 only 60 adult Spanish males lived there compared to 500 men residing in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), 200 in San Juan (Puerto Rico), and 80 each in Baracoa and Bayamo (Cuba) (García-Saiz 1990). Havana’s economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries depended on administrative functions, maritime trade and shipbuilding, and provisioning seafarers. The city became the most fortified town in the Americas, although in its first century it was a small frontier port. Havana’s hinterland was quickly depleted of precious woods that went for shipbuilding and for the construction of large buildings. These activities required similar trades, and several structures still standing (like the Santa Clara Convent) reveal ceilings that are nothing more than the inverted hulls of ships. Havana’s economic domination over Cuba was not sealed until 1837, when the first rail line in the Spanish colonies—arriving even before it did in the mother country—was built between Havana and the town of Bejucal, thirty-five kilometers south of the capital (GDIC 1990). Despite its lynchpin role in Old World–New World commerce, Havana did not boast many ostentatious private or public buildings. The architectural detail and ornamentation of Mexico City’s or Lima’s cathedrals and churches were noticeably absent in the Cuban capital. The slave revolt in French Haiti in 1792 proved a boon to Cuba and later to Havana’s economy. French sugarcane planters established planta-

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tions in the eastern and central sections of Cuba. The town of Trinidad had become, by the 1840s, one of the wealthiest regions of the world. However, steam technology, the advent of rail, and new refining techniques made the slave- and oxen-driven sugar pressing uncompetitive. Sugar production in nineteenth-century Cuba, therefore, peaked by midcentury. The latter half of the 1800s witnessed a series of independence wars (1868–1878, 1879–1880, and 1885–1898) that disrupted economic prosperity and political stability. By 1898, the year the Americans rushed into Cuba’s decades-long war with Spain and snatched victory from the colonists, the island was mired in penury. Captives released from the wartime reconcentraciones—perhaps the first example of modern concentration camps—and slaves, who had only gained full emancipation in 1878, were ill prepared to enter the economy. Indeed, Cuba had missed the incipient industrialization that had taken hold in Mexico, Brazil, and the southern cone. Lacking coal and precious or strategic metals, it would play its comparative card. Perhaps more correctly, U.S. investors would play it. The 1901 constitution called for forty-three “organic” laws to be enacted subject to congressional approval. The first occupation by the United States saw the imposition of fifteen of these laws; however, the inability of President Estrada Palma (1902–1906) to convince Congress of the need for more organic laws led to the passage of just four more during his tenure. In the second occupation by the United States (1906–1909), twelve more became law. At that time the national government lacked autonomy because of the Platt Amendment’s constraint on individual officeholders and because of pervasive clientelism, both at the municipality (municipio—analogous to the county in the United States) and national levels (Domínguez 1978). Until these organic laws were passed, Spanish colonial legislation remained in force. Developing the Cuban economy meant catching up on nearly fifty years of war and devastation. The mayor’s office, created in 1900, had neither political influence nor the fiscal base to undertake modernization. Groundwork for U.S. investment, however, had been set in place. The Platt Amendment and the governing war concession treaty that structured the island’s political affairs between 1898 and 1902 provided a favorable climate for investment (Pérez 1986). For Havana these arrangements led to upgrading public lighting, street paving, replacing horse-drawn cars with an electric streetcar, installing a modern telegraph network and extending telephone service, enhancing 300-year-old water and sewer lines, and widening and building roads, especially along the city’s seaside promenade, the Malecón. Havana changed from a sleepy Antillean capital

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to become very much like a North American city, including middle- and upper-income pockets of suburban development (Schwartz 1997). After 1940 the automobile would intensify that push into the suburbs. In the opening decades of the twentieth century, U.S. Army officers served as the first wave of investors, for they had seen a “free” Cuba immediately after the 1898 war, and they recognized its profit potential. Havana’s proximity to steamer routes from New Orleans, Miami, Jacksonville, Baltimore, and New York inspired them to make the city look more captivating. Beautification projects between 1900 and 1930 stressed the buildings, roads, parks, gardens, and fortresses that would forge that first impression gleaned by the U.S. tourist gazing at Havana from the decks of steamships. This building boom culminated with construction of a virtual replica (except for a blackened dome) of the U.S. Capitol (el Capitolio), whose dome was eminently visible as vessels steamed through the narrow passage of Havana Bay. It was a spectacular view—flanked by a military defense system that included Los Tres Reyes del Morro Castle (1589–1610) to the east and San Salvador de la Punta Castle (1589–1600) framing the old quarters of Havana that were surrounded by walls until 1862. Modernity surfaced quickly in the Cuban capital. New buildings, bolstered by engineering advances in high-rise construction, broke through the sleepy skyline of no more than three or four stories and surpassed the height of an occasional church steeple or bell tower. U.S. banks, telephone companies, investment brokers, commodity traders, and retailers established prominent sites in Old Havana and adjacent Centro Habana. The city’s political establishment welcomed these signs of progress, as evidenced by signature craftsmen from the building trades who secured contracts. Well-known architectural firms (e.g., Purdy & Henderson; Snare & Triest, Krajewski Pesant; Walker and Gillette; Skidmore, Merrill, and Owens; and McKim, Mead, and White) and other Chicago and New York companies designed and built prominent buildings. What was perhaps the first Caribbean “Wall Street” crystallized around San Francisco Square, right on the waterfront, and was anchored by the Lonja de Comercio building of 1909. Two decades later, the urban built environment had assumed the eclectic look associated with Madrid, Paris, and New York. Still standing today are buildings from that era: National City Bank of New York, the Frank Robins Company Building, Western Union, Metropolitana Building, Banco Nacional de Cuba, Royal Bank of Canada, Droguería Johnson & Johnson, Banco Mendoza, and Banco Pedroso (Segre, Coyula, and Scarpaci 1997). Havana remained in the early twentieth century the type of economic center it had been in the nineteenth: a

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transfer point for goods from Latin America to the North Atlantic. However, the type of commodity and country of destination changed after the Spanish-American War. U.S. capital wasted little time in modernizing the island’s sugar mills, and Wall Street was eager to offset British investors. Well-known U.S. firms like Hershey and United Fruit established modern sugar refineries and upgraded and extended the railroad lines, crucial links ensuring quick cane processing after the harvest. While the locus of Cuba’s “white gold” lay outside Havana, the financial and transportation centers of operation remained in the capital. Demand for sugar grew steadily during the first two decades, especially between 1914 and 1920 (the good years, or vacas gordas). Production culminated with the 1920s’ “dance of the millions”: a bull market for sugar producers. In 1929, however, demand plummeted, and the price of refined sugar fell from twenty cents to three cents a pound in the New York and London sugar exchanges (Le Riverend 1960; 1965). Havana’s town coffers fell accordingly and the city’s two-decade building boom came to a grinding halt. U.S.-friendly Havana mayors and Cuban presidents ensured a favorable climate for U.S. business interests. (See Table 6.1 for a listing of Havana’s mayors between 1899 and 1960.) Curiously, occupying the mayor’s office was not a stepping stone to the presidential palace. Unlike in Bogotá and Buenos Aires, not a single mayor of Havana went on to become president. In pre-revolutionary Cuba, the office of local executive in the capital city was not a rite of passage to higher political office. Rather, the machinations of electoral politics, relations with multinational companies and the United States, cronyism, and favoritism shaped the path to the Cuban presidency. Havana’s mayors disappeared from the political landscape after the presidents who appointed them or facilitated their election departed from office. Havana became a tropical paradise for Americans in the 1920s. Industry blossomed around the capital city and attracted North Americans, who were happy to partake in the exotic delights of this unique Spanish colonial city. Parlor gambling, cockfighting, and racetrack betting added to Havana’s allure. Premium Cuban cigars became symbols of good taste, a mark that endures today. Havana blended multiple features into a single package: dark Latin lasses, proximity to the United States, nights of rumba and later cha-cha-cha, sandy beaches, sunny skies, and a litany of behaviors guaranteed to invoke a peccadillo or two. Havana’s daily papers encouraged public investment by presenting Havana as a “comfortable, healthy, and exciting city” (Schwartz 1997, 4). After Henry Morrison Flagler’s railroad reached Key West, Florida, in 1912, Havana was just a few hours away by steam ship. Historian Rosalie Schwartz notes that the Cuban tourist industry, along with the mayors of

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Table 6.1 Havana’s Mayors, 1899–1960, by Year of Election 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1906 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1930 1932 1936 1940 1944 1946 1945 1950 1954 1958 1959 1960

Perfecto Lacoste Alejandro Rodríguez Velasco Miguel Gener Rincón Ramon O’Farril Chapotin Carlos Latorres Rafael de Cárdenas Julio de Cárdenas Rodríguez Fernando Freyre de Andrade Manuel Varona Suárez Marcelino Díaz de Villegas Jose Maria de la Cuesta Cardenas Miguel Mariano Gómez Arias, Alejandro Vergara Alejandro Vergara Antonio Beruff Mendieta Raúl García Menocal-Seva Raúl García Menocal-Seva Manuel Superdiez Manuel Fernández Supervielle Nicolás Castellanos Rivero Justo Luis del Pozo Rafael Güas Inclán (elected, never served) Victor de Yure, José Llanusa, and Arnoldo Rodríguez Pepín Naranjo

Sources: Riera Hernández (1984); Archives of Radio Rebelde, Havana, October 1999. Sources differ slightly on whether a mayor actually held office because of interim appointments and coups. Notes: My thanks to Juan del Aguila for his comments and review of this list. All errors or omissions are mine alone.

Havana and the island’s presidents, did to Havana what Barnum and Ringling did for the masses in the United States: They provided affordable entertainment that blended reality, myth, and hype into a powerful spectacle. If Cannes and Nice boasted the European and North American aristocracy, why couldn’t Havana become a tropical Nice (Segre, Coyula, and Scarpaci 1997, chap. 2)? The sensuous Argentine tango had drawn North American tastes in music southward, and Havana was well positioned to tap into this market. Havana’s nearby palm groves and small beaches were nestled in the abandon of the tropics. “A trip to Cuba, a little rum and rumba, were movies-come-true for throngs of bankers, lawyers, industrialists, teachers, sales clerks, and housewives who boarded steamships bound for Havana” (Schwartz 1997, 14). Cuban tourism boomed in the 1920s. Political collusion and cronyism ensured a steady investment in public facilities that catered to visitors from overseas. Public Works Secretary Carlos Miguel de Céspedes, a descendent of the nineteenth-century Cuban patriot, played a key role in

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the process. He and his business partners José Manuel Cortina and Carlos Manuel de la Cruz pushed hard for tourist projects. Government funds derived from sugar and tobacco taxes on exports and from duty taxes on imported industrial and consumer goods. Between 1907 and 1919, Cuba spent U.S.$21 million on Havana’s new bridges, highways, and roads (Schwartz 1997). The same trio, however, became embroiled in a scandal with the Ports Company that involved kickbacks, embezzlement, and political corruption. Just when Havana was reaching its prime as a winter haven for northern snowbirds, the 1929 stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression devastated the tourist industry. Although alcohol prohibition in the United States provided some respite from the tourist slowdown, as did the manufacturing of molasses for illegal moonshine distilleries, it took nearly a decade for tourism to climb back to the levels of the 1920s. Nontourist investments also came to Havana as the Ten Cents and Sears Roebuck and Company stores (Le Riverend 1965). Nonetheless, the bulk of capitalist penetration rested in tourism, and the industry would not revive until after World War II.

Crisis in the Multiparty System The founding of the Cuban Communist Party in the 1920s and the creation of the National Workers Federation of Cuba (Confederacion Nacional de Obreros Cubanos, CNOC) in 1930 signaled a challenge to the young republic. President Gerardo Machado’s government held loans from U.S. banks, and he owed about U.S.$200,000 that had funded his construction company and shoe factory. Negative reaction to obvious conflicts of interest led the U.S. government to distance itself from Machado and his administration. The corruption, workers’ strikes, and economic collapse that surfaced early in Machado’s term of office (1925–1933) intensified after the 1929 stock market crash. In May 1933 U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt sent diplomat Sumner Wells to Cuba in hope of avoiding military intervention. Liberal, conservative, and populist parties, as well as the Nationalist Union (Unión Nacionalista) and the ABC Revolutionary Society on the Cuban side, joined with Wells and the U.S. secretary of war on the U.S. side. Two important opponents of the Machado government, the Communist Party and the labor unions, were excluded from the talks until the Havana bus drivers’ strike in July 1933. Finally, by offering legality to the Communists and recognition to the trade union federations, Machado and Wells avoided U.S. military intervention. President Roosevelt breathed

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a sigh of relief, for he wished to avoid such actions in the face of daunting domestic economic problems (Arnold 1999). U.S. hegemony in Cuba during 1933 sustained itself legally through vestiges of the Platt Amendment. That amendment, forged during the 1898–1902 U.S. control of the island, authorized U.S. military intervention in the face of popular revolt in Cuba. Machado was undaunted by Wells’s threats to intervene, and he countered (in tones of nationalism and sovereignty) that he would mobilize popular support and employ military force against any hostile actions. Wells did not trust Machado to keep his word to recognize the trade unions and legalize the Communist Party. Thus, he approached the secretary of war, General Alberto Herrera, on 11 August and offered him the presidency (and implicit U.S. support) for ousting Machado. Anticipating U.S. intervention, the Cuban armed forces already were overthrowing the Machado government. The army, however, did not accept Herrera; and ultimately the officer corps turned to Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a well-known statesmanlike figure from an established political family. The new government would endure only one month. Sergeant Fulgencio Batista assembled a group of sergeants, enlisted men, and corporals to seize control of Camp Columbia in Havana on 3 September 1933. Two days later, a new provisional government emerged that included participation by the University Student Directorate (Directorio Estudiantil Universitario, DEU) and political figures of considerable renown. The provisional government announced its intention to establish a “modern democracy” and defend Cuba’s “national sovereignty.” Grau San Martín, the provisional president, bolstered the government’s popularity by lowering rents and interest rates. In addition, he gave universities long-sought autonomy, granted suffrage to women, and minimum wage protection to sugarcane workers. These policies, while more reformist than revolutionary, would set the stage for important constitutional changes.

Greater Havana Under the 1940 Constitution The 1940 constitution chartered a brave new course for Cuba. By any metric, it was a progressive document. Celebrated articles in the constitution affirmed the right to strike, land reform, paid holidays for workers, free elections, freedom to organize political parties, accident insurance, universal suffrage, and other rights and privileges. However, implementation of these progressive provisions required the passage of many laws, and congressional legislation was driven more by special interest considera-

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tions than by the passion to reform. Still, to its credit, the 1940 constitution effectively barred presidential re-election (Domínguez 1978). The violation of this provision was an important factor in Fidel Castro’s rise to power. The people of Cuba fared unevenly among a variety of subsequent governments. Three rulers came to power through popular elections: Fulgencio Batista (1940–1944), Ramón Grau San Martín (1944–1948), and Carlos Prío (1948–1952). Fulgencio Batista then ruled from 1952 to 1958 as a military dictator. These administrations, especially the Prío and second Batista governments, “were characterized by a high degree of corruption and speculation without stopping to consider the hunger of the [Cuban] people during the Second World War” (Le Riverend 1992, 94, my translation). Little economic development occurred during the war because the United States was locked in mortal combat with the axis powers, and trade in Cuban sugar was viewed as important only insofar as it contributed to the allied victory. A little foreign investment flowed into Cuba while the fighting continued, but this would change in the late 1940s. Efforts in the post–World War II era focused on making Havana the cornerstone in a tourist triangle that included Miami and Las Vegas. Gambling meant that organized crime was not far behind. Postwar Havana often hosted the likes of mobsters such as Meyer Lansky, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, and other notorious figures. Their operations at the city’s gaming houses, and management of 1950s hotels such as the Riviera and Capri, were well known. They shared complicity with corrupt mayors and presidents who looked the other way as prostitution and gambling rings operated in a city where abject penury clashed against opulent wealth. Because of the city’s focus on services and tourism, it did not pursue a policy of import substitution industrialization (ISI) as postulated by Raúl Prebisch and the Economic Commission for Latin America (Comision Economica de America Latina, ECLA) school. Even though half of all industrial plants in 1957 were in Havana province (Marrero 1981)—a pattern of capital city dominance that was common elsewhere in Latin American in the 1950s (Gwynne 1986)—the importation of U.S. products supported a tourist industry. But the contradictions of a two-class system, a political apparatus that was rife with corruption, and an uneven pattern of social indicators were not lost on a growing list of student and political groups who were outraged by social injustices. In summary, viewed through the eyes of Castro’s revolutionary cadres, the 1940 constitution provided a democratic façade that confused and co-opted the Cuban left, students, peasants, and organized workers. As Castro (1992, 4) later remarked, “The multi-party system is a conces-

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sion . . . which we will never accept.” In so stating, he also signaled his opposition to municipal autonomy and the office of mayor, both in Havana and elsewhere.

The Revolution and the Socialist Capital When Fidel Castro and his guerrillas reached Havana on 8 January 1959, they found its 1.1 million residents housed in a sprawling built environment with one of the lowest population densities of any major Latin American city. Seen from an airplane, the Havana metropolitan area still reveals a suburban belt of developments, built mostly in the 1940s and 1950s. These were mostly middle-class, speculative subdivisions that catered to white-collar workers who commuted by car to the central districts of Vedado, Centro Habana, or Habana Vieja. Today, high-rise public housing punctuates the suburban pastures and wooded lots. Built mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, these prefabricated high-rises served as homes to roughly one in twenty habaneros, many who in 1959 had lived in shanties or tenement houses (cuarterías, accesorias, solares, and ciudadelas). The revolutionary government gave top priority to addressing social needs and quickly replaced the U.S.-imposed model of the city mayor’s office with national, provincial, and municipio-level planning councils. These councils immediately undertook agrarian reform, literacy campaigns, and rent relief. Programs that addressed the latter issue eventually decreased rent payments to 5 percent of gross income, despite the quality of the housing stock. These and other far-reaching reforms fell under the general heading of “income redistribution” (Le Riverend 1965, 271). In other words, given the revolution’s goals, the traditional bourgeois model of electoral and mayoral politics that balanced competing interests was anachronistic because they could not deliver sweeping change. In Havana, at the beginning, serendipity favored Castro’s housing agenda. Just across the bay from Old Havana—the capital’s traditional government center—stretched a vast zone of flat terrain called Habana del Este. Access to the area entailed driving in a west-to-east, counterclockwise direction from Old Havana, through the congested back bay district of Regla, and then on to Habana del Este. This 1950s half-hour ordeal was necessary to reach land that was not much beyond a good baseball player’s hit from the western to the eastern shore of Havana Bay. Alternatively, a small passenger ferry traversed the bay. President Fulgencio Batista envisioned developing Habana del Este as an elite residential neighborhood and a new government complex. The

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architect and planner José Luís Sert and his colleagues from Harvard had prepared an ambitious design for the president (Wiener, Sert, and Schultz 1960). Batista, moreover, was concerned about his own security in the crowded government district of Old Havana; on 13 March 1957 he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in his presidential palace (now part of the Revolutionary Museum) and thus came to favor more spacious and secure lands to the east. Although bridging the narrow entrance had been contemplated during the U.S. occupation, estimates suggested that it would be a costly engineering feat. In the 1950s, however, a joint venture between French and Cuban companies commenced a tunnel under the bay. Completed in 1957, this tunnel connected the tip of Old Havana at La Punta Castle and El Morro Castle on the eastern side of the harbor entrance. During construction of the tunnel, water mains, sewage systems, and utility and telephone lines were installed in Habana del Este. This preliminary work was to expedite the government and residential built environments envisioned by Batista. Batista’s flight into exile on 1 January 1959 placed the Habana del Este project at the feet of the revolutionary leadership. Castro quickly took advantage of his predecessor’s work, and over the next four years built 17,000 apartments in Habana del Este. Revision of the original project served as a powerful symbol in Havana (one with national visibility) of the revolution’s commitment to the masses. Had it not been for the elimination of the bourgeoisie system of electoral politics, and the corrupt cronyism that typified Batista’s rule, not to mention the revolution itself, so many housing units could not have been built in such a short time. Like many of his predecessors in the presidential palace, Fulgencio Batista equated good governance with good roads. His populist “brickand-mortar” approach to economic development could be seen in highway building, which was good for the construction industry and tourism. This preference crystallized in the 1920s, and until 1958 all presidents emphasized road construction in Havana. Party leaders, national bureaucrats, and special interests dominated transportation policymaking, and the average habanero had little imprint on its content. For example, the automobile lobby succeeded in eliminating the electric streetcar in 1952, even though this made intra-urban travel more difficult for the working class. The automobile also shaped Cuba’s settlement pattern in the interior, where the goal of integrating provincial towns into national life led revolutionary planners to expand the transportation infrastructure. By the late 1970s, 45 percent of the national population lived within five kilometers of the National Highway (Carretera Central) (ICGC 1979).

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City Government and the Constitution of 1976 Cuba’s 1901 constitution placed mayors over city governments, and each municipio possessed a town council that exercised deliberative functions. Until 1908, the town council chose the mayor. After that, all mayors, including the local executive of Havana, were chosen by direct vote for a two-year term (Dilla, González, and Vincentelli 1993). Town councils exercised deliberative and limited legislative functions, similar to their counterparts in the United States under the strong mayoral system of local government. Havana’s mayors, like those elsewhere in Cuba, were highly reliant on the national government for funding (Scarpaci and Irarrázaval 1994). In pre-revolutionary days, the Havana mayor was normally the second most important politician of the nation, after the president. In 1951, 126 municipalities operated in Cuba, with about one in five found in Havana province. Until 1975, the actual configuration of Havana city and Havana province was basically the same jurisdiction. Then, however, the government changed Cuba’s system of seven provinces to thirteen (keeping the island Isla de Juventud—a.k.a. Isle of Pines—as a special municipality) and, as shown in Figure 6.1, restructured the new Havana city province (after 1975, effectively Greater Havana) to include fifteen municipalities. The 1958 revolution’s political cadres quickly eliminated the municipal government institutions that the U.S. military had imported from the mainland. Local government in Castro’s Cuba became a potpourri of committees, organizations, and commissions whose duties overlapped at the local, provincial, and sometimes even the national level. What I present below is a very brief outline of some key aspects of local government and administration. After the triumph of the revolution, the central government appointed commissioners temporarily to handle the functions of municipal governments. Then, in 1961, the Coordination, Administration, and Inspection Boards (Junta de Coordinación, Ejecucación y Inspeeción, JUCEI) began enforcing national and municipio laws. They gathered data about their jurisdictions (usually one or more municipalities). JUCEI worked with mass organizations (students, women, the Communist Party, labor) and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (Comités para la Defensa de la Revolucion, CDR). The provinces benefited more from this new governance structure than did the municipios because municipal governments lost control over local services. In Greater Havana, a single JUCEI functioned in each municipio of the province (Segre, Coyula, and

176 Figure 6.1 Municipalities of Greater Havana

STRAITS OF FLORIDA

12 10

13 11

4

3 9

6

14

2

Population Density (per square km)

< 1,000 1,000 - 10,000 > 10,000

1 Arroyo Naranjo 2 Boyeros 3 Centro Habana 4 Cerro 5 Cotorro 6 Diez de Octubre 7 Guanabacoa 8 Habana del Este

8

7

15 1

5

1

4

8

12

Kilometers

9 Habana Vieja 10 La Lisa 11 Marianao 12 Playa 13 Plaza de la Revolución 14 Regla 15 San Miguel del Padron

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Scarpaci 1997; Dilla, González, and Vincentelli 1993). The office of mayor, as discussed earlier, was eliminated. The Castro government established the “Local Power” (poder local) in 1966 for decentralizing (see Figure 6.2) within a Marxist-Leninist framework. Eleven years later, Fidel Castro (1977) argued publicly that the poder local would reinforce the role of mass organizations and deepen democracy. From the perspective of Samuel Huntington’s waves of democracy framework, creating and strengthening the poder local could be seen as eroding the access points for popular inputs into the democratic process and therefore would constitute implementation of the second reverse wave of authoritarianism. Normatively, the poder local portended broad community input, but each institution was made up of an executive committee, a president, two secretaries, and ten delegates who were elected by community meetings of the population. Delegates were expected to be accountable to their community meeting electorates. The Cuban Communist Party, however, chose the president of each poder local. The constitution of 1940 was largely ignored after 1959, but not until 1976 did Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government formalize the socialist political regime with its own constitution. The principal change in 1976 was the establishment of the National Assembly, which held its first meeting in December of that year. Between 1959 and 1976, formal legislative powers for provincial and local governments were vested in the national cabinet and exercised from Havana (Domínguez 1978). After 1976, the National Assembly began addressing many local problems that under the 1940 constitution had been the responsibility of the countylike municipio governments, especially the office of mayor. Thus, in 1977 the National Assembly found itself dealing with a “most interesting complaint” from Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución municipio. Local residents complained that locating a bus assembly plant within their political jurisdiction was exacerbating its already severe pollution dilemma. President Castro immediately responded that the problem “could not be solved easily,” even though it was “good to look into these problems.” In turn, the complaint was passed on to four of twenty standing commissions of the National Assembly for further study (Domínguez 1978, 247–248). This example, as well as the handling of other more recent complaints outlined by August Arnold (1999), underscores how even municipio legislation purporting to regulate local behavior remains highly subordinate to interpretations from the central government. Prior to passing the 1976 constitution, the Cuban Communist Party piloted a model of local government in Matanzas province. This model allowed the local citizens to elect municipal delegates, who in turn would

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Figure 6.2 Institutional System of the Republic of Cuba Constitution proclaimed and established in 1976 by plebiscite and reformed in 1992

Laws, acts Agreements Resolutions Agreements Resolutions

State Council decree laws National Assembly Provincial Assembly

14 provinces

Municipal Assembly

169 municipalities Popular Councils

Electoral Constituencies

Attorney General Provincial Administration Council

(designated by the provincial assembly)

Council of Ministries decrees People’s Supreme Court 14

159

Provincial and Municipal Courts of Justice

National Assembly, 500 members Appointed by national entities

Appointed by the neighborhoods

Both elected in a direct and secret election by 50% + 1 vote

Provincial Delegates

National Delegates

Municipal Administration Council (designated by the municipal assembly)

Municipal Delegates

Elected in a direct and secret election by 50% + 1 vote

2–8 proposals in each electoral constituency

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elect National Assembly delegates. It was meant to show that municipios could function efficiently without a separate executive branch of government. Jorge Domínguez (1978) argues that this model of local government, whether in Havana or elsewhere in Cuba, envisions minimal institutional autonomy for municipios, which are expected to take their direction from the Cuban Communist Party. Thus, the People’s Power (poder popular) and its institutional apparatus handled the policy implementation function of governing, but the “autonomy, scope, and domain of local government . . . remained circumscribed” by policies decided upon by Communist Party cadres. Implementation of the 1976 constitution in 1977 led to the establishment of the “People’s Power” in all municipios, and eleven years later the National Assembly mandated the creation of Neighborhood Popular Councils (consejos populares de barrio). Both organizations grew out of the need to compensate for the reduced number of municipalities that derived from the 1976 administrative reorganization of the country. The People’s Power and the Neighborhood Popular Councils consist of delegates who are elected by local residents. While the details of each are beyond the scope of this discussion, it is helpful to look at a few relevant attributes here. Neighborhood Popular Councils remain in close touch with neighborhood (ward) concerns. Members usually include representatives from each ward’s grassroots organizations, including the Federation of Cuban Women (Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, FMC), the Communist Youth Union, and the local CDR. The Poder Popular, in contrast, focuses on issues of concern to the entire municipio. It interfaces with the national ministries as those ministries perform, within the municipio, such functions as constructing housing, architectural design, planning, road building, public works, and the like (Amaro 1998). Does the labyrinth of municipal and submunicipal bodies bode well for deepening democracy? Polar arguments define this debate. The Poder Popular and Consejos Populares de Barrios can be viewed on one hand as a fine-mesh organizational net cast over civil society for control. As an integral component of the single-party state, these organizations seek to socialize citizens in accord with the dictates of the authoritarian rule. In contrast, Cuban policymakers argue that community input from these institutions influences policymaking inside the Cuban Communist Party and structures the National Assembly’s deliberations. Cynics believe otherwise. They contend that like the notorious CDR and all the rest of Fidel Castro’s municipio organizations, they serve to monitor dissident behavior—and that their overriding purpose is to provide information that will allow counterrevolutionaries to be “weeded out,” denounced, and neutral-

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ized (Pérez-Stable 1993). Still, whether democratic or authoritarian, in Cuba’s capital city they provide some form of institutional governance. At present the jurisdiction for each of Havana’s Consejos Populares de Barrios encompasses roughly 20,000 residents; these consejos do provide a channel through which workers, students, parents, retirees, and others can articulate their interests. Article 104 of the 1992 constitution establishes 1,454 Consejos Populares de Barrios, locating them in 97 percent of Cuba’s ward electoral districts (CEA 1995; Lee 1995). The Cuban Communist Party dominates all government institutions in Havana, and Fidel Castro controls the party. Domínguez (1978) delineates the complex interplay of Fidel’s personal charisma, the Cuban Communist Party, and the capital city political institutions this way: A lack of political autonomy from Fidel Castro and other top leaders has characterized organizations in revolutionary Cuba and has limited the process of institutionalization; those at the top systematically prevail over time and across issue areas. Castro controls the central institutions of the Communist party, which in turn govern the subordinate levels; the party prevails over the administration and the mass organizations. Havana prevails over the rest of the country. (260)

To summarize, while Havana’s influence over the rest of Cuba is indisputable, the city’s consejos and poderes populares remain dependent on resources and policy guidelines that Fidel Castro and the Communist Party funnel through the national ministries and the National Assembly.

“Macrocephalic” Conditions in the Cuban Capital Latin American urbanists advert to the “enlarged” condition of the capital city as a primate city by making a reference to medical literature. Havana displays this “macrocephalic” condition, at least demographically. Throughout the twentieth century it was the largest city on the island; but unlike Mexico City and Lima, which have increased at least six- and threefold, respectively, Havana’s population has only doubled since 1959 (see Table 6.2). To understand this comparatively slow growth, we turn briefly to the view that the revolutionary leadership held for Havana. Havana symbolized the antithesis of the revolution’s principals; it was large, wealthy, and bourgeois. In addition, Fidel Castro’s formative years among the anti-Havana set of Santa Clara province exposed him to a view of the capital city as a center of exploitation, dominated by corrupt elites

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Table 6.2 Population Growth in Havana and Cuba, 1970–2000 1970a Havana (the province) Havana (the capital city) Cuba

524,001 1,786,522 8,569,121

1981b 585,912 1,929,432 9,723,605

1990c 646,000 2,109,000 10,603,200

2000d 717,800 2,185,300 11,218,000

Notes: a. Census data in Anuario Demográfico de Cuba, La Habana 1979, Comité Estatal de Estadísticas. b. Census data in Atlas Demográfico Nacional, La Habana 1985, Comité Nacional de Estadísticas, Instituto Cubano de Geodesia y Cartografía. c. Anuario Estadístico, La Habana 1990, Ministerio de Salud Pública. d. Estimates by midyear based on the growth rate 1996/1997 (last years with available information) as deducted from the MINSAP Statistic Yearbooks. The estimate for Cuba’s population is based on a 0.45 percent growth rate from the population of December 1998.

who siphoned off national wealth to the detriment of the rest of the nation. In this regard, the revolution’s anti-Havanaism (and in large part antiurbanism) derived from the belief that social justice demanded that Havana’s opulent lifestyles be curtailed. The revolutionary leadership referred to this philosophy as a “minimum of urbanism and a maximum of ruralism” (Eckstein 1977; Slater 1982). Accordingly, attention shifted from Havana (and large cities generally) and turned to the countryside and small towns. Allowing local government in Havana to retain important powers, especially because of the longstanding linkages between the mayor and Havana’s elites, would have deterred implementation of any redistributive plan. The revolution’s anti-Havana policy deliberately refused to make large-scale public investment in the capital city, or even to maintain the existing infrastructure for tourism. Instead, Fidel Castro’s government focused on literacy and housing campaigns targeted at illiterate campesinos. More than 300 agricultural settlements were created in the 1960s; provincial cities received universities, technical institutes, elementary schools, and hospitals (ICGC 1979). In the countryside, thousands of thatched bohío dwellings were replaced by functional, if drab, high-rise housing complexes with running water, flushed commodes, and electricity (Hamberg 1994). Havana, however, suffered considerable environmental neglect, especially during the first three decades of the revolution (Díaz-Briquets and Pérez-López 2000). The revolution’s decision to anchor its social justice agenda in antiurbanism and anti-Havanaism led to the elimination of the office of mayor throughout the island. Fidel Castro himself viewed the office of mayor,

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especially in Havana during the Batista dictatorship, as having fostered corruption and pork barrel projects. Abolition of this local government institution deprived cities of their most influential advocates, a change favored by most revolutionaries. All assumed that without mayors the cities would have great difficulties in procuring the resources that had enabled them to stand out as bright lights and lure hundreds of thousands of migrants from the more virtuous rural lifestyle. Also, underinhabited places like Camaguey and the Isla de Juventud received resettled workers. Fidel Castro’s inner circle calculated that their radical social policy objectives, specifically the punishing of Havana and resettlement of slum dwellers to largely vacant provinces, could not be realized in a political regime where bourgeoisie political parties were allowed to confuse and exploit the masses. Properly “educated,” the urban poor would choose, of their own free will, to resume a rural lifestyle. Indeed, from the beginning, Cuba’s revolutionaries maintained that their rural resettlement programs were “voluntary,” and that “the creation of [new rural] communities provided all the comforts of modern living” (ICGC 1979, 70). From this perspective, the semi-abandonment of Havana and transformation of the remaining residents’ political culture became part of the broader political, ideological, symbolic, and geographical transformation of Cuba. Benign neglect of Havana between 1959 and the early 1990s did not totally curtail the illegal migration of Cubans to their capital, especially from the poor eastern provinces (whose residents in Havana are called palestinos because of their “eastern” origin). Members of the poder popular have often spoken disapprovingly of the “illegal ones” residing in the capital. Still, their numbers increase, despite efforts to control and coordinate the distribution of a food ration book with housing allocation. Migrants from the interior seek out Havana because, like their counterparts elsewhere in Latin America, they view the capital city as a site of new opportunity. These new arrivals live clandestinely with friends or relatives, squat, or else pay rent illegally to habaneros, evidence that in the capital city resistance to the revolution had never been totally overcome.

Entrepreneurship and Governance With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its trading bloc, Cuba entered a new political economy era in the early 1990s that the socialist leadership called the Special Period in a Time of Peace. Years of neglect toward the capital would be reversed. Building on the 1982 UN Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization declaration of Old Havana as a World Heritage

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Site, the Castro government followed a new (or perhaps not so new) strategy: tourism. The National Assembly approved the creation of a state company, Habaguanex, under the direction of Havana historian Eusebio Leal Spengler. Decree 143, passed in 1994, turned Old Havana (Habana Vieja, one of fifteen municipalities in Havana city province) into an economic free zone that the Habaguanex would operate. The de facto holding company that Leal Spengler oversees focused initially on matters of historic preservation. In September 1995, Law 77 facilitated new programs designed to attract direct foreign investment as a new source of capital for urban renewal. A year later, Decree 165 created free trade zones that proved especially important as conduits for the augmenting volume of imports and exports (Burr 1999). In other words, the special status of Habaguanex now allows this state corporation to bypass both custom regulations and Ministry of Foreign Investment authorization procedures that govern the formation of joint ventures. Eusebio Leal’s company is the only Cuban entity that has complete control over its operations. It can retain profits earned from Havana’s hotels, bed and breakfast facilities, art galleries, convenience stores, restaurants, souvenir shops, and related tourist facilities. It also has broad discretion to reinvest those profits into refurbishing old buildings or participating in joint ventures with foreign tourist companies. Neither the National Assembly nor the governing institutions of Havana city province can have access to those funds. In 1998, Habaguanex purportedly generated more than U.S.$40 million of revenues, and this figure is expected to surpass U.S.$200 million by 2002. “However, let it be noted that, this being Cuba, figures are either impossible to get—no one would tell how much Habaguanex made or how many people work for it—or impossible to verify” (Burr 1999, 73). In 1999, Habaguanex oversaw four times as much investment in Old Havana as in the previous four years (Leal 1999). Habaguanex has successfully accommodated the recent surge in tourism. Fewer than 200,000 tourists visited the island in 1990, but in 1998 the figure reached 1.4 million (Scarpaci 1998). In the year 2000, 2 million visitors traveled to the island, most of them coming to Havana. Habaguanex continues to expand the called-for tourist infrastructure— capitalizing on 500 years of architecture, castles, and plazas in Habana Vieja (Old Havana). Cranes looming over the skyline work directly on Habaguanex projects, or else they are employed by one of its two real estate and construction companies, Aurea or Fénix. The ironies are many. Sixty percent of Cuba’s precarious housing stock is in Havana, but the city holds at least 100,000 uninhabitable housing units. That means half of the capital’s housing is in average or poor condi-

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tion. Citywide, the prospects for improving the built environment are not promising: Residential construction for locals proceeds at a slow and irregular pace (Scarpaci, Segre, and Coyula 2002). Such a scenario pales with the efforts of Habaguanex, which displays a powerful symbol of the new market economy unfolding in Havana. In this context, the social justice agenda is difficult for many residents of the city to discern (see Box 6.1).

Box 6.1 Uneven Development in Habana Vieja Maria Eugenia is the mother of three children near the Plaza Vieja in Old Havana. Around the corner from her one-bedroom apartment, Habaguanex is directing the rehabilitation of an apartment building built in 1904. The new units will contain seventy square meters and will be sold to foreigners starting at U.S.$120,000. Maria Eugenia remarks: “I’ve been telling the Consejo Popular for three years now that my roof is leaking badly. But nothing happens.” Her concern is common throughout Old Havana and the city at large. If the dollar-generating of Habaguanex and Cuba’s more than 400 joint-venture firms is to trickle down to the masses, it cannot be too soon for Maria Eugenia and other dwellers.

The highly centralized form of national control over the city’s Consejos Populares mitigates the influence of local bureaucracies to reverse the deterioration in the quality of life. The experience at the ubiquitous state food stores reinforces this point. Households in Havana still receive only several ounces of meat per adult monthly. Milk is not always available for children. Even though country farmers’ markets were legalized in 1994, prices remain well beyond the reach of most. Unless remittances from abroad reach Cubans, or they work in a dollar-related job, making ends meet is a challenge. Herein lies a countervailing force to metropolitan political institutions: the dollar. On the propitious fortieth anniversary (23 July 1993) of his unsuccessful attack on Fulgencio Batista’s Moncada Garrison in Santiago de Cuba, Fidel Castro announced the legalization of the dollar and more than a hundred private sector jobs. Until then, possession of the dollar was illegal, subject to a minimum sentence of three months’ incarceration. And although a private sector had existed, it was quite small. Since 1993, though, the private sector has grown considerably. Employment in the private sector peaked at over 200,000 during 1995 and since early 2000 hov-

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ered somewhere around 150,000 workers. While this sector contributes just 2 percent of all wage taxes (the balance coming from those employed in joint-venture companies), it offers a viable alternative to state employment. Given that the public sector has downsized nearly 400,000 workers since the onset of the post-Soviet Special Period, and that the army has shed nearly 200,000 from its ranks, these private jobs offer an important outlet. Philip Peters and Joseph Scarpaci (1998) surveyed 152 self-employed cuentapropistas in Havana. The typical respondents earned 742 pesos (U.S.$37) in a city where an average worker’s monthly wages were less than 200 pesos (U.S.$10). The average net income of these capital city entrepreneurs was 165 percent that of a Cuban physician’s salary (450 pesos). Havana’s cuentapropistas were well taught (twelfth-grade average), averaged forty-three years of age, and paid 41 percent of their gross revenues for taxes and licensing fees. Significantly, these fees went directly to the municipio budget, thus constituting a new source of local revenues not determined by the National Assembly. Despite the challenges of “going solo,” each entrepreneur welcomed their newfound trade. Taxi driver, tire repairman, cobbler, air-compressor operator, beautician, confectionery vendor, pizza man, plastics manufacturer, and others, each person worked alone. Cuban law forbids small firms; only single-person operations can work outside the public system. A tire repairman in Havana’s Cerro neighborhood remarks: “Here, nobody tells me what to do, I’m in charge. It’s easy, I get all my supplies at the ‘shopping’ [state store] and pay in dollars.” A glass repairman echoes a similar sentiment: “There is no job in the state that I could have that would be better than this. Here, I’m in charge.” A Vedado locksmith toils out of a six-foot-square storefront workshop under a corrugated roof. Although he earns only slightly more than he did as a mechanic for a state agency, he remains undeterred. “I prefer this. It’s better to have more responsibility” (Peters and Scarpaci 1998, 10). The revolutionary state views these entrepreneurs as a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the free market serves as a small release valve for the island’s un- and underemployed skilled labor force. The state profits from their taxes and licensing fees, some of which are paid in dollars by cuentapropistas who sell goods or services in dollars. On the other hand, the private sector runs counter to the socialist plan. A successful petite bourgeoisie challenges the state’s authority to provide all: housing, food, clothing, and job training. An unstated but logical result of market reforms is that, left unchecked, a fledgling bourgeoisie might organize and challenge the single-party system. It is perhaps for these reasons that the business climate is very unstable; inspectors’ scrutiny waxes and wanes in

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seemingly arbitrary and capricious fashions. Laws about licensing and procuring raw materials change often. As one entrepreneur remarked, “The state can’t tolerate seeing us get ahead, on our own resources. They want to keep us indebted to them forever. They treat us like kids. Have you ever seen anything so paternalistic?”(Author’s notes, March 1998). Undeterred, this new labor class continues forward, in the Cuban spirit of solving problems. Yet the work of Hannah Elinson (1999) and others suggests that entrepreneurs and jineteros do “not represent an immediate threat to the socialist regime or social stability; but that [they do] have other important implications.” These include the promotion of individualistic and materialistic values that clash with the world view of revolutionary elites. They also imply a weakening in the government’s control, as entrepreneurship and black market activities function outside full state control. Perhaps most significant, though, is that optional forms of work grade against the morale of stalwart revolutionaries and even politically apathetic Cubans. Increasingly, all Cubans detect that material well-being correlates with entrepreneurship and hustling and not formal training, mass organization affiliation, or participation in the Cuban Communist Party.

Redefining Leadership and Authority in the Cuban Capital The socialist leadership embarked on a process of debourgeoisement of the capital city that remained in effect until the Special Period of the 1990s. Almost from the start, the revolution dispensed with electoral politics and the traditional form of municipal governance to fulfill broad redistributions of income and status. There was, as we have seen, a patent symbolism that the revolutionary leadership associated with pre-1959 Havana. Privilege reigned and rank mattered in that city. When Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos and others in the rebel army took possession of the Columbia military base in western Havana, they were signaling an end to the old order and its behind-the-scenes power brokers, the most notorious of whom were linked to the capital city. Built by the occupying U.S. troops between 1898 and 1902, the Columbia military base had come to symbolize Washington’s support for the Batista dictatorship. Significantly, not a single shot was fired when the rebel army marched into Havana and occupied the Columbia base. Adoring masses called the new leadership by their first names: Fidel, Che, and Camilo (Roig de Leuchsenring 1964).

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Such an overwhelming welcome gave the commandants a blank slate upon which they could build their vision of a more just Cuba. Earlier analysis discussed how in pursuit of the goal of a maximum of ruralness and a minimum of urbanness, the revolutionary state invested heavily in the provincial towns and agricultural villages. Given these priorities, national leaders wanted a political system in Havana that focused on how to allocate the reduced resources that they intended to disburse to the city. They did not want a local government in Havana that would make demands for added resources. This was the rationale behind the new municipio legislative institutions that were publicized as a new forum of grassroots input from the masses to the state apparatus. Fidel Castro saw the Cuban Communist Party and the National Assembly as the only legitimate institutions to determine the magnitude of the resources that Havana would receive in relation to other locations. Beginning in the 1990s, however, the rise of a new class of entrepreneurs and a powerful state company (Habaguanex) added new players to the politics of resource allocation for the Havana city province. Elinson (1999) has argued that the rise of both legal and illegal freemarketers in Havana and elsewhere poses a potential threat to the socialist establishment. She concludes: The practices of young jineteros (hustlers) do clearly reflect and contribute to the decay of Cuban socialist values. Jineterismo is changing the definition of success in contemporary Cuban society, and its practitioners symbolize the government’s failure to inculcate revolutionary values in part of the younger generation. By adopting a lifestyle based on individual material wealth, jineteros are both a manifestation of and an impetus for changing social values. (Elinson 1999, 7)

If Elinson is correct, then the demonstration effect of legal cuentapropistas must surely be greater than their illegal counterparts, the jineteros. Indeed, the social values of both jineteros and cuentapropistas conceptualized as a new social movement “will likely exert a greater influence than will the values of the prevailing political system” (Escobar and Alvarez 1992). Elinson’s scenario begs the question of looking at metropolitan governance and mayoral politics per se and casts attention on this new cast of social actors. Havana has waited for nearly 500 years to gain sovereignty over the economic and political decisions that shape its growth and development. The city has run the gamut of settlement types: maritime outpost, colonial

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capital, warehouse to the Americas, Spain’s coffer, Americans’ playground, Socialist showcase, and tropical paradise. Under the rush of foreign investment today taking hold throughout the city, some habaneros jest that they are experiencing the “second conquest,” a reference to the many Spanish banks, hotels, and development companies that are investing and building in the Cuban capital. The twenty-first century opened with foreign presence and a dollar economy overriding fundamental aspects of the socialist agenda. The reduction in Soviet economic aid, coupled with continuation of the U.S. economic blockade, has led to significant discontinuity between the state apparatus and civil society. A new pragmatism has taken root in households that find they can only keep pace with rising food prices by devoting long hours to work in state farmers’ markets, new private markets, or the black market. Also, there is a sentiment of political apathy among the traditional adherents to the island’s mass organizations, FDC and CDR. Two opposing scenarios might emerge. One is a tightening of state control over the media, contact with foreigners, and scrutinizing small entrepreneurs. The other includes the ongoing increase in foreign visitors and the flourishing of a limited but high-profile dollar economy. In present-day Cuba the fate of Mikhail Gorbachev’s Soviet Union gives the revolutionary leadership cause for reflection. Gorbachev permitted perestroika, and the powerful process of glasnost then derailed the entire socialist project, thereby reinforcing a modern tenet of political theory that economic modernization leads to political reform. In this first decade of the twenty-first century, the streets of Moscow reveal elements of deviant behavior that seem closer to New York’s 42nd Street of the 1980s than to Nikita Khrushchev’s city of the early 1950s. Irony like this has not been lost on the Cuban leadership, which remains committed to consolidating the socialist experiment. The official posture about these disparities in material well-being, income levels, and the like are that they are temporary aberrations until Cuba recovers fully from its abrupt insertion into the global economy. Meanwhile, private property is the exception and social property the sine qua non of Fidel Castro’s socialist project. Habaneros still pay only 5 percent of their gross incomes for housing, albeit in increasingly substandard conditions. Health care continues to be free despite an absence of basic supports such as linen, antibiotics, and inhouse meals. Education is still free and open until secondary school, and though admission to higher education is more tightly controlled than a decade earlier, students do not pay tuition. This Cuban, criollo model of political and economic development defies easy classification. On one hand it appears flexible. The

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autonomous Habaguanex corporation courts tourists and allows for limited entrepreneurial activity in the capital city. On the other, revolutionary Cuba still retains elements of the socialist experiments in China and Vietnam (Smith 1998; Drakakis-Smith 1998), and the regime has become less tolerant of dissidents. For example, in March 1999 four habaneros were sentenced to five years in prison on the charge of sedition. Their crime: encouraging a boycott of national elections and for talking with foreign diplomats and journalists. Deconstructing socialist justice in the Cuban capital entails teasing out the normative models of socialist governance from the observed, and the rhetorical from the daily lives of habaneros. The political regime’s official line touts social justice as the main objective of municipal governance, but the reality is sometimes distinct. Cracks in the once-venerable system of health care and schooling are now apparent. Multiple agencies address the needs in the housing market as well as the state-rationed food distribution network. Civil society offers a new survival mechanism in the form of jineteros and cuentapropistas. In the view of this work, these new actors in civil society mark a departure in the top-down socialist project and raise questions about its long-term viability. Political conflict involving the Cuban exile community in the late 1990s and in 2001 suggests a variety of problems that may surface on the island in the post-Castro era. These include incidents of electoral fraud and the recent tryst between Cuban Americans Miami mayor Joe Corrola and his opponent Xavier Suárez that highlight the unsavory behavior that is often endemic to electoral politics. In 2000, Cubans on the island watched as a vocal Cuban-American community in southern Florida successfully kept Elián González from returning to the island quickly. In 2001, old-guard leadership of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) left because of conceptual discrepancies with the organization’s president, Jorge Más, son of the CANF’s founder, Jorge Más Canosa. Across the Florida Straits, the Cuban leadership interprets these rifts as vivid proof that electoral politics in the U.S. model of governance are not worthy of emulation. Rather, democratization in Havana and elsewhere on the island means confining choices and options within massive organizations and powerful national ministries. If Havana should ever make the transition into Huntington’s third wave of democracy, one can only hope that the city avoids the mistakes of stakeholder politics in Miami or the municipal corruption rampant in post-Soviet Moscow. The ability to accommodate multiple voices and satisfy so many needs in the administration of the “Pearl of the Caribbean” will be a daunting task, despite the political economy or mode of governance used.

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Conclusions This chapter shows many anomalies between Havana and many other Latin American capital cities. These differences transcend the obvious: that Fidel Castro is the longest reigning ruler of any twentieth-century Latin American nation; that Cuba operates a single-party system, surpassed only by China’s Communist Party in longevity; and that Cuba clings steadfastly to some semblance of a socialist state. In this concluding section, I assess how Huntington’s waves of democracy and the contributions in this volume compare to my Havana findings. In broad strokes, we may characterize the 1940 constitution and its relationship with Havana’s governance as the second wave of democracy in Cuba. Between 1959 and 1991, power became highly centralized, and the capital city’s local institutions of government became subordinate to the National Assembly and national ministries. Since 1992, some semblance of third wave democracy has appeared but only to the extent that a limited free market now exists and that national and municipal governments treat market forces as legitimate sources of input into the revolution’s political system. Still, Havana’s status remains an outlying case compared to other Latin American countries, and the following analysis calls attention to many unusual characteristics of Havana’s system of governance. Before socialist rule (1940 and 1959), there was no evidence that replacing ISI with market capitalism led to meaningful political decentralization. In fact, political power became more concentrated in pre-revolutionary Cuba, not in the hands of Havana’s mayors but in the office of president/dictator. Under socialist rule, the National Assembly created local political institutions that reduced still further the power and influence of Havana residents in the national polity. This action reflected the revolution’s strong anti-urban bias, as well as its political commitment to give priority to provincial towns and rural villages. Elimination of the mayor’s office in the early 1960s did not facilitate local policymaking designed to transform Havana’s urban built environment or to carve out a sphere of autonomy for local politicians. Instead, except for public housing projects at the city’s edge, revolutionary elites deliberately neglected Havana for three decades. Only recently has an autonomous financial institution devoted to historic preservation in the city muscled resources that approximate those being allocated to other locations. A member of the national parliament who is also a trained historian, an architect, and a confident of Fidel Castro directs this institution, the Habaguanex. He came up through the ranks, working as the city historian for Havana. In this regard, Habaguanex is emblematic of the new

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wave of technocrats who push forward with urban development projects, but always within the broader parameters staked out by the Cuban Communist Party and the Cuban constitution. In other words, technocrats have replaced the traditional executive branch of government found elsewhere in the region. The Havana case reveals that, generally, critical policing powers in the Cuban capital remain in the hands of the national security apparatus. In the late 1990s, the police received a hefty salary increase; at over 700 pesos monthly (about U.S.$35), they earn more than university professors, physicians, engineers, and architects. To satisfy policing needs, the state brought to Havana hundreds of recruits from the high-unemployment provinces in eastern Cuba. Habaneros often gripe that the police speak differently and are often unfamiliar with the street names and neighborhoods where they work. Special tourism police, moreover, have been dispatched into the historic district of Havana; but ultimately they do not answer to the Habaguanex. Thus, from the perspective of control over police forces in the capital city, lines of authority in Havana are not significantly different from those in other capital cities of the region. Havana is unique because local executive power is distributed among a labyrinth of committees. Hundreds of Consejos Populares, Poder Populares, and Poderes Locales, as well as mass organizations such as the CDR, intentionally prevent authority to make and implement policy from being concentrated in a single political institution. The normative design underpinning this form of city administration suggests grassroots and democratic participation (Arnold 1999); however, effective power is exercised only by the national institutions of the socialist state. There is little room for dissent or political options beyond the Cuban Communist Party and the state-sanctioned organizations noted above. Civil society in Havana lacks the richness of “speaker’s corners,” letters to the editors, or neighborhood protests. In essence, the traditional form of demand-making by unions, professional associations, student groups, and other forms of social movement organizations play no part in the city’s governance (Scarpaci, Segre, and Coyula 2002). The constitutions of 1972 and 1992 narrowly defined how political authority would be exercised in Havana. No role was envisioned for autonomous interests seeking to influence the decisions of a powerful local executive. Nevertheless, some authentic demands, especially those emanating from the small private sector, are being made on local government institutions in Havana. The contributions to enhancing household material well-being that entrepreneurs (legal and illegal) are making have become too important to be ignored by the socialist state. However, the

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very process of engaging the 150,000 legal cuentapropistas, and the many Cubans who partake in some fashion in the illegal black market, challenges the revolutionary political status quo. In other words, the powers of the myriad of political councils in which local executive power in Havana is embedded have declined. They now pale in comparison to the power that access to the dollar economy gives residents to shape urban life. Havana, to repeat, displayed after ratification of the 1940 constitution what other chapters in this volume labeled second wave democracy. Since 1959, however, Fidel Castro’s socialist political regime more closely approximates a reverse wave of bureaucratic-authoritarianism as experienced in the Southern Cone of Latin America from the middle1960s through the middle 1980s. Since the demise of the Soviet Union, Havana (and the rest of Cuba) share some characteristics with a third wave of democracy to the extent that the revolutionary state has allowed foreign capital to engage state companies in targeted projects, and private employment has expanded greatly. Nonetheless, this recent wave of democracy is markedly different from those passing through other Latin American cities. Clearly, Havana is an outlying case. If we use the Schumpterian method driving Huntington’s (1991) definition of democracy—an institutional arrangement for reaching political decisions in which citizens gain access to power though a competitive struggle for the people’s vote—then the Cuban model’s single-party system must be excluded. Parallel to that conceptualization is the political and civil freedom to assemble, publish, speak, and organize, all crucial to the political debate. The absence of an independent press (evidenced by the jailing of four journalists in 1999), the response by the rapid brigade forces on Havana’s Malecón in August 1994, and other events show that such political and civil liberties are not present on the island. At the same time, there is good reason not to treat nondemocracy and democracy as a dichotomous either-or variable. The Cuban leadership considers its commitment to health services, universal suffrage, education, housing, and a basic basket of food items as central tenets of its social justice agenda. In addition, and within the logic of Cuban democracy, mass organizations (the Cuban Women’s Federation, the Cuban Workers Board, and the youth organizations) are the trademarks of participatory democracy. Unlike Poland, where solidarity swept elections in 1989 after the exit of the communist general Wojciech Jaruzelski, or the following year when the Chilean referendum replaced General Augusto Pinochet with Patricio Aylwin, there are no alternative sources of currently recognized power in the Cuban capital. Neither in Havana’s local politics nor in Cuban national politics do we find much transition to a third wave of democratization along the lines conceived by Samuel Huntington.

7 Lima: Centralized Authority vs. the Struggle for Autonomy Henry A. Dietz Martín Tanaka

This chapter uses the case of Peru and its capital city of Lima to examine the several themes developed in the first chapter of this volume. Peru and Lima are especially apt for this purpose, as they have had an off-again onagain relationship with democracy due to a highly unstable political party system, the presence of populist politics, and the historically high intrusion of the military into the political arena. Most important, the city and the nation have also undergone a series of changes in their relationship since 1980, when Peru returned to civilian rule and municipal elections were implemented. In very general terms, we argue here that following the end of World War II up to the present, the main features of Lima’s political dynamics have been influenced heavily by class-based alliances and conflicts regarding the distribution of resources in the city. Massive migration since the 1940s has posed serious problems of physical and social integration in Lima, and different governments have responded in different ways, ranging from clientelistic to repressive to laissez faire policies. Since the years of General Juan Velasco’s military government (1968–1975), the city’s urban poor, especially the inhabitants of its squatter settlements, have developed substantial political capabilities that have at times become manifest in a variety of social movements. It is our argument that these conflicts have been critical in and for Lima and that, paradoxically, decentralization and democratization for Lima may have been slowed and restricted because its elites as well as its masses frequently assumed that its problems needed national attention and resources. 193

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Since 1980, Lima’s officials (its metropolitan mayor as well as its district mayors) have been elected, and these elections have seen class tensions expressed in the political realm, in particular when Alfonso Barrantes of the United Left (Izquierda Unida, or IU) was mayor from 1983 to 1986. Conflicts between national governments and the city occurred, too, especially when Barrantes was mayor during the presidency of Alan García, but also in general, as presidents and mayors struggled to answer the question of who would control the distribution of resources. This critical juncture (Collier and Collier 1991) seemed to come to a close in the first half of the 1990s. The linkages between the electoral left and various social movements, on the one hand, and their conflicts with conservative elites and their parties, on the other, appeared to be resolved by the imposition and acceptance of neoliberal, market-oriented economic policies and a conservative political order. As a result, collective actions on the part of the city’s masses diminished, and social movements declined. Ironically, the fact that popular neighborhoods achieved some important successes as basic infrastructural improvements gradually took place meant that collective activities became harder to sustain. In the 1990s, much political conflict took place over President Alberto Fujimori’s attempt to concentrate power. Yet Fujimori’s candidates could not win the mayor’s race in metropolitan Lima, and as a result Fujimori attempted—at times blatantly—to control the city through financial and economic means, as the national government still maintains much authority over Lima’s ability to fund projects of all sorts. To proceed, we shall see how well Peru and its capital city fit within the general areas of inquiry outlined in Chapter 1. First, insofar as Samuel Huntington’s notion of waves of democracy are concerned, does Peru’s national experience match the general chronology that Huntington posits? If differences do appear, what are they, and in what ways are they important? Second, how have new demands on the elected mayor changed the role of the mayor’s office insofar as urban problem solving is concerned? And how have two types of tensions—local-national and intra-metropolitan—become manifest since 1980? Finally, how have policy outcomes changed as a result of these demands and tensions? And to what degree do the five themes from the introductory chapter help us to understand and explain relationships and tensions between the Peruvian capital city and the nation? This chapter does not intend to provide a detailed history of municipal affairs in Lima. Although such a history would be invaluable, and has yet to be written, we are much more focused on the task of probing the utility of the five themes developed in the opening chapter for explaining politi-

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cal change in Lima since the 1980s. However, we do provide a chronology of some pertinent events and offer a brief electoral history as well as an overview of Lima’s development since the mid-twentieth century.

The Primacy of Lima Lima since its founding in 1535 has been the demographic, economic, financial, social, and political capital of the country. It has always been the classic Latin American primate city. Census data indicate that it is and has been for decades eight to ten times the size of Peru’s second largest city, Arequipa, but that proportion does not really indicate its true dominance. In the 1980s Lima produced around 69 percent of the nation’s industrial output and 80 percent of its consumer goods; generated 87 percent of the country’s tax revenues; consumed 98 percent of its private investment; received 83 percent of its bank deposits; and contained more than half of its public employees, half of its hospital beds, and 75 percent of its telephone subscribers (Allou 1989). More recent data (Araoz and Urrunaga 1996) from the 1993 national census show that more than half of the country’s total production is concentrated in the Department of Lima. Of the 1,000 largest companies in Peru, more than 75 percent are in Lima. Finally, close to 90 percent of all taxes collected in the country come from Lima and its port city of Callao. The rest of the country (generally referred to as the provinces or the interior) has long been acutely aware of its secondary status, as has Lima, whose elites have always seen themselves as a world apart from (and above) the provinces. Lima has characterized itself as “the city of the kings” or as “the garden city,” although many cold-eyed observers have asked whether such romantic reminiscences and claims relate to a city that never really existed.1 It should be made clear here just what Lima refers to, for its usage can be confusing. In the first place, Lima is the name of one of Peru’s twentyfour departments, or states. But Lima is also the name of one of the provinces (roughly equivalent to counties) in the Department of Lima, and it is additionally the name of one of the forty-one districts within the province of Lima. When we refer to the mayor of Lima, unless specified otherwise, we mean the mayor of the province of Lima, which constitutes metropolitan Lima. Each of the districts of the province has its own district mayor, except for the district of Lima, whose mayor is the provincial mayor. The district of Lima (sometimes referred to as Cercado de Lima) comprises the historic downtown area of the city (see Figure 7.1).

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Historically, of course, Peru—and all of Spanish America—had a highly centralized political system where power was concentrated in the national executive, whether viceroy or president, civilian or military. Indeed, even today the physical concentration of both secular and sacred power in Lima remains highly visible, most notably in the venerable Plaza de Armas (or more recently the Plaza Mayor), which contains the cathedral, the archbishop’s palace, the presidential palace, and Lima’s city hall. Given this extraordinary physical as well as psychological concentration of power, what is usually thought of as “home rule” or municipal autonomy, has had little chance of succeeding. This is not to say that local strong men or caudillos have not played major roles in Peruvian history but rather that local officials have seldom been formally or legally able to act on their own behalf or to count on resources that have been theirs to generate and control.2 The reasons for such municipal weaknesses are several, but paramount among them is that mayors of all Peruvian cities have been, for most of the nation’s history, appointed by the president. Indeed, municipal elections until the 1980s were either nonexistent or occurred as a shortlived experiment. The most important of these experiments occurred during the first term of President Fernando Belaúnde, 1963–1966. These elections were the first of their kind in Lima’s history but disappeared when the military seized power in 1968. Most of the city’s mayors thus have been appointed, either by civilian or military presidents. And while an appointed mayor may have a constituency in the city’s populace in terms of needs and demands, his acquisition and maintenance of power depend on the president who appoints him. Therefore, his policy decisions will necessarily see as paramount the wishes, campaign promises, or dictates of the president to whom he owes his position. The difficult task of breaking away from this historic arrangement constitutes much of what this chapter is about. To begin, we address two basic questions: (1) How did Huntington’s third wave of democracy manifest in Peru? and (2) Did import substitution industrialization (ISI) policies cause dramatic demographic and social changes in Peru as they did in other Latin American countries?

Waves and Riptides Huntington’s influential The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (1991) proposes that three waves of democracy have been seen in the past two hundred years or so, with each one being of

197 Figure 7.1 Districts of Greater Lima Central City 1 Barranco 2 Breña 3 Jesús María 4 La Victoria 5 Lima-Cercado 6 Lince 7 Magdalena del Mar 8 Miraflores 9 Pueblo Libre 10 Rímac 11 San Borja 12 San Isidro 13 San Luis 14 San Miguel 15 Santiago de Surco 16 Surquillo

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broader and longer duration than its predecessor. The first wave (1820s to 1920s) involved primarily North America and Western Europe; Latin America was only lightly influenced. The first wave was followed by a reverse wave of authoritarianism after World War I. The second, short wave (1944–1962) spread more fully into Latin America, but only three countries (Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela) were able to resist the subsequent second authoritarian riptide that engulfed the region. Beginning in the mid-1970s, a third wave appeared that is virtually global in reach and that has yet to be reversed, though how long it can and will last has been the subject of much speculation. Huntington’s waves and their dates are, of course, generalizations; an individual country may or may not match his profile. In the Peruvian case, Huntington’s first global wave was never fully realized. Civilian control came slowly to Peru following the wars of independence in the 1820s, and while elections from that time on did occur sporadically, interruptions took place due to a variety of events, including the disastrous War of the Pacific (1879–1883) with Chile. Peru’s first elected civilian president was Manuel Pardo (1872). From the 1890s until the 1920s, Peru—and, for that matter, virtually all of Latin America—closely resembled what Robert Dahl (1971) classifies as a competitive oligarchy, where contestation for power was vigorous but where participation was limited to a small minority due to various suffrage restrictions (age, literacy, gender, landownership, taxpaying status, etc.). By the second decade of the twentieth century, Peru’s oligarchic rule had weakened; certainly the presidency of Guillermo Billinghurst (1912– 1914), abbreviated as it was, showed signs of moving away from the old pattern of aristocratic rule toward a mildly inclusive populism (McEvoy 1997; Planas 1994; Del Castillo, 1996). But although national and/or legislative elections were for the most part held during this time period, they sometimes did not determine who would take power or govern, for the military would intervene when it saw the need to do so, either as a veto group or (less frequently) with a coup. While it is obvious that full-blown democracy did not exist at this time in Peru, a start in that direction had certainly been made; indeed, as Dahl argues, establishing the means for contestation prior to opening up the political process for inclusive participation may, in the long term, be more conducive to establishing democratic procedures. For Huntington, history’s first reverse wave started during the 1920s and lasted until the early 1940s. Yet it was during this time period that Peru gained ground in its search for a democratic modus operandi as the first beginnings of mass politics started to develop. On the one hand,

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Augusto Leguía seized power in 1919 and ruled through noncompetitive elections until 1930, when he was overthrown. Yet on the other, Peru’s first radical, mass-based political party appeared as the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana, or APRA) in 1924, founded and guided by Victor Raul Haya de la Torre. APRA (whose members are apristas) quickly became Peru’s best-organized party, but its radicalism, occasionally violent tactics, and its “sólo el aprismo salvará el Perú” (“only APRA will save Peru”) mentality polarized the electorate and alienated the military. The 1931 election in Peru pitted APRA against Luís Sanchez Cerro, who had overthrown Leguía in 1930; Sanchez Cerro won but was assassinated (supposedly by an aprista) in 1933, and power went to Oscar Benavides, a military leader who ruled until 1939. Peru’s experience with democracy during the 1920s and 1930s, therefore, was severely truncated. Elections brought Manuel Prado to office in 1939, but APRA was not allowed to run its own candidates. When Prado stepped down in 1945, he was followed by José Bustamante, a civilian constitutional successor who tried to accommodate himself to APRA but who was overthrown in 1948 by General Manuel Odría, who ruled as dictator until 1956, at which time Manuel Prado ran once again and was reelected. The elections of 1962 (an APRA leader, Haya de la Torre, was allowed to run as a candidate for the first time since 1931) failed to produce a winner because the constitution stipulated that a candidate had to take at least a third of the popular vote. The ensuing constitutional logjam was broken when the military seized power for a year and then allowed new elections in 1963. This quick history of Peru makes no reference to local politics, and for good reason: No local elections occurred and appointed mayors were universal. That situation changed for a short period of time starting in 1963 with the election of Fernando Belaúnde Terry, at that time a moderate reformist and founder of the Popular Action Party (Acción Popular, or AP). Belaúnde could not finish his term; the military overthrew him in 1968. Yet for our purposes, his term in office was important because he implemented municipal elections in 1963 and 1966. Thus, the periods 1939–1948 and then 1956–1968 might be said to constitute short and failed second waves and 1968 the onset of another authoritarian riptide. As was the case with most of South America, institutionalized military rule overcame Peru when General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–1975) seized control. His term as president was unprecedented not only for Peru but for all of Latin America in that he instituted a reformist, left-wing, somewhat populist regime that saw the state become a major

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player in terms of its control of the economy. Velasco also attempted simultaneously to generate and control widespread social mobilization for his policies through an umbrella organization called SINAMOS (National System for the Support of Social Mobilization, or Sistema Nacional de Apoya a la Mobilización Social), calling especially on Peru’s lower classes to take part in the so-called revolution of the armed forces and in its mechanisms of “social democracy with full participation.” But the military overextended itself by trying to do too much too rapidly with insufficient resources, financial as well as human, and this overextension, combined with rising prices for petroleum, meant that by 1975 many of the Velasco policies had floundered. Velasco himself was eased out in that same year by General Francisco Morales Bermudez, whose major achievement was to return Peru to civilian rule. This transition occurred as a consequence of the widespread dissatisfaction with this second phase of the military rule and with its International Monetary Fund adjustment policies, the latter of which manifested itself in a series of demonstrations that culminated in a successful national strike in 1977. The military held elections for a constituent assembly in 1978 to produce a new constitution, which it did in 1979, and in 1980 new presidential elections saw Fernando Belaúnde re-elected for a five-year term as Peru set out to ride another wave of democracy.3 This third wave has produced some notable milestones for Peru. In the first place, constitutional provisions calling for presidential elections every five years have been respected. Elections have been held on schedule—1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, and 2000—a series unmatched in the country’s history. It is, of course, necessary to note the authoritarian nature of the Fujimori government after the 1992 self-coup (autogolpe), including his unconstitutional attempt to take power for a third term in 2000. The collapse of his authoritarian government permitted new competitive elections in 2001. During the Fujimori years, the military meddled in the electoral process, but from 1980 to 2000 it did not prevent an elected president from taking office or from finishing his term. From 1980 onward, suffrage has been universal as the voting age dropped to age eighteen and literacy requirements were abandoned. In addition, all parties and candidates during the 1980s have respected the outcome of the elections. During the 1990s, as a consequence of the selfcoup of 1992 and the authoritarian features of the Fujimori government, elections became problematic, especially the 2000 elections.4 Presidential incumbents have ceded power to their opposition in 1985 (Fernando Belaúnde of AP to Alan García of APRA) and again in 1990 (García to Alberto Fujimori of Cambio 90; Fujimori’s resignation as president in

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2000 allowed new elections to take place in 2001), meaning that for only the second time since World War I have elected presidents taken power from their predecessors. Finally, and most relevant for our purposes, the 1979 constitution (and later the 1993 constitution as well) mandated municipal elections starting in 1980 for all cities, towns, and villages, including Lima. This mandate has been carried out without significant interruption. When Peru returned to civilian rule in May 1980, Fernando Belaúnde of the AP political party was elected in a decisive victory. Six months later, Eduardo Orrego, his party’s candidate for Lima’s mayor, was also elected but by a somewhat lesser margin. As the constitution called for municipal election every three years (but every five for the president and Congress), it was not surprising that the 1983 local elections, especially in Lima, were seen as a referendum of sorts on Belaúnde’s term so far in office. To the extent that this was true, the AP found itself in trouble, because its candidate in Lima took only 12 percent of the vote, while Alfonso Barrantes, the candidate of the leftist coalition IU, won a stunning victory. In 1985’s presidential race, APRA and Alan García took a huge victory and a year later followed it up in a close race in Lima, when Jorge del Castillo of APRA narrowly defeated Barrantes’ bid for re-election. Halfway through his term, García’s policies precipitated a collapse of the country’s economy, and when municipal elections were held in 1989, APRA’s candidate suffered a severe defeat as Ricardo Belmont, a television personality with no political background, won by a substantial margin. A year later Alberto Fujimori won his astonishing bid for the presidency. Belmont ran again in 1993 and was re-elected (Fujimori’s candidate had to resign due to his lack of popular support); in 1995 Fujimori was also re-elected. The mayoral race of 1995 again pitted a hand-picked Fujimori candidate (Jaime Yoshiyama, heading the Cambio 90–Nueva Mayoría [C90-NM] ticket) against the incumbent mayor of the wealthy district of Miraflores, Alberto Andrade. Andrade won and was re-elected in 1998, defeating the governmental Vamos Vecinos candidate. A couple of patterns emerge through the course of these elections. First, parties whose incumbent presidents were doing badly in office toward the end of their terms failed in Lima mayoral races, whether the party was AP, APRA, C90-NM, or Vamos Vecinos. Second, ideological positions seemed to have little bearing on elections. Lima’s mayors came from the center-right (1980), from the left (1983), and from the center-left (1986). Third, and closely related, Lima’s two most recent mayors, Belmont and Andrade, have been, for all intents and purposes, nonideological or at least nonpartisan, as neither ran as the candidate of an established

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party. Indeed, much of their success (the same goes for Fujimori) rode upon their public insistence that they were nonpartisan.5 While Peru’s post-1980 experiment with democracy has been significant, it has not been without its problems. The most discouraging of these setbacks occurred in April 1992, when President Alberto Fujimori declared an autogolpe by which he closed the Congress and Ministry of Justice and gathered power unto himself. Most of the trappings of procedural democracy were restored after elections later in 1992 for a constituent congress that replaced the 1979 constitution. Fujimori did all that he could to maintain control by aligning himself with the military and by overseeing the collapse of most political institutions that might oppose him, especially political parties. Despite these vicissitudes, the historical tradition of appointing mayors seems safely in Peru’s past. The election of local mayors appears to have strong and wide support, and perhaps only a military coup—an event that is less likely now than at any other time in Peru’s history, though no citizen or observer of the country would ever rule out such a possibility entirely—could bring that to an end.

ISI and Post–World War II Peruvian Development As these electoral events have unfolded since World War II, a variety of economic and social events and policies have affected Peru and especially Lima. As noted earlier, Lima has always been Peru’s most important and largest city. However, in 1945 Lima was home to only 10 percent of Peru’s total population (450,000 out of 4.5 million). The end of the war brought unprecedented change in the form of huge numbers of rural-origin migrants who moved toward Lima in search of jobs, education, progress, change, and overall improvements in their well-being. In Latin America in general, much of the responsibility for such migration has been credited to ISI policies. During the 1930s and especially following World War II, many countries, such as Argentina and Mexico, implemented consistent ISI policies, and virtually all of them saw massive capital city growth. In Peru and Lima, however, rural-urban migration took place, but ISI policymaking did not. During the 1930–1960 period, Peru relied (as it had for many years) on the exploitation and export of raw commodities, especially from agriculture and mining, for its development. During the late 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s, Peru underwent a brief experiment with government-led development, but when General Manuel Odría’s coup occurred in 1948, policies changed

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dramatically. Elites, especially the large sugar planters on the northern coast of Peru, and foreign pressures manipulated policy and the Odría government until “by the early 1950s all signs of the 1940s experiment had disappeared, and Peru’s system of trade and exchange was the freest in Latin America” (Thorp and Bertram 1978, 201). Indeed, the Odría government “extended a positive and uncritical welcome to foreign capital, and staked the future of the economy on export-led growth in a laissezfaire framework” (Thorp and Bertram 1978, 257). This is not to say that industrialization did not occur in Peru, which it did on a modest scale; rather, it is to say that domestic elites decided in the mid-1950s to expand their activities into export processing. But “industrialization came late, was externally induced and controlled, relied heavily on artificial props to its profitability, was not subject to carefully-designed planning procedures or clearly-defined priorities, quickly encountered problems of scale, and failed to create a new class of dynamic local industrial capitalists” (Thorp and Bertram 1978, 273). Therefore, while Peru did not follow the ISI strategies of many of its neighbors, the same ramifications identified as coming from such policies still appeared. Cityward migration following World War II, for example, certainly accelerated and reached its apogee in the decade of the 1960s (see Table 7.1), and Lima as primary recipient of this migration flow grew rapidly and massively. This surge of untold numbers of migrants into Lima created the usual litany of deficiencies for the city—jobs, housing, water, sewerage, police protection, paved streets and sidewalks, health, and education—that it was woefully unprepared to meet. And although this influx was not precipitated by ISI policies, the results for Peru and Lima constituted a profound redistribution of the country’s and the capital city’s populations.6 Three of its most obvious manifestations were, and continue to be, poverty, inequality, and informality.

Lima and Its Problems Table 7.1 provides some basic demographic information about Lima’s growth since World War II. The data in Table 7.1 make it clear that Lima has experienced a phenomenal rate of growth since World War II, especially during the 1960s, when the city came close to doubling in ten years. Much of that decade’s growth came as hundreds of thousands of migrants poured into Lima. The pace slackened subsequently, but fertility and birth rates remained high, meaning that Lima’s population, especially the lower classes, continued to grow even after migration slowed.

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Table 7.1 Selected Demographic Characteristics of Lima Since World War II

Year

Population (Lima)

% Growth (intercensal)

Population (national)

Lima as % of Peru

1940 1961 1972 1981 1993

560,000 1,622,000 2,981,000 4,608,000 5,706,000

— 290 180 150 24

7,080,000 10,218,000 13,955,000 17,719,000 22,000,000

8 16 21 26 26

Sources: Each reported year is a census year; data are derived from respective reports.

The ramifications of such growth have been fundamental. Primary among them was the emergence of what some observers have described as two Limas: one white, wealthy, and largely middle and upper class (lima criolla or lima pituca), and the other mestizo, poor, of migrant origin, and lower class (lima chicha). The economic and social differences between the two have been dramatic from the start, along with mutual distrust, resentment, and misunderstandings.7 These contrasts intensified and were intensified by historical class differences that created tensions and changes within Lima’s elites. In addition, the lower class and upper class sometimes voted in highly distinctive ways (Powell 1969; Dietz 1985; Roberts and Arce 1998). Whatever individual or party was in power in Lima, the city’s mayors all faced the three interrelated and intractable problems of poverty, inequality, and informality. A voluminous amount has been written on each of these topics; here we can only note that the bulk of the city’s populace is poor, that the gap between its poor and its wealthy is vast by Latin American standards (whose rich-poor gap is the highest of any region of the world), and that the city’s informal sector is by some calculations (de Soto 1986) the largest in the world proportional to its total population. For Lima’s mayors, these three facts of life have meant a constant struggle to provide jobs, housing, infrastructure, roads, and transportation for the city’s elites as well as its masses; to keep the city’s central core free from thousands of ambulatory and permanent street vendors; and to do all of this with a tax base that has traditionally been poor and with tax collection policies that have been more ignored than honored. One area of Lima where poverty, inequality, and informality all come together has been in its squatter settlements (variously known as barrios marginales, barriadas, or pueblos jóvenes), whose residents now make up at least half of the city’s total populace. Over the past three or four decades, these settlements have shown some remarkable tendencies toward consoli-

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dation and improvement. Much—especially improvements in individual dwellings—has undoubtedly been due to the work of the settlements’ inhabitants themselves. In addition, various administrations have invested in infrastructure (water, sewerage, electricity, and paved streets), with the result that anyone who remembers these areas from the 1960s and 1970s would be astounded at the changes in most of the older settlements. Such upgrading may help to explain the notable decline in social movement activities across the 1990s, where improvements in neighborhood infrastructure have lessened the need for (and success of) mobilizational activities. While poverty, inequality, and informality have been among the major challenges that national and municipal authorities have had to confront since at least the 1950s, other difficulties and needs exist as well: a decaying central city core that contains innumerable and irreplaceable examples of colonial architecture, massive traffic congestion, crime and urban violence, and a city environment with dangerous pollution levels. All of these conditions and circumstances make up the complex array of problems that Lima’s mayors have faced, whether appointed or elected.

The Distribution of Power: National, Provincial, and District The first of the five themes identified in Chapter 1 deals with decentralization and the (re)distribution of power. As we have already mentioned, power in Peru was centralized in the national executive since its founding in the sixteenth century. When in the nineteenth century the idea of an elected president was first contemplated, direct popular elections were not necessarily the first choice. For example, legislatures sometimes elected presidents from among their members. But however national executives were selected, they were given the power to appoint mayors and other local officials. Municipal laws and codes of the times reflected this concentration of power. Peru’s first comprehensive municipal law of 1892, which was in effect for almost a century, gave mayors little or no autonomy, and put city councils (consejos provinciales metropolitanos) under the control of the presidency. The 1892 law was finally replaced in 1981 by Legislative Decree 051. Based on the 1979 constitution, Decree Law 051 provided for the popular election of provincial and district mayors and thus helped to legitimate local governments. Yet it also reinforced the concentration of power in institutions that controlled local government. Local control of municipal affairs was relegated to the administration of basic services (garbage col-

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lection, street cleaning, maintaining markets); the needs or wants or opinions of the citizenry had little direct effect on municipal policymaking. During the term of Eduardo Orrego (1980–1983), the first elected mayor of Lima following the 1968–1980 period of military rule, a new municipal law (23853) transferred several new functions to local control: parks, census, transportation, low-income housing, and metropolitan development and planning. Insofar as our inquiry is concerned, Law 23853 gives the provincial mayor (i.e., the mayor of the province of Lima, which is the same as the mayor of metropolitan Lima) approximately as much power over district mayors as the national executive has over him. To put this distribution of power in context, it needs to be understood that Lima presently has forty-one districts (its port city of Callao is a separate jurisdiction) and, as explained earlier, the mayor of metropolitan Lima is also mayor of the district of Lima (Cercado de Lima). This latter entity is the city’s downtown historic core and was from the city’s founding Lima’s most populous district until the 1981 census. Each of Lima’s districts has its own mayor and council responsible for that district. In contrast, the mayor of Lima is not only responsible for his district but for the affairs and well-being of the metropolitan area in general. If it is clearly true that the mayor of Lima has far too few resources at his command to manage a city the size of Lima, it is equally true that district mayors rely exclusively on resources within their own district— relatively little revenue sharing is in effect. As a result, some district mayors have a good deal to draw upon while others have very little, indeed. As noted previously, Lima’s districts tend to be drawn along clear class and income lines. Such a situation frequently means that Lima’s lowerclass districts must either ask for additional assistance from the metropolitan authorities or search for external aid, sometimes from international foundations, neither of which foments autonomy. When it comes to coordinating or resolving disputes between the province and its forty-four districts, the mayor of metropolitan Lima presides over a metropolitan mayors’ assembly, but the preeminence of the provincial mayor allows him or her to coordinate, complement, or supplement the activities of the district municipalities (Zas Friz 1998). In the case of an outright dispute or disagreement, a district mayor may protest but has little recourse against the provincial mayor. Having said this, it must be repeated that Lima’s metropolitan mayor operates under very real constraints. Various laws putatively give the mayor a good deal of power, but such laws have not always been implemented. In general, if a conflict arises between national and municipal

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authority, and if the law does not expressly delegate power to the municipal authority, it belongs to the national government. Financially, for example, municipal mayors have little autonomy. They can create, raise, and supplement local taxes, but they depend to an extreme degree on transfers from the national government. For example, according to 1994 statistics, metropolitan Lima had autonomous control over slightly more than 25 percent of its total budget, meaning that 75 percent comes from the central government, an excessively high percentage by most Latin American standards (Araoz and Urrunaga 1996). Such limited resources have constantly run up against some hard facts of life. For example, to assert that Lima has undergone a population explosion since World War II brooks no opposition: Any city that grows from slightly more than half a million to something over 8 million in fifty years has experienced nothing less than a complete demographic, social, and physical transformation. However, to conclude that the lack of basic public amenities threatened public health and public order and that therefore national leaders “transferred” responsibilities to the central government would be incorrect in the case of Lima. Instead, when it came to coping with Lima’s problems, Peruvian national executives, whether democratic or authoritarian, opposed the election of local mayors, not because they were driven by some ISI-linked logic or imperative but more likely because the historical tradition of centralized control dominated all political thinking. No president until Belaúnde saw any desirability in decentralizing or in relinquishing control over the capital city by allowing for municipal elections. Following World War II, Lima grew, and so did its problems, but neither elites nor masses seemed predisposed to think that local elections and governance would resolve them. Lima’s appointed mayors necessarily looked toward the national government—and the presidents who put them in office—for financial support, if not policy initiatives. From the 1940s up until the 1980s at least, Lima city councils were not major players at all, as they were also appointed and were expected to do what the mayor asked them to do. But the presence or absence of ISI seemingly made no difference in terms of what happened to Lima during the 1960s and 1970s in terms of poverty, inequality, and informality. Despite Lima’s intractable problems in these three areas, the city’s mayors since 1990 or so began to receive more money than they did in the past and thus became more able to do something concrete and in many instances make notable progress. Some of this change came about as part of the reconstitution of the state under Fujimori. Based on neoliberal reforms instituted shortly after he took office, Fujimori’s budgets grew

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fourfold from 1992 to 1998, rising from 11.6 percent to 15.1 percent of gross domestic product in 1998. Social expenditures during the same period rose from 19 percent of the budget to 40 percent. Put in other terms, social spending per capita increased from U.S.$24 in 1979 to more than U.S.$61 in 1995 (Tanaka 1999). In similar fashion, municipal finances also have been strengthened, although Fujimori also simultaneously concentrated power and resisted decentralization. In 1990, total municipal finances reached only 336 million soles (approximately U.S.$100 million). This figure grew appreciably, reaching 2.08 billion soles (U.S.$639 million) in 1997. In terms of decentralization and local control, these figures might be seen as positive. Yet President Fujimori also made a number of moves to assure his control. For example, Legislative Decree 776, passed in late 1993 (and in spite of outcries from Lima’s then-mayor Ricardo Belmont), changed the distribution of the Fondo de Compensación Municipal, which is made up of funds from the national government. Decree 776 reduced the amount of money going to local government on the provincial level but increased it to the district level. While such a policy might be viewed as being progressive and as nurturing decentralization, provincial governments have many more responsibilities than do districts. In addition, there can be little doubt that Decree 776 was aimed directly at Belmont specifically and at all metropolitan Lima mayors in general in an effort to limit their power and resources (Araoz and Urrunaga 1996). As to whether all such moves will remain in place following Fujimori’s resignation in 2000 and whether this reconstitution was simply a reconcentration of power in the hands of the national executive are questions that as yet have no definitive answers. One of the primary tasks facing the Alejandro Toledo administration (2001–2006) will be to decide how to dismantle and/or reconstruct the laws and state agencies created to satisfy Fujimori’s obsession with the control of power, including laws affecting the status of municipal empowerment, especially in Lima.

Security Issues For the most part, civil disturbance in Latin American cities since 1970 or so has occurred more as community protests over specific problems (as compared with citywide urban rioting), and Lima largely supports this proposition. The most significant urban rioting that has taken place in Lima since 1970 may well have been the outburst in 1975, when crowds

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burned the downtown military club and several other prominent buildings. But this incident, along with some disturbances associated with citywide and national strikes in the mid- and late 1970s, are exceptions rather than the rule. Lima certainly sees street demonstrations for a wide variety of causes, including miners from the highlands who march on the capital to demand better working conditions and wages. But loss of control in the capital city for any reason has a system-threatening potential, and national elites have always exercised firm control over the police force, which is under the Ministry of the Interior. This generalization certainly held true during the struggle against the Shining Path, a major threat between 1980 and 1993. The national government took the lead in combating the violence associated with this insurrectionist group, whether through the use of the military, the intelligence units, or the police. Local governments played no role; when the intimidation of the Shining Path became too great in a city or region, military authorities replaced civilian ones. In the case of Lima, it was clear by 1990 that the group was beginning to plan for serious activities within the capital city. Civilian mayors remained in power in Lima, but had the group’s leader, Abimael Guzmán, not been apprehended in 1992, it is likely that military law might well have been imposed. Some developments during Fujimori’s term in office created something of an exception to the historical tradition of national control of the police. The most notable of these are called serenazgos, which are perhaps best described as district-level security forces that operate independently of the city’s and the nation’s police forces. But rather than a manifestation of some coherent decentralization policy, the serenazgos might be better perceived as responses to an extremely weak police presence and effectiveness. Serenazgo corps have appeared primarily in middle- and upperincome districts and have performed a valuable service but might best be thought of as a de facto privatization of some security functions rather than a fundamental shifting of security responsibilities from the national state to local authorities. In what might be a new move in security concerns, in February 2002 Fernando Rospigliosi, the minister of the interior in Toledo’s cabinet, and Alberto Andrade, Lima’s mayor, together announced a new Programa Nacional de Seguridad Ciudadana (National Program for Citizen Security) that is to be a joint national-municipal effort for combating crime in which local mayors will be actively involved. Andrade said that William Bratton, former chief of police for New York City, will be contracted to help develop a plan for the new program.

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Entitlements There can be no doubt that the inhabitants of Lima (limeños), especially the elites and the native-born upper classes, have felt from the founding of their city that they are and ought to be privileged. As the seat of a viceroy, as a national capital, and as the largest and most important city in the country, Lima and its residents developed from the start a strong sense of superiority and entitlement. They have ever since assumed that the lion’s share of investment should (and often, in fact, would) occur in Lima, leaving the provinces to struggle as best they could. This focus on Lima has seldom varied regardless who was in power, civilian or military, and whatever party or ideological persuasion. The most recent exception, perhaps, took place during the 1968–1975 period of military government, when General Juan Velasco concentrated many of his efforts on rural problems, including land redistribution and reform and the restructuring of Peru’s agricultural sector. Yet even during this period Velasco could not ignore Lima; much of what SINAMOS attempted to do in mobilizing support for the military’s policies involved Lima, especially the city’s squatter settlements populace. In the second half of the twentieth century, second wave appointed mayors lived and died politically on the basis of how well they did the president’s bidding. During periods of electoral rule, popularly elected presidents realized all too well that approximately one third of the nation’s electorate resides in Lima, and they have therefore paid close attention to the capital city and its problems. When municipal elections became the norm after 1980, the massive numbers of poor people living in the city meant that no candidate could ignore the city’s lower classes and their needs, at least during the run up to the election itself. But paying attention to the poor for electoral purposes only was not enough; elected mayors have had to perform as well or else see their chances at re-election threatened. All of these political facts of life have meant significant pressures on Peru’s presidents to invest public resources in Lima. But while such investments are clearly needed, they have also served to attract more and more provincial-origin migrants to the city in search of opportunities they cannot find in the provinces. Such an influx naturally enough produces additional and continuing demands on presidents and mayors to make the city more livable, more attractive, more efficient, and to present the best that Peru has to offer to the world. These pressures to concentrate on Lima have also created a centuries-long envy and bitterness toward Lima from its neighbors in the rest of the country who quite naturally resent Lima’s hegemony and its insistence on being first in line when resources are handed out.

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Yet despite the limeño feeling of entitlement and the pressures that the city can exert to capture resources, the city has never had enough money to confront its myriad problems, especially those of its poor majority. Part of the problem has certainly been due to the severely limited autonomous resource base Lima’s mayors have had, which is, in turn, a result of the inability of a mayor to raise taxes. As a rule, Lima mayors do raise local taxes, but this tendency is due much more to the fact that the amount of tax money they can raise and collect autonomously is extremely low to begin with. Because the degree to which Lima’s mayors depend on national transfers is very high, many of Lima’s mayors might well have risked raising taxes and thereby risk voter alienation, if they had only been able to do so.

Interest Groups in Lima The opening chapter lists some general arguments from the Latin American literature that assume a clear differentiation between local and national elites. Local elites are defined as groups whose wealth, power, and status derive from actions that facilitate daily life in the city rather than national elites who rule and control the nation. But we would argue that the national-local distinction may not exist in Lima, or at the very least does not play the decisive role that the literature suggests. Our fundamental assumption is that elite struggles in Lima have not been primarily between nation-oriented and city-oriented elite factions but rather between or over class conflicts and differences. Lima is, and has been for decades if not centuries, home to the nation’s elites. Put another way, Lima’s elites have almost always been the dominant national elites as well. These elites protect Lima’s hegemony with all of the resources that they can muster, and the city’s elites, along with its middle and lower classes, would rather see resources allocated to Lima than elsewhere, a theme already covered above in our discussion of entitlements for Lima. There are, of course, individuals and groups in Lima who lobby for the good of the provinces and who do so for many reasons. But given the very significant overlapping that occurs between Lima and national elites, the provinces have never received the attention or resources they have sought. The advent of elected local officials, along with the development of multiple access points by which increasing numbers of individuals and groups can attempt to influence resource allocation, has meant that Lima’s mayor has become an increasingly common target for petitions asking for or demanding assistance. Peru’s president has for decades if not centuries

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been the focal point of such demands and petitions, but the president is no longer the only target for such petitioning, a fact that has made political life within Lima more complex, in particular for mayor-president relations. In Peru, as well as throughout Latin America, fundamental differences exist between second wave mayors and/or military/authoritarian mayors, on the one hand, and third wave mayors, on the other. The two former reflected national executive concerns—first, because they were appointed officials and, second, because they had virtually no autonomy, financial or political. However, this relationship has become much more complicated in Peru since 1980. Third wave elected mayors must, given the origin and nature of their power and position, devote their attention and energies to the priorities, needs, and affairs of their constituencies, even as their autonomy is still constrained because of their heavy dependence on external resources they do not control. Partisanship and Personalism During the 1990s Mayor-president relations vary because of several factors, one of which is partisanship. Since 1980, Lima has seen national executives and mayors of the same party and of different parties hold office simultaneously (see Table 7.2). For example, Mayor Eduardo Orrego was from the same party (AP) as President Belaúnde; Jorge del Castillo was from APRA, as was President Alan García. In contrast, Alfonso Barrantes was head of the leftist IU coalition and served as an opposition mayor during the end of the Belaúnde administration as well as the beginning of the García administration. Likewise, Ricardo Belmont was an independent during the last year of the García administration and the first Fujimori term; Alberto Andrade served as an opposition mayor during Fujimori’s second term. Partisanship can obviously become important when a municipal election occurs. In theory, local elections are run by and for local candidates; however, national-level personal involvement (e.g., by an incumbent president) has been common in Peru. Interestingly, in recent years when sitting presidents have tried to influence Lima’s elections in one way or another, they have failed as often as they have succeeded. Two particular cases since 1980 are García’s highly public, and ultimately successful, support for del Castillo in 1986, and Fujimori’s equally overt, but unsuccessful, support for his party’s candidates in 1995 and again in 1998. But overall, Lima’s mayors are elected by Lima’s voters, with relatively little influence from or by national elites, political or otherwise. Undoubtedly certain professional associations—business interests, builders, and real estate—may have a decided interest in mayoral races

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Table 7.2 National, Legislative, and Municipal Elections in Peru, 1980–1998

Year

Election

Winner

Party

1980 1980 1980 1980 1983 1985 1985 1985 1986 1989 1990P1b 1990 1990 1990P2c 1993 1995 1995 1995 1998

Presidential Senate Deputies Municipal Municipal Presidential Senate Deputies Municipal Municipal Presidential Senate Deputies Presidential Municipal Presidential Unicameral legislature Municipal Municipal

Belaúnde AP plurality AP plurality Orregoa Barrantes García APRA majority APRA majority del Castillo Belmont Vargas Llosa Fredemo plurality Fredemo plurality Fujimori Belmont Fujimori C90-NM Andrade Andrade

AP

AP a IU APRA

APRA Obras Fredemo

Cambio 90 Obras C90-NM Somos Lima Somos Lima

Percentage of Vote 45.2 40.9 38.9 34.7a 36.5 53.1 51.3 50.1 37.6 45.2 32.6 32.3 30.1 62.4 44.9 64.4 52.1 52.1 58.1

Source: Tuesta (2001). Notes: a. Refers to Lima’s mayoral race. b. 1990P1 = first round. c. 1990P2 = second round.

and their outcomes, but although support that includes financing of campaigns is common (information of any sort on the financing of municipal campaigns is extremely hard to obtain), in the case of Lima, mayors do not appear to owe their office to ad hoc city/national coalitions but rather to city-oriented electorates. Although it is often true that a mayor and president from the same party can work together better than otherwise, the president of such a pair may well overwhelm his partisan mayor. However, it might be assumed that in a president-mayor pair from opposing parties, the president would automatically have the upper hand. Yet if the president is in the latter part of his term and is seen as ineffectual, and if the mayor is recently elected and represents a strong opposition, the mayor may well be able to act more or less on his own and without the president working against him. This set of circumstances prevailed, for example, for Barrantes early in his term (1983–1986). When he assumed power, Barrantes acted as if he had a separate mandate from Belaúnde (which was likely the case), especially when it came to setting up safety-net programs from the city’s poor. His “glass of milk” program was designed to provide milk to a million children daily.

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By the time this program was under way, Belaúnde was in considerable economic trouble and had neither the time nor the energy (or, to be fair, the inclination) to oppose Barrantes. In general, if and when differences exist between the president and the mayor, city council support for the mayor might at least in theory strengthen the mayor’s position. In the case of Lima, however, Peruvian law states that when a mayor is elected, he automatically receives a simple majority on the city council. Moreover, Lima’s city council simply does not have much power and the mayor is generally able to have his own way and to initiate policy as he pleases. Partisanship and Voting Candidates for the mayor’s office in Lima during the 1980s ran on partisan tickets, but strongly ideological platforms were relatively rare. One mild exception to this rule came in 1983, when IU candidate Alfonso Barrantes ran on a strongly leftist-reformist ticket, but even then the rhetoric was relatively muted. This downplaying of ideology occurred for several reasons. First, Barrantes was head of a fragile and highly disputatious coalition that did not speak with a united voice. Second, Barrantes was keenly aware that he was running a citywide race whose outcome depended on pulling votes from more than just the presumed natural constituency of the left, namely the urban working classes and the poor.8 After all, just three years earlier, the center-right AP party had showed some good success in low-income Lima. Finally, Barrantes realized that Lima’s elite and middle-class voters could make governing the city difficult if he tried to govern in an extremist fashion, which he did not. During and after the 1989 municipal elections, both partisanship and ideology lost importance as the dominant political parties of the 1980s collapsed and as more and more candidates used their personal appeal and general discussions of the city’s problems to attract voters. Ricardo Belmont won two consecutive terms by doing just that, and his successor, Alberto Andrade, who also served two terms, ran primarily on the basis of having been a highly successful district mayor. Electoral data reinforce the argument that since the early 1990s, voting in Lima has often become less class based than it had been in earlier years. For example, in 1993, when Belmont ran for his second term, he won virtually identical levels of support across Lima’s districts (43.7 percent in upper-income districts, 45.1 percent in middle-income, and 45 percent in poor districts), showing that a popular candidate could cut across

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class lines and that ideology and partisanship had by that time become impediments to winning in Lima. When Andrade ran on the Somos Lima ticket in 1995 for his first term, class-based voting appeared to have made something of a return. In running against Jaime Yoshiyama of C90-NM, Fujimori’s handpicked candidate, Andrade did well in Lima’s ten upper-class urban districts, carrying all but one (San Luis).9 Indeed, Somos Lima carried six of these wealthy districts by a simple majority of the popular vote, a major accomplishment in a multiparty race. Somos Lima also did well in the city’s nine middle-class areas, though its margins of victory were diminished; only three districts gave Somos Lima a majority of the vote. C90-NM took only two middle-class districts, but it carried the first of these by a majority vote. Two independents won middle-class district support. However, in the lower class districts, C90-NM took sixteen of twenty, while Somos Lima took two, AP one, and an independent one. C90-NM received a majority of the vote in seven districts. Overall, district-level results were in 1995 about as close as they could have been. Somos Lima took twenty districts while C90-NM took nineteen; AP took one and independents three. But Yoshiyama’s bid for the mayor’s office fell short overall, as Andrade won a narrow (52–48 percent) majority. Despite the fact that Lima’s poor constitute a large majority of the city’s voters, the margins by which Yoshiyama won in lowincome Lima was not enough to offset Andrade’s victory. C90-NM did receive the bulk of its support from Lima’s lower and working class. But given that six months earlier Fujimori had won a huge victory in Lima, taking every district with more than 60 percent of the popular vote, Yoshiyama’s defeat provided compelling evidence that Fujimori’s personalist appeal could not be transferred to another candidate. In 1998, Andrade headed a Somos Perú ticket that once again swept the upper-income districts, and two by a simple majority. In the city’s middle-class areas, Somos Perú took nine of thirteen, while Vamos Vecino (Fujimori’s new party) won four. In the lower-class districts, Vamos Vecino won eleven to Somos Perú’s eight. In other words, Andrade maintained his strong grip on upper- and middle-class Lima while at least holding his own in the city’s huge lower-class areas. In total, Somos Perú won twenty-six districts and Vamos Vecino fifteen; AP and independents each took one.10 Not surprisingly, the margin of victory in the total popular vote in the 1998 municipal elections was considerably greater for Andrade than it had been in 1995—58.8 percent to 32.7 percent. Overall, once again Lima’s municipal elections demonstrated the limitations that a strongly

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personalist Fujimori faced in trying to extend his coattails to a favored candidate.11 Personalism Under Fujimori Both Belmont and Andrade found to their dismay that winning the election as mayor of Lima might have been the easy part, and that governing the city while Alberto Fujimori was president presented a severe challenge. As already noted, Fujimori throughout the 1990s made every effort to deinstitutionalize and to personalize Peruvian politics. Presidentialmayoral relations during the decade centered on Fujimori’s obsession with monopolizing political power and with preventing any person (especially the mayor of Lima) or group from acquiring such power. During his second term, Belmont ran into Fujimori’s obsession and found himself constantly harassed by the president’s maneuvering. The degree to which Fujimori’s personalism, as well as his attempts to destroy any probable competitors, dominated during this period deserves some detailed description for the reader to understand how fierce the struggle could become. First, when it became clear that Pablo Gutierrez, the candidate Fujimori had chosen to run against Belmont in 1992, would not be able to win, Gutierrez withdrew from the race so as not to bring embarrassment to the president, while Fujimori immediately appeared to give his support to Belmont. But opinion polls in early 1993 showed that Belmont was running ahead of Fujimori in hypothetical presidential polls (Gestion, 16 March 1993). Fujimori became increasingly active in Lima and in July announced that the national government would invest U.S.$140 million in educational infrastructure and public works throughout the country, despite protests from Belmont that such money and projects should be done through and by local governments. In response, Fujimori suggested that mayors should be appointed instead of elected, thereby saving some U.S.$10 million spent on local electoral campaigns. Less than a month later, Belmont upped the rhetoric by threatening to resign if he did not receive the financial assistance he was asking for from the Bank of the Nation. Fujimori answered, in turn, with the announcement of Decree 776, described above, which cut the transfer of funds from the central government to the provincial mayor of Lima, that is, to Belmont, by, according to one calculation (Quehacer, January–February 1994), a staggering 85 percent. From that point on things went from bad to worse, reaching their nadir in April of 1994 when Lima’s city council approved, by a 35–4 vote a motion to declare President Fujimori persona non grata in the city. This act provoked Fujimori to suspend payment

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of 170 million soles (approximately U.S.$55 million) to Lima through Decree 776. Belmont then filed a lawsuit against the central government for enacting 776, an act that was followed in January 1995 by shutting down Channel 11, a television station in Lima owned by Belmont. This highly controversial move came from a judiciary that was heavily influenced, if not controlled, by the Fujimori government. Two months later Belmont announced his candidacy for the presidential elections of 1995, but his run at the presidency was short-lived and unsuccessful, and he retired from political life. Any person who serves as mayor is going to run up against a wide range of interest groups. Andrade certainly had confrontations with street vendors, organized and otherwise, when he attempted to move them off the city’s downtown streets to other locations. In addition, as the nation’s capital, Lima is the frequent site of demonstrations by organized labor unions, provincial groups, and a whole raft of other groups with interests and grievances to articulate to the national government. But in terms of running the city on a daily basis, the biggest variable in a Lima mayor’s equations has to be the national government, especially if the mayor and the president and Congress are from opposing parties. The ability of both the national executive and the Congress to throw up roadblocks and to create difficulties for the mayor is, as the example of Fujimori versus Belmont described above shows, almost unlimited, and under President Fujimori, both Belmont and Andrade frequently found the going to be tough. Other generic constraints—city councils, lack of metropolitan governance, neighborhood organizations—that might limit the strength of other capital city mayors are for the most part weak in Lima. First, and as noted, since the winner of the mayoral race automatically receives a simple majority on the council, Lima’s mayors do not have to contend with an opposition city council. Secondly, Lima has a unified metropolitan government, though the city is not a legally separate federal district or zone as it is in several other cases in this volume. Third, neighborhood groups on all socioeconomic levels operate throughout Lima, and while they may petition either their district mayor or the metropolitan mayor, they almost never limit, or try to limit, the influence of mayors but instead spend their time trying to gain attention for their causes. To repeat, therefore, in Lima the most important constraint comes from the control exerted over budgetary transfers from the national government. This limitation has been the bane of the city’s mayors for years and could well continue to be so, especially since personalist politics has so totally replaced institutional parties in Peru. A parallel constraint exists in the requirement that Lima’s mayor must have the support of the

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national government to receive loans or international credit. For example, Andrade tried unsuccessfully to get approval for credit from the World Bank for investments in Lima, and the lack of cooperation from the national government could only be understood as the desire of Fujimori not to empower Andrade or any other mayor who might thereby develop an independent power base.12 Lima’s mayors have extracted some marginal additional powers since 1980, but Fujimori’s obsession with gathering power unto himself makes generalizations and predictions difficult. If over time Fujimori’s efforts at weakening local authorities can be reversed, Lima’s mayors may gain not only what they have lost but additional powers as well. Yet, at present, it is too early and too risky to guess what the future may bring. Regulative outcomes—control of the city on a daily basis, especially basic caretaking tasks—have for the most part become localized, with the possible exception of when national security issues are at stake, but such control does not equate with or to true devolution of power. Again, whether such devolution may occur is very much open to question. That Lima is a more participatory society than it has been in the past, however, goes without saying. Neighborhood groups and social movements have come a long way since 1980 in terms of their ability and willingness to become involved in activities that pertain to them individually and their neighborhoods. A wide variety of neighborhood groups representing all social classes operates throughout Lima, and while it is doubtless true that not all receive equal attention, many such groups and their members have become adept in making demands. The city’s lower classes have in particular developed a wide range of participatory tactics and modes to provide themselves with needed communal goods (Dietz 1998b, esp. chaps. 6 and 7). But such activities by the poor have, in general, been due more to their inability to extract resources from the state, which has been seen as unresponsive and even irrelevant to their needs.

The Urban Built Environment Finally, on a more abstract and philosophical level, numerous presidents and mayors have attempted to ask just what Lima should be and what (and whom) it should represent. Peru’s and Lima’s elites have always agreed that Lima should present the best and the most modern that the nation has to offer. First, in terms of political as well as economic, financial, social, and cultural symbols, Lima’s importance has meant that the country’s presidents and the city’s mayors have worked to produce and maintain a

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city that unquestioningly lives up to expectations. At the beginning of the twentieth century, significant efforts were made to break the old boundaries of the city and to give Lima a Parisian look, with boulevards and fin de siecle architecture. Subsequent decades took on their own characteristics, generally by expanding the city and encouraging the growth of new residential and commercial areas for the city’s middle and upper classes (lower-income groups were largely left to fend for themselves, which they did in a variety of ways discussed below). Contemporary Lima tries its best to communicate modernization through its architecture and the usual provision of hotels, banks, and other monumental buildings. Skyscrapers have yet to appear in Lima in a major way; the tallest building in the city is perhaps thirty stories, and Lima remains a basically horizontal city. But regardless of such efforts toward modernity, little can be done to mask the vast inequalities between its wealthy and poor districts and neighborhoods. And as Lima’s poor have become overwhelmingly the largest sector of the city’s population, municipal officials (as well as national executives) have been forced to pay increased attention to them, especially around election time, due to the weight of numbers the poor represent at the polling booths and because voting is mandatory in Peruvian elections. For these as well as other pragmatic reasons, including public health concerns, both city and national authorities have over time invested substantial amounts of money in attempts to provide a minimally satisfactory level of functioning infrastructure (electricity, water, sewerage, garbage collection, etc.) to the city’s lower-class neighborhoods and districts. Lima’s residents, elite and otherwise, attach a good deal of high-level meaning to the capital city and its structures. Prior to the onset of post– World War II cityward migration, Lima was never representative of Peru as a whole, containing as it did the country’s wealthy, European, educated, western elites. The city’s poor occupied the shadows. But today Lima has for the first time in its history become generically Peruvian in its population, ethnicity, and social makeup as the city’s elites fled to outlying residential areas. One result of such class- and ethnicity-based population redistribution has been to relocate some of the city’s major private sector activities and buildings—banks and hotels, in particular—from the downtown area to upper-class districts, especially Miraflores and San Isidro. The meanings communicated by urban forms in terms of national identity, legitimacy, pride, aspirations, and the repertories available to manufacture them have thus changed a good deal over time. In Lima, monumentality today seems somewhat outmoded, given the crisis that overtook the country in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the economy

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collapsed and the Shining Path made serious inroads into the city. Coping with more mundane problems such as the city’s increasingly worsening traffic situation has become much more important to the city’s residents and, therefore, to its mayors. Yet national executives have always wanted to put their stamp on Lima. Starting in the 1920s under President Augusto Leguia (1919–1930), who definitively broke the old colonial barriers of the city by constructing new highways and suburban areas, the growth and modernization of Lima have always had national political as well as legitimization overtones. In the 1950s, President Odría (1948–1956) built large-scale public works projects, including schools, ministries, a stadium, and new roads, that symbolized control, stability, and prosperity. The first Belaúnde period (1963–1968) went in another direction with numerous middle-class public housing projects (San Felipe). The Velasco period (especially the years 1968 to 1975) saw highway construction and infrastructure development, much of it aimed at low-income areas as the military tried to generate support. Velasco also built a number of highly stylized public buildings, ministries in particular, that combined reinforced concrete and black glass construction materials in an unmistakably massive architectural style. The second Belaúnde administration (1980–1985) returned to large-scale middle-income housing projects. García (1985–1990) promised large-scale undertakings such as an electric train light rail transport system to bring people into the central city, but economic collapse brought this and all other such ideas crashing down. Since 1980 and municipal elections, mayors have varied in their policies. Some have undertaken large highway projects, while others have focused on infrastructure provisions in Lima’s huge shantytowns. Most efforts to preserve, maintain, and upgrade Lima’s historic downtown colonial core have come and gone with mixed success, although since 1990 some surprising progress has been made, especially during the two terms of Alberto Andrade. Many efforts to control, eliminate, and contain Lima’s tens of thousands of street vendors generally have failed, although as mentioned above, Andrade managed to relocate large numbers of them from the downtown streets to new locations. In general, second wave mayors often built large projects; third wave mayors have had to contend with (and be content with) transportation issues (decades of delayed maintenance on Lima’s roads, bypasses of various sorts to untangle traffic snarls), the informal sector (street vendors), and the like. But overall, most mayors have spent much more of their time and scarce resources on quality of life issues, doubtless because elected mayors have a constituency that expects if not demands such actions. Whether national executives or

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the city’s mayors should claim the bulk of the credit for such infrastructural improvements has been debated for a long time and will doubtless continue to be debated for years to come.

Conclusions In many ways Lima epitomizes the stereotypical Latin American primate capital city. Yet it just as clearly has its own idiosyncrasies. For example, Lima has experienced all of the repercussions associated with ISI in terms of massive rural-urban migration, the emergence of an equally massive informal sector, and huge disparities between the city’s wealthy and its poor. However, Peru never went through the classic ISI period of development as did most of its neighbors, a fact that suggests that causal arguments linking demographic changes exclusively to ISI economic policies may not be accurate. Some other key findings of our chapter also run counter to the general themes and arguments that David Myers outlines in Chapter 1. One notable exception to the literature is the lack of a sharp demarcation between nation-oriented and city-oriented elites. These two groups do not appear to have formed in identifiable ways in Peru. However, the extremely marked presence of class-based differences, especially during the past three or four decades, that the locals call lima pituca (upper-class Lima) and lima chicha (lower-class Lima) may in some ways play an analogous role for the city. Peru’s elites, whatever their description or characterization, live in Lima, and for many of them their world revolves around Lima, thereby making them simultaneously nationally as well as city oriented. What is true, and what has been true for many years, indeed, is that social class differences are far more marked and important in Peru than are any national-city elite differences. The 1980 return to civilian rule has created fundamental changes in local electoral politics. The installation of mayoral elections in that year has been successful; every three years since, except for the postponement of the 1992 elections, municipal contests have been held throughout the nation, and the winning candidates have been able to take office without interference.13 This success held true for Lima throughout the 1990s, even under President Fujimori’s rule, where opposition candidates encountered heavy-handed tactics from the president, who during his two terms in office was most reluctant to cede power to anyone. Little doubt exists that Peru supports the generalization that a nation’s capital city mayor ranks second only to the president in importance. Any-

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one who becomes Lima’s mayor is automatically viewed as a potential presidential candidate, although actual succession from one to the other has occurred only once. Part of the explanation for this inability to make such a move may lie with the historical dominance of the national government over the local. As important and as high profile as Lima’s mayors may be, they are certainly overshadowed by the president, not only in terms of prestige but also by the control that the president maintains over financial resources. Anything approaching truly meaningful and institutional decentralization has yet to take place in Peru. Personal and partisan differences still influence how funds flow to Lima, regardless of what the constitution and various statutes may say. Presidents, especially President Fujimori, have been known to pass laws specifically aimed at undercutting municipal autonomy; Decree 776 discussed above is a clear but by no means unique example. Another important factor is the differences between Lima’s electorate and the rest of the country, a topic that would require discussion far beyond the scope of this chapter. Given the highly underdeveloped and noninstitutional nature of Peruvian politics and of the political party system in particular, Peru and Lima are cases where personalities dominate politics. The collapse of the country’s traditional parties (IU, APRA, and AP) during the late 1980s meant that politics would be played out with personalities and their movements or followerships. Relations between the president and Lima’s mayors have come to exemplify just such politics. Party affiliations, ideological positions, and even issues all have become secondary to personalities, meaning that politics shows every sign of being and continuing to be highly fluid and volatile, and Peruvian democracy more generally a highly endangered species.

Notes 1. In a famous anecdote dating from the 1920s, poet Abraham Valdelomar, a self-appointed arbiter of Lima society, spent most of his time being seen in the Palais Concert on the Jirón de la Union, then Lima’s most famous and upper-class shopping street. A dictum attributed to him went as follows: “El Perú es Lima: Lima es el Jirón de la Union; el Jirón de la Union es el Palais Concert: y el Palais Concert soy yo” (“Peru is Lima; Lima is the Jiron de la Union; the Jiron de la Union is the Palais Concert; and I am the Palais Concert”). Lima has been the subject of innumerable studies and accounts, some laudatory and others highly critical. Representative examples include Fuentes (1867), Capelo (1895–1902), Wagner (1922), Laos (1929), Salazar Bondy (1962), Elespuru and Manuel (1967), and Benvenutto Murrieta (1983). For an example of a nostalgic and rose-colored

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glimpse of 1950s Lima, see Caretas, 29 October 1990, p. 79: “The decade of the 1950’s, so full of episodes in living color and flavor, but with television already hovering over it, is lost inexorably with the passage of time. 1960 arrives, and the decade enters definitively into memory, a wonderful memory that today has almost become a legend.” 2. This generalization should not obscure the fact that indigenous communities in Peru’s Andean highlands have for many decades been de facto autonomous and have governed themselves, even if their mayors were sometimes appointed. Lima and the national state were for such communities too far away, physically as well as culturally, to take an active role. Nevertheless, because this chapter focuses on Lima, this important exception will not be discussed. 3. The 1979 constitution recognized and legitimated local government, mandated local elections, and called for the construction of regional (supra-state) governments as well. The latter has had a checkered history. A law mandating regional governments was passed during the García government, but the process of implementation was slowed initially by extended debate. The whole process basically came to a halt following President Fujimori’s self-coup in 1992, when all existing regional governments were closed down and replaced by transition councils for regional administration, entities that have been granted little real power. 4. Although the 2000 presidential election was held as scheduled, many observers, domestic as well as international, condemned them as fraudulent and illegitimate. In the end, President Fujimori resigned shortly after his third election, bowing to a whole series of scandals swirling around him and his close associate Vladimir Montesinos. New presidential and congressional elections were held in 2001, when Alejandro Toledo won a victory in a second round runoff. 5. The fact that both Belmont and Andrade were not members of any established party only reflects the sad condition of Peru’s party system in the 1990s. During the 1980s, four parties dominated the political scene: the electoral left, represented most notably by the IU; the center-left, dominated by APRA; the center-right, occupied by AP; and the Popular Christian Party (Partido Popular Cristiano, or PPC) on the right. The first three all won major elections either on the presidential or mayoral level (or both) in Lima; all collapsed in the late 1980s and showed no electoral strength nationally or in Lima as the 1990s passed. Constructing a viable and institutionalized party system remains one of Peru’s major and longtime undone tasks (see Tanaka 1998). 6. Degregori (1986) has argued that a more proximate explanation for the widespread social changes of the 1940s through the 1970s lies with the expansion of Peru’s educational system. Successive governments spent significant sums to create and upgrade the public education system in Lima and throughout the country. One of the effects of this educational investment was to generate social change, to create expectations for progress and modernity, and to provoke movement from impoverished areas toward those with more, especially Lima. 7. The literature on these changes in Lima is enormous and can only be hinted at here. Matos Mar (1984) is essential reading, as are Nugent (1992), Portocarrero (1993), Panfichi and Portocarrero (1995), and Grompone (1999). One fascinating study of the music associated with migrant-origin groups is Súarez (1995).

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8. In this election, Barrantes’s base was still clearly among the city’s poor. The IU ticket took 24.8 percent of the popular vote in Lima’s upper-class districts, 32.2 percent in the middle-class areas, and 48.5 percent in the lower-class districts. Given the much larger numbers of people in the latter, Barrantes won with 36.6 percent of the total vote. 9. As discussed in Dietz and Dugan (1996), thirty-two of Lima’s forty-one districts contain 99.6 percent of the city’s population. The remaining eleven are outlying districts with populations that sometimes total only a few hundred. Excluding these eleven to include only the urban districts gives a much more accurate view of how the great bulk of the city’s populace voted. 10. A word about the independent vote. In the 1998 municipal election, nearly a quarter of the popular vote went to independent district-level candidates in Lima. The sheer numbers of independent lists is quite astonishing. Only two districts had no independents running. Five had one independent list; eight had two lists; nine had three, seven had four, four had five, five had six, and one each had seven and eight lists. Ten districts (one upper class, three middle class, and six lower class) had more total votes for independent movements than for the winning candidate. The problem was the splintering of the independent votes into numerous movements, and their proliferation was their downfall. This fragmentation of the vote among innumerable independent movements can be interpreted in several ways. At its simplest it might be seen as a manifestation of democracy on the most local level, where a host of individuals try their wings at winning office. But the inability of such independents to come together and to present a viable independent coalition or alliance even on the district level, let alone a citywide level, argues that these independent lists can also be seen as another manifestation of the chaos that presently passes for Peru’s political party system. From start to finish, Peru today can rightly be said to possess no political party whatsoever that is worthy of the institutional definition of that term. Personalities count for everything in such a context, and it is very much to the benefit of the strongest personalities to have no institutional opposition, a fact that Fujimori learned long ago and learned well (Dietz 2000). 11. In comparing the 1995 and 1998 municipal elections more specifically, results show that in Lima’s upper-class areas, one district (Miraflores) went from Somos Lima to an independent, and one (San Luis) went from Cambio 90 to Somos Perú. In middle-class districts, Vamos Vecino (Fujimori’s party) won two in 1998 that it had lost in 1995; Somos Perú gained one; and one district (San Borja) that elected an independent in the 1995 municipal elections went for Somos Perú in 1998. In the lower-class areas, however, switching was much more noticeable: seven districts (Ate, Caraballyo, Comas, Pachacámac, Pucusana, Puente Piedra, and Villa Maria del Triunfo) moved from C90-NM to Somos Perú, while only one (Cieneguilla) changed from Somos Lima to Vamos Vecino. One (Chorrillos) went from independent to Vamos Vecino. It should be noted as well that in the city’s poorer districts, margins of victory were not as great as they had been in 1995. Overall, only six districts gave any candidate a simple majority in 1998, compared to sixteen three years earlier. Somos Lima won nine districts by a simple majority

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and C90-NM sixteen in 1995; in 1998, Somos Perú won four and Vamos Vecino no majority margins. 12. The municipality of Lima announced in mid-2001 that it was to receive a loan from the Inter-American Development Bank for U.S.$40–60 million for several projects associated with the city’s historic central core. This loan is intended to facilitate transportation, relocate street vendor areas, upgrade and remodel deteriorating colonial buildings, clean up and improve the banks of the Rimac River (which flows through the center of the city), and restore the old Municipal Theater (Caretas 2001, 18 January). This loan had been under discussion for more than five years by the Andrade administration, but had been blocked at every turn by Fujimori. 13. Starting in 2002, municipal elections will be held every five years instead of every three (Tuesta 2001, 24), meaning that municipal mayors will have the same term in office as the president but will compete in nonconcurrent elections.

8 Mexico City: The Local-National Dynamics of Democratization Diane E. Davis

Mexico City shares many economic, social, and political characteristics with the other capitals discussed in this volume.1 Yet it stands out in one key way: The democratic tidal wave that spread over the rest of Latin America came late to Mexico City, not just in terms of the introduction of democratic rights in the capital city but also in terms of the democratization of the entire political system. Both occurred almost two decades after the late 1970s and early 1980s waves of democratization swept through the rest of Latin America. Full democratic rights for Mexico City residents—that is, the right to directly elect a mayor and a local city council with legislative power—were not restored until late 1996, and it was only with the presidential election of 2000 when the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI) lost control of the national executive to an opposition party, the Partido de Acción Nacional (National Action Party, PAN), that Mexico could be considered effectively democratic.2 Mexico’s late arrival to the so-called third wave of democracy on both local and national levels raises important questions about whether governance of Mexico City will parallel patterns seen in the other capital cities examined in this volume: (1) Because authoritarian features of Mexico’s political system persisted so much longer, have the dynamics of urban policy and local executive power in Mexico City evolved differently than in other Latin American capitals? (2) Should we expect significant differences in the timing and extent of mayoral dependency, the strengthening of local representative institutions, patterns of policing, residents’ attitudes about entitlement, capacities and tactics used by interest groups, and/or 227

228 Figure 8.1 Municipalities of Greater Mexico City

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Ecatepec Gustavo a Madero Huixquilucan Ixtapaluca Iztacalco Iztapalapa Jaltenco La Magdalena Contreras Melchor Ocampo Miguel Hidalgo Milpa Alta Naucalpan Nextlalpan Nezahualcóyotl Nicolás Romero

27 Kilometers

31 La Paz 32 Tecamac 33 Teoloyucan 34 Tepotzotlán 35 Texcoco 36 Tlahuac 37 Tlalnepantla 38 Tlalpan 39 Tultepec 40 Tultitlán 41 Venus Tiano Carranza 42 Xochimilco 43 Zumpango

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the meaning or physical character of the urban built environment? or (3) Will Mexico City’s experience, on the basis of these and other relevant factors, replicate the pattern displayed in those Latin American cases where democratization occurred earlier? I address these questions using a narrative style that emphasizes general patterns of continuity and change in Mexico City governance since the late 1920s. This quasi-historical approach not only allows an assessment of whether developments in Mexico City paralleled those in other Latin American capitals in similar temporal periods; it also provides an opportunity to ascertain whether changes in urban politics and policymaking varied according to changes in the character or extent of democratization within the country itself. Specifically, are there significant differences in urban structures and practices before and after 1987, when the first steps at creating a local representative assembly (Asamblea de Representantes del Distrito Federal) began to take hold, despite the fact that the PRI still dominated the national executive and the local mayor was appointed, not elected? And how about after 1997, when full democratization materialized and citizens were granted the constitutional right to elect Mexico City’s mayor and a city council with legislative powers? As we examine the most recent decade of urban governance, we also try to understand whether any fundamental differences in urban policy are due to the democratic procedures that brought a left-leaning party, the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (Revolutionary Democratic Party, PRD), to power in Mexico City. This chapter proceeds chronologically, beginning with the historical origins of the strong connections between political dynamics in Mexico City and the nation as a whole between 1920 and 1940. It then turns to the 1950s and 1960s, when industrialization and urbanization reached new heights, when the built environment started shifting dramatically, and when struggles for democratization emerged along with growing urban problems in the capital city. After discussing successive mayoral administrations and what they accomplished between 1950 and 1980, I turn to the late 1980s, when the first signs of local democratization materialized, and compare urban policy and politics both before and after the partial urban democratic reform of 1987. I end with a discussion of the period between 1987 and 1997, when full urban democratic reform became a reality, and provide a discussion of the two different leftist administrations that governed a democratic Mexico City between 1997 and 2001. I close with some brief generalizations about the continuities and changes in Mexico City and what type of governance might be expected in Mexico and its capital city in the near future.

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Connecting City and Nation, 1928–1952 Although Mexico City had long been the most important locale in the nation, the 1910 revolution helped assure the dominance of the capital city in national politics and the economy. As the physical seat of government, Mexico City was strategically important for whichever contending revolutionary force hoped to control the national political system. These imperatives reinforced close connections between the country’s new political leadership and the people and institutions in Mexico City; and the persistence of one-party rule further cemented these relations. Starting in the 1920s and 1930s, the nation’s political leaders introduced urban policies and administrative practices aimed at appealing to local populations and thus at sustaining the legitimacy of the entire revolutionary leadership in the national government’s physical backyard. This bargain worked two ways, of course. To the extent that Mexico City populations were important to national political consolidation, national political priorities were as likely to emerge from local ones and vice versa. Yet it was precisely because local and national political objectives were inextricably linked that Mexico’s ruling coalition soon found it necessary to revamp administrative and political structures in the capital in order to facilitate the coordination of local and national objectives. One of the most important administrative changes in these regards was the 1928 elimination of local democratic structures for political participation, which put an end to the city council (ayuntamiento) system of municipal governance and dispensed with popular elections for mayor, who thereafter was appointed by the president. With Mexico’s president serving as the principal overseer of urban policymaking, through his appointment of the mayor (regente), Mexico City’s centrality in national politics was further established. From that point onward, Mexico City mayors began responding to the president’s bidding, in a form of dependency quite consistent with that seen in other Latin American countries before the third wave of democratization. But the dependent relationship between Mexico City mayors and the national executive was not as limiting as one might expect, especially in terms of urban policymaking. After all, in return for mayoral allegiance, the city was rewarded with a continuous flow of money. After 1940, most of the federal government’s investments targeted Mexico City, where infrastructure and servicing were intended to facilitate national industrial development goals, and where most of the nation’s well-subsidized manufacturing firms set up shop. With this flow of monies, Mexico City cemented its position as the physical and cultural showcase for the country’s modernization, a symbolic manifestation that a revolutionary gov-

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ernment could transform a colonial and elitist city into one that provided housing, generated wealth, and offered promise for all. The flowering of the mural movement, with significant pictorial works by Diego Rivera, David Siquieros, and Jose Clemente Orozco commissioned by the government to adorn public buildings, celebrated the city’s growing cultural, symbolic, political, and economic possibilities. Efforts to foster the capital’s growth and economic development during this period were also due to the ruling party’s purely political economic objectives. Much of the urban and economic development of Mexico City could be considered a political tactic in a larger strategy to consolidate the revolution with popular support from labor, the middle class, and a growing faction of sympathetic “nationalist” industrialists, most of whom were concentrated in the capital city. These legitimacy aims meant that despite a dependence on the national executive in terms of mayoral appointment and direct government subsidies, Mexico City mayors were encouraged to be relatively responsive to local citizens, because of (and not despite) the absence of formal democracy. Mayors knew that keeping residents happy was part of their job, especially as municipal democratic structures for political participation remained elusive. Mayoral access to national largesse, accordingly, was contingent on delivering the loyalty of capital city residents. Of course, the extent and character of mayoral responsiveness and citizen accountability were quite limited by the ruling party’s larger developmental aims. During the 1930s and 1940s, those urban constituencies whose claims fit with the PRI’s industrial modernization objectives (e.g., industrial workers, manufacturers, or even the city’s commercial classes) were on the receiving end of various urban policy benefits ranging from public housing to rent control to extensive infrastructural access (roads, electricity, and public transportation) targeted to their needs. Those whose activities and demands were less salient to the mayor’s project of urban and industrial modernization, along with those who were less likely to wield political power within the party itself (e.g., peasants living on cooperative lands in the city’s boundaries, or street vendors whose activities marred the modern image the mayor was trying to create), were generally ignored. Mexico City’s middle and popular classes were among those most dissatisfied with this state of affairs, at least before 1950. They questioned the housing privileges granted to organized labor and the government credit and subsidies granted to large industrialists. Dissatisfaction was especially great among small shopkeepers, small craftsmen with their own industrial enterprises, and other members of the traditional middle class, which included not only the self-employed and small entrepreneurs but also lower-middle-class personnel who worked in local shops, markets,

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and small firms. Over the 1930s and 1940s, many of these residents took to the streets to protest national government policies, especially over their growing insecurity as renters with high housing costs, which continued as the city’s housing market heated up due to continued population growth. They also became increasingly unhappy with strong-armed efforts to initiate a massive urban renewal of downtown areas in the late 1940s and early 1950s, which was slated to clear the central city of informal vendors and small producers so that the government could guarantee private investors land to build high-rise, high-density office buildings. Yet even if they angered long-standing downtown residents who were to be displaced, these urban renewal plans fit nicely with the aim of making Mexico City the symbolic centerpiece of the nation’s modernization, a goal equally shared by the national and the local executive. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the plan to transform downtown Mexico City should have been a fait accompli, especially with strong mayoral and presidential support and with the absence of democratic institutions on the municipal level through which citizens might stall the project. But it was precisely the absence of strong municipal institutions for citizen participation that made citizens turn to the streets to protest these urban policies and projects. With new forms of protest wreaking havoc on capital city streets, not only was the fate of the project stalled, so too were the ruling party’s legitimacy and its capacity to continue coordinating local and national objectives called into question. To the extent that it became increasingly difficult to keep all Mexico City populations loyal through urban policy and infrastructural investments, the mayor and his national political allies in the PRI began to rethink both urban policy and political process. There were two choices if they wanted to remain in power: Either change the character and content of urban policymaking, or find alternative municipal structures and/or political mechanisms to respond to the disenfranchised. The PRI leadership opted for the latter, in no small part because it was still eager to control urban policy so as to link the growth and development of the capital city to larger modernization objectives, primarily the fostering of concentrated industrialization in the city’s largest and most sophisticated market of consumers. Accordingly, the ruling party calculated that they could best head off potential opposition from among Mexico City populations not on the receiving end of this urban and industrial largesse by giving them their own sectoral structure for representation in the national party. In 1943, PRI leaders announced the establishment of a new “participatory” body called the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares (National Federation of Popular Organizations, CNOP), which

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existed alongside those targeted for labor (Federation of Mexican Workers, CTM) and peasants (Federation of Mexican Peasants, CNC). The CNOP incorporated shopkeepers and small industrial producers, artisans, government employees, educated professionals, and other members of the traditional middle class, most of whom lived in the capital city. It also brought military personnel into party structures, and by so doing signaled an end to formal military involvement in politics and urban policymaking that eluded most of Mexico’s neighbors to the south.3 But because the CNOP was a national and not a local organization, it did not really compensate for the absence of democratic structures in the city; and because it was highly diverse and occupationally fragmented, holding within it rural as well as urban middle classes as an extraordinarily powerful federation of state workers, it hardly served as a mechanism through which Mexico City citizens could truly influence urban policy. As such, it was only a stopgap measure, albeit an important one because it prevented the military from legitimately controlling any office, local or national. Within just a few years it became clear that another tactic would have to be employed if capital city residents were to continue to accept one-party rule and presidential appointment of the mayor. The alternative chosen combined a slight shift in urban policymaking with a slightly reformulated political process. Starting in 1952, urban policy priorities began shifting dramatically, not just as compared to the past but also as compared to what was occurring in other Latin American cities around the same time. This change was evident primarily by the fact that Mexico City’s mayor increasingly redirected his attention from housing to transportation. The latter was still of great concern to manufacturing industrialists, who needed local government support in transportation to ensure a smooth supply of working labor. But it also appealed to middle classes and downtown merchants, who benefited greatly from a regularized transport system. Second, in keeping with the aims of opening out urban policy and politics to accommodate the demands of commerce as well as industry, the mayor also formed his own local representative body, called a consultative council (consejo consultivo) that comprised both business and commercial interests plus a smattering of middle-class property owners appointed directly by the mayor and to whom he turned for guidance. With these two shifts, along with a renewed mayoral effort to stall disruptive downtown urban renewal plans and redecorate and reinvigorate the city’s parks, plazas, and schools, urban middle classes and much of the city’s commercial sector displayed a renewed sense of political loyalty to the PRI. Once large swathes of the Mexico City population expressed tacit satisfaction with urban policy and politics, the national political leadership

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breathed a sigh of relief. In contrast to many other Latin American capitals during this period of time, these moves mitigated against the emergence of struggle (class related or otherwise) over the built environment, over the coordination of urban and import substitution industrialization (ISI) objectives, or even over the absence of democratic institutions, at least temporarily. But this peace did not come cost-free. The price was the increased political power and administrative autonomy of the capital city’s mayor, as well as the new consejo consultivo, which, although not fully democratic, laid the initial foundations for strengthening direct citizen participation in urban administrative affairs. With enhanced political legitimacy vis-à-vis previously disenfranchised urban populations, with his own locally controlled “representative” body in place to link him to local business and community interests, and with his personal popularity and institutional capacity to coordinate local and national political objectives further enhanced, Mexico City’s mayor was now in a position to call the shots, even with respect to the national political leadership. And all this had occurred without a shift in the democratic status of the city or the nation, without a true democratization of the local political system, and without the involvement of military personnel.

The Heyday of Mayoral Autonomy, 1952–1964 The mayor’s growing power and relative autonomy throughout the 1950s is somewhat paradoxical in that it was deeply grounded in an institutional dependence on the national executive, a dependence in turn reinforced by his direct presidential appointment, the absence of independent municipal structures, and one-party rule more generally. But it was precisely the mix of institutional dependence and local political autonomy that guided urban politics and urban policymaking in Mexico’s capital city over the 1950s and early 1960s, producing policies and a built environment that were departures from the modal pattern seen elsewhere in Latin America. The mayor who achieved perhaps the greatest political power and administrative autonomy vis-à-vis the national executive, and whose urban policymaking was most responsible for Mexico City’s exceptionality in terms of its built environment, was Ernesto Uruchurtu. First appointed mayor by President Adolpho Ruiz Cortines in 1952, Uruchurtu stayed in office for an unprecedented fourteen years. In many ways, the extended length of his term as mayor (no other mayor before or since has served more than one term, or six years) contributed to his autonomous capacity.4 Yet Uruchurtu’s long hold on the office can be traced to his suc-

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cesses in serving the urban and political aims of local populations as well as national leaders. Because Uruchurtu could make both citizens and the party happy, subsequent presidents wanted him to continue as mayor, further reinforcing his institutional capacity to get the job done.5 Among other things, Uruchurtu was known for eliminating transportation problems in the city, something he accomplished by establishing a semiautonomous municipal agency that worked with his office to regulate bus transport.6 In exchange for favored treatment in the allocation of bus permits and fare increases, bus owners cooperated with authorities in the regulation of routes and general servicing. While almost all residents praised Uruchurtu’s success in establishing more reliable transport service, downtown shopkeepers especially relished the elimination of a considerable number of buses that had clogged downtown streets, and the city’s new class of industrialists applauded the promise of an affordable commuting service for its urban labor force. Uruchurtu also made great gains in fiscal matters. Before coming to office, Mexico City’s budget had started to skyrocket out of control, owing to the massive investments in infrastructure for industry and housing for its workers. In addition, the capital’s mayors predictably spent more than they collected because tax rates in Mexico City were set extraordinarily low to foster local industrial development. Even with the national government subsidizing local development, by 1955 Mexico appeared on the verge of fiscal crisis, a state of affairs that provoked a massive peso devaluation. One of Uruchurtu’s most significant deeds as mayor was the implementation of a more comprehensive and administratively well-coordinated system of tax collection. This system eliminated the burden of federal subsidy for Mexico City and helped the national government weather its economic crisis.7 Uruchurtu’s masterful administrative and infrastructural accomplishments during this key period of rapid industrialization made him a formidable political force in both local and national politics. After his first six years in office, the national political leadership was pleased enough with his skills and deeds that he was reappointed mayor for a second term in 1958 and a third in 1964. Residents considered him one of the best mayors the city had ever seen; local industrial and commercial leaders also showered him with praise, granting him a medal of merit never before given to a public servant (El Universal, 3 January 1957). His name was even floated as a potential presidential candidate precisely because he was known to have relatively widespread appeal.8 But there were trade-offs involved, both in terms of urban policy process and outcomes, both of which were evident in the appearance of the built environment and the

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growing sense of political exclusion among certain sectors of the Mexico City population. For example, Uruchurtu’s efforts to appeal to middleclass families and more stable commercial enterprises and businesses (who were represented on the consejo consultivo) politically alienated the growing informal sector of street vendors, squatters, and other less privileged poor residents of the capital.9 Uruchurtu chose to accommodate the concerns of the city’s large cadre of small commercial shopkeepers and their employees and customers, many of whom lived and worked in downtown areas in nearby government offices. He used local police to “cleanse” the streets of “uncivilized” rural migrants who frequently became petty traders and ambulant vendors. Not only were these street vendors seen as competing with local shops and businesses, they were also viewed as destroying the cultural ambience of downtown residential and shopping areas. Understandably, this use of armed force was seen as an infringement on the rights and livelihood of marginal sectors of society, and it created considerable outcry from them. Uruchurtu also used the same coercive armed police forces against squatters. He bulldozed their illegal settlements and took a harsh stance against servicing, refusing to extend electricity or roads to newly settled areas in the outskirts of the city.10 But perhaps most startling for the mayor of a major capital city, Uruchurtu protected downtown areas from massive destruction by real estate developers, a stance that by the late 1950s also entailed his vociferous opposition to a plan to build a subway in the capital. The modernization of downtown areas was embodied in a plan to build a subway that would valorize downtown land and thus provoke construction of high rises, corporate headquarters, and upper-income housing facilities. Uruchurtu’s opposition was part and parcel of his appeal to the traditional middle classes, particularly those employed in smaller scale commerce and the public sector, who lived in areas surrounding downtown and who still used the city’s central plazas and parks as locations for culture, leisure, and employment.11 They did not want to be displaced, and they did not want their traditions and their lifestyles to be so dramatically transformed. They also felt entitled to make these claims on the mayor, owing to their centrality in the social, economic, and political history of the city and the nation, and to the patron-client relationships they had forged with him. With these social classes serving as his political base, Uruchurtu responded accordingly, although by doing so he set himself apart from earlier Mexico City mayors. He was also distinct from most of his counterparts in Latin America during the 1950s and 1960s, who frequently saw the modernization of the built environment and the development of new

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architectural forms and downtown projects as a central part of their job. His intolerance of squatter settlements also distinguished him from most Mexico City mayors before and after him (although not from his counterparts in the rest of Latin America), who saw squatting as a practical and political alternative if the lower classes were to be displaced from downtown areas by increasing land prices and proposed urban renewal projects. The fact that citizens and political administrators were divided over the subway and downtown development suggests caution as we try to consider the extent to which the built environment of a capital city projects “high-level” meaning or if we seek to determine the extent of citizen entitlement in a capital city. With this particular set of urban policies at least, different citizens and different administrators felt entitled to advance different visions of the city. In this sense, the image, character, and meaning that Mexico City projected during the 1950s and 1960s was vigorously contested. On the one hand was the vision entertained by the president or nationally powerful industrialists, large-scale commercial entrepreneurs, and real estate developers who wanted to modernize technology and land use. On the other, and in stark contrast, was the vision advanced by the mayor and the middle and lower-middle classes, whose appreciation and celebration of the city rested in the immediate past and the ways that social and economic activities had developed downtown in the decades after the revolution. The latter groups prevailed, at least in terms of considerably limiting downtown development, because the mayor was both personally willing and institutionally empowered enough to act on their desires. In this sense, despite the absence of local democracy or strong municipal institutions, the mayor displayed considerable responsiveness and accountability, albeit targeted to different class groups than was generally expected, and in ways that pushed him to produce a different built environment in the capital city.

Limits to Local Autonomy, 1964–1976 The Uruchurtu administration may have been successful in terms of stopping downtown development and controlling growth, but only partially and only for a short period of time. By butting heads with the national executive and other nationally significant political and economic elites who supported downtown development and the subway, Uruchurtu courted disaster. The problem was not merely his efforts to protect the traditional character of downtown areas, the restrictions he imposed on land regularization, or his frequent refusal to approve permits for new real

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estate developments within the federal district. The combined effect of these policies limited the growth and transformation of the capital city, since the fate of ISI hinged on industrialists’ capacities to draw a larger low-wage urban labor force into their factories. In addition, the private sector began diversifying investments into real estate and large-scale commercial activities as much as industrialization. Put in terms of some of the themes explored in this book, the competing visions for the city manifested themselves in a struggle between the mayor and the president. The immediate stakes were Uruchurtu’s job, and the longer-term stakes involved the development of the national economy, whether Mexico City would continue to be the economic heart of the nation. Ultimately, Uruchurtu lost his battle, largely because of the absence of local democratic means that could have empowered his supporters to fight the president directly. One party rule meant that Mexico’s president had several coercive and political tools at his disposal to help force the mayor’s resignation. In 1966 President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz induced the PRI leadership to bring the party’s organized labor sector, the CTM, together with other pro-urban growth forces in a call for Uruchurtu’s dismissal. Two factors spurred the CTM leadership to rally behind the president, despite the fact that Díaz Ordaz was an economically and politically conservative president who generally gave organized labor considerably less leeway and privilege than had other presidents. One was labor’s general support for industrialization at any cost, including unmanageable urban agglomeration. Because unlimited industrialization was assumed to translate into more jobs for the industrial working class, labor had more reasons to join with spokesmen for large industrialists and support the prourban modernization forces. Equally important, however, labor historically had been no great friend of Uruchurtu or of the petit bourgeois forces that formed the core of his political coalition. In addition to rejecting his middle-class morality, which many saw as racist and near-fascist at times, radical elements in the labor movement particularly abhorred Uruchurtu’s bulldozing actions against new migrants, who were the poorest of the poor and thus a symbol of Mexico’s most disenfranchised. By so doing, labor joined a rather unusual cross-class alliance that also included real estate developers, large industrialists, and the squatters who had so long been denied the benefits of the industrialization miracle.12 After Uruchurtu’s forced resignation, President Díaz Ordaz appointed a new mayor, and policies in Mexico City started to change almost immediately. Within a week of coming to office, the next mayor, Alfonso Corona del Rosal (1966–1970), proudly announced the construction of a new subway for the capital, an act that symbolically and substantively

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reflected his break from the urban policies of the immediate past. He also lifted all bans on land regularization, an act that resulted in a surge of real estate investment in the capital and the construction of several new residential and office developments. With these changes, it appeared that the fourteen-year struggle over Mexico City’s growth and administration had been put to rest, at least temporarily. In terms of permitting urban expansion, the policies of Uruchurtu’s successor opened the floodgates for change and by so doing re-established a more direct correlation between national economic objectives and local policymaking, as had prevailed in the 1940s and 1950s. Equally important, political conditions changed, too, at least with respect to the nature of the relations between mayor and president. Starting with Mayor Corona del Rosal’s administration, Mexico’s presidents took much greater care to appoint mayors to the capital city who would do their personal and political bidding and who would not be prone to develop their own administrative autonomy or push projects that contradicted the president’s own aims. This new state of affairs was clear not just with the national executive’s appointment of Corona del Rosal, who implemented most of President Díaz Ordaz’s desired urban development projects and thus facilitated the capital city’s extension in space. It also was true in the subsequent administration of President Luís Echeverría (1970–1976), who appointed longtime friend and political ally Octavio Sentíes (1971–1976) as mayor of Mexico City. Just as Corona del Rosal acted with Díaz Ordaz, Sentíes loyally and faithfully carried forward Echeverría’s urban vision. But this team’s plans for the city were entirely different than those advanced by Díaz Ordaz and his mayor. Indeed, the new administration took a more populist—and less elitist—stance on urban and national development: rolling back the commitment to downtown development (and its main facilitator, the subway), renewing efforts to regularize squatter lands (and by so doing re-establish state as opposed to market control of urban growth patterns), and limiting urban development more generally, a goal best evidenced through the implementation of decentralization policies. For a variety of political and social reasons, including a desire to legitimize the ruling party after government violence targeted the 1968 student movement and the more conservative and authoritarian tone set by Díaz Ordaz, Echeverría also sought to create a new, more plebian political structure for urban popular participation, built around a system of community boards that would answer directly to the mayor’s office. This new system of neighborhood representation, despite its lack of democratic “teeth,” not only contrasted with the top-down authoritarianism of Corona del Rosal’s mayoral administration, it also improved on Uruchurtu’s pre-

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ferred style of governance (in which the consejo merely formalized the involvement of local elites) and his repressive hand. The new municipal structures that Mayor Sentíes brought to life in the early 1970s gave almost all classes in a variety of urban locales an opportunity to express grievances. Urban policy changed accordingly, with more emphasis on housing and community development, and with mayor and president working to present a common front of populist accommodation that tentatively restricted urban growth and redistributed gains to the poor and working classes. One result of these shifts was that Mexico City saw an increasingly better organized urban citizenry, in no small part because of the formal impetus to neighborhood organization generated by a new system of community boards introduced by Mayor Sentíes. Through these consultative municipal bodies, residents began to make demands for land regularization, housing, and services. But these claims extended far beyond the city’s fiscal capacities and beyond Echeverría’s political wherewithal, particularly considering that many of his populist stances vis-à-vis the national economy were also generating serious unease among entrepreneurs and other conservative sectors in and outside the party. The coordinated Echeverría-Sentíes team was seen as threatening much of the country’s national economic elite, especially those linked to high finance and those who had long gained from the centralization of industry and real estate development in Mexico City. Political fireworks ensued, despite the clear political gains from responding to the popular classes in the capital city. It was for precisely these reasons (e.g., increased demands from below and challenges from above) that President Echeverría found it necessary to foster the same strong connections with Mexico City’s mayor as did his predecessor.13 But it was for precisely the same reasons that his team faced limits in their capacities to act on their preferred urban (and national) policy plans. Their urban policymaking autonomy was limited, not because of any lack of coordination between mayor and president or even because of an inordinate power on the part of the mayor, but because of the threat these new urban policies and the establishment of a stronger and more representative municipal political structure posed to other elite political and economic forces in the city and nation. Further, this threat had very little to do with the mere presence or absence of democracy, either local or national, but with elite fears about what policy stances would be advanced with democratic structures in place. If anything, it might be said that Sentíes’s urban policymaking autonomy was limited despite—and most probably because of—the gains made in making citizen participation in the urban policy process more representative.

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Beyond Mayoral Autonomy, 1976–1987 From the 1950s through the mid-1970s, there was no clear pattern of increasing or decreasing mayoral autonomy, or of the relationship between the extent of mayoral autonomy (or dependence), the existence of municipal structures for urban political participation, and the specific content of urban policy. This state of affairs continued into the 1980s, just as the dynamics of urban policymaking became more complicated. Accordingly, the urban policies and institutional practices of mayors taking office after 1976 differed from their predecessors and successors on some issues, such as transport and land regularization. But others, mainly downtown development, remained largely the same. These similarities and differences existed even though some type of consejo consultivo system of local representation continued during each of these administrations. What best explains the urban policy process and content in this general period, then, is not the strengthening of municipal institutions per se but the changing composition and character of demands made by the city’s residents (both elite and popular), the overall political and economic situation in the country, and the ongoing urban transformations, including the continued growth and expansion of the city into the surrounding state of Mexico. Stated simply, the concrete tasks of governing a burgeoning metropolis marked by enormous problems and filled with an activist and mobilized elite with completely different urban plans determined urban policymaking as much as did mayoral autonomy and the character of local representative institutions. The urban policies of Mayors Carlos Hank González (1976–1982) and Ramón Aguirre Velázquez (1982–1988) went a long way toward recapturing confidence on the part of the national economic elite. Hank González reinstituted subway extension, prioritized transportation, and sought to promote urban infrastructure that would extend the city out to its furthest periphery in the state of Mexico, where he once served as governor.14 Unlike earlier mayors (e.g., Corona del Rosal) who supported the subway, after an initial attempt Hank González largely gave up on plans for downtown development, seeking instead to widen streets all over the metropolitan area and to offer opportunities for real estate investors in the extended regions of the capital and the metropolitan areas. His signature project, in addition to extending the subway, was the development of a massive grid-style roadway plan for the entire city. Called ejes viales, these roads destroyed neighborhoods all over the city, as houses were torn down to make room for widened streets of four to six lanes that could carry the growing number of cars and buses that transported the city’s burgeoning population.

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Hank González’s successor, Mayor Ramon Aguirre, also left downtown areas alone. He had no major plans to tinker with the monumental architecture or built environment of the central city, and many public and private buildings downtown continued to deteriorate. Yet in contrast to Hank González, Aguirre turned his attention away from high-profile urban projects and emphasized political process almost exclusively. Rather than alienating the business elite, as occurred during the Sentíes mayorship, these actions generated considerable tolerance from such groups, and for several reasons. One was the growing urban fiscal crisis that contributed disproportionately to the national debt crisis and that later would contribute to the PRI’s political demise. The massive urban projects that Hank González had continued (the subway) or implemented (ejes viales) cost inordinate amounts of money, most of which he secured directly from abroad through the mayoral office, bypassing the national executive. But combined with the deteriorating situation of the national economy, which owed to the exhaustion of ISI and the oil crisis, the borrowing of these external funds helped catapult Mexico into a disastrous debt crisis starting in 1981. When Aguirre took office a year later, funds were extraordinarily limited for major urban projects. Additionally, the president who appointed Aguirre, Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (1982–1988), was staking his reputation and administration on plans to normalize the financial situation in the country so as to convince foreign investors and financial markets that Mexico could recover from the debt crisis. Slashing the state budget and decentralizing policymaking were two key components of his plan, and Aguirre worked hard to implement these aims at the local level and turned his attention to the urban political process and kept large-scale and overly expensive urban policies on the back burner. One additional reason Aguirre chose to devote attention to local political dynamics was citizen clamor for more services and more democracy. Demands came from the sheer expansion of the city, which had grown by leaps and bounds since the defeat of Uruchurtu’s anti-urban growth vision in the early 1960s, as well as from the debt crisis, which brought state downsizing and reduced subsidies for housing, electricity, and other key urban services. The economic crisis also reduced formal sector employment. Many manufacturing firms tightened their belts, pushing workers into the informal sector. As the un- and underemployed flooded the streets to sell legal and illegal goods, urban conditions declined accordingly. Demands for democracy, owing to the declining viability of the CNOP as a mechanism for urban or national political participation, produced further demands for urban democratic reform. Such demands called into question the very nature and coherence of the three-

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legged sectoral structure upon which the PRI built its control over the corporatist political system.15 The deteriorating organizational capacity of the CNOP also had “urban” roots, at least to the extent that the city’s transformation and its economic crisis spurred mobilization among the city’s expanding urban poor. All such developments threatened irrevocably to shift the balance of political power within the CNOP and between it and other party sectors.16 Downtown residents and shopkeepers were particularly difficult for the PRI to ignore, not only because they felt totally abandoned when Uruchurtu was deposed but also because their demands were so specific, concrete, and unwavering: no downtown development and continued support for rent control. When the middle class echoed the urban poor by making demands on the party about deteriorating urban conditions and services, the PRI became especially worried. There was always the possibility that these disenfranchised forces would join together to demand direct democracy in Mexico City. This fear made the CNOP leadership especially concerned. As a result, Mayor Aguirre fell under extreme pressure to respond in ways that would shore up the PRI’s declining legitimacy. With limited fiscal resources to guarantee citizen loyalty through new infrastructural projects and expanded urban services, changes in urban political structures and processes seemed a better bet, and a proposal for urban democratic reform materialized. Initially, this plan emerged from the president’s office. Faced with an increasingly unhappy and mobilized urban citizenry in his own administrative backyard, in 1983 President Miguel de la Madrid proposed new legislation to re-establish democratic structures of governance in Mexico City. However, full democratization in Mexico City was not high on the agenda of all PRI activists and party leaders. In addition, it surprisingly found little initial support from Aguirre. Aguirre saw his own political future and his capacity to govern Mexico City as resting on his capacity to work precisely with those clients—urban service providers, big construction firms, and infrastructural producers—who had helped previous mayors administer the city. But these groups now had much to lose politically and financially with an urban democratic reform. Equally important, the new mayor had to work with those members of the PRI (mainly in the CNOP) who had long seen urban residents as a main constituency and who thus had much to say about democratic reforms that effectively would disenfranchise them from the larger party structure. Both sets of political and personal networks pulled Mayor Aguirre into an oppositional stance on the democratic reform, a position of relative autonomy at least with respect to the president’s urban governance priorities.

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But rather than forcing his dismissal, Aguirre managed to remain in office. One probable reason for his survival was that dismissing him in a period of political and economic instability might have been overly risky for the president, who was trying to cultivate a reputation as a moderately democratizing force in an authoritarian party. An even more powerful explanation, however, was that there was no agreement in the party for one position or the other. In the past, when schisms between the mayor and president emerged, they were resolved with the support of the PRI leadership, which usually threw its weight behind the president, as during Uruchurtu’s dismissal. But now—in the throes of economic and political crisis—divisions within the party and between the president, party leaders, and the mayor led to stalemate, which continued as different forces for and against the reform debated the proposal between 1983 and 1987. Ultimately, after a disastrous earthquake in 1985 threatened to tip the balance toward the pro-democratizing forces, the competing protagonists muddled through to a compromise reform that rejected any direct election of a mayor but that partially restored democratic rights in the capital by introducing a new directly elected consultive body, the Asamblea de Representantes del Distrito Federal.17

Translating Partial Democracy into Autonomous Urban Policy, 1987–1996 Residents of the capital city were now expected to use this new local political structure to press their urban demands. The asamblea represented a change in political process and a moderate strengthening of municipal institutions that the ruling party hoped would stave off any more pressure for national democratization of the PRI in the capital city and in Mexico’s system of one-party rule. To this extent, the urban participatory changes of the late 1980s boded relatively well for the party’s legitimacy both locally and nationally. Moreover, they did not necessarily alter the balance of administrative and governing power in Mexico City. The mayor was still appointed by the president; thus, party leaders did not have to worry that local residents themselves would fully undermine the urban policy objectives of national leaders. As such, the changes in urban policies were actually quite minimal after the introduction of this reform. Minimal does not mean nonexistent, of course, and it would be foolhardy to suggest that strengthened municipal institutions did not change urban policymaking somewhat. But the reform’s impact owed less to the fact that residents had greater say in the political process and more to the new institution’s status

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as a representative mechanism without formal connection to the ruling party. This new body made it easier for a presidentially appointed mayor to cultivate urban political alliances with a variety of urban forces, not just party loyalists. This change not only enhanced the mayor’s personal popularity, it also increased the mayor’s capacity to coordinate urban and national objectives without the direct involvement of the ruling party. Together, these conditions made it possible to introduce urban policies that previous mayors could not. All of this became clearer with the urban policy actions of Mayor Manuel Camacho (1988–1994), who was one of the first mayors to be freed from the conflicting and contradictory urban aims of the local and national wings of the PRI. With the asamblea in place at the beginning of his term, he could wheel and deal with certain local interest groups or neighborhood organizations without having to mold his actions in accordance with the structure and logic of the PRI and its national leadership. For this reason, Camacho developed quite a reputation as a skilled manipulator of patron-client relations in the capital city. He was known for coming very close to “solving” the street vendor problem that had plagued practically all previous mayors, a feat accomplished by developing strong networks with the movement leadership. The fact that the asamblea was still so new, that its powers were still relatively limited, and that opposition parties had not yet been granted sufficient time or opportunity to hone their skills as alternative representatives of the citizenry also made Camacho’s job easier. First, he could count on increased legitimacy in the aftermath of the new democratic reform. At the same time, he was not nearly as hamstrung in urban policymaking as were subsequent mayors who had to deal with contentious internal conflicts in the asamblea, which over time expanded its powers and served as a format for partisan political activism. In short, Camacho was able to continue with old-style patronclient patterns of urban policymaking even as he reaped the benefits of presiding over a rather nonpartisan, directly elected quasi-democratic body. Camacho was further helped by relatively good economic conditions, both in Mexico City and on the national level. He came to office under the arm of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, whose efforts at economic liberalization and support for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) strengthened the nation’s fiscal situation and thus eliminated some of the constraints on urban policymaking that plagued the previous mayor. As a result, by the early 1990s Camacho began to introduce urban policies that would have been unthinkable a decade earlier, including a call for a major transformation of downtown land usage and the construc-

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tion of a new hotel and convention center in the heart of the city. With Camacho as mayor, Mexico City saw some of its first serious downtown urban renewal projects implemented since the 1940s. By early 1990, ground was broken on several new high rises, new markets were developed in peripheral areas of the city to help facilitate the displacement of local merchants and street vendors, and rent control restrictions were abrogated, with the result being widespread buying and selling of local properties.18 Camacho may not have been the first mayor to desire these changes, nor was he the first to try to revive downtown real estate, an aim that had been on the top of the list of subway proponents and other supporters of urban expansion. But he was the first mayor since Uruchurtu who was able to break the political stranglehold that downtown residents had placed on urban policymaking, especially with respect to land use. This achievement buttressed his popularity among middle classes and residents of other areas of the city who sought to rid central city areas of street vendors and illegal activities. It appeared to be a perfect setup. There was not yet sufficient democracy or partisan activism within the asamblea to allow residents to call into question the mayor’s prerogatives and priorities. Camacho could thus work with the president if he so desired, giving him considerable power and autonomy to make political deals with downtown residents for the purposes of urban renewal. At the same time, there was enough headway on democratizing popular participation through the asamblea that, in his first years of office at least, citizens did not call for full democratization of the capital, despite the salience of this issue in the 1988 presidential campaign. But even this partial democratic reform had its downside, especially for Camacho and his capacity to govern the city. Although the new body’s legislative power was nil and all recommendations still had to be formally approved and implemented by Mexico City’s appointed mayor, the asamblea changed the local political dynamics as citizens were becoming both more organized and more active forces in the political process of urban policymaking. With this newfound power, they were struggling to change the direction of urban policy and the structures of local politics, making both processes more democratic in content. Camacho responded to this state of affairs with a dual strategy. He threw his hat into the field of presidential candidates and shepherded a discussion within the asamblea to deepen democratic reform. The latter move, in fact, probably facilitated the former, as Camacho’s support for further democratic reform in the capital gave him national visibility. Additionally, Camacho chose to use his policy successes in the city as a springboard for entering national politics.

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Not since Uruchurtu had a mayor been so popular or considered a leading contender in national politics. When Camacho resigned to run for the presidency, a lame duck mayor was appointed for the interim, one whom the national party leadership could count on not to support the president or his political and economic objectives. Accordingly, Camacho’s substitute, Manuel Aguilera, came to the mayor’s office with few qualifications except party loyalty. He not only lacked the urban policy experience and commitment but he also lacked the patron-client linkages that had made it possible for Camacho to govern the city and generate citizen loyalty in the absence of truly democratic structures. Thus, urban and political conditions in the capital continued to deteriorate. Moreover, Camacho’s attempt to take his political and social vision to a higher level posed a problem for national political elites, who saw the capital city and the urban and social projects that Camacho had promoted—and now was advancing nationally—as monetary chains around the country’s already weak fiscal neck. With national economy recovery a key objective of the PRI, especially with NAFTA under attack by the Zapatistas and their urban sympathizers as of 1 January, Camacho (who at the time was the government’s chief negotiator in Chiapas) was a controversial candidate within the PRI. Ultimately, Camacho was bypassed for a neoliberal party loyalist from the far northern region of the county, Luis Donaldo Colosio, who came from a different end of the political spectrum. Colosio’s support for economic liberalization, decentralization, and diminished state expenditures—including a call to continue reducing or eliminate national subsidies and make urban policy in the capital financially self-sustaining—may have won him the PRI’s support. But it did not bode well for Mexico City and its populace, and the repudiation of Camacho came back to haunt the national political leadership. When it became clear that the national PRI was interested in neoliberal business as usual and was willing to use the heavy hand of force to support the economically conservative Colosio over the more populist (if not socially democratic) Camacho, Mexico City citizens returned to the streets. Social movements reactivated the debate over urban democratic reform that had been languishing and to which Camacho had thrown his tacit support. Colosio’s assassination in early 1994, of course, threw all political calculations to the winds. For the first time, the PRI began to fear that it might actually lose the July 1994 presidential election if it could not win over urban residents, many of whom were strongly supporting Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, figurehead and candidate of a leftist coalition of forces that had been struggling since 1988 to defeat the PRI. Many still considered Cárdenas the true victor in a 1988 presidential election stolen by the PRI. His reputation as a pro-democratic

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force with national stature publicly critical of NAFTA and willing to run for the presidency again made him a real threat to the PRI. In light of these conditions, in the late spring of 1994 party leaders introduced a new statute of governance for the federal district, which was debated and approved in July—not coincidentally, the same month of the presidential election. The new regulations expanded the powers of the asamblea, effectively turning it into a true city council with legislative power whose members would be elected in a special election scheduled for June 1995 (later postponed until November 1995). Even before that election, however, in April 1995 the PRI also proposed a new statute that provided for a popular election of the capital city’s mayor for the first time in seven decades. With these democratic structures finally in place, Cárdenas developed an interest in the job, seeing it as a springboard to national power. Mexico City residents, for their part, were eager to see a national political leader of his stature taking over the helm. After a short but vigorous mayoral campaign, in July 1997 Cárdenas won close to 70 percent of the popular vote.

From Urban to National Democracy, 1997–2000 Because Cárdenas was the first democratically elected mayor to govern Mexico City in decades, the question arises as to whether he acted differently than his predecessors, either in terms of political process or urban policymaking, or both. According to most observers, conditions did not change as dramatically as many would have liked. Although Cárdenas demonstrated real commitment to grassroots participation, a number of his urban programs and policy priorities turned out to be surprisingly similar to those of his predecessors. Thus, most citizens seemed uniformly pleased with the overall tone of his administration, which emphasized transparency, social justice, and citizen participation. But it did not take long for most to see that these commitments to democratizing the capital did not automatically translate into better urban policies, better urban conditions, or more citizen control over urban outcomes. Cárdenas’s first year of office saw almost no new housing programs initiated; long-standing problems with drainage and flooding still plagued the city, despite some infrastructural headway with the former. Street vending remained a key problem with the potential to worsen transport conditions and undermine any serious efforts at central city renovation and redevelopment. The mayor’s seeming inability to deal with the challenge of street vendors was considered a mild blemish on his administra-

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tion. Many residents began to sense that on this issue conditions actually worsened, especially when compared to the situation under Mayor Camacho, who made much personal headway in regulating street vendors. Newspaper articles began to claim that Mexico City was governed by a street vending mafia that was out of control and that dominated city streets (transport) and much of the urban economy.19 Just as important, Cárdenas failed to make much progress in addressing the routine urban concerns of the city’s popular and middle classes. These same citizens found themselves alienated by the new mayor’s willingness to take on big-ticket projects, including a capital-intensive transformation of downtown areas that included plans for tourist and convention complexes, historic preservation, and more upscale urban renewal. This stance clearly surprised those who felt that a left-leaning mayor would (or should) not support projects so directly associated with the city’s real estate elite. Last, but surely not least, Mayor Cárdenas faced a set of new urban problems that most of his predecessors had managed to escape, or at least to bury sufficiently so as to keep them off the public agenda. A particularly striking example was the growing problem of public insecurity, which involves not just the acceleration of mafia-type activities among street vendors (some involved in selling illegal arms and drug trafficking) but also skyrocketing crime rates and greater police impunity. The latter two problems have fed on each other in recent years, driving up citizens’ concerns about social order and the rule of law and contributing to growing urban dissatisfaction with the violent conditions of daily life. A recent UN report, in fact, ranked Mexico City as the most dangerous city in the world.20 As such, public insecurity soon became the number one urban priority among the capital city’s residents, dominating discussion not just in the asamblea but also in civil society. Cárdenas introduced new community liaison boards to deal with the problems of public insecurity and changed his chief of police several times.21 All this is not to say that everything was worse in the city after Cárdenas became mayor, at least with respect to urban policy and process. There were some major accomplishments for which Cárdenas deserves credit, ranging from repaving thousands of streets to improving air quality to bettering primary education and, perhaps most significant in historical terms, to introducing a massive plan for metropolitanization. The latter program in particular, called the Programa de Ordenación de la Zona Metropolitana del Valle de Mexico, was founded on the basis of a March 1998 agreement that Cárdenas signed and that created an Executive Commission for Metropolitan Coordination. This agreement took for the first time a step toward the efficient metropolitan coordination of urban service

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provision and regulation. But despite producing applause from among the ranks of professional planners, this program has not struck a deep chord with many residents, who remain focused on other more visible and pressing problems. Despite these gains, popular support for the Cárdenas administration began to edge downward after only two years. In September 1999, the mayor’s approval rating posted a mirror reflection of the electoral statistics that initially brought him to power, with 53 percent of the population disapproving of his performance and only 41 percent approving (New York Times, 18 September 1999, Section A). So why did the Cárdenas administration post such an unimpressive record? Undoubtedly, many factors were at play. For one, despite the strengthening of municipal institutions that came with full democracy, and despite Mayor Cárdenas’s genuine commitment to citizen participation, the city’s urban problems persisted. Democracy does not change years of neglect, overpopulation, poverty, and limited fiscal resources. Problems ranging from housing, transport, and urban service scarcities to inadequate water and infrastructural development as well as conflicts over urban land use, real estate development, and environmental degradation may even have accelerated, and there is no doubt that the combination made governing Mexico City an almost impossible task. And because many of the urban policy dilemmas that plagued past mayors still loomed large, the scope for action remained relatively circumscribed. In fact, it may have been even narrower after 1997 than it had been for those who administered the city without democratic participation in the earlier decades. Democratic input from citizens can itself limit policymaking scope if other negotiating tools or policymaking resources are not in place. One of the most important of these resources, money to fund Mexico City’s budget priorities, was patently absent, in part, because the neoliberal macroeconomic aims of the concurrent presidential administration of Ernesto Zedillo (1994–2000) had called for a steady reduction of subsidies to the capital. When Zedillo came to power, those in charge of public financing started to reduce transfer payments to the capital city even as they maintained presidential authority over approval of the city’s budget. The Cárdenas administration felt the brunt of these changes. Of course, the steady decentralization of government financing and the elimination of subsidies in the capital had been occurring slowly but steadily over the mid-1990s, even before Cárdenas came to office. Yet these constraints were much less weighty before his arrival, for purely political reasons. In a situation where the mayor came from the same party, and where urban projects were often introduced to generate legitimacy with capital city residents, this budget was somewhat negotiable. But once a candidate from

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the PRD came to power in the city, this was not possible. The PRI, which still controlled the national executive when Cárdenas became mayor, capped the city’s budget expenditures, thereby limiting his capacity to introduce either his own policy preferences or the preferences of many of his constituents. The PRI’s active efforts to prevent the mayor from achieving his urban policy goals became most evident in the national government’s January 1999 decision to dramatically cut the capital city’s already downsized budget, a move that forced Cárdenas to eliminate many of his targeted programs. But the PRI also acted to impose an unspoken moratorium on the Mexico City–based activities of external development agencies and to be studiously noncooperative when it came to solving local problems. Many of the external resources that Mexico City has always relied on to deal with its urban problems come from institutions like the World Bank; custom dictated that all such externally funded foreign aid projects be approved at the national level first. But the federal government was slow if not entirely negligent in approving World Bank housing projects for the capital. National agencies also did very little to help Mexico City authorities combat drug-related activities, including drug-related crime, reasoning that it would hurt the PRI’s chances of winning the next mayoral election if Cárdenas solved the local crime problem. Owing to these constraints, it is not so surprising that Cárdenas’s most notable policy successes—ranging from multiplying the opportunities for urban participation to making headway in introducing institutions of metropolitan governance to weeding out corruption both in the public sector and among tax evaders (a policy itself inspired by his constrained fiscal situation)—were contingent on administrative reform and political or institutional cooperation, not large amounts of money. In light of these constraints, it also is not surprising that he supported a convention, hotel, and tourist plan for downtown, as these were projected to generate new sources of tax revenues directly for the city. The great paradox—or dilemma—is that the latter policies are exactly those that alienated much of his initial constituency, especially those who expected him to take a much more radical stance with respect to the private sector. With fiscal priorities and constraints tempering some of the more progressive policy stances that the left-leaning Cárdenas advocated during his campaign, many Mexico City residents who voted for him with such great optimism, along with some of the PRD leadership itself, became increasingly divided over Cárdenas’s performance and priorities. These concerns were exacerbated by Cárdenas’s decision to take the Camacho route—that is, to run for the presidency. This decision was not

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a complete surprise to anyone; after all, he had run in 1988 and had received overwhelming electoral support in the 1997 mayoral race. But some party loyalists who were eager to make a difference now that the PRD was in power in the capital worried that Cárdenas’s desire to bid for the presidency would further limit the projects he would introduce as mayor. They feared that he was spending too much time thinking about the middle classes, the business elite, and others whose votes and influence would be necessary in a national race. Likewise, they thought that he was ignoring the future Mexico City electoral prospects of the PRD, a party that came to power with considerable support from the poor and working class. One unanticipated consequence of this state of affairs was a growing distance between Cárdenas and the PRD-dominated city council, which was divided enough that local policies were hard to implement without either PRI or PAN support.22 And as the mayor did not see eye to eye with his party and the city council, many urban projects were further stalled. It is also noteworthy that Cárdenas was further hamstrung by being the first mayor who had to work with an elected and partisan legislative body. When city councilors were elected starting in 1995, candidates were not allowed to represent or affiliate with parties;23 instead, they were supposed to come from and answer to “civil society” (Ziccardi 1998). But by the time Cárdenas came to office in 1997, councilors implicitly understood that they represented different parties, despite statutory deregulations to the contrary. The city council was thus a highly partisan body, divided across the entire party spectrum, making Cárdenas’s job more difficult. In short, the depth of democratization in Mexico City was as much a barrier as a facilitator to greater mayoral autonomy—and even success— in the urban policymaking process. Mexico City’s first democratically elected mayor was squeezed between a rock and a hard place, as he faced minimal cooperation from both the national executive and local political institutions and was barraged with questions from his own party and the city council. He may have found formal independence from the national executive and greater institutional autonomy than any previous mayor to date, but not political autonomy, primarily because he could not count on sufficiently strong or united local support to counterbalance the absence of national political and financial support. Thus, it was almost impossible for him to weather the fiscal and institutional constraints levied on him by a hostile national executive, leave aside the technocratic challenge of urban governance. In past periods, if a mayor could cultivate either local or national support, he could make considerable headway toward achieving his aims and facilitating the process of capital city governance, even

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in situations of local-national conflict and with or without democracy. But with neither set of allies willing to support him unconditionally, both Cárdenas and Mexico City headed for hard times.

Consolidated Democracy and Mayoral Actions One must consider that some of Cárdenas’s failures or shortcomings may have been of his own making. Even his close allies acknowledge that his personal governance style and his minimal experience with urban policy issues, along with the political priorities he set, limited local gains. Moreover, Cárdenas is an understated type of man who frequently failed to make the best public relations use of his successes. The combination of failing to develop a well-thought-out plan for the city and a preoccupation with national power may have prevented him from making more of his mayorship. But it is important to avoid reducing all of Cárdenas’s failures to his distinctive style, personality, or individual proclivities and instead put his actions and orientations in their rightful historical and political context. After all, Cárdenas was the first democratically elected mayor of Mexico City whose party also had national aspirations. These national aspirations derived in part from the widely held conviction that anyone who governed the country’s capital, no matter the party, had a head start on national power, a lesson known to the PRI for decades and not lost on Manuel Camacho, either. But the PRD’s preoccupation with the presidency also built on its years of struggling against authoritarianism and PRI domination, and it was eager to make its presence known in national (not just local) politics. These conditioning factors were as important determinants of Cardenas’s mayoral actions as were his own personal proclivities. The current mayoral administration of Manuel López Obrador (2000–present), also of the PRD, reveals many of the same dynamics at play. Despite a different personal style, López Obrador has made little secret of his national political ambitions and has surrounded himself with party loyalists who are as interested in strengthening the PRD on a national level as with responding to Mexico City’s constituent demands. As a result, López Obrador has introduced urban policies crafted with an eye to the priorities of the business sector and middle classes while alienating the poor and working classes in downtown and other areas of the city, many of whom voted for him. To be sure, López Obrador continues to emphasize urban political participation and citizen involvement in a wide range of community activities, including public security, as did Cárdenas. But unlike his predecessor, he also has placed harsh restrictions on

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urban housing construction, calling for a moratorium on all further housing development within a wide ring that extends way beyond downtown and circles some of the most historically important neighborhoods of the city. This position is not common among leftist mayors, who tend to give priority to housing over high-cost urban infrastructure or private property development. But by decreeing that no new housing construction is to be built in certain areas of the city (a very wide swath that includes most of the densely populated, central areas), López Obrador has raised eyebrows. This stance stands in opposition to the principle of open democratic participation in all urban policy decisionmaking, of which housing is one of the most critical for lower-income citizens, a PRD prime constituency. The current mayor’s strong opposition to new construction also means that he has taken on much of the style of PRI mayor Uruchurtu, who earlier made his conservative reputation in the same way, although he banned housing construction in peripheral and not central locations. How can the continuities between López Obrador and Uruchurtu as well as the differences between the PRD administrations of López Obrador and Cárdenas be explained? The answer requires a closer look at López Obrador’s overall urban vision, which builds on a variety of urban policy stances supported or rejected by earlier mayors, both democratic and not. First, López Obrador has clearly committed himself to downtown development, much as Cárdenas and Camacho did. Yet unlike Uruchurtu, his restrictions on housing construction are part of a larger plan to support a massive, corporate-oriented upscale urban renewal in downtown areas. Such renewal goes hand in hand with high-density, high-rise office buildings worthy of a city whose character and economy hold the potential to change rapidly in the course of globalization. And like his immediate predecessors, there are obvious material reasons for taking this stance that have little to do with democracy or even the articulations of local and national government. Instead, they owe more to the dilemma of governing the nation’s largest and most diverse city with limited revenues. Indeed, the main objective of this plan was to generate substantial tax revenues for the city. A second explanation for López Obrador’s urban policies and practices, more generally speaking, rests in the political domain and with the recognition that mayors of Mexico City—no matter their party affiliation—are tempted to use policies in the city to boost them to national prominence. López Obrador clearly wants his urban projects to generate political support on the national political scene, especially among the economic elite who are so central to national government. A cap on low-

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income housing in areas slated for major urban renewal, along with support for a highly speculative real estate transformation of downtown, promises to satisfy the nation’s powerful cadre of free market capitalists. Indeed, the mayor’s aspirations in this regard are already paying off. In June 2001, less than a year after taking office, López Obrador announced the creation of a commission to “rescue” the historic center of the city. This commission is headed by one of the country’s richest and most powerful private businessmen, Carlos Slim, a man known to have supported Salinas. Barely a month after this announcement, López Obrador then signed a public “pact” of collaboration with President Vicente Fox, of PAN, with a commitment to improve conditions in the capital, including public security. Clearly, López Obrador is willing to establish tri-partisan relations to ensure his urban successes and to widen his potential political appeal beyond his own party and its traditional constituents. Such a context and such goals presuppose a reconnection between urban and national politics. These new urban policies and unorthodox political alliances mean that López Obrador risks the possibility of alienating the PRD’s loyal local supporters, especially those in the oldest sections of downtown who will be most hurt when forced evictions, transformations in central city land usage, and rising property values displace them. But many other residents of these areas are long-standing PRI loyalists; thus, the current mayor has decided he can chance their disapproval if he keeps a sufficient portion of his own party happy. His accelerated use of patron-client perks, ranging from a new and highly publicized program to purify milk to a few highprofile markets (centros comerciales) and housing projects for selected neighborhoods, help to explain López Obrador’s growing reputation as a populist who deals harshly with opponents but who freely dispenses patronage to loyalists. But limited resources and a cap on housing in many parts of the city make it difficult to sustain political legitimacy through patronage. Therefore, López Obrador must make serious efforts to renovate downtown and to strengthen his political support citywide by revisiting urban concerns about which almost all citizens care deeply. He, thus, has a tacit commitment to dispense with the metropolitanization of the subway service and to keep this costly transport infrastructure geared toward Mexico City rather than extending it into the state of Mexico, which is governed by the PRI. Unlike Cárdenas, who sought to strengthen metropolitan coordination and thereby to generate political support for his presidential run by appealing to electoral locales beyond the federal district, López Obrador is localizing the financing and control of subway services in search of support in Mexico City itself.

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But one urban concern that both Cárdenas and López Obrador have treated similarly is public security, which stands as perhaps the biggest urban challenge facing any mayor, regardless of party affiliation. As López Obrador’s support for downtown development accelerates, he has devoted much energy to this issue, knowing that if he were only minimally successful he could generate considerable public support for himself and his party, regardless of any displacement caused by downtown development. This success, in turn, would transfer into both local and national political gains. In many ways, the problems of public insecurity are much greater than that of downtown development, because rooting out criminal behavior and police impunity, the twin dynamics of this problem, are extraordinarily difficult tasks. Yet it is instructive to note that in seeking to do just that, López Obrador again has turned to federal (judicial) police forces for assistance, often to the dismay of even local (preventative) police and some citizens. As with downtown development, the mayor has relied on President Fox for tacit support in these endeavors. It is a rather ironic scenario: After full democratization of Mexico City and the nation, and after a sustained strengthening of municipal institutions and capacities, renewed efforts at local-national articulation are supported by both the mayor and the president. This does not mean that urban policies now are the same as in the past. But it does attest to the persistence of a presumed payoff for linking local and national politicians and policymakers around common urban aims, even if the rationale for those plans is different and even if they intended to secure national political goals as much as local ones.

Conclusions So where does this narrative leave us, especially with respect to some of the leading claims of this volume? First, it is clear that the originating purpose of this book—namely, to understand the relationships between local and national political actors and processes and how they have changed over time and across different waves of democratization—is absolutely essential for understanding both politics and policy in Mexico City. Direct relationships among democratization, mayoral autonomy or presidential dominance, and the content of urban policy are seldom observed. Nevertheless, these issues are intricately connected to each other in ways that have molded political conflicts over urban policy and that have changed balances of political power, both local and national, independent of whether democracy had materialized. In fact, one of the findings from this

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study is that different mayors (democratic or not) have supported the same policies, but perhaps for different reasons, with different degrees of success, and with differing impacts locally and nationally, politically and economically. Moreover, they have done so autonomously or in alliance with the national executive, with the decision to take one route or the other made independently of the city or nation’s democratic profile. Whether and how mayors or presidents have pushed for certain types of policies or projects is best understood by focusing on available fiscal resources as well as on the social, political, or class bases of power to which they turn for support and not simply on the presence or absence of democracy. In this sense the Mexico City case may parallel other Latin American capital cities, regardless of Mexico’s status as a late democratizer. This does not mean that political or policy developments in Mexico City have been unconnected to the extent or timing of democratization. But it is a very loose connection. If anything, reversing the causal order of the assumed relationship between democratization and urban policy and process may be in order. In the Mexican case, capital city struggles over urban policy have been important in determining the country’s tortured democratic transition, and vice versa. Efforts to make urban policy autonomously generated conflicts between local and national political actors, and the act of administering Mexico City often called into question the logic of corporatist politics so prevalent in the national political system. Urban policymaking practices, especially when controversial, frequently led to national political crises that accelerated the struggle for democracy. Moreover, once the city and nation became more democratic, the urban policy domain itself became more crisis-ridden, affecting local and national political coalitions and the fate of the capital city. As far as the five leading themes about policy and process in capital cities in the opening chapter of this volume are concerned, the Mexico City case offers strong support for most of them, with some qualifications. First, over the years municipal political institutions and structures in Mexico City have indeed strengthened, although not always as greater citizen influence in the urban policy process. Such strength has varied with the policy under discussion and with the mayor’s own political aims, which themselves are affected by local and national political and economic dynamics. Second, clear changes have occurred in the capabilities and tactics used by interest groups to influence capital city politics, changes that both produced and resulted from the different waves of democratization. Before democratic reform, citizens used party mechanisms and direct patron-client relations with the mayor to channel their preferences. During the transition to democracy, citizens mobilized on their own and then used

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these organizations to participate in municipal politics. More recent years have seen a return to the use of party mechanisms and patron-client relations. These shifting capabilities and tactics not only affected urban policymaking; in Mexico, they also were central determinants of a widening and deepening democracy in the capital city and the nation. Unfortunately, any assessment about policing and autonomous mayoral capacities to provide public security services, an issue that is central to the third theme of this book, can only be speculative at best. In the past, Mexico’s one-party rule may have had less concern about which level of government controlled the police, because all arms of the state, both local and national, answered to the same party apparatus. But tensions over this issue did emerge, even when the PRI controlled all levels of government, especially if local or national police forces were used to sustain the power of the mayor against the president, or vice versa. Such a situation occurred in struggles over both urban political power and urban policy between 1960 and 1975, when local-national balances of power were shifting and the city’s (and nation’s) political future and urban profile were uncertain at best. Democratization has made the issue of policing and police control become even more critical, since old police forces with loyalties to the PRI remain in service in a city now run by the PRD. But this situation has produced greater efforts to coordinate local and national police services, rather than to fix control in one domain or the other.24 The fourth and fifth themes concern entitlement and the continued salience of the capital city as a symbolic center of the nation. Again, we can do little more than speculate on these issues because late democratization on urban politics and policies means relatively little time to address these themes. However, Mexico City still is identified as the symbolic center of the nation, and as such it generates a variety of high-level meanings. The current administration wants to modernize and renovate downtown, and Mexico City’s new mayor has national and financial support to do so, evidence that attests to the importance of the capital and its built environment in the national imagination. But again, what is most clear is that the meaning and overall character of Mexico City’s built environment have been and continue to be contested. Meaning is largely tied to history and to those who have the political power to advance their views. The current struggle is between those who want upscale corporate, commercial, and tourism development and those who want property geared toward the production and consumption of small-scale services more consistent with the usage patterns of the better part of this century. And it may be around this issue that we can best address our final concern, the question of entitlement. Both those supporting and opposing downtown development feel

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entitled to their claims. The former link their entitlement to Mexico City’s future and its possibilities, and the latter view their entitlement as coming from the past. That these two groups coexist is itself a consequence of successful efforts of the latter to keep downtown development off the agenda since the 1950s, a state of affairs that owes largely to one-party rule. Whatever the origin, both questions of entitlement and the meaning of Mexico City are still in great flux, and they no doubt will continue to be until and unless this issue gets settled. But if and how it is settled has a lot to do with whose vision prevails, and that, it seems, is not going to be decided through citizen participation in any of the city’s newly democratic structures, at least not if López Obrador has his way. In that sense, Mexico City may be just like any other city in the world now. Some would say that is progress.

Notes 1. We concern ourselves here with a physical jurisdiction we refer to as Mexico City, which comprises twenty delegations that make up the federal district (distrito federal) (see Figure 8.1). This jurisdiction forms the center of a much larger demographic area known as the Mexico City metropolitan area, which spills over into the state of Mexico. But because our emphasis here is the politics of urban planning and municipal governance, we confine our discussion to a physical jurisdiction whose boundaries are set politically, not demographically. Eventually, we discuss the challenges of policy and governance in a metropolitan area that transcends its formal political bounds. 2. Throughout this chapter, we use the term mayor, although it is somewhat imprecise. Before the introduction of democratic elections in the city, the administrative leader of the capital was technically called a regente. After the democratic reform, he became jefe de gobierno. 3. For more on the demilitarization of the state and its timing in order to correspond with the inclusion of disenfranchised urban populations, see Davis (1995). 4. Uruchurtu’s initial political prominence owed largely to strong personal and political relations with Miguel Alemán, who served as Mexico’s president for six years starting in 1946 and who most scholars identify as the driving force behind Mexico’s shift to ISI. Under Alemán’s leadership, the national government started to invest massive funds in urban infrastructure projects to facilitate manufacturing development, primarily in Mexico City. 5. One might venture the hypothesis that it was the particular local political alliances with urban service providers and urban bureaucrats that Mayor Uruchurtu established to serve the city’s industrialists and middle classes, and not necessarily any clear commitment to mayoral independence in and of itself, that helped sustain his autonomy and administrative control over the capital city.

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Whatever the source, his capacity to effectively administer the city was part of his growing popularity and power. 6. Before Uruchurtu’s tenure, for example, transport in the capital city was in chaos, and residents and businesses routinely lamented the disorder. With the city growing outward with the location of new industries in the north and northwest, and with population growth just starting its steady ascent after an initial spurt of government investment in new manufacturing firms, demands for efficient and affordable public transport were reaching new heights. Bus service was fragmented and unpredictable as numerous independent bus operators offered competing or overlapping services. With each bus line seeking to originate in or pass through downtown to maximize ridership, downtown streets were frequently gridlocked and always filled with exhaust-spewing, noisy vehicles. And with buses stopping at will to pick up passengers in order to ensure a high volume of riders, traffic jams and tediously long commutes were the norm. For more details on the urban bus industry in the first several decades after the revolution, see de la Peña (1943). 7. Through his administrative actions, Uruchurtu built up the city’s fiscal coffers without an attendant rise in tax rates such that under his administration Mexico City ran at a surplus for the first time in its modern history. For an overview of Mexico City’s budgetary situation between 1940 and 1965, see Oldman et al. (1967, 25). 8. During the years Uruchurtu served as mayor, the PRI racked up its greatest electoral support in Mexico City. Before Uruchurtu started his term in 1952, electoral support for the PRI in the distrito federal was a mere 49.01 percent, less than support for opposition parties (50.99 percent). By 1958 it reached 68.59 percent, while opposition support dropped to 31.27 percent, and it stayed in the midto high sixties until 1967, a year after Uruchurtu left office. Since then support for the PRI in Mexico City has dropped continually, bottoming out at 27.61 percent in the 1988 election. See Davis (1994b). 9. One of Uruchurtu’s key urban policy aims was to close bars and houses of prostitution and vigilantly police illegal gambling and informal-sector selling activities. Both were popular with many of the city’s lower-middle-class residents and the poorest of the poor, especially new urban migrants who came to the city seeking any type of employment. 10. Mayor Uruchurtu’s position on squatters was provoked by two of his fundamental priorities: the effort to maintain fiscal solvency and a desire to limit the uncontrolled rural-urban migration that brought growing numbers of unemployed workers into the city’s informal sector and onto downtown streets. The former was a strategic objective, necessary if he were to have sufficient funds for administering the city to the liking of long-standing residents, mainly middle classes, as well as new industrialists, without raising taxes. The latter grew directly out of his efforts to establish a strong network of political support among a cross-section of the city’s traditional middle classes, who decried the floods of new migrants— many of them poor Indians—who were settling in the city to work in its expanding economy.

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11. Uruchurtu’s stance on downtown modernization also owed to the political connections he had established with bus transport providers in order to rationalize transport in the city. These privately owned firms offered efficient services to the city residents, but part of the deal was that they be allowed to monopolize transport servicing of the center of the city, where the volume of traffic was highest. 12. Uruchurtu’s fate was also sealed when the middle-class sector of the party, or CNOP, supported calls for his resignation. The CNOP leadership took this stance because it was dominated by personnel heading the state workers’ federation and thus had its own special reasons for rallying against Uruchurtu, which trace precisely to Uruchurtu’s well-cultivated popularity with the city’s traditional middle classes. To the extent that Uruchurtu had become so celebrated among shopkeepers, small businesses, and other lower-middle-class downtown residents, a disproportionate number of which were employed in nearby government offices, these class forces had increasingly thrown their political fate with the mayor rather than with the party’s middle-class sector, which technically held government employees (i.e., state workers) within its ranks, too. This meant that Uruchurtu’s (or any mayor’s) personal popularity with middle classes, and his autonomy to act on their behalf independent of national party or executive dictates, if carried to an extreme, held the potential to challenge the sectoral logic of the party and the CNOP’s own organizational power within the PRI. Both possibilities motivated the CNOP leadership to work with the CTM and others to convince the PRI leadership that if the party was to stay together and sustain its national hegemony, Uruchurtu had to go. 13. The importance of limiting undue mayoral autonomy and establishing coordination between mayor and president is further attested to by the fact that within a year of taking over the presidency, Echeverría dismissed his first mayor, Alfonso Martinez Domínguez, when he first stepped outside the bounds of mayoral “dependence,” if you will. Martinez Domínguez had maintained strong connections to Díaz Ordaz and a competing set of political forces within the party, both of which motivated him to openly disagree with some of Echeverría’s urban and national policies. And it was not just that the president and the mayor again had potentially different urban visions and loyalties (despite coming from the exact same political party) but also that Martinez Domínguez was eager to establish his own administrative autonomy in the capital and that he used national police to do so. Within the first six months of office, he deployed a national paramilitary force (los halcones) to squelch student demonstrations in the capital. It was this act, combined with their clear differences on urban policy and politics, that spurred Echeverría to force Martinez Domínguez’s resignation (he appointed Sentíes in his place) and to seek stricter national control over policing and security forces. 14. President López Portillo’s selection of Carlos Hank González as mayor immediately after Sentíes can be seen as evidence that the PRI was worried enough by elite opposition to the urban policy priorities of the Echeverría-Sentíes administration to make a dramatic change. Hank González had business experience in the field of urban infrastructural construction and came from a family of

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transport industrialists whose activities included parts production for subways, subway stations, and automobiles. With these credentials, Hank González was capable of responding to and encouraging the pro-urban growth forces that had been relegated to the back burner in the administration. More than any other mayor, he facilitated the physical extension of the metropolitan area. He also had considerable stature in the party and the potential to establish considerable administrative autonomy in the mayorship, owing to his skills in managing and administering urban transport, urban infrastructure, and urban services. 15. Both of these problems trace their origins partly to Uruchurtu’s administration, his growing autonomy, his subsequent forced resignation, and the urban and political consequences of this authoritarian act on the part of President Díaz Ordaz. Specifically, Uruchurtu’s personal defeat signaled a political defeat for those long-standing urban residents who had consistently channeled their demands and concerns through the mayor’s office rather than other party structures, especially the CNOP. Uruchurtu was the first and last mayor to serve more than one term; and with his dismissal, no future mayor ever achieved enough independent power to challenge the national political leadership on questions of urban policy. As such, when Uruchurtu lost the administrative autonomy necessary to fight the party leadership and the president on urban issues, local residents also became much more estranged from one-party rule. And this meant that, despite the urban and administrative gains made by Díaz Ordaz when he removed Uruchurtu from the political scene, the party was in for serious political problems, especially with respect to the legitimacy of the ruling party among residents of the capital city and their steadily increasing dissatisfaction with the local executive and its policy priorities and actions. 16. Also, the ejes viales project had disrupted or destroyed many old neighborhoods, something that further alienated long-standing residents who had long worried about losing their community traditions and their cherished old city, which until that time was hailed for its picturesque parks, tree-lined boulevards, and vibrant neighborhood life, all of which were in jeopardy as the city underwent a massive overhaul. Downtown merchants and residents were especially on guard after 1966, with the subway project under way, for they saw this as the first in a long line of urban policy changes intended to valorize downtown areas and replace their low-rent activities with more high-rent (and thus high-density) activities. 17. One PRI cabinet-level official referred to this as “the reform that nobody wanted,” for it really was a compromise stance that no particular side had originally advocated. For more on this, see Davis (1989). 18. The biggest blow to the system of rent control was the 1985 earthquake, which gave the ruling party an opportunity to legally transfer properties and replace decades-old rent-control agreements with a new system of private ownership. 19. The growing impunity with which street vendors began to act, not to mention their shameless circumvention of the most basic urban policy regulations enacted to curb their location and activities, pushed some observers to draw comparisons between the Medellín Cartel and a so-called Tepito Cartel (Tepito is an

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area in downtown Mexico historically inhabited by street vendors known for selling illegal goods). See “El Cartel de Tepito?” El Financiero, 8 August 1999 and “Persiste mafia de vendedores,” Reforma, 29 August 1999, Seccion B (Ciudad y Metropoli). 20. These and other figures pertaining to crime are presented in the UN study authored by Dueñas et al. (1999). 21. The problems of public insecurity are not new, to be sure. Crime first began accelerating rapidly starting with the 1994 peso devaluation, long before Cárdenas came to office. It had become enough of an urban problem by then, in fact, that the Commission on Public Security and Civil Protection was one of the first committees to be formed by the asamblea after it was granted legislative powers in 1995. Yet because crime increased dramatically during the first two years of the Cárdenas administration, because the exponential growth of drug trafficking since 1996 has further fueled criminal activities, and because there have been several high-profile murders and assassinations under his watch, Mayor Cárdenas received much of the public wrath. The continual shifting of police chiefs and security policies did not help—to most observers, it only further showed the mayor’s loss of control over these matters. 22. When Cárdenas was mayor, a majority of elected representatives (thirtyeight members) in the asamblea were affiliated with the PRD, while there were eleven representatives each from the PRI and PAN, and three each from the Partido de Trabajadores (Workers’ Party, PT) and Partido Verde de México (Green Party, PVEM). 23. This was probably in an effort to widen out participation beyond the PRI loyalists who had tended to dominate the asamblea when it merely served as a consulting body for the mayor. 24. For more on the growing problems of police in Mexico City, see Davis and Alvarado (1999).

9 Santiago: Municipal Decentralization in a Centralized Political System Peter M. Siavelis Esteban Valenzuela Van Treek Giorgio Martelli Santiago in many ways represents the epitome of the centralized Latin American capital city. From the period of consolidation of the Chilean state in the 1830s until the present, political, social, and cultural power has been centered in Santiago (Loveman 1979; Illanes 1993; Rosenfeld, Rodríguez, and Espinoza 1989).1 Despite efforts at decentralization, today 39 percent of Chile’s population resides in metropolitan Santiago, one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Santiago is ten times larger in terms of population than Chile’s second largest city, Concepción. What is more, the capital produces 50 percent of the country’s gross national product (GNP) (Departamento de Regiones del Ministerio de Economía 1999). Nonetheless, despite a great deal of commonality in the role and function of local government in Chile and in the other case studies dealt with in this volume, several uniquely Chilean realities have profoundly affected the operation of local government and the role of mayors in Santiago. In addition, a number of paradoxes characterize Santiago’s unique form of centralization as well as the current process of decentralization. These have an important effect on the trajectory of the democratization of municipal government in Chile and on the role of the city’s mayor. They also profoundly affect the applicability of this book’s guiding hypotheses. First, as a centralized entity, Santiago is decentralized. The city has thirty-four municipalities (municipios—also known as comunas, or com265

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munes; see Figure 9.1) and for more than a century has lacked a single or metropolitan mayor to oversee and coordinate policies in metropolitan Santiago.2 Although there is a nominal regional government headed by a provincial intendente designated by the president, it lacks any significant powers, and the majority of decisions that affect Santiago as a whole (e.g., transport, security, infrastructure development, policing, and environmental policy) are undertaken by national government ministries. Unlike São Paulo, Buenos Aires or, more recently, Mexico City, there is no single individual empowered to make binding decisions over the city as a whole. That said, there are three municipalities whose mayors wield the most influence: the wealthy Las Condes, the middle-class Santiago Centro, and La Florida. Table 9.1 summarizes the size and relative wealth of metropolitan Santiago comunas and shows that Santiago Centro and La Florida are among the most populous, whereas Las Condes’s influence is rooted in its status as the wealthiest comuna in the country. Though Santiago Centro is neither the largest nor the wealthiest comuna, its influence resides in its traditional role as the center of social, cultural, and, until recently, commercial life. The former mayor of Santiago Centro, Jaime Ravinet, of the Christian Democratic Party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano, or PDC), has been considered a potential presidential candidate, and Las Condes’s mayor, Joaquín Lavín, was the right’s standard bearer for the 1999 presidential election. After losing by a razor-thin percentage in a two-round election, Lavín successfully captured the mayoralty of Santiago Centro in an effort to broaden his base of support and appeal for the presidential races of 2005. It was apparent to many observers that Lavín hoped to maintain his national visibility and demonstrate that he could successfully manage a comuna that is less well-endowed than Las Condes. The decentralized nature of political power in Santiago is significant to the political life of the capital city for a variety of reasons. First, it sets up competition among municipalities for resources and national influence, in part, by separating the wealthy municipalities from the poor. The existence of numerous municipalities also complicates resource allocation, given the great disparities in wealth among the city’s municipalities. The so-called barrio alto (so named because it is both higher up the Cordillera de los Andes and has a higher socioeconomic level than the rest of the city) is where much of the country’s economic activity and wealth is centered. The concentration of wealth in the barrio alto municipalities of Providencia, Las Condes, Vitacura, and, increasingly, Lo Barnechea has forced city and national leaders—given the absence of an overarching Santiago government authority—to devise formulas to redistribute wealth among the city’s municipalities. Further adding to this paradox is the com-

267 Figure 9.1 Comunas of the Province of Santiago 32

29 26

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1 Santiago Centro 2 Independencia 3 Conchalí 4 Huechuraba 5 Recoleta 6 Providencia 7 Vitacura 8 Lo Barnechea 9 Las Condes 10 Ñuñoa 11 La Reina 12 Macul 13 Peñalolén 14 La Florida 15 San Joaquín 16 La Granja

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La Pintana San Ramón San Miguel La Cisterna El Bosque Pedro Aguir Lo Espejo Estación Central Cerrillos Maipú Quinta Normal Lo Prado Pudahuel Cerro Navia Renca Quilicura

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268 Table 9.1 Population and Poverty Measures for Comunas of Metropolitan Santiago and Surrounding Comunas, 1999 Comuna La Florida Puente Alto Maipú San Bernardo La Pintana Santiago Centro Las Condes Peñalolén El Bosque Ñuñoa Recoleta Cerro Navia Pudahuel Conchalí Renca La Granja Estación Central Macul Pedro A. Cerda Lo Espejo Lo Prado Quinta Normal Providencia San Joaquín San Ramón La Reina La Cisterna Vitacura San Miguel Cerrillos Independencia Colina Lo Barnechea Huechuraba Buin Talagante Quilicura Padre Hurtado Lampa Calera de Tango Pirque Total

Population 403,753 365,139 335,955 234,055 230,758 229,761 222,886 203,011 187,799 173,765 165,372 164,768 160,292 150,615 148,428 146,153 135,997 124,223 121,453 116,993 114,060 109,373 109,324 109,011 101,425 99,019 93,353 83,510 79,954 75,814 73,999 71,667 66,009 65,068 59,424 53,193 52,352 34,030 29,499 13,573 12,921 5,527,754

Poverty Ranking 10 12 8 29 37 4 2 28 36 6 19 31 41 17 27 23 21 24 18 39 15 9 3 20 22 14 5 1 7 13 11 33 16 34 38 32 25 30 40 26 35

Source: Subsecretaria de Desarollo Regional Poverty ratings are based on indices used by the Municipal Common Fund (Fondo Común Municipal, or FCM) for measuring poverty, with 1 being the richest and 41 the poorest.

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bination of Santiago’s dispersion of power and the country’s strong centralist tradition, which together mean that the most important decisions facing the city are made in the national ministries, rather than the capital’s various city halls. The dispersal of power in Santiago impedes the ability of city leaders to stand up to national elites. In all but the wealthiest and most powerful municipalities, local government officials become little more than the executors of national decisions, rather than the originators of local policy. The second paradox lies in the trajectory of decentralization during Chile’s protracted dictatorship (1973–1989) and since the return of democracy. Although decentralization is normally associated with democratic governments in Latin America, the discourse of decentralization and actual moves toward the deconcentration of financial and administrative power began with Chile’s authoritarian government. The military government perceived decentralization as an antidote to the party-dominated nature of politics that it viewed as the root cause of Chile’s democratic breakdown (Rehren 1991). Ironically enough, the deconcentration of political power in Santiago fit with the socioeconomic goals of the military government. With a return to democracy, Christian Democratic President Patricio Aylwin (1990–1994) assumed the mantle of decentralization with the backing of the center-left coalition of parties known as the Concertación. Concertación governments have maintained efforts toward further decentralization under President Eduardo Frei (1994–2000), also a Christian Democrat, and Socialist Ricardo Lagos, who assumed office in 2000. But unlike military authorities, democratic leaders now perceive decentralization as part and parcel of the country’s democratization process. However, adding to the paradox of authoritarian decentralization, democratic authorities must operate within a constitutional framework that reinforces the centralization of power in the presidency and in nationally oriented elites in Santiago (Siavelis 2000), despite the purported efforts of the military to decentralize. It has been difficult for democratic elites to make progress toward real decentralization, given these limitations. Third, while the democratization process has provided strong impetus for further deconcentration of power, decentralization has often threatened the authority of national elites, and particularly members of parliament. The tension produced by this process profoundly affects several of the central themes of this volume. National elites are often willing to provide for transfers of resources to local authorities, but real decisionmaking power continues to reside in the executive branch.

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Finally, Chile’s process of decentralization is taking place in a unitary state, which creates a series of constant tensions between the central government, Santiago’s government, and regional authorities, thus making the process of decentralization and the devolution of power to the various Santiago governments much more complex. Although one can refer to the centralization of power in Santiago, it is really more precise to refer to the centralization of power in the national ministries in Santiago, as this is where the real concentration of power lies. Though the Santiago metropolitan area receives enormous economic and political benefits as the central seat of government, the most important political decisions concerning the city’s future are still made within the national ministries. This chapter examines the evolution of local governance in the metropolitan area of Santiago, concentrating on the period since World War II and, in particular, on the role of Santiago’s government since the return of democracy in 1989. We focus on the significance of Chile’s overall process of democratization to the evolution of Santiago’s institutions of municipal government. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first examines the historical evolution of local government institutions in general terms, pointing particularly to Chile’s extreme form of centralism. The story of local government in Santiago, and the evolution of the office of the mayor, cannot be told without reference to the overall evolution of local government in Chile. Thus, this section provides an historical overview of center-periphery relations between the colonial period until the breakdown of democracy in 1973. It focuses especially on how wider socioeconomic changes, including import substitution industrialization (ISI) policies, undermined the formal power of municipal governments, both in Santiago and in Chile as a whole. The second section, which spans the period of Chile’s military regime (1973–1990), analyzes military-led decentralization in Chile, underscoring how the military regime’s policies resulted in administrative deconcentration rather than democratic decentralization. The third section focuses on the evolution of local government in Chile from the return of democracy in 1990 until 2000 and examines how the democratization of municipal government fits into the overall process of the country’s democratic transition. It also details the difficulties of the decentralization of power and real decisionmaking authority, given the strong tradition of centralism and the norms of interinstitutional interaction that it has produced. The final section of this chapter focuses on Santiago today and the dynamic relation between the national capital, the provinces, the government ministries, and the most important mayoralties. It discusses the significance of the continuing tension caused by

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pressures for decentralization in Chile’s centralized political system. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the volume’s five central themes as they relate to Santiago.

Santiago as the Center of National Life: From Colonial Period to 1973 Chile’s capital was founded in February of 1541 by Pedro de Valdivia. Valdivia created a cabildo (council), which named him governor of Chile a month later. By September of the same year, the village had been destroyed by indigenous attacks, and the conquistadors’ long battle to control Chile was under way. Santiago was quickly rebuilt, and its rapid growth re-established it as the governing center of the colony. Despite the early foundation of other towns that vied with Santiago for leadership of the colony—La Serena, 1544; Concepción, 1550; La Imperial, Valdivia, and Villa Rica, 1552—war with indigenous populations in the south, combined with the superior size and influence of Santiago, prevented any major contenders to Santiago’s authority (Loveman 1979; Ugarte 1966; Medina 1897). Most historians trace the dominant role of Santiago in Chilean national life to the tradition of centralism and authoritarianism embodied in authoritarian leader Diego Portales’s 1833 constitution, the roots of which are often located in the synthesis of the monarchical and ecclesiastical hierarchies of colonial rule (Véliz 1980; Villalobos et al. 1974).3 Despite these contentions, pressures emerged early in Chilean history for the creation of a federal system. This so-called federal period began with the fall of Chile’s founding father, Bernardo O’Higgins, in 1822 and lasted until defeat of conservative forces (pelucones) in 1830. This federal period traced its origins to the early criticism of the centralization of investment and political authority in Santiago. O’Higgins concentrated most new government investments in Santiago and its surrounding territories. The construction of major universities and libraries, the remodeling and improvement of the Alameda (still the capital’s major avenue), the construction of the first major stone road between Santiago and the port of Valparaíso, and the construction of the Maipo canal all attest to the extent of the early concentration of resources in the capital. Although this investment and concentration of resources was the root of anti-Santiago regionalist sentiments in the provinces, it also helped consolidate the coalition that would definitively establish Santiago as the center of political, cul-

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tural, and entrepreneurial life that it is today. It was during the government of O’Higgins that a coalition of Santiago bureaucrats, wealthy Valparaíso businessmen, and the Spanish-Basque aristocracy who owned haciendas in the central valley (but simultaneously constituted Santiago’s elite) joined forces to establish definitively the dominance of Santiago. By favoring these early developmentalist projects, this elite consolidated its authority while also establishing the primacy of the capital (Illanes 1993; Rosenfeld, Rodríguez, and Espinoza 1989). Most analysts mark the end of any formal possibility for a federalist system with the promulgation of Chile’s 1833 unitary constitution. However, regionalist demands for greater autonomy in Concepción, Coquimbo, San Felipe, Talca, and Copiapó, among other cities and regions, continued to be significant and were key to the unfolding of brief civil wars in 1851 and 1859 (Zeitlin 1984). In fact, the increase of taxes declared by the central government, following an international decline in the price of copper in 1858, precipitated the Copiapó rebellion of 1859 and led to the declaration of the Province of Atacama as an independent territory. Miners were angry over the transfer of resources to finance the Santiago-Valparaíso road and the southern railway, when a Copiapó-Caldera railroad was perceived as much more crucial to the development of the mining industry in the north. The rebellion of 1859 was the final instance of any formal regionalist misbehavior. The movements in the provinces were violently repressed, and Santiago reasserted its power. That said, anti-Santiago sentiment continues to be an important undercurrent in the provinces up to the present. Despite limited provincial autonomy and sporadic rebellions during the early and mid-1800s, the promulgation of the 1833 constitution tied regional and local governments to the national government in a way characteristic of most of Chilean history. The 1833 constitution provided for the direct and popular election of municipal councils (though mayors were appointed, as will be discussed in greater detail below), a practice that continued until the breakdown of democracy in 1973. Nonetheless, for most of the nineteenth century the transfer of resources to local governments was so meager that these governments had trouble undertaking even their most basic functions. Mayors quickly became direct agents of the central government and the president. Following Chile’s brief, but most important, civil war in 1891, the nation’s municipalities gained greater autonomy and relatively more resources than they had in the past. The Law of the Autonomous Commune (Ley de Comuna Autónoma) formally gave enhanced political and financial powers to the municipalities. This civil war was fundamentally a

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reaction to the perceived abuse of executive authority by Liberal president Manuel Balmaceda, and lacked the regionalist bent that characterized the 1851 and 1859 wars (Pinto 1991). The congressional forces, themselves Santiago elites, who rebelled against Balmaceda reacted more to the abuse of power in the formulation of national policy rather than the violation of already limited regional prerogatives. With the victory of congressional forces, increased municipal power was granted simply to usurp the president’s right of appointment for mayors. Thus, despite a limited degree of increased authority for municipal government, Santiago remained the center of national policymaking. Moreover, the municipalities fell victim to corrupt machine politics and bossism, especially in urban areas (Cleaves 1969; Martner 1993). While mayors were quite powerful within their own jurisdiction in terms of the distribution of influence and resources, the lack of coordination among municipalities and widespread knowledge of local corruption undermined the ability of local governments to stand up to the authority of Santiago.

ISI, the Developmentalist State, and the Centrality of Santiago Reacting to problems of corruption and with a fundamental desire to enhance the efficacy of government, the drafters of the 1925 constitution sought to provide additional oversight of local authorities through the creation of popularly elected provincial assemblies (Campos 1969). Arturo Alessandri, the constitution’s principal architect, also believed strongly in the value of regional autonomy (Cleaves 1969). Articles 94–100 of the 1925 constitution provided for regional governmental assemblies at the provincial level, though implementation depended on further legislative action. However, such enabling legislation necessary for election of the assemblies was never adopted. Thus, the administration of each province was put into the hands of a government official named by the president (a provincial intendente). A series of municipal governments was also created. For administrative purposes the country was divided into twenty-five provinces that were subdivided into 302 comunas, each with a municipal council charged with the comuna’s administration.4 Municipal councils had from five to fifteen members (regidores), whose number depended on the population of the comuna and who were elected for a four-year period by direct vote. Members were elected according to the d’Hondt proportional electoral systems,

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which significantly undercut the electability of candidates without party sponsorship. The electoral system helped to consolidate Chile’s highly disciplined and ideological party system at the local level. While Chile’s recent authoritarian government is criticized for the practice of having appointed mayors, many forget that the tradition of appointing mayors dates from the 1925 constitution and before. Each municipal council in preauthoritarian Chile was charged with designating a mayor from among its ranks. However, in urban areas with populations in excess of 100,000, the mayor was a direct salaried appointment made by the president. In addition, the law of municipalities dictated that the most important actions of the municipalities had to be approved by the corresponding provincial assembly. Because the provincial assemblies never came into being, the final decisionmaking power fell to the intendente. In constitutional terms, it would appear than that the intendente then wielded a great deal of power, yet Arturo Valenzuela (1977) notes that a lack of resources, coupled with the desire to be reappointed, prevented these officials from interfering with the decisions of municipal councils. According to the constitution, municipalities were given several responsibilities: enforcing standards of sanitation; supervising adornment and recreation; promoting education, agriculture, industry, and commerce; caring for primary schools and other educational services; constructing and repairing roads, sidewalks, bridges, and all works of necessity; and administering and disbursing public property and taxes in conformity with the regulations dictated by the law (Article 105, Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile 1925). Despite this wide range of decisions and activities over which municipal authorities had final say, scholars agree that local government was relatively powerless in Chile, mostly as a result of the expanding national state, the lack of resources at the disposal of local governments, and the unwillingness of elites in Santiago to surrender power (see Valenzuela 1977; Rehren 1991; Gil 1966). Municipal systems, especially poorer ones, were completely dependent on the central government for direction and resources to undertake their basic functions. Before the 1973 military coup, movements to decentralize failed for a number of reasons. During the first half of the century, the expansion of the Chilean state proceeded apace, accelerating as a reaction to the Great Depression and the widespread adoption of ISI policies in Latin America. During the ISI period, several phenomena combined to undermine the possibilities for decentralization, local democratization, and the transfer of increased power to municipal governments in the country. First, with the expansion of the developmentalist and welfare state, municipal functions became “nationalized” (Valenzuela 1977, 29–31). As

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Table 9.2 Government Investment at the National and Municipal Levels: Comparative Indices, 1960–1965

Year

Growth in Central Government Investment

Growth in Local Government Investment

1960 1961 1962 1963 1965

100.00 134.83 218.26 295.21 451.98

100.00 97.70 121.97 142.38 193.16

Source: Valenzuela (1977, 47). Note: 1960 = 100.

the purview of the national state widened—and, in particular, that of government ministries—municipal authorities lost influence. Table 9.2 compares growth rates in central government with local government investments during the most rapid period of growth of the ISI era. The data in Table 9.2 attest to both the dramatic growth in size of the central government and the modest level of growth of local government expenditures. The national government took increasing control over the provision of basic municipal services, either because of the inability of municipal governments to provide these services given a lack of resources (Valenzuela 1977; Cleaves 1969) or because national ministries sought to rationalize and standardize developmentalist goals. National development goals took precedence over municipal projects and proposals. For example, paving and urban planning became the responsibility of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, and the Ministry of Education took central responsibility for the educational curriculum and the assessment of educational needs. Finally, the National Health Service took over all responsibility for health and medical care, including the establishment of national standards for sanitation (Valenzuela 1977). A state with universal and enforceable standards of health and education and a strong infrastructure was seen as more efficient and modern. Municipal autonomy was viewed as an impediment to the development of a rational, centralized, modernizing state and to carrying out ISI. Second, early in the twentieth century, conservative elites resisted anything more than the superficial democratization of municipal government. With the adoption of ISI and welfare state policies, parties of the center-left adopted the state-centered model of development and with it the centralist ideas that had guided Chilean policymakers for decades. With the expansion of the state, local governments became less influen-

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Table 9.3 Municipal Expenditures as a Percent of National Government Expenditures in Chile Year

Percentage

1896 1937 1945 1956 1963 1967 1973 1985 1995 1998

11.4 9.66 9.22 6.90 6.93 6.40 4.00 7.50 13.60 15.00

Sources: Valenzuela (1977, 46); Escobar-Lemmon (2001); Schilling (1998).

tial, given a scarcity of resources and minimal revenue transfers from the central government in Santiago. Municipal governments were entitled to revenues from real estate, property taxes, and licensing. However, the most financing for municipal initiatives was to have come from income taxes. According to the law, municipalities were entitled to 7 percent of national income taxes collected in their jurisdiction. However, because these funds were paid to the national treasury, national government priorities usually took precedence over the need to reimburse tax money to the localities. Debt mounted, as outstanding monies owed to the municipalities accumulated. Thus, the growth and development of the Chilean state during the 1960s and 1970s fit squarely within the evolving tradition of Chilean centralism. And albeit for different reasons, the reformist and revolutionary movements that developed during this period continued to support and expand the centralized state as the main axis of modernization and redistribution (Salazar 1998). Table 9.3 shows the evolution of the percentage of national expenditures made by local government in Chile. This percentage decreased gradually from 1896 until the military coup in 1973. The emergence and expansion of the developmentalist state in the 1930s and 1940s left less and less for municipal government. Third, the scarcity of resources combined with high demands transformed local political leaders into brokers determined to extract resources from the central government. In turn, local leaders turned out the vote for members of Congress who could deliver patronage through party networks. Despite what has been said about the overwhelming influence of the center in Chilean politics, local government and local politics have not

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been inconsequential. Ironically, the very scarcity of resources transformed local governments into important political platforms. The resolution of conflicts at the local level helped to stem wider political conflict. Satisfying particularistic and clientelistic demands at the local level led to broad conflict-stemming agreements on the highly ideological national political stage. However, this dynamic also transformed political parties and members of Congress into the main linkages between citizens and the national government in Santiago (Valenzuela 1977). Therefore, it became necessary to extract resources from the center. Although this dynamic reinforced the importance of political parties and legislators as brokers, it also reinforced a dynamic of centralism, because all important decisions radiated from Santiago. Finally, given this network of relationships and the importance of party connections on the local level, the developmentalist state could buy off regionalist demands through tax breaks, development grants, or infrastructure development projects without transferring any real power or fiscal autonomy to regional governments. Instead, members of Congress could satisfy local demands and disarm potentially challenging local governments. This dynamic also served to politicize the local arena. Local leaders may have appeared to be arguing about very little, but party politics was as significant on the local level as on the national. The fractious and ideologically charged nature of local politics and the country’s almost complete penetration by political parties was one of the roots of the hyperpoliticization that served as a rationale for the military’s intervention in a violent military coup in 1973.

Authoritarian Deconcentration Without Participation, 1973–1990 The government of General Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990) was one of the most centralized of the authoritarian governments that prevailed in the Southern Cone during the 1970s and 1980s. During the dictatorship, all representative governing institutions were eliminated, and decisionmaking became concentrated in a relatively closed circle of Pinochet allies (Arriagada 1991; Valenzuela 1991). At the local level, the Pinochet government immediately suspended all elected mayors and regidores and replaced them with authorities designated by the central government. Somewhat ironically, the authoritarian government made the reconstitution of local administrative structures one of its principal priorities and provided the bases for the comprehensive process of decentralization that

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continues today. The rationale for decentralization during the dictatorship was, of course, distinct from that of democratic authorities. The regime had a clearly administrative antidote to what it perceived as a political disease. Government officials recognized that party politics had penetrated all levels of government in Chile. Leaders sought to rebuild the political system from the bottom up, without the politicization that had characterized democracy since mid-century. Thus, military leaders viewed the municipality as the crucial base of the political system on which a nonpartisan, efficient administrative state structure could be built. The government sought to create new modes of participation that would replace the politicized ones that had in their view undermined Chile’s economic development and political stability (Rehren 1991). Despite the authoritarian government’s recognition of the need to decentralize administratively, military elites remained skeptical about the desirability of self-government for municipios. In fact, a study of the issue undertaken by the authoritarian regime concluded that “for almost eighty years this country has lived through a long and unproductive experience with a system of elected collegial municipal authorities that has degenerated into the first stage of demagogery for those who eventually intend to have a career in Congress” (Allamand 1998, translation by the authors). Hence, the various “mayors” of Santiago and all other municipalities were appointed throughout the military regime and, with a few exceptions, remained in power for the first few years of democratic government. The appointment of mayors directly by the government further reinforced the already overwhelming dynamic of centralism. It appears paradoxical that a movement normally associated with democratization in the region would begin under one of the most repressive military regimes on the continent. One should bear in mind, however, that the military’s goal was administrative deconcentration and the decentralization of the economy and productive structures, rather than the decentralization of political authority. This process of deconcentration of authority in Santiago began in 1974 with a new territorial division. The regionalization process redivided Chile into thirteen regions, fifty-one provinces, and 341 comunas. More significant to the decentralization process, though, was the transfer of funds to regional governments through the National Regional Development Fund (Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Regional, or FNDR) and the redistribution of funds to municipal governments through the Municipal Common Fund (Fondo Común Municipal, or FCM). Both of these funds were designed to provide regional and municipal governments additional resources, albeit at the discretion of bureaucrats in the ministries in Santiago. The FNDR trans-

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ferred central government funds to regional governments, and the FCM was designed to redistribute resources from Chile’s wealthiest comunas to the poorer ones. Why did the military government embark on a program of decentralization? In general, the military government’s transformational mission was at odds with Chile’s tradition of centralism and absolutely at odds with the bloated, developmentalist welfare state that had reached its zenith during the government of Socialist president Salvador Allende (1970–1973). Thus, the military government embarked on a paradoxical process of decentralization with centralized and authoritarian direction (Boisier 1990). Pinochet himself contended that the decentralization process had nothing to do with weakening of the central government. Rather, decentralization was intended to enhance the authority and control of the central government because local leaders would be better able to delegate, manage, and supervise national policies (Rehren 1991). Perhaps more important, neoliberal technocrats serving in the military government sought to dismantle the Chilean welfare and developmentalist state, which, in addition to the hyperpoliticization of the party system, they perceived as one of the roots of Chile’s social and economic ills. Pinochet’s decentralization process had four basic ends that fit with the socioeconomic policies and goals of the government: (1) improving the effectiveness of state expenditures; (2) privatizing services previously carried out by the state and enhancing the role of local authorities in their provision; (3) decreasing the size of the centralized state in accordance with the government’s neoliberal vision; and (4) encouraging the development of industry and commerce in the regions (Vergara 1986; Larroulet 1993). These policies were also employed as rationales to attract funding from multinational banks. Economic policymakers argued that decentralization would enhance efficiency, reduce waste, and, in turn, improve the macroeconomic health of the country. In essence, decentralization was perceived as the first step in the modernization of the Chilean economy. The discourse of decentralization posed in these terms fit well with structural adjustment policies being implemented throughout the region. Municipal governments were viewed as the most efficient level to contract and provide public services through the use of market mechanisms. Finally, the municipality was also perceived as best able to identify problems and set priorities for municipal development (Larroulet 1993). Reformers argued that local government authorities were more aware of the needs of citizens than bureaucrats sitting in offices in faraway Santiago. In essence, administrative decentralization would (to use the appropriate market parlance) bring the service providers closer to the customers, both literally and figuratively.

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Table 9.4 Government Investment at the National and Municipal Levels: Comparative Indices, 1975–1982

Year

Growth in Central Government Investment

Growth in Local Government Investment

1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982

100 118 146 153 174 155 154 123

100 161 157 312 538 1,182 2,283 1,528

Source: Rehren (1991, 232). Note: Authoritarian government (1975 = 100).

In an attempt to reconcile these political, administrative, and economic goals, the military government engaged in far-reaching reforms that put the administration of many public services in the hands of municipal government. These services included health care, education, and the distribution of poverty and social welfare subsidies to varying extents, depending on the issue area (Legassa 1993). Nonetheless, increased democracy at the level of the municipio and the democratization of this decisionmaking process were not incorporated into the decentralization plan. As Table 9.4 shows, government expenditures at the municipal level increased much more rapidly than central government expenditure during the course of the military’s program of decentralization. However, and as we discuss in the next section of this chapter, despite a transfer of funds and apparent decisionmaking power, the military government’s decentralization plan was really more of a process of “mayorization” (alcaldizatión) than decentralization. While funding and decisionmaking power were devolved to the municipalities, to a great extent the mayor, as a representative of the military regime, simply instituted policy dictated by the national government (Schiefelbein and Apablaza 1984). Thus, though activities were implemented at the local level, decisionmaking continued to be centralized and authoritarian. The final paradox of military decentralization is that authoritarian municipal reform also played a role in the wider process of redrawing the country’s party political map. In particular, the presence of leadership of the parties of the right at the municipal level allowed the right (principally the Unión Demócrata Independiente, or UDI, but later also Renovación Nacional, or National Renovation, RN) to make inroads with the popular

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sectors for the first time by administering municipal policy and by distributing benefits provided by the national government. As a result, many citizens’ experience with local government institutions with some modicum of decisionmaking power took place when leaders on the right were in charge and under the direction of the military regime. Many of these leaders later went on to be elected members of parliament representing parties of the right. There were some additional significant and symbolic efforts aimed at decentralization. First, the creation of so-called regional universities by the Pinochet government helped to create intellectual centers that could study local problems and realities and that could provide greater educational opportunities for students from the provinces. Nonetheless, these universities continued to depend on resources supplied by the central government and on decisions taken by the Ministry of Education. But these universities have yet to be given authority to work jointly with regional governments in planning projects or in undertaking regional initiatives. Also, the Pinochet government built a costly new congressional palace in the port of Valparaíso, moving it from its traditional location in Santiago in an effort to “disperse” political power. Irrespective of whether or not political power can be dispersed in such a way, Valparaíso—being only 116 kilometers from the capital—remains very much within Santiago’s orbit.5 Most high-level officials and many Congress members still maintain offices in Santiago or work in party headquarters located in the capital to remain in touch with the ministries and elite party structures where the most important political decisions are made. Thus, despite rhetoric of decentralization, the Pinochet government fell victim to both Chile’s tradition of centralism and the inability to reconcile the democratic elements of decentralization with an authoritarian political structure. The military government, while correctly credited with initiating Chile’s process of decentralization, concentrated principally on administrative deconcentration, without significant moves toward municipal democratization. Nevertheless, the military’s initiatives did provide an initial administrative framework and a momentum for decentralization that has been built upon by subsequent democratic governments.

Decentralization and the Return to Democracy, 1990–2000 One of the guiding themes of this book is that democratization tends to produce elected leaders inclined to favor decentralization programs. This

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thesis receives indirect support from the Chilean case. With a return to democracy, Chile’s newly elected leaders expanded (rather than initiated) the decentralization process begun by the military regime by focusing on the resurrection of regional, municipal, and local democratic institutions (Obando and González 1991). When democratically elected authorities assumed power in 1990, the mayors appointed by the military regime remained in office, with some important exceptions. Principle among them was the power given to the new president to appoint the mayors of the most important comunas of the country.6 Municipal government reform was one of the major priorities of the first postauthoritarian government (Varas and Mohor 1992). Newly elected Christian Democratic president Patricio Aylwin presented his proposal for municipal reform just two months after assuming office in March 1990 (Bland 1998). The president’s efforts at municipal reform came in response to a number of concomitant demands: the democratizing spirit of the transition, a technocratic belief in the importance of decentralization as a component of modernization, a continued reaction to the demise of the ISIstyle, top-heavy state, and a response to the public support for the processes of decentralization already begun by the military government. However, Aylwin was frustrated in his reform efforts by the most important parties of the right, the RN and UDI, which defeated his proposal for municipal reform in Congress. For these parties Aylwin’s reform proposal did not go far enough. The RN and UDI wanted a reform of regional governing structures to be included in a comprehensive plan for decentralization. Because there were minimal prospects for them to win a presidential election anytime soon, these parties sought new political spaces in which they could compete and hold significant public office (Boisier 1994). Following arduous negotiations concerning the structure of municipal government, the method of election for municipal authorities, and a number of other issues, the “organic” laws and enabling legislation for municipal and regional government reform were approved in 1991. Local elections for town councils were held in 1992, and in a historic departure the country’s most important mayors were popularly elected, albeit indirectly by municipal councils.7 In addition, for the first time in Chilean history municipal governments were constituted as legal corporations with legal rights and administrative autonomy, and not just subunits of the Interior Ministry (Bland 1998). The reform of municipal government also established a Municipal Economic and Social Council (Consejo Económico y Social Comunal, or CESCO) that serves as an advisory body that seeks to incorporate citizens into the decisionmaking process. This body is made up of local citizen’s organizations in each of the municipalities.

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While this drive for municipal democratization was significant, the question of financing for municipal government was equally important. The Pinochet government had formally farmed out many of the activities undertaken by the central government to local authorities. As noted earlier, the military government also created the FCM to transfer resources from the richest comunas nationwide to the poorer ones. Although this fund operated during the military government, the redistribution of funds was insufficient. Local governments were thus mandated with additional responsibilities in the areas of health, education, and social policy yet were not provided resources to undertake these activities. Democratic authorities sought to revamp the FCM and provide for a more significant transfer of resources (Avalos and Valenzuela 1997). It was widely recognized that the structure of Santiago government under Pinochet continued to favor the country’s richest comunas. Given Santiago’s municipal structure, the poorer comunas remained poor; the richer comunas enjoyed a wider tax base, greater financial freedom, and a much higher quality of municipal services. Law 19.130 of March 1992 provided for the transfer of more resources to poorer comunas, and the FCM became the major source of funding for many municipalities nationwide, 70 percent of which are net beneficiaries (Nickson 1995).8 This funding mechanism, and its automatic nature, have significantly reduced conflict between the central government and municipalities regarding the redistribution of resources and have decreased the president’s bargaining power in terms of attempting to co-opt particular municipal elites through promises of increased revenue for municipalities. Despite efforts at the redistribution of income through the FCM, disparities between municipalities remain. Table 9.5 shows the per capita municipal income and the percentage of the poor population for the three richest and three of the poorest comunas in Greater Santiago. Providencia has a per capita income that is about five times that of La Granja. Poverty is almost nonexistent in Providencia, while 30 percent of the population of La Granja is categorized as poor. In terms of decisionmaking power, the return of democracy granted the municipios increased responsibility for traffic regulation, zoning, garbage collection, parks, and municipal beautification. Most of the municipal resources come from the FCM, though (again) the richest comunas can rely on a much wider resource base. In the 1990s, public beautification and remodeling projects blossomed in the barrio alto as the poorer areas of Santiago continued to face difficulties in providing even basic services. In addition, and just as in the authoritarian era, some degree of confusion exists over who has the last word on certain issues, and the

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Table 9.5 Per Capita Municipal Income and Percentage of Poor Population for Selected Santiago Municipalities, 1994 Municipality La Granja Pudahuel El Bosque Las Condes Vitacura Providencia

Per Capita Income (Chilean pesos) 22,500 23,800 24,130 62,050 79,000 112,400

Poverty (%) 29.5 32.0 26.0 1.1 1.2 0.8

Source: Ministerio de Hacienda, CASEN, 1994, Informe del Consejo Nacional de Superación de la Pobreza.

“municipalizacion” of health, education, and social services remains incomplete. The country’s health policies also illustrate this ambiguous and incomplete decentralization. The authoritarian government’s social reforms placed greater control of health care within the new municipalities (Cifuentes 1993). According to reforms undertaken in 1979 and 1980, health care was privatized for those Chileans who had the financial resources to pay for private health insurance. The rest of the population (about two-thirds) continues to rely on state subsidies, the administration of which was delegated to municipal authorities. Nonetheless, most strategic planning takes place in the ministries, salaries are established by statutes, coverage for those citizens covered by the state-run system is established by law, and the distribution of resources takes place according to plans elaborated in the Ministry of Health. The leaders of individual municipal health services do not participate in decisions regarding budgets. The Ministry of Health determines the number of personnel and the basic organizational structure of municipal providers, making it difficult for municipalized services to respond to the changing needs. Finally, all major equipment must be requisitioned from central authorities, limiting both the latitude of decisionmaking and the possibility of innovation based on individual initiatives (Legassa 1993). Municipalities have, in essence, become the executors of decisions taken within the Ministry of Health and the distributors of reimbursement checks. Although moves toward decentralization were taken to bring “decision-making to the local levels, so that priorities could reflect actual needs” (Cifuentes 1993, 70), decentralization in the health field has been superficial. In the social sphere, municipal governments have the authority to administer local social programs and to identify the neediest targets for

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government social subsidies. However, the municipalities lack the resources and technical expertise (with the exception of larger, wealthy municipalities that really do not need to worry about subsidies for the poor) to initiate or develop their own plans for poverty alleviation. As in health care, central authorities—and, in particular, the national ministries— devise, design, and finance programs, and the municipalities execute them. In terms of poverty elimination programs, the role of the municipality has essentially boiled down to determining which of the citizens in the municipality are the neediest and distributing state subsidies accordingly. Additional funds are available for municipalities to pay for special projects. Nevertheless, much of the special government funding to the municipalities is financed through competitions (concursos) awarded on the basis of proposals coming from local governments. However, the nature, focus, and scope of government concursos are determined within the ministries. For example, if a particular municipalidad wishes to begin a special program in illiteracy eradication, it must wait until the Ministry of Education is promoting some specialized financing open to competition. Thus, while a municipality may indeed have the freedom to determine priorities on its own, it must often wait until these priorities coincide with those of the central government before the need can be met. As a result, a dynamic of concursismo has developed in which municipalities compete for resources for projects and undertakings that may not really be of pressing necessity. In the end, despite the intention to decentralize decisionmaking, priorities are still determined at the national rather than local level (Serrano 1999). The results of municipalization in education have been similar. In most areas of the country, the curriculum employed is established by the Ministry of Education, not because of law but because local curricula for the most part have not been developed for municipal schools. Municipalization in education illustrates how devolution of power to Santiago’s comunas has helped to reinforce the socioeconomic differences between wealthier and poorer areas of the city. While municipal schools in wealthier comunas may receive help from local government organisms, or directly from parents, a lack of resources in poorer comunas has helped to reinforce inequality among the municipalized city schools (Legassa 1993).

Metropolitan Santiago and Local Government, 2000 and Beyond Despite decades of attempted policies of decentralization, Santiago remains the center of Chilean national life. Table 9.6 reveals some eco-

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Table 9.6 Dimensions of Centralism in Chile, 1998

Variable Population Consumption Bank deposits National tax receipts Stock market transactions Control of public spending GNP

Metropolitan Santiago (% of national total) 39 60 80 80 97 90 50

Source: CORCHILE 1998, 5–6.

nomic dimensions of centralism in Chile. With only 39 percent of the population, Santiago dwarfs the rest of the country when it comes to consumption, bank deposits, and other financial indicators of centralism. However, equally important in terms of quality of life and economic opportunity are the private investment, wealth, educational institutions, think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, and technology-related industries all concentrated in Santiago. Even the organizational efforts for decentralization in government and academic circles are centered in Santiago. However, as a capital city, Santiago is divided into and characterized by weak municipalities with dispersed power. Somewhat paradoxically, decentralization of Santiago’s government (a purportedly positive phenomenon) has limited the capacity of elites charged with governing and administering the city to do their duties. Reality consists of several mayors, none of whom can definitively or independently influence decisions taken on behalf of the entire metropolitan area. This fact of life has diluted the influence of Santiago’s mayors compared to their counterparts in Mexico City, São Paolo, or Buenos Aires and has political consequences and important repercussions for the residents of Santiago. In political terms, the overall ability of metropolitan Santiago to lobby for itself is diluted. While two comuna mayors have been discussed as future presidential candidates, and while the most important recent candidate on the right was Joaquín Lavín, the mayor of Las Condes, the attractiveness of a mayoral candidate for president would surely be enhanced if he or she were the mayor of all of Santiago and not just of one of its comunas. Public criticism of Lavín’s candidacy centered precisely on this issue. Many contended that Lavín lacked the necessary governing experience,

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given that his principal administrative experience consisted of running a comuna with vast wealth and prosperous, well-behaved citizens. Indeed, his move to mayor of Santiago Centro was interpreted as an attempt to prove his political and management skills and thereby enhance his attractiveness as a presidential candidate. The decentralization of Santiago has important consequences for Santiaguinos as well. The city relies on a chaotic and privatized system of public transport; Santiago is congested, choked with smog, and prone to flooding and mudslides when there is excessive rain. Yet managing such problems is hampered by the lack of a powerful authority to institute a metropolitan-wide plan for pollution control, urban planning, sewage, public transport, and reforestation of the surrounding hills. The only real influence a comuna can have on transport that passes through it is the designation of one-way streets. Municipal authorities cannot limit or affect the nature of citywide transport that transects their comuna. Despite the FCM, huge disparities of wealth still exist between the city’s comunas, which reinforce socioeconomic divisions in a society and a city where the gap between the rich and poor is already wide, in turn creating severe inequalities in the provision of public services, sanitation, and education. The ambiguous position of Santiago as a “center” with dispersed power also affects its position as a national capital and its relationship with the rest of Chile. First, because of its importance to the entire city, responsibility for the expansion of Santiago’s metropolitan area has fallen to the Ministry of Transport. Many provincial Chileans are jealous of Santiago, given the enormous national expenditures that the construction of the metro (and similar “urban” policies like pollution abatement) entails. Santiaguinos pay no additional taxes, yet they receive the benefits of these services more than other Chileans. Second, between 1987 and 1996, 90 percent of new industrial jobs were in businesses that chose to locate in Santiago. Chileans outside Santiago point to the need for policies designed to encourage the territorial dispersion of investment. Nonetheless, individual comunas have incentives to compete for jobs and thus make it more likely that business will choose to locate in Santiago. This is not to say that a centralized Santiago governing authority would choose to have jobs located in the provinces. Rather, with such an authority the coherence of a citywide development and pollution control plan could better be ensured. The national government would also have a centralized authority structure through which to distribute economic and productive activities throughout the region and the country.

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Conclusions The trajectory of the evolution of Santiago government supports many of the propositions and hypotheses found in the five central themes of this volume, some more directly and explicitly than others. Not surprisingly, however, some hypotheses are contradicted or not supported, largely as a result of some of the unique features of Santiago government set out at the beginning of this chapter. The Chilean case indirectly confirms this volume’s suggestion that ISI presidents will defend their right to appoint mayors. Chile’s unitary system really never allowed a movement that could challenge the dominance of the national government, and its moves to eliminate the president’s ability to appoint the most important mayors in the country were quickly either put down or lost momentum given a lack of support by the national political elite. According to Federico Gil (1966), the trend has always been toward increased centralization and domination by Santiago. In preauthoritarian Chile, despite regionalist sentiments and sporadic demands for increased regional autonomy, the central government of Santiago was clearly dominant. Gil notes that “legislation and political practice have more and more been buttressing the powers of the officials of the central government and restricting the activities and jurisdiction of municipalities to administrative matters of relatively minor importance” (1966, 128). However, Patricio Aylwin, Chile’s first popularly elected post-ISI president, voluntarily gave up the right to appoint the most important mayor(s) of the capital with the municipal reforms of 1991. This relinquishing of power was due not only to the democratizing spirit of the transition but also because Santiago’s dispersed power structure makes mayors less of a threat. The experience of Santiago and Chilean local government in general confirms the hypothesis in Chapter 1 that efforts toward a market economy tend to be accompanied by local government reforms, especially decentralization. But in Santiago’s case, and unlike most others in this volume, this decentralization began not with an opening of the political system, but during an authoritarian regime. Nonetheless, Chile’s decentralization process during the military regime fell victim to the contradiction between the devolution of political power necessary in a process of real decentralization and the concentration of authority by and for military leadership (Fox 1994). Still, the decentralization movement did deepen with a return to democratic politics, and democratically elected leaders maintained the free-market policies of the previous authoritarian governments. Santiago partially confirms the notion that decentralization can increase local government autonomy in the capital city and that the mayor

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will become the nation’s most important municipal official. First, municipal autonomy in Santiago has indeed increased, but only in the few areas in which the central government has decided to devolve power to the municipalities. Second, deconcentration of power has often been superficial and artificial, consisting primarily of the disbursement of national government funding, principally in the areas of health and education. Finally, Joaquín Lavín’s December 1999 presidential candidacy, and his potential run in 2005, provide support for the supposition that the capital city mayor can aspire to become the nation’s most important municipal officer. However, along with the mayor of Santiago Centro, several of the mayors of metropolitan Santiago’s most important comunas have also become important leaders. Despite Lavín’s role as mayor in Santiago Centro, his spectacular rise to popularity began in Las Condes, a wealthy and significant comuna. In general, the mayors of the most influential comunas are powerful political actors. Once again, the distinct realities of the structure of Santiago government affect how this hypothesis plays out in the Chilean case. If a single metropolitan mayor existed, that office would become the nation’s most important municipal actor. Nonetheless, the victory of Socialist Party candidate Ricardo Lagos and the candidacy of PDC member Andrés Zaldívar, both of whom are career politicians, also point to enduring and distinctive patterns of political recruitment in Chile. Chilean populist leaders are much less influential than in Brazil, Mexico, or Argentina, and many of the country’s most prominent leaders have worked their way up the political ladder through Congress and in ministerial service. This pattern has historically been the case in Chile, though recent cases of mayoral prominence may suggest a new or at least additional model of political recruitment in the future. Indeed, Lavín’s candidacy took on a decidedly populist tone as it progressed. Santiago’s Built Environment Santiago’s built environment is central both to making political statements and to the identity of Chile as a country (Gross 1991). This was as much the case in the preauthoritarian era as it was during the dictatorship and since the return of democracy. Appointed mayors under the authoritarian regime were expected to support the preferences of the national government when it came to changes in the built environment. The military government took great pride in the construction of Santiago’s Altar de la Patria, which contains the remains of Chile’s founding father, Bernardo O’Higgins. It also undertook modernization efforts in the capital’s center, establishing a series of

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pedestrian malls. Santiago’s appointed mayors enthusiastically cooperated with these initiatives. Appointed mayors also focused on national goals at the behest of national elites. With the decentralization of authority, elected mayors have sought change in the built environment, both to make political statements and a name for themselves separate from the policies of the national government. Elected mayors have also focused more on modifying the cityscape and concentrated on quality-of-life issues. The “good life” for military leaders meant enjoying the benefits of Chile’s neoliberal transformation. A profusion of shopping malls, commercial centers, and large office buildings are the most visible representations of this view. Democratic leaders inherited many of these notions, which have become deeply embedded in a culture that is increasingly characterized by excessive consumerism and materialism, as little of the good life related to collective interests. The continued proliferation of unbridled commercial growth represents elected mayors’ inheritance and promotion of these previously defined notions of the good life—particularly for mayors on the right who have represented Santiago’s upper-class districts. The mayors of Chile’s largest comunas have also sought signature projects to enhance their status. A suspension bridge pedestrian overpass (which Santiaguinos have nicknamed “El Golden Gate”), built by Santiago Centro’s mayor, Jaime Ravinet, is just one example of many signature projects that mayors in all of Santiago’s comunas undertake to make a name for themselves. When not referred to as El Golden Gate, the bridge is alternatively identified as “Ravinet’s Bridge.” Similarly, Joaquín Lavín is often credited with the widespread efforts to beautify Las Condes, saving it (some might say with limited success) from urban sprawl and problems of congestion. Not to be outdone by Santiago Centro, Providencia was successful in landing the contract for the construction of the Chilean Telephone Corporation tower, Chile’s tallest building (in the form of a cellular phone), and Vitacura is now home to the Santiago World Trade Center. The constant competition between downtown Santiago and the barrio alto is further evidence of the importance of the built environment to local officials. The comunas of Las Condes, Vitacura, Providencia, and Lo Barnechea constantly compete with Santiago Centro for the construction of large and significant public works and commercial projects. The transfer of the American Embassy and the American Express office from downtown to barrio alto was an important symbolic loss for the city center and exemplified the wider movement of the city’s most significant financial and banking institutions up the cordillera, abandoning Santiago Centro. Many of the headquarters of Chile’s remaining state-managed industries, including the National Petroleum Corporation, have also

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moved to Las Condes or other barrio alto neighborhoods. The profusion of large U.S.-style shopping mega-malls in Vitacura and Las Condes has also transferred a great deal of commercial activity from downtown to barrio alto, particularly for wealthy Santiaguinos, given that a car is necessary in order to use these new commercial centers. Thus, Santiago Centro has been transformed from the center of all aspects of city life to the seat of cultural activities and governmental administration. Policing and Security The influence of mayors in policing is profoundly affected by Chile’s status as a unitary government but fits with the overall findings of this book regarding police powers. Chile’s centralized government provides for a single police force—the Carabineros de Chile. As the Carabineros are the fourth branch of the Chilean military, they have insulated the command structure from the influence of democratic authorities. With a return to democracy, the Carabineros, of course, came under civilian control, although constitutional measures limited this new leadership’s abilities to hire, fire, and promote. Nonetheless, to the extent that the command of the Carabineros is under the direction of civilian authorities, it is clearly the president who retains the responsibility for the maintenance of order, as has traditionally been the case in Chile. Interest Group Coalitions Some of the changes in the balance of interest group coalitions, especially the idea of political conflict between nationally oriented and city-oriented groups, can be seen in the case of Santiago. But while there are clearly nationally and locally oriented elites, conflict between them has been less severe and has played out differently than described in the introductory chapter, largely because of certain realities in the Chilean case. First, the tensions between local and national elites have been eased by the effect of the rhetoric and policy commitments of the current centerleft Concertación government under President Lagos. The alliance campaigned on a platform of deepening of democracy. Thus, some transfer of resources had to be carried out in order to come through on the government’s promise of enhanced municipal autonomy, which was a part of the wider process of democratization. This transfer was undertaken principally through the deepening of the FCM and the partial devolution of policy decisionmaking. However, much of the decentralization of power was superficial. The central government has been unwilling to cede authority to the municipalities in the areas of transport, environmental protection,

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sewerage, and public parks. In addition, and as noted, the FCM can go further than it has in terms of equality of income across municipalities. The Chilean case also differs in regard to the players in the localnational elite conflict. The president and the executive branch have overwhelming power when it comes to affecting the major decisions that confront Santiago as a whole. More than the president, nationally oriented parliamentary elites are resistant to the decentralization of power and resources, given that they view local elites as a threat to their own positions, power, and influence. Members of parliament fear that the brokerage roles, which are the sources of their power, could be threatened by the potential usurpation of these roles by local governing authorities. For many, the popularity of Ravinet and Lavín demonstrates that local government authorities can undermine the influence of parliamentary elites to become more important political actors than members of parliament. As a result, national executive elites may not attempt to restrain the power of the mayor as much as do parliamentary elites. The influence of interest groups over the direction of policy also diverges from the generalizations set out in the book’s overview. Because of the existence of multiple mayors as well as the appointment of mayors in large urban areas for most of Chile’s history, city leaders tended to be responsive to the interests of the national government and national ministries. Third wave mayors have been more responsive to city-oriented groups, though national elites remain very influential given the concentration of resources and decisionmaking power in the ministries. Chile has an extremely strong president even by regional terms, although Latin America is characterized by strong presidential systems in general (Shugart and Carey 1992; Mainwaring and Shugart 1997; Siavelis 2000). If a major disagreement occurred between the mayor and the national legislature, Chile’s strong presidential system would not permit the mayor to bypass the president to directly engage or influence the national legislature. The notion that municipal council support for an elected mayor might increase the mayor’s bargaining strength with the president is not especially relevant to the Chilean case. The individual city councils of Chile’s various municipalities, either separately or together, simply do not have the same influence that an overarching metropolitan council might have— and no such metropolitan council exists. Thus, it is difficult for the mayor to stand up to the overwhelming power of the president, and the support of a municipal council appears to have little effect on the standing of the mayor. Moreover, given that Chile’s local governing structures continue to be characterized by a concentration of power within the office of the mayor, municipal councils do not appreciably increase the leverage of the

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mayor vis-à-vis the president. The importance of municipal council support is further diluted by the council’s intensely competitive and partisan nature (Nickson 1995). Despite some notable efforts at decentralization, nationally oriented elites remain as deeply involved with Santiago issues as they did during military rule. In 1996, the minister of housing appeared repeatedly before the press concerning the urgent need to raise money to buy a new elephant for the Santiago zoological park. Both President Aylwin’s and President Frei’s ministers of public works concerned themselves with the modernization of the city’s center and the expansion and modernization the pedestrian malls created by the Pinochet government. Frei’s public works minister became deeply engaged in a battle concerning toll charges to enter the city from the national airport. Most significantly, the issue of crime has consistently finished first in public opinion survey data concerning the most important issues facing the nation as a whole, and much of this crime is centered in metropolitan Santiago. These examples of the interactive dynamic between centralization and dispersion can have a strong effect on how capital city policymaking plays out. Municipal power is decentralized among the city’s various comunas, yet many of the most pressing national issues (and some that are not so pressing, like the zoo elephant), are Santiago issues. The lack of an overarching Santiago administration leaves only the national government and ministries ultimately responsible for debating and resolving Santiago’s problems. The unique nature of local-national relationships in Chile also influences how some generalizations concerning the struggles for resources between mayors and presidents play out. For example, some of the literature suggests that struggles between the president and capital city mayors for resources will focus on the ad hoc courting of individual elites. But in Chile, the overwhelming power of the national president and the highly routinized dispersion of resources via the FCM make this conflict less common and less serious than in some national contexts. The arguments set out here concerning the distribution of funding also illustrate a dynamic that further tends to mute the struggle for resources between mayors and presidents. The role of the FCM both as a mechanism for the distribution of state resources and as a tool for democratization make it difficult for the president to control the distribution of resources within any given municipality. Hence, conflicts between the president and mayors over resources tend to be less common. This reality is illustrated by the fact that central government transfers account for only 11 percent of total municipal income (excluding health and education, areas where discretionary funds are minimal). Consequently, the president has little

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ability to direct municipal policy through limiting or increasing funding to particular municipalities. The control of funding and the influence of central governments also vary from comuna to comuna. In Las Condes, Vitacura, and Providencia, mayors are less dependent on central government funding because they can raise money from local sources and spend that money. In poorer comunas, however, the struggles between the mayor and the national government that the overview chapter describes are more likely but are still less significant than in other cases in this volume. In general, capital city residents have a strong sense of entitlement. The national government continues to invest heavily in the development and expansion of Santiago’s metro and in measures aimed at pollution control. Nonetheless, neither Santiago residents nor businesses pay increased gasoline or other taxes in order to underwrite these expenses. Residents of the capital point to the overwhelming part Santiago plays in generating the nation’s income as a rationale for continuing national financial support of what are clearly issues that most affect the Santiago metropolitan area. A recurrent theme throughout this chapter has been the lack of an overriding central metropolitan authority to solve some of the problems plaguing Chile’s capital. Jaime Ravinet has proposed the creation of an alcalde mayor to oversee the governance and administration of metropolitan Santiago, obviously envisioning himself as the prime candidate to fill the office. Nonetheless, his suggestion provoked little public attention or support, probably because national political elites are not eager to compete with a strong local figure. As long as Santiago is governed by city leaders with conflicting interests and a president and ministers who sporadically transform themselves into ad hoc mayors, public policy for the region will continue to fail to respond to the challenges of a city with deteriorating quality of life, significant environmental problems, and a growth rate too high for infrastructure development to keep pace. The ultimate irony is that Santiago’s government is one of the few areas where Chile’s overriding tradition of centralism has not encroached, yet some degree of centralism may be necessary for the city government to function in the future.

Notes 1. Although Loveman (1979) points to the concentration of influences and resources along the Santiago-Valparaíso corridor, with the development and

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expansion of Santiago as the political and cultural capital, the city far surpassed Valparaíso in its relative importance. 2. The metropolitan area, referred to as Gran Santiago, is usually said to include thirty-four comunas (the thirty-two comunas of the Province of Santiago, plus Puente Alto and Pirque, which are part of the metropolitan area but not within the province). Nonetheless, with the growth of Santiago, six additional comunas that were once considered peripheral to Santiago, are often included in the metropolitan area, making for a total of forty. These six include Lampa and Colina to the north, Padre Hurtado, Calera de Tango, and Talagante to the west, and Buin to the south. 3. This thesis is in itself debatable, and its evaluation is beyond the scope of this work. Nonetheless, it ignores important realities concerning the desire for a federal system early in Chilean history and, especially, in the provinces. There were strong individual provincial identities throughout the independence period. This led to the signing of agreements recognizing varying degrees self-government in Concepción, Coquimbo, and Copiapó. 4. In certain rural areas, a single municipal council oversaw the administration of more than a single comuna, making for fewer municipal councils than comunas. 5. Proposals for moving the Congress back to Santiago have been made, and one was actually approved by the House in 1999. Approval in the Senate remains uncertain. Rather than a desire to promote decentralization, the most important obstacle to moving the Congress back to Santiago is the question of how to utilize one of the largest and most expensive buildings in Chile if the Congress vacates the structure. 6. The president designated the mayor in Arica, Antofogasta, Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, Concepción, Talcahuano, Temuco, Puerto Montt, Coihaique, and Punta Arenas. In metropolitan Santiago, mayors were appointed in the municipalities of Santiago, Conchalí, La Florida, Las Condes, and Ñuñoa. 7. Unlike many other local governments in Latin America, in Chile the mayoralty is not a directly elected position. Members of the municipal council (consejo municipal) are elected for a four-year term. The top-polling candidate from among the elected council members is automatically named mayor, providing that she or he has polled at least 35 percent of the total vote. If the top-polling candidate receives less than this percentage, the mayor is chosen by the elected councilors (concejales) from among their own ranks. 8. The FCM is administered by the Ministry of Interior and derives its revenue from the following sources: 60 percent of the proceeds from property taxes, 50 percent of what municipalities collect from vehicle licenses and taxes, 6 percent of the proceeds of municipal business licenses from Las Condes and Providencia (two of the wealthiest comunas), and 45 percent of those collected by the municipality of Santiago. A total of 30 percent of all municipal revenue is distributed through the fund, and 70 percent of the fund’s total resources come from property taxes, 20 percent from vehicle taxes, 5 percent from municipal licenses, and 5 percent directly from the central government (Nickson 1995).

10 São Paulo: Tensions Between Clientelism and Participatory Democracy Lawrence S. Graham Pedro Jacobi

Greater São Paulo is pivotal for understanding the transformations under way in Brazil’s redemocratization. In assessing political change in Latin America, political analysts have long looked to capital cities as central to understanding the configuration of national power structures and realignments in politics. Brazil in this regard, however, is—as it is in many other areas—exceptional. Brazil has seen a long-standing sharing of power among regional elites, the centering of political alliances at the local level, and the bifurcation of national policy processes between the country’s economic capital in São Paulo and its political capital in Brasília (or Rio de Janeiro in the recent past). All such factors have produced a political system more akin to the United States than to the rest of Latin America. Initially this chapter began with two teams writing on Brazil: one on Rio de Janeiro and Brasília (the political capitals before and since 1960) and the other on São Paulo. However, the fact that this chapter on São Paulo is the only chapter on Brazil needs an explanation and a rationale. Up until 1960, Rio and São Paulo were complementary in that both were metropolitan regions of national importance. The former was the political and cultural capital of the country; the latter was its business center and the driving force in the national economy. Forty years later, the transfer of the political capital to Brasília and the housing there of the federal government—with its presidency, Congress, national judiciary, and federal bureaucracy—has resulted in São Paulo’s ascendancy to the point where 297

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it is the de facto center of Brazil. It is here that everything of national import in Brazil is to be found, except for the formal attributes of national political power. Even then one might go so far as to say that governmental officials are to be found as frequently in São Paulo as in Brasília in discussions related to issues of national importance, especially in financial sectors. As such, São Paulo parallels Mexico City and Buenos Aires and the other capital cities of Latin America in that it is the center of the country not just in economic and demographic terms but in cultural and educational ones, too. It is here that national life is centered and it is today the crossroads of the country. Consequently, if in discussing issues of national significance in urban governance one wishes to examine the city that best captures the dynamics that drive modern Brazil, it is in São Paulo where one must begin and the point to which one must return. It is Brazil’s most diverse city in terms of the national origins of its immigrants from abroad, and it houses the largest number of migrants who have moved southward from northeastern Brazil in search of jobs and better living conditions. And it has the greatest income disparity in the country, ranging from neighborhoods that are the most affluent in Brazil to shantytowns that are among the poorest. Three generations of U.S. scholarship in comparative politics have reached largely parallel conclusions about the political dynamics in Brazil. We would sum up this literature accordingly: Politics in Brazil is dominated by clientelistic patterns of behavior in which traditional elites have long placed constraints on economic and political reform initiatives and have expropriated economic and political resources so as to benefit their own particular interests. The consequence of these political dynamics has been a conservative style of politics in which effective decisionmaking is confined to a relatively small number of individuals and groups. A corollary to this proposition is that challenges to the concentration of political and economic resources in the hands of the elites have been met effectively either by co-optation or a reversion to authoritarian practices. Furthermore, this perspective suggests that, once again, as we enter the new millennium, democratic initiatives are being sidelined by the realities of political power and the reliance of national leaders on traditional politicians and power brokers whose support is essential to produce working majorities in Congress.1 Very clearly, then, the existing U.S. literature in comparative politics establishes one vital dimension regarding Brazilian politics. The long rule of traditional elites, divided along the lines of regional demarcations, has led to alternating waves of open and closed governments. During the former, these elites have supported democratic initiatives when the initiatives

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have helped maintain clientelistic politics and protected the power bases of traditional politicians and power brokers. In other eras, these same elites have been quite willing to support the suspension of democratic rules and have endorsed authoritarian practices when their power base has been threatened. But there is another reality that this literature overlooks. In Brazil there is also a long history of democratic initiatives, dating back to the constitutionalist revolt against Getúlio Vargas in São Paulo in 1932, and the gradual expansion of these initiatives over the years throughout the country. In the continuing struggle for democracy in Brazil, a significant breakthrough came in the 1980s with the organization of mass movements against authoritarian rule, an era that moderates, reformers, and radicals alike refer to today as “ The Repression” (A Repressão). Accordingly, we propose a countervailing proposition: Change in Brazilian politics and policies, especially in the current democratic cycle, is best understood as a continuing struggle between two competing coalitions cutting across government, political organizations, and society. In this context, reformist forces have steadily increased their influence and weight in politics and society through their involvement in economic and social issues affecting the daily lives of middle-class and working-class voters. While the focus of this chapter is centered on developments in locallevel politics in Greater São Paulo during the 1990s, two important policy legacies from the past have shaped this continuing struggle for greater citizen participation in government and democratic practices. One is linked to the restructuring of national institutions in response to the three waves of democracy that have influenced Latin American nations as a whole and that are outlined in this volume’s overview chapter. The other is the role that São Paulo City has played in national politics since the 1890s as Brazil’s most important economic center, along the lines that would parallel the significance of New York City in U.S. politics.

São Paulo’s Historical and Institutional Setting The impact of the first wave of global democratization on Brazil can be seen in the shift from the institutions of a constitutional monarchy to those of a republic following the 1889 military-led revolt against the emperor. The consequences of these changes were the formation of a presidential federal republic patterned after the United States in the constitution of 1891. Nevertheless, Brazil’s first republic was a constrained democracy, in which leadership roles were limited essentially to those who owned property and were literate. Wide-scale use was made of the votes of

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nonelites through rural-based political machines that delivered the vote at election time.2 Institutionally Brazilian federalism has differed from its U.S. model in a number of important ways. Chief among these has been the creation of federalism from above, out of what had been a unitary state divided into provinces. But, like the U.S. experience and different from the failures of federalism in Ibero-American experience, Brazilian federalism in 1891 gave institutional expression to an underlying political reality: the prior existence of regional political identities that transcended and checked all earlier attempts at unitary rule. Also like the United States, Brazilian federalism has reflected the de facto division of power between a national government and state governments whose autonomy has been centered in powerful, long-standing regional identities and political leaders whose power base is concentrated within one of several states. In this context, regional political elites through the use of political clienteles and personalist ties have vied for control of the national government. Again, like the United States and in contrast to the Latin American experience, this first experiment with federalism produced a political system in which the balance of power was centered in the states and not in the federal government. The particular form that “republican” politics took in Brazil between 1891 and 1930 was that of a single party regime under the Republican Party (Partido Republicano, or PR). Essentially a coalition of state party organizations centered on the governors of each state, two state party organizations dominated the selection of Brazil’s presidents during this era—in São Paulo and Minas Gerais. However, in contrast to state politics in the United States, no provisions were made initially for the election of local officials. These changes came later in January 1898, when a new law authorized local elections throughout Brazil and replaced the earlier system in which state governors continued to designate intendants to administer local affairs, as had been the practice under constitutional monarchy. In accord with this new legislation, Antônio da Silva Prado became the first elected mayor of São Paulo in January 1898 and inaugurated an era in which the state’s PR organization replicated within the city a local political organization that sustained single-party rule until 1930. Prado dominated city politics from 1898 until 1911 and is generally credited with converting what had been a provincial center into a “modern and civilized city” (Rodrigues Porto 1992, 97). This gradual expansion in democratic practices in São Paulo occurred within the time frame of a delayed response to the first international wave of democratization (1828–1926). It was supported by European-oriented

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local elites who considered these political changes to be congruent with the modernization of the city and its development as the hub of economic life in Brazil. As European immigrants continued to pour into São Paulo (both city and state), local politics became more diverse, and expectations grew among these new citizens that their votes would become more meaningful. By 1926, dissidents had organized an alternative party, the Democratic Party (Partido Democrático, or PD), and looked forward to competing effectively in the next round of local elections scheduled for late 1930. These developments were curtailed in 1930 by events of national import in the form of a conservative, nationalist coup led by Getúlio Vargas from the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in protest against the domination of national politics by the PR organizations in the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. In this setting, Vargas quickly responded to dissidence in São Paulo by appointing a federal interventor (a temporary official) with a mandate to re-establish civil order. The response to that intervention was local strikes and protests over the next two years that made the city ungovernable. A succession of appointed mayors (prefeitos) followed, ten in the two-year period extending from 1930 to 1932. Local opposition to the inauguration of authoritarian politics at the national level and the imposition of strong central government rule over São Paulo by Vargas led to the Revolução Constitucionalista Paulista (Paulista Constitutional Revolution) of 1932. This Paulista liberal revolt favoring democratic practices and opposing the conservative and increasingly authoritarian practices of Getúlio Vargas culminated in the use of São Paulo state military forces to suppress São Paulo city’s democratic movement and led to the appointment of federal interventors to govern the city and the state.3 This reversal in city politics largely paralleled the first reverse wave (1922–1943) against democratic rule in Europe. It reflected the same mix of continued mobilization in favor of increased democratic practices through 1926, in the face of an ever-stronger countervailing conservative coalition supporting nationalism, authoritarianism, and corporatism found throughout southern Europe. The Italian roots of the majority of Paulistas both in the city and the state, coupled with earlier Iberian antecedents, immigration from elsewhere in Europe, and the orientation of the majority of the people in this part of Brazil toward Europe, meant that the Paulista experience paralleled the political turmoil that swept across Portugal, Spain, and Italy during these years. Also, as the country’s leading economic center and as a region thoroughly inserted into the international economy by the 1920s, São Paulo suffered immediately from the collapse of world markets in 1929.

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Vargas and his supporters within the city and the state eventually established order and control over São Paulo city. From 1934 until 1945, accordingly, two federal interventors governed São Paulo city: Fábio da Silva Prado, 1934–1938, and Francisco Prestes Maia, 1938–1945. As World War II drew to a close, pro-democratic forces in the city mobilized themselves in opposition to continued authoritarian rule and supported a wider national democratic movement known as the National Democratic Union (União Democrática Nacional, or UDN). But although Brazil returned to democratic practices nationally in 1946, self-government in São Paulo city was delayed for seven years, as a succession of seven federal interventors continued to govern the city to secure effective conservative control and to head off the regrouping of local democratic forces that might once again press for autonomy for both the city and the state as had occurred in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was not until 1953 that São Paulo city was to have an elected mayor, Jânio Quadros (1953–1956), a local politician identified with rejecting authoritarian rule and favoring democratic practices. From 1953 until 1965, popularly elected mayors governed the city. Quadros embodied one style of personalist local politics, in which individuals supporting political reforms appealed to voters by adopting stances above party affiliation through the use of populist practices. While his support in the São Paulo electorate was sufficient to elect him for one term of office as mayor of the Municipality of São Paulo, he was able to use this support to move on to national politics as a reformist politician without strong party ties. But the political legacy he left was a populist style of politics that was to become the dominant force in local politics for the next eight years. In this setting, a local politician by the name of Adhemar de Barros became the embodiment of the populist-style politics that dominated Brazil’s limited democracy at the national level between 1946 and 1965. As mayor from 1957 to 1961, Adhemar (using his first name for voter identification) built a personalist party organization, the Popular Social Party (Partido Popular Social, or PPS), through which votes were exchanged for services at the ward level. This arrangement was to become an established pattern in the politics of the poorer neighborhoods that was to continue as a force in Paulista politics for the next forty years, despite the next reverse wave of authoritarian rule. However, while this particular organizational pattern replicated the dominant political style identified as clientelism during the 1946–1965 era, it did not follow national politics. At the national level, the Brazilian Workers Party (Partido Trabalhista

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Brasileiro, or PTB) became the major political organization by building new political supports identified with populist politics and lower-sector political mobilization. The PTB developed a close affiliation with Vargas’s political legacies of the 1950s, when he embraced democratic practices. Such practices were in sharp contrast to his authoritarian practices of the 1930s and early 1940s. These had included lower-sector mobilization through close governmental ties with the Ministry of Labor and the federal social security system, as well as building and sustaining political support from traditional politicians through the Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrático, or PSD). Yet at no time was populist politics dominant in São Paulo. Arrayed against Adhemar’s populist coalition was an equally significant and longstanding conservative coalition, supported by the city’s economic elites, which favored center-right democratic rule during these years through affiliation with the PSD. This party constituted the other wing of the two political organizations Vargas created as he abandoned authoritarian rule and sought to sustain political influence under more open governance, in the face of a second wave of international democratic pressures identified with the Allied victory in World War II. Accordingly, under these politics, Francisco Prestes Maia, who had been named federal interventor from 1938 to 1945, returned as a democratically elected mayor for the 1961–1965 term. In his two terms as mayor, he more than any other single mayor responded to the economic elite’s demand for adequate infrastructure to support the city’s continued economic growth. The network of highways and paved roads and the urbanization of the neighborhoods that constitute the core of metropolitan São Paulo today date from these years (Rolnik 1997; Rodrigues Porto 1992). The coalition he represented was based on a clear-cut set of policy preferences responding to long-standing demands that transcended both democratic and authoritarian rule: the preference for investment in urban infrastructure (as opposed to urban social services benefiting the poor) and policies sustaining Paulista economic growth and development. Once again, however, wider political patterns identified with changes in national and global politics shaped events in São Paulo. Corresponding to the global revival of authoritarian rule (1958–1975) was an authoritarian reversal in Brazil that ran from 1965 to 1984 that had major impacts on local politics. Competitive politics was replaced by rule by a new official party, the Aliança Renovadora Nacional (National Renovation Alliance, or ARENA), through a series of mayors placed in office either by appointment or controlled elections: Paulo Salim Maluf (1969–1971),

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José Carlos de Figuereido Ferraz (1971–1974), Miguel Colasuono (1974–1975), Olavo Egydio Setúbal (1975–1979), and Reynaldo de Barros (1979–1983). But even though local democratic forces were suppressed, local citizens once again continued to fight from below against authoritarian rule. Eventually, the military government had to acquiesce to citizen demands throughout Brazil for open elections at the state and local level, though they resisted extending these rights to state capitals and the federal district. In this setting, and as this authoritarian era drew to a close, the opposition party—the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, or PMDB) was able to elect Franco Montoro as governor. Once in office, he appointed Mário Covas as mayor of the municipality of São Paulo for the 1983–1985 term. Although not elected, Covas implemented reformist programs responsive to citizen demands and gave priority to the political agenda of the PMDB. The Brazilian transition to democratic rule since the mid-1980s and the diversity of parties identified with different sets of political interests are reflected in the mayors of São Paulo elected by majority vote. These include: • Jânio Quadros, now allied with the PTB (1986–1989); • Luiza Erundina, the local spokesperson for the new middle- and working-class Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT) (1989–1992); • Paulo Maluf, who abandoned ARENA and its successor, the Liberal Front Party (Partido Frente Liberal, or PFL), to head his own personalist political organization, the Brazilian Popular Party (Partido Popular Brasileiro, or PPB) (1993–1996); and • Celso Pitta, Maluf’s protégé in the PPB (1996–2000) who, once Mário Covas was re-elected as state governor in the October 1998 elections, moved to reduce his ties to Maluf in order to establish his own independent political base.

Politics and Social Conditions Under the Republic While mass movements declined in the 1990s once the transition back to democracy was over, the potential for mass political mobilization has remained very much alive. Below the surface lies an available mass of disenfranchised citizens ready to break through into the world of formal politics if and when effective leadership by counterelites appears to mobilize

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the grassroots and to speak to the needs of those whose abject poverty excludes them from effective participation in modern life. This is the case currently with the rural-based movement in the northeast for social justice and land redistribution to the landless, the Movement of Rural Landless Workers (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST). Furthermore, over the years Brazil has changed in that today it is a country in which the majority of the population now lives in urban areas. There, poverty and the presence of those excluded from effective participation by traditional politicians and power brokers are constantly juxtaposed against the affluence and active political participation of both the middle- and upper-urban sectors of society. In the political space created by these transformations, numerous new associations and organizations have appeared. These groups function apart from the public organizations tied to local, state, and federal governments and the private enterprises identified with the domestic and foreign business communities that are so prevalent in São Paulo city and state. Since the current environment is one in which the realities of securing a stable financial basis for these new organizations has produced a great deal of fluidity, one needs to separate out those that have been able to sustain their presence in local level politics. In this context, diverse nongovernmental organizations, labor unions (sindicatos), and other independent groups in civil society have developed activities supporting local governments that have progressive agendas.4 The objective has been to train a new generation of professionals who can propose alternative lines of action for fighting such problems as poverty and illiteracy through municipal governments and who can interface with the poor in a variety of activities, thereby reinforcing the emphasis in the current democratic movement on creating a participatory ethos in Brazil. The results of these grassroots initiatives in Greater São Paulo can be seen in the diverse group of municipalities that have banded together to create the regional association known as the Greater ABC District (Grande ABC). Included in this association are the municipalities of Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, São Caetano, Diadema, Ribeirão Pires, and Mauá, whose local authorities and civil society organizations are involved in its action program.5 There is no place in Brazil where the tension between these two different political realities and the parallel competing coalitions based on these two very different Brazils cut across Brazilian political, social, and economic life more clearly or dramatically than in Greater São Paulo. This is a huge metropolitan area of 17 million people, second only in its urban congestion and in its size and diversity to Greater Mexico City. The Met-

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ropolitan Region of São Paulo (the RMSP) consists of thirty-nine municípios (see Figure 10.1). It is the most important economic region in the country and also the largest in terms of size, covering more than 8,000 square kilometers. According to the 1996 census, the RMSP has a population of 16,583,234 inhabitants. Within this region, 59.9 percent of this total reside in the municipality of São Paulo, which means that 9,839,436 people are distributed in 2,539,953 places of residence. Altogether, these thirty-nine municipalities, which together occupy one one-thousandth of the country’s territory, contain 11.5 percent of Brazil’s population and 18 percent of its gross national product (GNP).6 The extensive and disorderly process through which the urban space of São Paulo city has been occupied across the years is the source of its nonurbanized peripheries. These are areas without adequate urban infrastructure where available space has been filled spontaneously by people constructing their own homes and subdividing plots of land in peripheral areas through individual and collective acts. During the 1980s, developments in the metropolitan region as a whole, which had been going on since the 1970s, became concentrated in the municipality of São Paulo. As a consequence, this município and the diverse cities belonging to the RMSP industrial region have experienced different growth rates. Up through the 1980s the population of the RMSP grew 1.73 percent annually and then declined to 1.4 percent, according to 1998 data from the São Paulo Secretariat for Analysis and Collection of State Data (SEADE), while the municipality of São Paulo grew by 1 percent annually and then declined to 0.4 percent during the first five years of the 1990s. Yet if the thirty-eight municipalities of Greater São Paulo are grouped together without the municipality of São Paulo, the average growth rate is 3.08 percent. The decrease in the growth of the municipality of São Paulo is a consequence of several factors, principally socioeconomic transformations in that area of the city, increasing deindustrialization, the development of other economic development poles, and an overall decline in economic activity. The economic crisis of the 1980s, joined with intermittent recessions, contributed to a lessening of the flow of immigrants into the city. The parallel development of other economic poles in Greater São Paulo redirected migratory currents that had before gone to the municipality of São Paulo and even attracted unemployed workers from the center of the city. During the 1970s—a period marked by increasing economic growth—the cost of living was low, and large public works projects, providing jobs in construction, attracted migrants to the city. When this pros-

307 Figure 10.1 Municipalities of Greater São Paulo

28 18 8

22

34

6

3

20

13

14

17

5

7

10

26

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40 27

11

23 38 9

Population Density (per square km) < 1,000

1,000 - 10,000 > 10,000 1 Aquera 2 Arujá 3 Barueri 4 Biritiba Mirim 5 Caieiras 6 Cajamar 7 Carapicuiba 8 Cotia 9 Diadema 10 Embu 11 Embu-Guaçu 12 Ferraz de Vasconcelos 13 Francisco Morato 14 Franco da Rocha

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

37

16

1

12 24

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36

2

33

19

29

31

30

39

15 25

4

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ATLANTIC OCEAN

0 10 20 30 Kilometers

Guararema Guarulhos Itapecerica da Serra Itapevi Itaquaquecetuba Jandira Jaraguá Juquitiba Mairiporã Mauá Moji das Cruzes Osasco Parelheiros Pirapora do Bom Jesus

29 Poá 30 Rio Grande da Serra 31 Ribeirão Pires 32 Salesópolis 33 Santa Isabel 34 Santana do Parnaíba 35 Santo André 36 São Bernardo do Campo 37 São Caetano do Sul 38 São Paulo 39 Suzano 40 Taboão da Serra

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perity ended, people in the central city migrated to other municipalities in the metropolitan region. Two migratory movements stand out in these changes that are qualitatively different. First, the movement of lowincome migrants from peripheral areas of the municipality of São Paulo to dormitory cities in the region in search of lower-cost housing, matches generally the overall growth in population of these areas and coincides with their further development as residential areas. But this movement also coincides with the creation of zones where urban life was equally precarious. Second, the migratory movement of higher-income groups out of upper-class central city neighborhoods reflects the search by these people for a better quality of life. Generally they have gravitated to walled-off condominiums that provide greater security.7 The increase of urban violence in municipality of São Paulo has been a major factor in this latter migration, and the principal areas of population growth have been peripheral zones.8 In Greater São Paulo, 1991 census data indicate that much growth has occurred in those neighborhoods (bairros) farthest out and that this is matched by a corresponding loss of population in residential neighborhoods closest in.9 Family structures in São Paulo city have also undergone significant transformation since 1980. The average number of children per woman fell from 3.46 in the 1970s to 2.1 in the 1980s, and the average number of residents in the same household declined from 4 persons in 1980 to 3.5 persons in the next decade. In terms of productive activities, 25 percent of the population was employed in the industrial sector in the 1970s; in the 1980s 70 percent was employed in the service sector. Attention to the context in which these transformations occurred reveals an increase in informal activities. While there has been a migratory movement of central city residents to other cities in the RMSP, these people have kept their jobs in the core city of São Paulo. Their commuting is a source of the permanent and ever-worsening congestion in traffic. The daily movement of this population means that the municipality of São Paulo has a population of almost 10 million at night and 12 million during the day. Socioeconomic data for the decades of 1980 and 1990 reflect the gradual impoverishment of the city. If the freezing of per capita income, inflation, recession, and unemployment have led to an increase in slum dwellings (cortiços) as well as shantytowns (favelas) and have made pockets of social and urban misery more visible, then such economic policies have also led to a reduction of uncontrolled migration into other areas in the metropolitan region and to relocation to the urban periphery. The 1 percent of the population that lived in favelas in 1973 swelled to approximately 19 percent of the population by the end of the twentieth century.

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To this should be added those living in urban cortiços now standing at more than 15 percent. If to this base is added the more than 2.4 million precarious dwellings in the periphery of the city, then more than 60 percent of the people in Greater São Paulo live in substandard housing. Beginning with 1990, the Collor Plan initiated a second cycle of structural adjustments that had immediate and direct consequences for São Paulo. The shock of opening up the economy commercially, coupled with the impact of negative taxation on the GNP, produced an average unemployment rate of 6 percent. The rate of growth continued to decline and, under the impact of increased unemployment, the GNP spiraled downward, especially following the Asian crisis at the end of 1997 and the crisis of the Latin American real at the beginning of 1999, which led to capital flight and devaluation. Brazil’s metropolitan regions have suffered the most from the impact of unemployment, especially the RMSP. Between 1991 and 1997, metropolitan Brazil lost 4 percent of its jobs. The major change was the decline in industrial jobs and the marked increase of jobs in the service sector, especially in the informal economy. In Greater São Paulo, unemployment reached 20 percent in May 1999 (SEADE 1999), reflecting the impact of an economy characterized by credit shortages and increasingly severe cuts in public expenditure, as a consequence of recessive policies. The overall result has been a rapid decline in production, the closing of enterprises, an increase in unemployment, poverty, and other manifestations of a social crisis such as greater criminal violence and increased numbers of people without housing, without jobs, and without income. In the midst of all this, there has been a significant deterioration in the RMSP labor market. The sectoral composition of the labor market has undergone major changes, principally in the collapse of São Paulo’s image as an industrial metropolis in terms of jobs. The constant elimination of jobs in industry, notably in the ABC region, has played an important role in the overall decline of incomes in the RMSP. While the principal sectors affected have been electronics and machinery production enterprises, the primary source of these declines has been changes under way in the plants assembling cars and manufacturing car parts. Yet another negative factor for the RMSP is that its urban growth is increasingly running into limits of an environmental nature. Areas appropriate for urban settlement are for all practical purposes full. As a consequence, growth in peripheral zones is taking place in areas inappropriate for settlement, where there are serious risks for the local ecological balance as well as for the well-being of people taking up residence in those areas.

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Tensions Between Clientelism and Participatory Democracy in Greater São Paulo Within Greater São Paulo today, one finds the full range of political participation and contestation. On one side, modern forms of traditional clientelistic politics in urban political machines dominate local politics, in the tradition of those local bosses who long ago shaped politics in the large U.S. cities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These political organizations continue to have significant residual power. On the other side, countless instances of individual local initiatives designed to make democracy work have also appeared. In this complex new political space, one can readily identify new organizations in civil society, some tied to partisan political organizations and others to nonpartisan entities. In the shakedown of newly created nongovernmental organizations during the 1990s, they have continued to survive and drive the pace of change by emphasizing the right of all to participate and contest issues of concern to people’s daily lives. Because this is a huge sprawling urban area as large as, if not larger than many Caribbean states, it is important to understand how this tension between these two Brazils is manifested in Greater São Paulo and is structured by the current institutional context. One dimension involves horizontal intergovernmental relations, centered on contrasting patterns of local politics in which political machines compete with mass-based citizen initiatives and participatory governance issues dominate the local agenda. Another involves a temporal perspective. In this setting, contending political coalitions vie for power and control of local governance and finance. In these cases, pro-democratic initiatives and reform agendas take precedence at one point in time, only to be replaced in the next electoral cycle by a new set of office holders who have reactivated traditional clientelistic appeals and reinstigated corrupt political practices. The latter are frequently summed up in local parlance by the phrase “êle rouba mas faz” (he steals, but he gets things done). By dividing the spoils among those who win in an election and moving immediately to structure rewards and benefits in a municipality to the party faithful, these political leaders maintain sizable electoral support. Using a time line of a decade in the municipality of São Paulo, one can identify two different political coalitions contending for local power. One is based on citizen mobilization and working-class politics. This coalition took power with a sufficient mandate to change the provision of local services for the first time in the administration of Luiza Erundina (1989–1992). The dominance of the PT in her administration led to a

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revised local agenda in which priorities shifted in the direction of expanded social services to those most in need. The other coalition is centered in machine politics and clientelism and manifested itself most clearly in the administration of Paulo Maluf (1993–1996). Here the priorities in local governance centered on large expensive urban infrastructure and housing projects of interest to the middle and upper sectors of society, while curtailing the reallocation of public finances in the prior administration in the direction of health and human services. Presently, these forces, vying for influence and dominance of the local agenda in the municipality of São Paulo, can best be seen in the administration of Celso Pitta (1997–2000). A protégé of Maluf, Pitta attempted to carve out his own political space by grappling with deficit financing of local services (due to the huge indebtedness he inherited from his predecessor and mentor) as well as in struggling to define a local agenda of his own. Arrayed against Pitta was a vocal opposition ensconced in the local chambers, identified principally with the PT that was quick to denounce instances of favoritism and kickbacks, the glue with which the machine politics of the PPB is identified. In the 2000 round of local electoral politics, realigned reformist forces regained the upper hand and returned to power. In this ongoing political competition between clientelist and reformist local politicians, the popular democratic government of Luiza Erundina provides the clearest example of the difficulties in securing meaningful reform and sustaining a viable electoral basis to win the next round of elections. Her government was marked by a significant effort to concentrate its priorities on reducing social inequalities, on democratizing public management, and on installing a style of government that would break the clientelistic and authoritarian logic of those who govern and the submission of citizens to these relationships. The participatory concept that was an integral part of this group’s plan of action was given substance through various popular councils that they organized as the basis for negotiation. Participation was encouraged through various representative forums in which opposed interests were brought together to negotiate. These forums in the municipality of São Paulo matched similar initiatives in Diadema, Santo André, and São Bernardo do Campo, municipalities in the metropolitan region also under the control of the PT. This municipal government undertook to redesign the budget so that it might better serve the neediest sectors of the city. The budget inherited from Jânio Quadros, which emphasized new highway construction to benefit car salesmen and the affluent, was reoriented toward service delivery to the poor—schools, hospitals, nurseries, libraries, and municipal bus ser-

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vices, in such a way that maintenance services, employees, and supplies could function normally. The options pursued represented the inversion of previous priorities by reworking budgetary allocations by giving priority to revamping social services and expanding them. But these advances in public management and governance were completely undone in the subsequent Maluf administration. His return to centralized, clientelistic practices, however, could not be consolidated. Despite his ability to silence the political opposition in the municipal assembly until 1998, complaints of corruption continued to grow. Matters reached such a point that during the last two years of his successor Pitta’s administration, a council member of the governing party was indicted and sentenced for corrupt practices. Indictments were also brought against two other council members, and Pitta himself came under attack for corruption. Publicity given to these events was a major factor in the PT’s resurgence in the 2000 local elections and its victory over the clientelistic alliance by building a broader-based, more moderate political alliance. Maluf’s term of office was characterized by the construction of what might be called a “physiological” governmental coalition, based on the accommodation of interests as its primary mechanism for maintaining support. Centered on the allocation of concrete physical resources, Maluf used his position as mayor to guarantee to those municipal assembly representatives supporting him control of the regional administrations into which the municipality of São Paulo is divided, in exchange for their support of his policies in the municipal assembly. In this way, seats in the assembly were tied to regionalized electoral practices linked to various types of local associations. The logic behind these long-standing electoral and clientelistic practices only began to come undone when a vocal political opposition emerged in the Pitta administration. Under attack since 1998 by the publicity given to these corrupt practices in the press and indictments in the courts, this long-standing interactive relationship between the mayor’s office and clientelistic representatives in the local assembly was decisively weakened for the first time. Nevertheless, Maluf’s practices, adapted to the new realities of postauthoritarian Brazil and supported by council members (vereadores) who worked with the prefeito, have proven to be very difficult to eradicate. A major part of the voting public gives these clientelistic relations high priority as the principal mechanism for sustaining electoral support. The Maluf administration secured its majority in the municipal assembly (câmara) through its role as the conciliator of interests by pursuing the politics of log-rolling, co-opting a large number of the vereadores and converting these supports into action programs for almost

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all of the projects of interest to him. Maluf’s strategy produced results, and because of his electoral machine he was able to name his successor. In turn, the capacity of vereadores affiliated with him to function as local agents multiplied these practices in the administrative regions under their jurisdiction. This system of ward politics began to disintegrate only when reformist politicians organized a public campaign to document abuses of power by securing numerous indictments of individual public officials for corrupt practices and by increasing the publicity given to instances where services provided by these officials were being exchanged for influence and access to public moneys controlled by these officials. What made this possible, after Maluf’s defeat in São Paulo’s 1998 state elections for governor, was the weakening of blatant partisanship in Greater São Paulo, based on the articulation of interests through these alliances and comprehensive publicity given to the record of excessive municipal expenditures. As a consequence, the calamitous state in which local public finances were left by the Maluf administration in the municipality of São Paulo became general knowledge, and Pitta’s role as secretary of finances (before his successful candidacy as Maluf’s successor) and mayor was widely publicized. Indictments continued to multiply as the Pitta administration moved through its term of office. In addition, the farces that Maluf had sold to the public in terms of more efficient health services (designed to replace Erundina’s initiatives for more equitable health services) and more available public housing programs became public knowledge. Maluf’s promises collapsed in the Pitta administration because of the severe financial crisis facing the mayor’s office and the impact of public indictments. Pitta’s close association with Maluf meant that, even though he tried to disassociate himself from Maluf, he was unable to do so as the successor to the previous administration and due to the high level of corruption with which he had become identified. Since clientelism has already been identified in prior scholarship and stands out in the established literature as the dominant political game that goes on in Brazil, what warrants attention here are these instances of waning clientelism and ascendant democratic initiatives. Democratic initiatives can be found in many different parts of Brazil at the local level, especially in the state capital of Porto Alegre and the nearby state of Rio Grande do Sul. However, given this chapter’s focus on Greater São Paulo, what warrants attention are developments outside the municipality of São Paulo in the region usually referred to as the “ABC Paulista,” the southeastern municípios in Greater São Paulo. This is a micro region, dominated by Santo André, São Bernardo, and São Caetano. Brazil’s automo-

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tive, truck, and bus industries are concentrated in this area, and it is here that Brazil’s independent trade union movement first took root. Today three of the municípios in this region (Ribeirão Pires, Santo André, and Mauá) have well-established traditions of local democratic governance dating back to the determination of workers to take control of bread-andbutter issues affecting their own lives in the 1980s. There, new local-level program initiatives developed during the late 1990s capture a new dynamic appearing in Brazilian local governance much more effectively than is the case when one concentrates solely on the municipality of São Paulo. In these instances, nonpartisan associations work with local citizens to involve them in making local government work according to democratic norms. There the balance of power has shifted into the hands of reformers. The vehicle for making democracy work in these cases has been participatory budgeting. Participatory budgeting had already been tried within the ABC region during their first PT administrations (1989–1992), as it was in the municipality of São Paulo, but subsequent municipal administrations did not continue these practices. In the interim, the successful experience of Porto Alegre, now into its third consecutive administration, reinforced the legitimacy of this approach for strengthening grassroots democracy and the opportunity it presents for creating effective participatory mechanisms. Consequently, involvement of citizens in decisionmaking processes through participatory budgeting has come to constitute a notable mechanism for opening up and expanding the involvement of people in society in the formulation of public policies. Acting according to premises tied to the PT’s way of governing, the municipalities of Ribeirão Pires and Santo André have implemented participatory budgeting to democratize public management at the local level. The experience of Ribeirão Pires is especially noteworthy. A relatively poor area where some 200,000 people live, participatory budgeting functions as a device for involving local citizens in democratic governance. In this case, an agenda of twenty-seven much-needed local projects was specified and funded by the municipal council in 1997. A second program was also developed in Santo André, a relatively affluent area of some 640,000 people. There, citizen initiatives led to the organization of citizen councils under federal constitutional provisions that allow local communities to organize local councils outside the framework of municipal government. These councils developed a network of supports and activities that served to educate vereadores about local needs, increased their sensitivity to the demands of local residents, and led to the incorporation of these demands into the local government’s budget plan.

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Another instance of innovative democratic practices offsetting traditional clientelism in Greater São Paulo is the experience of Mauá, a middle-class municipal district with approximately 350,000 inhabitants. Citizen involvement has taken the form of renegotiating local public indebtedness and reallocating hitherto fixed expenses in the municipal budget through a program called participatory line items. In this case, local government officials have made new budgetary allocations in response to citizen demands for immediate improvements in local services, which had been articulated through the organization of a public forum, called the Fórum Cívico. In all three cases, these local governments have now been dominated for more than a decade by democratic forces that have effectively sidelined those individuals identified with oldstyle clientelistic politics, based upon immediate rewards and benefits for those who support ward politicians. At a time when so much is changing in Brazil, these cases from the Greater São Paulo region exemplify the literally hundreds of local initiatives throughout Brazil. A Ford Foundation–sponsored project has identified recent innovations in Brazilian local governance under the program centered in the Public Management and Citizenship Unit at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation’s School of Business Administration. The Ford study indicates that something else is afoot at the local level than just reversion to traditional clientelistic political practices. The project lists 900 instances of democratic local governance initiatives for 1996 and 1997. If innovations from 1998 and 1999 are added in, the total is 2,300 instances where citizen groups and local government officials have made meaningful changes, in such a way as to make democracy work at the grassroots level. This is the database from which each year now a national awards ceremony has been hosted in São Paulo to recognize innovations in Brazilian local government. It is designed to call the public’s attention to the fact that, despite all the difficulties Brazil faces, individuals can and are making a difference in changing political discourse in this country, in working from the bottom up rather than the top down. This experience demonstrates the importance of redefining concepts tied to the intervention of the state in social areas, as can be seen in subnational responses to these issues, notably in the offices of mayors of large as well as small municipalities. Certain aspects can be singled out: innovative thinking about how to provide services, preventive medical practices in public health programs, new policies oriented toward universalizing educational opportunities, and endeavors designed to humanize social programs and to expand the concept of citizenship. Equally important, many of these activities reveal changes in thinking about the relationship

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between the state and civil society. Here the inclusion of new actors in the formation and implementation of public policies stands out, in increasing public participation through local health councils, educational councils, and other similar citizen organizations. The principal result has been that these activities have ceased to be paternalistic and have stimulated the development of a sense of co-responsibility in these programs through direct involvement of local citizens. Certainly, huge problems confront local governance in Brazil. Nothing sums this up better than the 2000 electoral recapture of the municipality of São Paulo by traditional ward politicians, whose power base is centered in the old-style practices of immediate rewards and benefits to the political clienteles who engineered electoral victories in 1992 and 1996. But at the same time, one must admit that even this political climate is different today from what emerged under limited democracy (1946–1964). From 1997 through 2000, the PT continued to function as a legal opposition in the Pitta administration, thoroughly committed to democratic practices and continually calling attention to improprieties in local government operations and documenting the need for an independent media. But while the PT has denounced corruption and was once again returned to power in 2001, it is not likely that this success will produce long-term results in the heart of São Paulo. Allies of the political clientele who elected Pitta to office in 1996 continue to maintain a significant political base in the municipal assembly. In such a setting, if one is to tap into ascendancy of democratic forces in Greater São Paulo, it must occur through examining the larger metropolitan region and regional responses to unresolved urban issues.

The Civic Forum and the Response to Unresolved Urban Issues The diversity among the municipalities in the southeastern sector of Greater São Paulo, along with the growing realization by the region’s political leadership that they share similar economic and urban infrastructure problems, led to a democratic initiative in 1997 that bypassed the central city and the municipality of São Paulo. Leaders who had been involved during the previous decade in democratic initiatives and urban problems in seven adjoining municipalities resolved to create an interregional urban council. The development of a broader basis for this regional consciousness first took place through the creation of the Forum for Citizenship (Fórum

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de Cidadania) in 1994. This forum has involved more than a hundred groups and organizations in the region and has led to the creation of the Intermunicipal Consortium (Consórcio Intermunicipal), an organization of pluralistic entities operating at the regional level. These groups range from middle-class representatives to working-class representatives to representatives of small and medium entrepreneurs and also include mayors and council members in the region. The formation of such a collective regional identity represents an important qualitative advance in facing common economic problems affecting this region. These organizations have given expression to a new kind of institutional arrangement that brings public authorities and local civil society groups together within a common public space that is neither statist in nature nor tied to the politics of the central city. The economic losses in the Greater ABC region that occurred because of stagnation of the Paulista and national economy stem from the 1970s as economic dislocations and shifts in industrial expansion took place. Faced with a deteriorating situation, social forces in the region joined hands in developing a model for regional economic development supported by a broad-based pluralistic coalition based on the value of citizenship. The search for alternatives in the face of the severe blow of industrial departures from the region, principally in the automobile industry, produced a consensus among public authorities and private interests to establish a rational plan for using the space abandoned by industries along the Tamanduateí River, a corridor linking the ABC region with the municipality of São Paulo. The Assembly of the Greater ABC District was launched in March 1997 as the mechanism through which economic development for the region might be realized and the growing economic losses of the region halted. The assembly, in turn, became the Intermunicipal Consortium (its official full name is the Intermunicipal Consortium of the Alto Tamanduateí River Basin). In the process of responding to citizen demands in their various communities, civic leaders in this region decided to create a council where all the various actors affecting the lives of citizens in this region could meet together. The goal has been to establish an action agenda focused on local needs in a way that the citizens could achieve a greater impact. Today the membership of this regional council is composed of the seven mayors in this region (Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, São Caetano, Diadema, Mauá, Ribeirão Pires, and Rio Grande da Serra), representatives of the government of São Paulo state, local representatives in the state legislature, and local civic associations that have been promoting democratic practices since 1990, as well as various management associations and labor unions in the area.

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This entity has become the first assembly for debating and articulating policies at the regional level within Greater São Paulo. Cooperation among municipalities and interested parties in the ABC micro region has brought about important results for the metropolitan region as a whole, both by articulating action by regional political authorities and by stimulating cooperative action among private economic concerns in order to give substance to programs centered on regional economic development. Results in social policy in the ABC region are of equal importance, including programs dealing with street children, in literacy programs for children and adults, in the improvement of health services, and in the retraining of workers. In the area of environmental protection, various initiatives have been undertaken to limit further environmental degradation and to deal with the problems presented by frequent flooding. All these activities are now being conducted within the framework of a common regional perspective, one that embraces a subset of municipalities within Greater São Paulo where a common set of interests have been identified. At the level of economic development, regional initiatives are centered in the hands of the Economic Development Agency for the ABC District. Its objective is to promote regional marketing and the coordination of technical and financial operations, all with the purpose of promoting sustained economic development for their region. With an estimated population of 2.5 million, these municipalities have long seen periodic river flooding that became compounded by a crisis in garbage disposal since these seven local governments had exhausted all available space for waste disposal. This crisis provided an immediate stimulus for joining forces. None of these municipalities alone could resolve either problem. Each of the mayors, through the framework of sustained local democratic practices, had come to realize that the resources needed for the solution of these problems required help from other critical actors: (1) the state government, which held a substantial part of the money needed for flood control and garbage disposal; (2) local representatives in the state legislature; and (3) citizen groups who had organized themselves to deal with the people displaced by flooding and to rebuild after the floods had subsided. While these two issues provided the impetus for regional cooperation, other matters of common concern have emerged. These problems include the need for a regional economic agency designed to respond to the decline of industries in this region and the corresponding loss of jobs and tax revenues; a macro plan for drainage and improvements in the road system crossing this region; common action in favor of repealing a state law limiting the installation of new industries in the region to strict environ-

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ment standards that work against new job creation; employment initiatives designed to make job retraining more readily available and to permit greater flexibility in work schedules; and social initiatives involving child care, programs for adolescents, illiteracy eradication, and health and housing deficiencies. Continuing inadequate responses to periodic flooding and enormous traffic congestion became the sources of awareness that external actors needed to be involved in order to resolve these issues. This realization has involved working with state and federal agencies as well as the state legislature in influencing its budgetary allocations. In the latter case, the change involved getting state representatives from the region to work together to obtain greater weight in a legislature where these urban areas were underrepresented.10

Conclusions What these illustrations highlight is a grassroots struggle that is going on today in Brazil to make democracy work. These initiatives reflect the determination of groups of citizens scattered throughout the country to change politics. In this struggle there is an interplay between two major coalitions in regional and national politics that can be identified as reformers and conservatives. Reformers argue for the need to tap into the grassroots and to build an image of national politics. This view—that politics in Brazil is essentially local, that regional alliances are constructed, and that national alliances emerge from this local base—leads to a specific set of conclusions about the prospects for democratization in Brazil. These conclusions contrast sharply with the conventional wisdom reflected in much of the literature from the United States on Brazil, which continues to use top-down approaches to characterize Brazilian political dynamics. But Brazil today has a political environment in which “reform-mongering,” to use an old term first coined by Albert Hirschman in the 1960s, exists on all levels in an intense political game involving reformers, moderates, conservatives, and radicals. This game is extremely difficult to specify, given the fluidity in party labels and continually shifting political alliances. There can be no doubt about the tension between clientelism and participatory democracy. But in the face of the increasing degradation of municipal governments stemming from clientelistic and centralizing policies dominant in such places as the municipality of São Paulo in the 1990s, more transparent administrative practices in public management have grown in legitimacy. Such has been the case of Porto Alegre since

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1989 (with its three PT governments). One should not ignore that more and more space is also being opened up for innovative initiatives in public administration elsewhere. Experiences such as those represented by the Intermunicipal Consortium in Greater São Paulo constitute the realization of cooperative initiatives involving co-responsibility for policies and their results. The inclusion of new actors through participatory budgeting and other initiatives that involve actors from civil society and from the private sector—in the formation, implementation, and control of social policies— opens the way to exciting possibilities of change. One can see in these areas a real break with nondemocratic norms involving state and society through clientelistic and corporatist practices and the exchange of corrupt political favors between politicians and bureaucrats, as is the case in the municipality of São Paulo. In short, these experiences show that there is a slow and steady movement in the direction of redefining the public sphere by including new institutional arrangements that point to the construction of public spaces outside established governmental circles. It is in these alternative spaces where new policies can be articulated, in which institutional networks bring together diverse actors and lead to the development of agreements over new strategies that link together different interests and resources around common objectives. These experiences offer alternative perspectives on state and society that seek to guarantee the sustainability of public policies and the effective engagement of civil society in the definition of priorities and the monitoring of activities designed to carry out new priorities. If these are the particulars involved in the Brazilian case, then what is the relevance of these developments to the five themes in the overview chapter of this volume? First, the evolution of local-level politics in Greater São Paulo supports the first theme that local institutions and groups gained new power and authority after 1945. While the displacement of import substitution industrialization (ISI) by market capitalism is today correlated with effective political decentralization in Brazil, the driving force behind political decentralization and the establishment of meaningful local autonomy, empowering local governments, was, in the São Paulo case, separate from the shifts in economics found elsewhere in Latin America. Still, this determination of vast sectors of Brazilian society to undo the excesses of twenty-five years of military governments does coincide roughly with Samuel Huntington’s second reverse wave against democratization (1958–1975) and the reaction against it in the third democratic wave. While the 1988 constitution emerged as a much more conservative document than had been intended by the Brazilian democratic

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transition forces, there was broad-scale consensus on the desirability for meaningful political decentralization and constitutional mandates granting greater financial resources to state and local government. The market reforms identified with Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–1998 and 1999–2002) certainly did provide a more solid economic basis for sustaining decentralization. But the political decision to decentralize in Brazil preceded the economic decision to abandon ISI. Likewise, decentralization certainly did lead to increased autonomy and influence for local government in Brazilian capital cities, but neither in Brasília (the political capital) nor in São Paulo (the economic and cultural capital) did mayors of these cities become the country’s most important municipal officials. The mayor of the Municipality of São Paulo is an important local official, but so, too, are the mayors Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Recife, and Fortaleza. More important, in the Brazilian setting under the New Republic, governors are more important local officials than mayors and are the source of effective constraints on the power of the national government to act. Not only do national leaders view the local setting as an important milieu in which to make political statements, but elected mayors in Brazil’s major cities, including Greater São Paulo, have used their independent electoral bases to establish autonomy from the president and to pursue their own local agendas. This volume’s second and third themes are also supported by the Brazilian case but with the modification that the use of policing powers involves not just the president but also state governors. São Paulo mayors do exercise less authority over policing than over other municipal services, but crackdowns on local violence have involved the governor and state government rather than appeals to the president and the national government. This pattern existed during the second democratic wave and has returned during the third. Greater São Paulo also reflects the general pattern of the fragmentation of local authority in Latin America. In this case, the mayor of the municipality of São Paulo is forced to share the political spotlight with mayors in neighboring municipalities, especially those who preside over municipalities with major concentrations of population and wealth in this metropolitan region. However, even though this pattern also supports the volume’s fourth theme regarding the evolving balance of power among political groups, it does not support the claim that competition crystallized between one alliance of interests oriented on the nation and a second focused on the metropolitan region. Instead, Greater São Paulo can be seen as a microcosm of the struggle between conservative- and reformoriented political coalitions going on in Brazil at all levels.

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Nevertheless, despite many parallels with these four themes, local politics in Greater São Paulo follows patterns in intergovernmental relations identified more closely with the United States, especially during the era of city-boss dominance of U.S. metropolitan centers, than with IberoAmerica. Accordingly, the fifth theme, regarding urban forms losing their capability to transmit “high-level” national meaning, has no resonance in Brazilian reality. Since the decision to build Brasília, monumental projects with high levels of national meaning have been centered in Brazil’s new capital, a city still under construction and undergoing expansion. In this sense, Brasília resembles Washington, D.C., especially the changes in the U.S. capital after World War II. There is no direct presidential control over São Paulo city, either in terms of controlling resource allocation or in constraining local actions through the appointment of federally based officials. The most effective political official above the mayor is the state governor, and it is the state government and its officials and offices embedded in the local setting that influence and constrain the ability of the federal government to act. The bargaining that takes place is between mayor and governor, and between governor and president. Like the United States, the political side of intergovernmental relations involves senators and representatives (called deputies, in Brazilian parlance). Given the concentration of regional political power in the hands of governors, governors function as significant interlocutors between national and local authorities, much as was the case in the United States generally before the Civil War, before the weakening of gubernatorial powers in the South during Reconstruction. One must never forget that in the Brazilian setting the power bases of national elites are centered in the states and the cities with which they are identified. Even in the moments of the greatest concentration of power in the national government, elite structures in Brazil have remained regionally and locally based. Accordingly, the generalization often made about Ibero-American politics—namely, that national elites frequently seek to limit the influence of municipal executives—has no basis in Brazilian reality, except during eras of authoritarian reversals. Paulista elites are certainly powerful and influential, but they operate in a country in which power has been and continues to be shared in what might be characterized as a cultural archipelago, where regional elites from the most powerful and dynamic states interact and shape policy agendas and action in the context of a political system in which the voices of the masses must increasingly be taken into account and cannot be ignored. Getúlio Vargas understood this reality very well and built a populist style of politics that linked elites and masses. Brazil’s military rulers labored to destroy those

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links. Since that time, civilian government has had to face the problem of how to rule in a setting in which the political capital, Brasília, is divorced from direct contact with vast sectors of Brazilian society. Paulista-governing elites know all too well that when they return to the city and region of São Paulo, their daily lives are shaped and determined by the dynamism, the violence, and the millions embedded in a region and city that have long been the driving force behind Brazilian development.

Notes 1. Roett (1984) represents the first generation, Hagopian (1996) the second, and Weyland (1996) the third. However, Weyland has since modified his position in a recent conference paper, “The Growing Sustainability of Brazil’s Low-Quality Democracy” (2001). 2. The classic work describing this style of clientelism is Nunes Leal (1977). 3. The most complete documentation of this democratic movement in São Paulo city during the 1920s and its repression by the intervention of Paulista military forces on 9 October 1932, with the support of Getúlio Vargas, to suppress the constitutionalist revolt of 9 July, is to be found in Dallari (1977, 51–62). The most authoritative history of São Paulo is by Morse (1974). 4. Generally speaking, the new political space that has appeared in cases like this (where grassroots initiatives have appeared supporting democratic practices outside government) is usually referred to as “civil society.” Because this term has come to have such diverse meanings, let us establish here that the space we are referring to as civil society follows the perspective developed by Putnam (1993). An alternative term frequently used in Brazil to refer to this phenomenon is o terceiro setor, the third sector. 5. One of the more stable of these new grassroots support organizations in Greater São Paulo warrants mentioning: Assessoria, Formação e Estudos em Políticas Sociais, or POLIS (Office for Consultancies, Training, and Studies of Social Policies), a nonpartisan research and consulting organization dedicated to strengthening local democratic governance. 6. For a useful general discussion situating São Paulo city (i.e., Greater São Paulo) and state within the context of the regionalism that dominates Brazilian political life, see Bradshaw, Clemente, and Alessio (1997, 99–116). Nevertheless, the specific data reported here are available only in a more episodic form in the various reports and mimeographed circulars provided by the São Paulo Secretariat for Analysis and Collection of State Data (SEADE). 7. The population of the city of Francisco Morato grew 183 percent between 1980 and 1990; that of Itaquaquecetuba, 126 percent; Ferraz de Vasconcelos, 73 percent; and Cajamar, 72 percent, according to the results of the 1991 census (SEADE data). 8. This matter of urban violence and public security has roots in larger trends linked to the development of major metropolitan areas in the context of a society

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with marked income disparities. But the consequences of this problem in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Vitória, and São Paulo—the cities with the highest homicide rates in Brazil in descending order—are having more and more immediate consequences for day-to-day life and the search for safe zones by the more affluent population. See references to São Paulo in da Silva and Gall (1999). 9. The population of the city of Santana do Parnaíba, according to the 1991 census, grew 270 percent; Arujá, 113 percent; Barueri, 73 percent; and Cotia, 70 percent. The bairro of Guaianazes, for example, registered an annual growth rate during the 1980s of 7.21 percent; Parelheiros, 4.73 percent; Jaraguá, 4.38 percent; Itaim Paulista, 3.83 percent; Capela do Socorro, 3.44 percent; and Perus, 3 percent (all are estrato VI neighborhoods) (SEADE data from the 1991 census). 10. A more ambitious undertaking, not yet finalized, involves plans to negotiate with the municipality of São Paulo in converting the major highway in the region, the Avenida do Estado, into a major corridor linking this area with downtown São Paulo by taking advantage of the existing roadway passing through Santo André, São Caetano, and the municipality of São Paulo).

11 Conclusions Henry A. Dietz David J. Myers

This volume’s elected capital city mayors emerge as astute, dynamic, and increasingly influential. In most Latin American countries, they have become the second most important political executive, after the national president. This status represents a striking change, for until the 1980s the office of capital city mayor was a political dead end. From long before the second wave until the third wave of democracy swept aside the region’s authoritarian governments, most capital city mayors in the region served at the pleasure of the president and were expected to implement policies communicated from the national executive. Elected capital city mayors may now enjoy a political life that extends beyond their tenure as a local public executive. Yet as we shall see, the step from capital city mayor remains difficult and uncommon. Nevertheless, something about the dynamics of political brokering in the national capital has made capital city mayors far more influential than were their presidentially appointed predecessors. In this concluding chapter, we draw upon our individual city studies in order to examine and understand these and other new aspects of capital city politics in Latin America. Our quest began by examining the literature on local power in capital cities and the five themes developed in Chapter 1 and referred to in all of the cases that draw upon that literature. But this literature is thin, and its paucity is due to several factors. First of all, until the middle of the 1980s, inquiry into politics in Latin American capital cities seemed a low priority if not an irrelevant activity for social science research. With few exceptions, capital city mayors were appointed by presidents, and whether democratic or authoritarian, civilian or military, they served at the president’s pleasure. Partisan differences between president and mayor had no 325

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impact, because for the most part they did not exist. Presidents customarily named a member of their inner circle to administer the national capital, and that appointee expected (and was expected) to obey the one who had appointed him. Capital city politics also appeared uninteresting because the national government retained control over the purse strings of the capital city municipality. This concentration of power directed students of urban policymaking to focus on national elites and politicians rather than on local ones. Municipal control by the national institutions, particularly in the capital city, belonged to a centuries-long tradition of centralized power. What in the United States is commonly referred to as “home rule” (insofar as that term implies autonomous institutions and taxing authorities, for example) was neither intended nor implemented. Therefore, when the 1980s wave of democratization swept over the region—bringing with it serious concern for governability, decentralization, and accountability— the local tax base in the capital cities necessary to address these concerns had to be constructed almost from scratch. Research into the municipal political system faced a similar problem. Overall, therefore, the five themes examined throughout the volume are by necessity quite general. Our colleagues working in the nine capitals found that upon examining them, some themes were confirmed, some rejected, and still others stood in need of modification. So much the better: These themes were always meant to establish a starting point, not a finish. We summarize these five themes below and then proceed to see what the cases that make up our volume have to say about them. Some, not surprisingly, prove more substantial and useful than others in offering a means for understanding the case at hand; others appear to lack analytic leverage. One goal of this conclusion is to see if one (or more) of the themes has such limited relevance that it might either be discarded or replaced by another that emerges from our case studies. The data from our case studies allow us to address the themes in Chapter 1 by structuring this concluding chapter around each one. First, we examine how and why local political institutions gained unprecedented empowerment and influence between 1944 and 2001, allowing us to address relationships between import substitution industrialization (ISI), democratization, and decentralization. Second, our attention centers on why policing and security issues appear to be a notable exception to local empowerment in capital cities. Third, we see whether and how attitudes of entitlement in capital city dwellers may act as constraints on elected mayors. Fourth, we examine constancy and change in the balance of interest group coalitions, with special attention to the consequences of shifting

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from appointment to election of the mayor, and of how the structuring of capital city political institutions both facilitates and constrains behavior of local elites, especially the mayor. Here again we explore some of the aftereffects of political regime change. Fifth, we examine changes in how capital city mayors and presidents struggled to shape the urban built environment in ways that reflected their values and increased their political appeal. We then introduce a variety of themes and propositions that emerge from the several case studies but that were not anticipated by the existing literature. The final concern of this chapter is to identify fruitful directions for new research into Latin American capital city politics. As we analyze the individual chapters for findings relevant to these five topics, we also generate some propositions and hypotheses that provide some greater specificity than do the five general themes themselves. Given the relatively sparse and far-flung literature from which they come, our original themes could not help but be general in nature. This chapter, therefore, has two basic goals: (1) to move beyond this high level of generality by focusing and refining these themes, and (2) to point out implications of the overall inquiry for future work. Before turning to these five themes, let us point out one or two of the more outstanding features that exist across all of the cases. In the first place, every city is to one degree or another the dominant city within the nation. However, this ascendancy does not reach the same level of primacy in all of our cases; for example, Bogotá, Caracas, and São Paulo do not possess the overwhelming salience of Lima, Santiago, and Buenos Aires. Nevertheless, all of the cities under review here dominate their countries demographically, economically, politically, socially, and culturally. This hegemony has had a variety of effects and repercussions. First, many of our case cities have been treated as special cases by their nations, either by being given a unique administrative or juridical status or by having a unique arrangement in terms of municipal governance. Bogotá, for example, became a special capital district in 1954, and with this designation went a degree of autonomy that distinguished it not only from other Colombian cities but also from other Latin American capitals. Other national elites singled out their capitals (for example, Mexico City) by laws that specifically constrain the municipality’s ability to govern its own affairs. Second, our nine cases make it clear that the widespread implementation of democratic elections in Latin America’s capital cities has not been met with equal progress in economic and financial empowerment. True decentralization or devolution (insofar as that term specifically connotes fiscal independence and generally freedom from interference and med-

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dling by national authorities) remains a work in progress for all capital city municipal governments. Some have advanced more than others, but there may be a limit to how much autonomy national elites will concede local political leaders and institutions in their capital cities. National executives see elected mayors allocating resources at the seat of national power as a threat, prompting them to ignore or circumvent legislation intended to assure local executive autonomy. In other words, even in third wave democracies, self-government for Latin America’s capital cities is far from assured. With these brief generalizations in mind, let us now examine in greater detail the five themes from the introductory chapter.

Five Basic Themes Empowerment of Local Political Institutions Our first theme takes on the broad and complex idea that the capital city today contains institutions that give political actors and brokers a good deal of discretion and autonomy, at least relative to previous times. Two issues deserve particular attention from our cases: how the institutionalization of elections has changed the nature of, and the power inherent in, the capital city mayor’s office (the alcaldía); and if the relationship between that office and the city council has also changed and, if so, how. Appointed versus elected mayors. Two basic generalizations or conclusions can be gleaned from our cases: that appointed capital city mayors generally act as agents for the president who put them in office; and that a major turning point occurs in relations between the mayor, the president, and capital city interest groups when the mayor becomes an elected official. Most cases in this volume support the first generalization, and it serves little purpose to summarize them at length here. The literature does suggest a qualification to this first generalization that appears when the president and the mayor are beholden to the same group or coalition of interests. The most obvious example of such a group would be a political party that controls both the presidency and the capital city mayor’s office. For instance, support from elements inside of Mexico’s ruling party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI) enabled Ernesto Uruchurtu, an appointed mayor of Mexico City, to implement policies opposed by the president, at least until the president neutralized that support. Buenos Aires during the late 1970s illustrates other circumstances under which an

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appointed capital city mayor can govern with great autonomy from the president. At the time in question, army generals occupied the Argentine presidency, but air force general Osvaldo Cacciatore governed Buenos Aires as he saw fit. Cacciatori’s freedom of action stemmed from a pact among the armed forces that gave control over local government in the federal district to the air force. These two examples, however, are exceptions; for the most part, appointed mayors, especially under authoritarian rule, serve at and under the discretion of the president. Our cases confirm that the transformation of capital city mayors into elected officials changes the foundation of the alcaldía’s political influence from retention of the president’s confidence to preservation of popularity with voters. Whereas appointed mayors were required to nurture interest group coalitions to support the president, elected mayors have enjoyed the freedom to broker their own deals, secure in the knowledge that they cannot be removed before the end of their fixed term. Of course, Latin American presidents retain impressive resources, even when they bargain with elected capital city mayors. Presidential control of the national bureaucracy allows for the conferral or withholding of public sector investment that can affect public perceptions of the mayor’s effectiveness, and elected mayors depend on assistance from the national police forces to fight crime and maintain order. Nevertheless, the older kind of tight political control—in contrast to financial control—once so common in mayoral-presidential relations, no longer exists as it once did. Mayors and city councils. Assuming that elections have increased and institutionalized the power available today to capital city authorities, how have the specific relationships between capital city mayors and city councils developed as both have become elected offices? The cases in our book show a great diversity in their answers. For example, while all of the capitals have city councils that are elected, considerable variation exists in how they are elected and over the number of council members. For the most part, council members are elected concurrently with the mayor in partisan contests, with the distribution of seats generally made by some form of proportional representation. But the degree to which a municipal council is representative of the city is debatable. If council members are elected at large, a city with sharp socioeconomic inequalities may give the poor or minorities spokespersons for their particular needs or causes, although such an outcome is by no means assured. One proposition that emerges from our cases is that support for the mayor by the municipal council increases the mayor’s bargaining leverage with the president. Our cases display a wide variety of formal-legal and

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normative arrangements of mayor-council relations. Some give the municipal council relatively little independence from the mayor. For example, while mayors and city council members are elected concurrently in both Lima and Guatemala City, a mechanism exists (the fruit of an attempt to eliminate mayor-council stalemates) that has almost emasculated the council. In both cities, the political party of the candidate elected mayor automatically receives a simple majority of the council seats. The remaining seats are divided among the other parties by means of proportional representation. Such an arrangement may produce stability and efficiency, but the degree to which it is democratic is open to question. More important, perhaps, no evidence surfaced that this enforced congeniality has had any impact on mayor-president relations. Other cities show considerable disagreement between the mayor and the municipal council. In Caracas, for example, recent legislation has strengthened the council in the Libertador municipality as well as in Sucre, Chacao, Baruta, and El Hatillo, all in eastern Caracas. Such legislation has constrained mayoral prerogatives and initiatives, especially when different political parties control the two institutions. However, since 1996 the mayor of Buenos Aires has enjoyed many powers analogous to those of the president, including the ability to rule by decree and a strong veto. An independent city council does exist, as do a variety of other autonomous agencies designed to maximize transparency and accountability. Yet it is still too early to tell just how these institutions and brave ideas will all function and interact. In sharp contrast to both of these examples, the relationship between the mayor and the municipal council in Bogotá has long been acrimonious and bitter. The council, which is uncontrollable by the mayor, has consistently voted against the local executive, even when the mayor and the majority of council members belong to the same political party (the city and the national Congress have the same unhappy relationship, too). Indeed, in this respect Bogotá appears to be exceptional in the degree of bitter confrontation present between elected mayors and elected city councils in several other cases. In some capitals the municipal council may have little apparent relevance, but other bodies and institutions exist that can exert influence. In 1987 an elected Asamblea de Representantes was created in Mexico City as a compromise reform in place of direct mayoral elections. The asamblea began almost immediately to displace existing PRI corporate agencies, such as the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares, and to exercise autonomy from the national PRI leadership, to the extent that it became an essential factor in the fight for the 1997 popular elections

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of the city’s mayor. The asamblea is not precisely analogous to a municipal council, since it is composed of representatives of neighborhood groups, the urban middle class, and other interests. Nevertheless, it exercises a crucial influence over urban resource allocation and democratic reforms. In Cuba, a series of urban agencies (in 1966, Poder Local; in 1977, Poder Popular; in 1988, Consejos Populares de Barrio) were for the most part composed of elected members. All came to play critical parts in the complex submunicipal interface with Cuba’s national governmental agencies that defines life in Havana. In São Paulo, where mayor-council relations do not have great importance, recent years have seen an extraordinary proliferation of local democratic initiatives as well as a number of multidistrict regional associations, all in the name of influencing local affairs and the distribution of resources. Finally, in Santiago mayors for the city’s many subdistricts (comunas) have been elected since 1992. Councils for these comunas do not seem to have salient roles, but the fact that the city is so highly decentralized (no metropolitan mayor exists) means that the multiplicity of mayors is a distinct structural weakness. All in all, under many circumstances, connections between the municipal councils and the mayors may not be direct. Several cases provide evidence that councils are more or less irrelevant to mayor-president relations and/or that other institutional arrangements can serve to reduce council importance. When mayors are elected, and especially when the president and the mayor are from opposing parties, partisanship frequently plays a major role in mayor-council-president interrelationships. Neighborhood councils. Several chapters mention the presence of neighborhood councils (referred to as juntas parroquiales or other similar labels) in many capital cities. It is clear from the cases that such groups vary significantly in their influence; sometimes mayors court them and at other times ignore them. In Mexico City, the creation of the Asamblea de Representantes meant that the mayor could deal directly with such local semi-representative organizations and could take on problems such as street vending and could develop numerous patron-client relationships for his own use. In Caracas, the new constitution approved at the behest of President Hugo Frías Chavez saw neighborhood groups as responsive agencies for direct democracy. Yet while the leaders of such organizations who were associated with Chavez looked to the president for leadership, opponents (generally from midddle- and upper-class areas) were much more apt to find their needs and desires ignored. In Lima, neighborhood groups have the option of going to the local district mayor or, if they have the time and means of access, of petitioning

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the president directly. Most neighborhood associations would not approach the metropolitan mayor directly because the mayor would have little relevance to specifically local neighborhood concerns. The president, on the other hand, is traditionally seen as the major source of power and largesse, and as a result receives hundreds of micro-level petitions from neighborhoods—sometimes published as open letters in Lima newspapers—pleading for assistance in resolving a legal land tenure issue or asking for basic infrastructure (electricity, water, sewerage, paved streets, and the like). Whatever the particulars, local elections and democratization have at least opened up the possibility that neighborhood groups may be able to gain access that they might not have had previously, if for no other reason than elected officials know that such groups can represent votes. Whether such access will lead to greater accountability and transparency, as appears to be the case in São Paulo, or to clientelism is in many capital cities an open question. Policing as an Exception The literature identified two concerns that link capital city politics with police forces and policing. The first, which involves control of crime and the provision of personal security, arose in the 1990s as capital city residents felt physically insecure on the one hand but distrusted the police on the other. Public opinion polling suggested that residents believed that crime was a major problem and that the streets were becoming more dangerous. Yet many kept their distance from the police, much as they had when dictators ruled. They viewed the police forces as primitive, ineffectual, or (at worst) tied to the very criminals that they were supposed to combat. But virtually all of the evidence we have on these and related subjects is anecdotal and fragmentary; studies of big city police forces in Latin America are almost nonexistent. If and when the delivery of police services is mentioned in the context of consolidating third wave democracies, observers seldom go beyond acknowledging the difficulties of finding effective ways to control crime and provide physical security. The second concern that links capital city politics and policing lies with worry over rioting and terrorism, a concern that affects authoritarian and democratic governments alike. All national leaders fear that civil strife in the capital city can become violent and that rioting can lead to looting and widespread acts of destruction. These worries over radicalized urban movements led third wave democrats to oppose the transfer of the

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important policing powers in capital cities to elected local executives or to neighborhood organizations. Many of the democratic elites in our cases avoided overhauling their police forces. Perhaps this failure derives from the historic association of those forces with the dictatorships against which third wave democrats struggled in their quest for power. Elected officials may well find it difficult to consider rebuilding institutions that only a short time ago pursued and persecuted them and their colleagues. This reluctance appears to have been especially the case in Guatemala City, São Paulo, and Santiago, where personnel changes in the police forces following the transition from authoritarian political regimes to democracy were minimal. Also, third wave democrats have not provided the level of financing that would enable police forces to modernize. This refusal may reflect the influence of powerful interests that benefit from the status quo. Given such difficulties, calls for delivering effective and humane policing have been dismissed as utopian. Additionally, the lower classes that provide foot soldiers for capital city police forces are often accused (rightly or not) of supplementing their meager incomes with criminal activities. Residents in working-class and marginal areas have all but given up hope that established police forces can or will reduce crime and make their neighborhoods safe. This perception has led to experimentation with giving voluntary neighborhood associations responsibilities to police. But the attitudes of existing police forces, private security companies, and the national government toward these experiments have varied between indifference and hostility. Third wave democrats, as the literature suggests, have displayed little enthusiasm for reducing central control over the established police forces in their capital cities. Municipal police forces direct traffic, collect parking fines, and provide security in public areas like markets; some even have investigative powers for criminal cases. But in broader and more sensitive areas, especially national security and public order, municipal officials are marginalized. The riots in Caracas and other large Venezuelan cities in 1989, or the spread of violent insurgent groups like the Shining Path into Lima during the late 1980s, were met by national police forces, national military units, and/or an assortment of national intelligence services. Control and coordination resided in the Ministry of the Interior or, in especially threatening situations, the Ministry of Defense. City and municipal agencies played insignificant roles until normalcy returned. Another reason that decentralizing control over police forces did not happen in the 1990s lies with the police themselves. Almost every nation

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operates under a national police system instead of multiple police forces responsible to and for specific territorial jurisdictions. Elected mayors in Mexico City (Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Manuel López Obrador) have attempted to link various types of police to types of neighborhoods, which many citizens favored. But again, the experiments have met with footdragging by the police themselves, perhaps because such fragmentation might reduce their rent-seeking power and their capacities for corruption. Another explanation lies with the struggles between political parties to organize capital city electorates. In Mexico City, for example, Mayor López Obrador has supported decentralization and local participation, but he also seeks to prevent other parties from establishing themselves in the city. Restrictions and Limitations Imposed by Capital City Entitlements As we have already noted, most of the cities examined in this volume are primate capital cities—cities that are dominant in their countries by being economically, financially, socially, culturally, and demographically hegemonic as well as politically dominant. In any country, primacy does not come without tensions and conflicts between city and countryside or, in other terms, between center and periphery. Several cases make it clear that the periphery in many Latin American nations includes cities of sometimes considerable magnitude and with high levels of development, such as Cordoba in Argentina and any numbers of cases in Brazil. One particular source of aggravation for the periphery comes from the perception of capital city dwellers, elites or otherwise, that they and their city should be favored over provincial areas. But even if capital city ascendancy does give rise to the notion of certain entitlements, such a belief in no way equates with an endless flow of resources or of ease in obtaining autonomous resources. Thus, another issue related to entitlements involves an endemic problem: capital city dependence on the national state and its institutions and rulers for funding. The capital city versus the provinces. Most of the cases examined in this volume make note of long-standing rivalries and envy, if not outright enmity, between the capital city and the interior of the nation in question. Perhaps the most noteworthy case involves Buenos Aires and the rest of Argentina, especially during the nineteenth century. But this instance is simply more extreme than the others and by no means unique. Bogotá, for example, historically has fared poorly in its relations with the Colombian

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Congress due to long-standing hostility toward the capital city residents. Given the dominance of capital cities and their concentration of power and resources, such a state of affairs should not occasion surprise. Yet while this center-periphery tension has occasioned a tug of war between the two, the former has frequently carried the day. Some national leaders (both civilian and otherwise) have blatantly favored the capital. In Venezuela, for example, General Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1952–1958) invested an astounding 70 percent of the national budget in Caracas during his time in office. His elected civilian successors at least attempted to achieve more of a balance, though with mixed success. Regardless of the specifics of any one case, in the 1980s and 1990s, the sheer numbers of people in all Latin American capital cities and the weight of their votes meant that no third wave democratic president could simply ignore their needs. This pressure made it almost impossible to redress the often-dramatic imbalances between capital city and provincial expenditures. But free and competitive elections have meant for many of the cities in this volume that opposition parties have won capital city mayoral races, a source of national-local tension already mentioned. Two additional subthemes concerning entitlements can be identified from our cases. These deal with (1) how taxation policies play in the search for resources, and (2) the political ramifications of the competition for resources between capital cities and the interior. The overall assertion claims that present-day capital city residents retain a sense of entitlement that leads them to expect large subsidies from national institutions. While this appears to be the case throughout the region, the record of capital city residents in obtaining special financial consideration is mixed. Caracas, Mexico City, Guatemala City, and Santiago all received such treatment for extended periods, but this favoritism occasioned resentments that also led to periodic episodes of stinginess toward these capitals. At the other extreme, Fidel Castro severely punished Havana during most of his revolutionary regime. Regardless of whether capital cities were starved or rewarded by national political institutions, however, residents viewed themselves as unique and deserving of special privileges. These arguments suggest the possibility that these entitlement perceptions constrain efforts by elected mayors to use the municipality’s powers to tax. In other words, mayors who aggressively pursue local tax revenue—or who even try to collect what is due the municipality, let alone raise rates—are seen as opening themselves to punishment at the polls. If elected capital city mayors (like their appointed predecessors) are dependent on subsidies from the national government, this dependence handicaps their ability to build local political machines. In general, our cases

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confirm that capital city residents resist paying taxes, national as well as municipal, perhaps because tax collection procedures have long been ineffectual or corrupt or both. Outdated and inaccurate cadastral records appear common, with many properties excluded or undervalued. However, efforts to modify them so that they reflect market value have sometimes mobilized the middle classes and local merchants against politicians who undertook the modernization of property taxes. Thus, even following the shift to popularly elected mayors and empowered city councils, capital city residents remained wary of strengthening the extractive capability of their local political institutions, despite (and in contrast to) their feelings that they deserve special consideration and funding. In a few cases, elected municipal governments in capital cities have gained, at least momentarily, the reputation for collecting taxes honestly, impartially, and transparently—and for using tax revenues to fund needed urban improvements. The evidence suggests that when this behavior becomes the norm, citizens are less resistant to paying what they owe. During the early 1990s in Peru, for example, Alberto Fujimori’s government received wide praise for its professional and honest management of a particular tax agency given the responsibility and the means to collect taxes from one and all. During his second term, however, reports circulated that Fujimori used the tax agency to punish political opponents. In Argentina, a new fairness in tax collection procedures for Buenos Aires during the administration of the federal district’s first elected mayor, Fernando de la Rúa, did not detract from his popularity, as evidenced, in part, by de la Rúa’s election as president in 1999. To summarize, it appears that the greater the autonomy that a municipal tax agency enjoys from partisan political meddling, and the greater its reputation for honesty, the higher citizens’ acceptance of the municipality’s extractive prerogatives. The struggle over capital city resources. One natural outcome of this attitude of entitlement has been a long-term struggle between capital city and national executive authorities for resources, and this struggle continues to bedevil a number of Latin American nations. To begin to address this issue, we might first ask what form the struggle might take. For example, some of the literature suggests that such struggles could develop into an ad hoc courting of elites. Yet this notion encounters some difficulty, as it assumes the existence of distinctive nation-oriented and city-oriented elite coalitions, and this condition, as will be discussed below in more detail, appears in recent years to be the exception rather than the rule. Rephrasing this argument as a hypothesis may help: “If struggles between presi-

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dents and elected mayors for resources take shape as the ad hoc courting of individual elites, then city-oriented elite coalitions will be weakened.” This recasting allows for the possibility that struggles between elected mayors and presidents may not focus on elite coalitions but each individual elite, a possibility to which we will return shortly. Even with such a restatement, however, supporting evidence from our cases appears to be limited, not because presidents and elected mayors do not fight over resources but because enduring coalitions of city-centered and nationally oriented elites do not appear to be widespread. Presidents and mayors do seek to bring elites and masses of various stripes to their side, of course, but the significant variable in the hypothesis is the presumed clear distinction between city-oriented and nation-oriented coalitions of capital city elites. If that distinction holds for only a minority of cases, or if it is growing less salient than others over time, then the hypothesis loses much of its relevance. Yet the hypothesis still leaves open the real possibility that struggles between the president and mayor for resources may take other forms or that certain institutions and rules can succeed in softening such struggles. Indeed, at least three of the cases considered here show that this latter possibility has in fact occurred. The Guatemalan constitution of 1985 mandates a transfer of funds to municipalities for local public works. This transfer began at 8 percent, was raised to 10 percent, and was accompanied by assignment to the municipalities of a share of the national sales tax and the property tax. And although a good deal of these transfers goes to Guatemala’s impoverished rural areas, funding has been sufficient and stable enough to allow for an unprecedented flourishing of local government in Guatemala City and its surrounding municipalities. A somewhat analogous instance has occurred in Santiago, where funds were transferred to municipal governments through the Municipal Common Fund (created in 1979 and revamped in 1992). Chile’s national government has also instituted a system of competitions (concursos) for additional funding to pay for special municipal projects; however, national ministries set the terms of these competitions, and this means that municipal priorities tend to be skewed by the availability of central government funds. Finally, in Bogotá during the early 1990s, President Belisario Betancur’s decentralization program included a provision that transferred up to half of the national sales tax to the municipalities. It also mandated that a specified percentage (beginning with 14 percent and increasing annually) of the national government’s income would go to municipal governments. When added to the serious new efforts to improve tax col-

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lection within the city, this program led to a remarkable turnaround in Bogotá’s financial situation. These cases confirm that writing and creating laws can make a significant difference, not only in the amount of money coming into a city and in local-national relations but also in the overall stability and predictability of municipal finance. Still, legislation can be a two-way street. Progressive laws can be repealed, replaced, or even ignored. President Fujimori’s aversion to any and all opposition during the 1990s led to laws that hamstrung the mayors of Lima who served during his decade in power. The Peruvian Congress (with its Fujimori majority) meddled consistently in Lima’s affairs, threatening to restructure the city’s districts and cut back on funding. To his credit, Mayor Alberto Andrade refused to be intimidated; indeed, he achieved successes in restoring Lima’s historic central core (casco central) and in managing the multitude of street vendors who often clog it up. But the case of Lima makes an important general point: Legislation by and of itself is fragile and can be ignored or circumvented if the rule of law is not respected. Overall, the general notion of entitlement, and the specific issue of national versus municipal control of resources, appear to be potentially long-term topics that are not going to be resolved quickly or easily and that have given rise to a variety of solutions. For the broad notion of entitlement, envy and distrust between a primate capital city and its surrounding (and often modernizing) hinterland appear to be unavoidable in many instances, and may simply be continuing facts of political life. As for national-municipal conflicts over resources, no single solution can possibly fit all cases. Whether it be formal, constitutional provisions that provide a fixed percentage, autonomous taxing capabilities, or a year-toyear ongoing struggle, capital city authorities and their constituents are never going to be persuaded that they have enough or that they do not deserve more. Changing Balances Within Interest Group Coalitions Since World War II, interest group politics in most Latin American capital cities has probably grown more complex. For example, the onset of municipal elections has doubtless forced interest groups to become involved in candidate selection, campaign issues, and the mobilization of the various constituencies found in any large city. Moreover, the influx of huge numbers of migrants into these cities has vastly increased the numbers and varieties of needs, wants, demands, and expectations that municipal authorities—elected or otherwise—have been forced to confront.

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Interest groups in the city. The existing literature posits that two groupings of interests or coalitions based in the capital city struggled to shape capital city politics after 1944. One coalition is dominated by elites whose priorities derive from their nationwide interests, which include monopolizing contacts with foreigners. This grouping includes top industrialists, international traders, bureaucrats, central party elites, the national leaders of important interest groups (organized labor and professionals), and the agents of transnational corporations. Their concern with the national capital is secondary, although they insist that capital city municipalities deliver high-quality urban services for their own comfort and to impress foreign investors. A second common coalition rests on a combination of interests whose status, power, and wealth stem from activities occurring inside the capital city region. Its members are largely middle class: central city residents, historic preservationists, artisans, shopkeepers, and lower and intermediate civil servants. Their political concerns emphasize local quality-of-life issues. Two other important capital city groups with almost entirely local concerns are industrial workers and the urban poor. These “masses” forced their way into the capital city political arena beginning in the late 1940s, and like the middle sectors they pressure government to provide efficient public services, livable housing, and personal security. However, these groupings have become less cohesive with the appearance of elected mayors in third wave democracies, if they existed in the first place. While elites may generally be able to have their way and have access to the arenas of power, sources for capital city development are always scarce, and competition among middle sectors, workers, and the urban poor is intense. The literature suggests that this competition has provided an opening for leaders of the nationally oriented coalition to forge alliances with the masses at the expense of the middle sectors. For example, in 1966 Mexico’s nationally oriented elites formed a coalition with the urban poor against Mayor Ernesto Uruchurtu (the champion of the middle sectors) after he bulldozed squatter shacks in several “invaded” neighborhoods. The addition of the urban poor to the nationally oriented coalition gave its leaders the leverage they needed to remove the mayor and begin work on the Mexico City subway, a project that the middle sectors opposed. But the larger issue is whether such coalitions are common or when they tend to develop. Our cases generally confirm notions about which groups will shape urban policy in Latin America’s capitals. Except in Havana, where Fidel Castro’s socialist regime has suppressed many interests that thrive elsewhere, the groups assumed to be influential in the literature have often surfaced as important demand makers, yet they coa-

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lesce in ways not always foreseen in the literature. Thus, a strict bipolar notion of two large groupings of interests, one oriented on the city and the other on national and international concerns, fails to capture the essence of interest group coalitional dynamics in a majority of the capital cities. The coalitions that most closely approximated what the literature envisioned crystallized at times in Mexico City and, to a lesser extent, in Buenos Aires and Caracas. From the 1950s through the early 1990s, political brokering in the governance of Mexico City centered on balancing the quality-of-life agenda favored by locally oriented interests and the view of leaders in the nationally oriented coalition that Mexico City should symbolize advancement and modernization for the entire country. Between 1966 and 1990, as discussed earlier, a cooperative arrangement encompassing the nationally oriented coalition, the urban poor, and to a lesser extent industrialized workers, held the upper hand. Domination by these interests, however, eventually alienated Mexico City’s middle-sector support for the ruling PRI political party. In addition, emphasis on job creation along the northern border with the United States soured relations between the PRI and Mexico City’s poor after 1990. Opting against heavy investment in metropolitan Mexico City was important in the PRI’s decision to allow popular election of the federal district mayor. National party leaders reasoned that it was more desirable, both politically and economically, to deal with an opposition of local executives constrained by limited budgets than to allocate the resources that would be required to service a system of clientelism that satisfied the capital’s urban poor and middle sectors. The middle sectors in Buenos Aires also found their demands overridden by competing interests, at least until 1996. The first Peronist government (1946–1955) eliminated the middle-sector-dominated federal district municipal council as part of its campaign to silence opposition voices. President Juan D. Perón and his wife, Evita, periodically flooded the federal district with mass demonstrations by workers and the urban poor, groups that resided largely in the suburban municipalities of Buenos Aires. Some groups of the nationally oriented coalition abandoned their solidarity with the Buenos Aires middle sectors and supported the Peronists; here industrialists who profited from implementing Perón’s ISI policies come to mind. However, the federal district remained middle class and antiPeron. Peronist party leaders, not surprisingly, opposed the popular election of local officials in Buenos Aires for more than fifty years. Finally, in 1996, the middle sectors gained enough autonomous political space from which to influence politics in the capital. A compromise agreement was reached between the Radical Civic Union (Unión Civica Radical, or

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UCR), a political party that represented middle-class interests, and the Peronists. The former supported modification of the national constitution to allow for the re-election of a highly regarded Peronist president; in return, the latter agreed to revise the municipal charter of Buenos Aires to permit popular election of the mayor of Buenos Aires. Caracas (Libertador municipality) did not have an elected mayor until 1990; the capital region’s first superior mayor took office following the mega-elections of July 2000. Between 1944 and 1983, a coalition of nationally oriented elites had dominated urban policymaking. These elites conditioned their support for projects to develop Caracas on whether they benefited their national interests. However, many in this national grouping, especially during the populist military government of the 1950s, viewed almost any modernization of the city as beneficial to the nation as a whole. Middle-sector groups oriented on the capital region played only a minor role in determining which projects would be included in the astounding level of investment that national governments made in Caracas. Input from the urban poor and workers was absent until 1957, when the Caracas slums (ranchos) became a hotbed of opposition to the dictatorship of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez. This anomic violence in the ranchos delayed the consolidation of representative democracy until well into the 1960s. When the national government finally pacified the slums, presidents organized political institutions to keep the urban poor dependent and quiescent. Change began to occur after 1978, with the advent of separate elections for municipal councils; and in the 1980s an embryonic coalition of the Caracas urban poor and middle sectors began to take shape. Its leaders became increasingly assertive after declining revenue from the international sales of petroleum reduced the ability of national elites to service their networks of clientelistic control. One form that this political pressure took, especially from the middle sectors, was the demand for a popular election of the mayor in Caracas. However, the middle-sector leaders remained aloof from the masses, and Venezuela’s nationally oriented coalition remained in control of city policymaking until widespread rioting in 1989 gave new impetus to decentralization. The remaining cities of this study do not display easily identifiable coalitions among capital interest groups that conform to the general theme. In São Paulo, the only city in our study that is not a political capital, nationally oriented elites have always been alert to opportunities throughout Brazil for making profits. But there is no evidence that this orientation has influenced either the quantity or quality of resources allocated for development in Brazil’s largest city. Between 1944 and 2000, local interests in São Paulo city tended to form class-based alliances. One

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brought together the urban poor, industrial workers, and a small group of supporters from the middle sectors. The other included industrialists, merchants, and most sectors of the middle class. Two of this study’s capital cities, Lima and Guatemala City, have large Amerindian populations. Most Amerindians reside in rural areas, although since the 1950s there has been massive migration toward both capital cities and the emergence of what is known, at least in Peru, as the “cityfied Indian” (cholo). The Amerindian economies of Peru and Guatemala remain heavily rural and dependent on subsistence agriculture, whereas Lima and Guatemala City, of course, run on monetary economies. For decades, if not centuries, the national elites in these capitals ignored poverty in the countryside, equating the development of Lima and Guatemala City with national progress. Until the 1980s, transplanted cholo populations in Lima and Guatemala City were the poorest of the poor, and they played only a minor role in the politics of resource allocation inside of the metropolitan region. For many, the chasm separating capital city haves and have-nots appeared unbridgeable. Since then, some changes have taken place because of the weight of numbers of rural-origin migrants in both cities, if nothing else. But cultural, social, and economic conditions in Peru and Guatemala provide few incentives for capital city politics to crystallize around the competing coalitions identified in the literature—one prioritizing nationally oriented goals and a second alliance oriented on quality-of-life improvements in the capital region. Instead, the associations that took shape were based more on class and perhaps ethno-racial divisions than anything else. The structuring of interest group coalitions in Santiago tends to conform to the general notion in Chapter 1. Santiago’s nationally oriented grouping resembles its counterparts in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Political party leaders residing in Santiago dominated this grouping between 1944 and 1973, which explains why Augusto Pinochet’s government (1973–1990) implemented decentralization policies in ways that undercut the patronage-dispensing capabilities of national interest groups. After 1973, the military strengthened Santiago’s city-oriented interests while keeping the metropolitan region divided into multiple municipalities, most of them dominated by a single social class. In tandem with this policy, the generals allocated resources to selected municipalities with the intention of crafting linkages between the urban poor, the middle sectors, and conservative politicians. This strategy increased the influence of cityoriented groups, but not to the point where they could make effective demands that would influence high-level decisions on how to develop Chile’s capital region.

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Ninety percent of Bogotá residents, in sharp contrast to the population of Santiago, lives within the boundaries of a single municipality. Nevertheless, demands from Bogotá’s most important groups have focused on how to divide resources among the interior’s city-centered regions, rather than on how to modernize the national capital and make its municipal government more responsive. Many Bogotá elites carry the anti-Bogotá sentiments of the region from which they or their families migrated. These attitudes have facilitated a shortchanging of Bogotá in the nationwide struggle for resources. On the other hand, the children and grandchildren of these “regional elites in exile” have grown up Bogotá, and they seem more concerned with local quality-of-life issues than their elders. Generational change may be favoring the emergence of a city-oriented coalition of interests not unlike the ones found in other Latin American capital cities. Given these variations in political coalition formation, any neat summary of what the cases tell us is likely to be misleading. It appears that the specific patterns of alliance formation that the literature presumes have been only partially replicated. Yet presidential control over capital city finances favored those investments that national elites wanted. Presidents from Fidel Castro to Augusto Pinochet have channeled resources into the capital city, or withheld them, in ways that supported their preferences. Here we should point out that the budgetary priorities of presidents varied according to ideology and the social bases of their support. As suggested earlier, changing budgetary priorities often accompanied the transition from the second wave democracies to authoritarianism, and most recently to third wave democracies. Presidents during second wave democracies tended to fund capital city projects intended to improve residents’ quality of life, and their authoritarian successors favored investments outside of the capital city, on ventures that would facilitate upward international mobility and enhance national economic power. Unfortunately, just how these distinctive policies found expression as conflicting priorities in municipal budgets, or in the spatial allocation of resources by national ministries, remains unclear and uninvestigated. Our cases also suggest that some important changes in capital city budgetary priorities are not necessarily or automatically linked to changes in the political regime. For example, revolutionary Cuba’s investment strategies in Havana were far different in the 1990s, when the goal was to attract tourist dollars, than they were in the 1960s, when youthful revolutionaries viewed the capital city as the location of old order exploitation and corruption. Similarly, Venezuela’s democratic governments penalized Caracas in the 1960s but then invested lavishly in the 1970s. In both Cara-

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cas and Havana, presidential control over spending in the capital city remained a constant, but the priorities of the political regime shifted. In like fashion, changes in the national political regime and in local political institutions do not necessarily mandate a shift away from policies that favor groups in the nationally oriented coalition or toward the middle and populist sectors with their local orientation. Many Mexican leftists envisioned such a shift in 1997, when Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas became Mexico City’s first popularly elected mayor. Cárdenas, however, disappointed these expectations by implementing many policies reminiscent of ones pursued by his predecessor, an appointee of the ruling PRI. Apparently the national government’s decision to reduce investment in Mexico City forced Cárdenas to court interests with the capability to invest in the city and to attract tourists from the United States. Neither of these groups was a favorite of the Mexican left. Finally, we found no examples of local initiatives by capital city residents to control the shaping of their urban environment until after they became dissatisfied with performance by local political institutions controlled by the central government. Concentration versus dispersion of power. Linkages between city councils and unified municipal governance is a topic of general concern in all of our cases, but just what form such linkages might take is less clear. National elites, fearful of the popular mandate given to the capital city mayor, might seek to strengthen municipal councils and neighborhood assemblies (juntas) as a counterweight to mayoral power. Of the cases examined here, few boast a unified metropolitan-area government in which the local executive presides over a region-inclusive municipality. Bogotá, with its broadly encompassing capital district, comes the closest. The local executive of Bogotá is, in effect, mayor of the metropolitan area and enjoys considerable power. It is true that metropolitan Bogotá has spilled out into a few locations, such as Soacha and Madrid, that fall outside of the jurisdiction of the capital district mayor. Within the geopolitical entity that most residents reside, however, one local executive reigns supreme. The mayor of metropolitan Lima is almost as powerful as his Bogotá counterpart, even though greater Lima also has some forty “district” mayors, which makes the division of authority and labor within the capital region often confusing. Historically bitter relations between the capital region’s municipal council and the national Congress have also complicated metropolitan governance. Nevertheless, in Lima the spatial division of power is quite clear. The metropolitan mayor, if he or she so wishes, may command and override the district mayors.

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There is less geopolitical unity in Latin America’s other national capitals. The reach of Mexico City’s recently elected mayor is quite limited; he exercises local executive power only in the federal district, the home of less than half of the residents of greater metropolitan Mexico City. The São Paulo case is marginally more unified in that the municipality of São Paulo itself has one mayor (for approximately 7 million people). But each of the other nearly forty municipalities of Greater São Paulo has one as well, meaning that effective power is broadly dispersed (and jealously guarded). Traditionally, municipal executives in São Paulo viewed their council members as ward bosses and expected that their highest priority would be the dispensing of favors to their constituencies in return for electoral support. More recently, however, council members have become the target of neighborhood groups, leading to a “bottom up”–initiated scramble for resources. Similarly, the Buenos Aires federal district has one mayor; and although there is talk of creating comunas within the federal district, the timetable for this change is vague and, in any case, the mayor would retain most of his existing powers. The surrounding province of Buenos Aires has numerous mayors, nineteen of whom belong to a metropolitan organization, the Conurbano Bonarense. All municipal executives in Buenos Aires province are dependent on the provincial governor. Rivalry between the governor of Buenos Aires province and the mayor of Buenos Aires (the federal district) makes meaningful coordination between the Conurbano Bonarense and the federal district almost impossible. Other cases vary dramatically. Santiago, for example, has no metropolitan mayor. Each geopolitical subunit has its own local executive, and while such an individual may attain high national visibility, including the presidential candidacy of a major political party, the lack of any authoritative political institution in the capital region perpetuates the fragmentation of power. A suggestion in the 1990s to create an alcalde mayor for Greater Santiago received virtually no support. Caracas differs in the extreme complexity of jurisdictions and executives that exist in and around the capital city. In the first place, the city’s built environment was divided for more than sixty years (1935–1999) between two major geopolitical subdivisions: the federal district and the Sucre district of Miranda state, whose relations were strained more often than not. Over this period the federal district governor played a major role in the life of Caracas, and the office of mayor did not exist. In addition, two governors, some eighteen municipal councils, and nineteen prefects (each with responsibility for maintaining order and named by the minister of the interior) all had a voice in exercising power within the metropolitan area. Various attempts

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to consolidate metropolitan Caracas were made, especially after Congress created the office of mayor in 1989. But vested interests prevented consolidation. Little progress occurred until the Bolivarian constitution of 1999 provided for a capital district over which an elected alcalde mayor would preside. The first such elected alcalde mayor, Alfredo Peña, clashed with the president over a number of issues—especially policing—during his first year in office. There is also great rivalry between the alcalde mayor Alfredo Peña and the alcalde of the Libertador municipality, Freddy Bernal. Perhaps one of the most serious concerns for the future lies with the ambiguous nature of the alcalde mayor office, whose lines and areas of authority remain murky and where the potential for partisanship and favoritism remain high. Examples from a number of cases support the notion that neighborhood groups and associations now play important roles in several Latin American capital cities. Sometimes these associations are headed by partisan leaders who have strong linkages to national political parties and their leaders, as was the case in Caracas between 1959 and 1998; in other instances, such as Mexico City, neighborhood leaders have become adept at placing demands at numerous access points in the political system, local as well as national. Finally, in numerous instances, neighborhood groups have acted on their own and with their own resources to provide themselves with community and public goods as best they can, having learned that neither the national nor the local political system can be depended upon for resources. Whether it involves tapping illegally into power lines or water pipes, digging trenches for water lines, installing paved sidewalks and street surfaces, or building their own community centers, lower-class Latin American urban neighborhoods have frequently shown remarkable abilities to provide for themselves what municipal and national authorities cannot or will not. Most Latin American countries have yet to grant authority over their capital region to a single elected local executive. Some national elites doubtless encourage geopolitical fragmentation in capital city regions as a way of keeping local power dispersed. However, conflicting interests linked to historically overlapping jurisdictions and multifaceted power struggles—vertical as well as lateral—have also prevented unified and consolidated governance from taking place. Where no metropolitan area executive exists (the most common situation in Latin American capital city regions), the mayors of each municipality must fend for themselves. As the data from Santiago and Caracas illustrate, this “every man for himself” situation produces stark differences in the extractive capabilities of affluent and poor municipalities. Wealthy

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municipalities can raise ample money from local sources, but municipalities with a much weaker tax base must either attract investment from the national government or go without. The spatial distribution of public services in metropolitan Lima is an especially onerous example of this dynamic. The metropolitan-area mayor uses funds from Peru’s national government for large-scale public works in a few selected areas, but each district mayor has his or her own responsibilities that depend on local funds and taxes. And because many of Lima’s districts are notably homogeneous in their socioeconomic makeup, the differences in per capita expenditures between affluent districts, such as San Isidro and Miraflores, and impoverished districts, like Villa Maria del Triunfo and El Agustino, are enormous. Constitutional provisions or other legislation that mandate transferring a fixed percentage of national budgets to municipal budgets can increase the autonomy of local governments and their distributive capabilities. Caracas, Guatemala City, and Buenos Aires benefit from arrangements of this kind, but the struggle to put them in place is always difficult. For example, during the 1994 constituent assembly in Argentina, one important debate centered on the comparative juridical status of the federal district (official Buenos Aires). Opponents of giving the federal district (Buenos Aires proper) the same status as a province feared that the federal district’s local government would claim entitlement to a similar, population-based grant of revenue from the central government. They also argued that any granting of increased autonomy to Argentina’s federal district should be conditioned on acceptance of greater levels of taxation on Buenos Aires residents. And even after a new constitution for the city was hammered out in 1996, final resolution of these issues remained blurred. Mandating transfers to capital city municipalities has obvious consequences. More money becomes available on a predictable and extended basis, and this allows capital city mayors to upgrade public services and undertake showy, long-term public works projects. Our cases suggest that capital city residents may be more willing to pay municipal taxes if they perceive that their monies facilitate improvements to the built environment that attract additional funds from the national government. Of course, as discussed above, any highly visible investment in the capital stokes resentments in the provinces, where fears are longstanding that national capitals drain off scarce resources more desperately needed in the interior. But the question remains as to whether efforts at raising taxes have a direct effect on voting against a mayor and his or her party. No clear regionwide answer emerges from our cases. Some cities—Mexico City, São

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Paulo, and Bogatá, for example—have a provision that forbids direct reelection of the mayor, so the matter becomes irrelevant. On the other hand, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’s efforts to improve tax collection in Mexico City helped to diminish his luster as a populist and undermined his appeal as a presidential candidate during the election campaign of 2000. In Caracas, Mayor Aristóbulo Istúriz’s updating of cadastral records and collection of back municipal taxes played a decisive role in his failure to be re-elected. Yet mayors have been re-elected in Guatemala City (Oscar Berger, 1991–1995 and 1995–1999) and in Lima (twice: Ricardo Belmont, 1989–1992 and 1992–1995; Alberto Andrade, 1995–1998 and 1998–2001). These differing outcomes make it difficult to estimate the degree to which the re-election (or defeat) of capital city mayors turns on tax policy. Still, personal approval based on such criteria as success in accomplishing concrete goals, in improving residents’ overall quality of life, and in giving the impression of being responsive may be more decisive in determining the mayor’s chances at re-election than tax policy per se. Urban Form and Higher-Level National Meanings Given the salience of Latin American capital cities for their nations, the questions of who creates and shapes the cityscape and the symbolic meaning of that built environment are important matters. These questions give rise to many specific issues: the kinds of political statements that national elites seek to make when choosing among capital city development projects; the kinds of responses that national executives and appointed mayors give to these choices; the goals of elected capital city mayors when they seek to modify capital city landscapes; and the kinds of projects that elected presidents and capital city mayors advocated during the 1990s. Moreover, two related issues that the introductory chapter touched upon only lightly emerged as important in our case studies. They are competition between the old downtown areas and other zones for infrastructure investment, and the special problem of squatter settlements. Most of the dictatorships that gave way to second wave democracies had built monumental projects in their capital cities. Examples include Guatemala City’s Palacio Verde (Green Palace), Havana’s seaside promenade, the Malecón, and the Eastern Freeway that bisects the Caracas Valley. National executives wanted these projects to symbolize national unity, to glorify their builders, and in most instances to proclaim a commitment to the kind of “modernization” that prevailed in Western Europe and the United States. Second wave democrats displayed many of the same motivations when they added to the capital city’s built environment. Their

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most prominent legacy was to carry on with the public works projects initiated by their predecessors (highways, cultural centers, and national ministries). These choices affirmed a shared commitment to centralization and modernization. Second wave democracies, except in Colombia and Venezuela, were short-lived. Before they had the opportunity to make significant changes in the direction of investment in the built environment, these systems gave way to bureaucratic authoritarian regimes in which military politicians assumed most leading roles. Militarized governments in the 1970s favored mammoth projects that added to the national economic infrastructure and speeded industrial development. Appointed capital city mayors during these regimes, like their predecessors, were expected to implement priorities set by the national executive. But municipal budgets were tight in the capitals. Investment in symbolic projects intended to transform cityscapes fell out of favor. There were exceptions, however, perhaps most notably the military government’s subway in São Paulo, General Pinochet’s Altar de La Patria in Santiago, and Colonel Castello Armas’s Avenida de la Revolución in Guatemala City. It must be remembered that national, rather than municipal, funds paid for these projects, and that they received strong backing from the local executives of São Paulo, Santiago, and Guatemala City. But one case in this volume provides an important exception to the more common situation in which appointed capital city mayors modified the urban landscape to conform with presidential directives. Various mayors of Mexico City—appointed by hegemonic presidents and their party, the PRI—were capable, under certain conditions, of influencing if not prevailing over the president’s agenda. In other words, the assumption that national leaders control the growth, development, and appearance of the capital city does not universally hold, even when local executives serve at the pleasure of national leaders. Elected capital city mayors have, in general, viewed urban landscape modification as a political activity through which they could demonstrate their autonomy from the national executive. Two elected mayors of Caracas, Aristóbulo Istúriz and Antonio Ledezma, challenged two presidents by opposing the national government’s plans to relocate a central bus station. In Brazil, immediately following the imposition of a second reverse wave of authoritarian regime, elected mayors in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (Francisco Prestes Maía and Carlos Lacerda) pushed for massive new investment in the physical infrastructure of their respective cities. This move came at a time when the militarized national government was adding to the built environment of Brasília and pressuring bureaucrats to

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relocate from the old capital (Rio de Janeiro) to the new. Maía and Lacerda’s independence rang alarm bells in Brasília, leading the generals to restructure the municipal governments of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and several other large cities. In each they replaced the elected mayor with a local executive appointed by the president. In third wave democracies, capital city mayors sometimes have different ideas than do their national executive counterparts. For example, in Lima between 1983 and 1986, Alfonso Barrantes, the city’s leftist mayor, faced a center-right president (Fernando Belaúnde) and then a center-left president (Alan García). Barrantes courted the urban poor by providing million glasses of milk a day and construction supplies to low-income families, thereby illustrating his preference for problems confronting Lima’s masses. But both presidents whose terms overlapped with Barrantes’s tenure had their own capital concerns. Belaúnde focused on middle-class housing projects, while García became caught up on grandiose projects such as a light rail system (until economic collapse put an end to such ideas). The Lima example suggests that elected mayors tend to focus on the needs of the numerically dominant poor and working classes whose support usually holds the key to electoral success in the city. Buenos Aires, however, proved an important exception. The municipality’s political boundaries are drawn in ways that exclude the masses and guarantee a middle-sector majority. Despite such differences, both national and local elected executives may favor modifications to the capital city’s built environment that symbolize the good life, rather than abstract national values. This preference holds up through most of our cases, although as the Lima case illustrates, distinct orientations on the part of the elected mayor and the president may lead one to seek changes that affirm middle-sector views of the good life while the other pursues policies that appeal to the urban masses. But some elected national or municipal leaders of third wave democracies have also invested in public works that aspire to symbolize national pride. Even Mexico City’s elected populist mayor, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, carried on with costly renovations dating back to the 1940s in his city’s central district, including substantial restorations of pre-Colombian ruins. In most other capital cities, though, recent public works have focused on projects that symbolize urban modernity and progress: aqueducts, distribution networks for electricity, cross-city freeways and bridges, and other, even larger and more impressive (and expensive) modifications such as subway systems. Whether these projects resonate as politically charged symbols or merely relieve more mundane problems such as traffic jams, they appear to be proliferating. Examples occur in almost every case in this volume.

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We now turn to two important activities that shape cityscapes but whose significance the overview chapter underplayed: resource allocation to poor neighborhoods and to the casco central. The former involves municipal and national initiatives toward low-income neighborhoods in general and squatter settlements in particular. No capital city in Latin America, except perhaps Havana, was able to avoid the proliferation of squatter developments during the time period covered by this study. They grew so rapidly and massively that they fundamentally changed the appearance and physical shape of the urban built environment. And while squatter settlements have generally occupied terrain that is either marginal (hillsides, gullies, and flood plains) or distant, as time passed municipal and national policymakers have been forced to take them into account. The resulting policy responses have varied enormously, not only among capital cities but also within the same city and across regime types and administrations. After World War II, some elected presidents focused on the squatter settlements. However, our case studies confirm that the national governments of second wave democracy gave priority to ISI policies, anticipating that they would accelerate national economic development. Squatter areas did not dominate the urban landscape in the 1950s as they did by the end of the twentieth century. Second wave democrats viewed poor residents of their capital city as one of several urban interests to be serviced, but not a political group of first-order importance. The armed forces were more uncomfortable with the presence of squatter settlements in the capital city than civilian democrats, and many military governments undertook extreme measures to eradicate them. Two notable examples of this approach occurred in Venezuela and Argentina. In Caracas, during the dictatorship of 1948–1958, General Pérez Jiménez spent lavishly to construct high-rise apartments in a vain effort to eliminate zones dominated by ranchos. In Argentina, efforts by military politicians between 1976 and 1983 to eliminate the slums (villas miseria) in Buenos Aires resulted in substantial changes in the appearance of the federal district. Both efforts had unintended negative consequences. The former destabilized the government and the latter reduced the metropolitan area’s overall stock of low-income housing. An alternative policy pursued by Peru’s president, Juan Velasco Alvarado, had different negative consequences. His government touted the positive aspects of Lima’s squatter settlements (pueblos jóvenes—young towns) and proclaimed his intention to “normalize” the invaders’ land titles and upgrade their built environment. These policies led to increased migration to the capital city and the overtaxing of Lima’s physical infrastructure.

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Other militaries fell somewhere between the above poles but closer to the one occupied by Caracas and Buenos Aires. For instance, the Pinochet regime in Chile constructed thousands of low-income housing units in and around Santiago; in Brazil the military made a less ambitious but analogous effort in selected neighborhoods of São Paulo. Significant investments also occurred in Brasília’s satellite cities (Holston 1989, chap. 7). But whatever the case, all of these initiatives were national in origin, emanated from the presidency, and depended on centralized funding by national agencies such as Ministries of Housing or Urban Development. Local officials and finances played little part. Since the onset of third wave democracy and municipal elections, most capital city mayors have had some of the responsibility for coping with squatter settlements turned over to them, but seldom with concomitant funding. More often than not, the result has been a confusing picture where precise responsibilities are unclear. In Lima, for example, decentralization facilitated the privatization of water and electric state enterprises, but the enabling legislation gave responsibility for urban and sectoral planning to national agencies. In other words, most elected capital city mayors have neither the inclination nor the resources to undertake comprehensive, subsidized upgrades to the built environment of the squatter settlements that permeate their cities. Instead, they focus their attention on inexpensive selfhelp programs and undertake selected infrastructure investments, like stringing electric power lines to each squatter shack, hoping that lowincome voters will respond appropriately in the next election. The vitality of the casco central, as noted earlier, is a second issue of the capital city’s built environment to which the overview chapter gave only cursory treatment. Historically, the casco central of Latin American cities encased the important centers of government, culture, religion, and commercial activities. At the heart of the casco central was a great plaza laid out by the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors (Low 2000). The upper and upper-middle classes resided within walking distance of these plazas. The poor lived further out, often in neighborhoods that were indistinguishable from the rural villages that dotted the countryside. The above pattern persisted into the early years of the twentieth century, but following World War II the casco central of Latin American capital cities deteriorated. It became unsafe, congested with automobiles, and overrun with street vending by newly arrived migrants. Banks and other financial institutions seeking more desirable locations, along with retail outlets, hotels, and state agencies, all moved away from the central city. In Santiago, Caracas, and pre-Castro Havana, for example, competition between the historic business district and new projects in zones that once

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housed the middle class saw commercial and financial activity gravitate toward the latter. Likewise, in Lima the wealthy outlying districts of Miraflores and San Isidro attracted much of the new hotel and touristrelated construction after 1980. Whether elected mayors and presidents can prevent, control, or influence such sweeping changes is problematic. Private sector construction seems to go where clients, customers, profits, land, and parking are all available, and these are seldom found in the historic casco central. Revitalizing historic downtowns involves complex, expensive, and uncertain undertakings that almost always require more than a single presidential or mayoral administration. Such undertakings place a high premium on continuity, a commodity that is in short supply in the region’s democratic polities. Nevertheless, some scattered evidence from around the region suggests that preserving and upgrading the central core of a city may be on the upswing. The case of downtown Lima is instructive. Alberto Andrade tried from the beginning of his first term (1995) to reorder and regularize the city’s chaotic center but met with consistent opposition from President Fujimori. Only after Fujimori fled in 2000 could a long-sought loan from the Inter-American Development Bank actually be approved. Our cases reveal analogous conflicts between elected mayors and presidents in Guatemala City, Caracas, Bogotá, and Santiago. In no instance did rival politicians give much weight to the advice and expertise of professional city planners.

Future Research on Capital City Politics As we have tried to make clear from the beginning, we viewed the five themes from Chapter 1 as a place to start. The goals for the book as a whole, therefore, have been to see what each of these cases has to say to these five themes and to see if through a comparison of these cases we can refine these themes and make them more precise. Recasting and Refining the Research Questions A good deal of this refinement has already occurred in the several case studies and in our discussion above of the five themes. But some of the difficulty in determining whether the cases tend to support, modify, or reject some of the general arguments of the five themes may come from the way in which the themes’ major arguments are cast. Because these five themes come from a broad search across disparate literatures, there should

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be little surprise that synthesizing them tends to produce blunt rather than precise instruments, analytically speaking. As we look for new directions for future research, therefore, one way to try to maximize payoffs will involve being self-conscious about how arguments are stated. In particular, the cases clearly indicate the need for care in phrasing questions and in recognizing the multiple assumptions that might be buried in one theme. Phrasing the Question In the first place, several of our cases illustrate the need and desirability to phrase questions so that they lead to something more than “yes-no” answers. For example, to ask, “Do mayors and presidents struggle to develop favorable bargaining positions with one another?” presumes that such a struggle exists. But to ask, “In a national-local level conflict, what conditions can strengthen an elected mayor’s bargaining position with the president?” allows the possibilities that (1) presidents and mayors may not be necessarily in conflict, and that (2) if such conflict does exist, several answers are possible. For number 2, one response might be, “With municipal council support.” But other answers are possible, too. Similarly: “Under what conditions will struggles to allocate resources between presidents and elected capital city mayors lead to the ad hoc courting of individual elites?” A question phrased in this fashion does not assume that ad hoc courting of elites is the only or even most likely form that a struggle over resource allocation will take. Identifying Assumptions In addition to the need for careful phrasing of questions, a second concern involves calling attention to the need to untangle and identify the various underlying assumptions present in any one theme. For example, the literature appears to assume that nationally oriented and city-oriented elite coalitions exist and that these two groupings frequently find themselves at odds with one another. Yet our cases found (1) that well-defined elite coalitions, competing over time on the basis of national versus capital city interests, crystallized less than half the time, and (2) that such coalitions that have appeared in the past seem to be weakening. Therefore, rather than presuming that cohesive elite coalitions play a major role in shaping how political interests are brokered in the national capital, a more useful and precise question might be, “What circumstances tend to increase the probability that nationally oriented and city-centered elite groupings will

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appear and will compete to shape resource allocation in Latin America’s capital cities?” Such phrasing suggests as well a corollary question: “Under what conditions will other configurations of interest group competition coalesce, and what (or who) might these competitions involve?” For the first question, such elite structuring might occur under a variety of circumstances: if industrialization takes place at a certain point in a nation’s development; if certain political conditions are obtained (a stable versus unstable party system, personalist versus institutional political loyalties and ties); or if the populace of the capital city grows at a rate to lobby effectively for city-specific demands and needs. There is an analytic edge to be gained by formulating a question so as to avoid the assumption that any specific configuration of elite competitions will occur. For the second of these questions (i.e., under what conditions do intracity and/or city-nation competitions appear?), suggesting just one answer—for example, city-oriented groupings of elites coalesce in opposition to prolonged domination of capital city resource allocation by nationally oriented elite coalitions—may shut off the possibility that other types of actors and competition can emerge, too. For instance, and as some of our cases demonstrate, horizontally linked groups (social classes, unions, social movements) could easily become effective lobbyists for projects and services that would benefit them and deprive the middle sectors. Some of our cases provide evidence for this configuration, and it is one that needs to be explored at greater length. Yet even though rich and poor, privileged and disadvantaged live side by side in Latin American capital cities, clear instances of class-based conflict and competition are infrequent at best. Directions for Future Research We use as our basis for major suggestions about future research the five basic themes that provide the foundation for this volume, but at the same time take into account our own prescriptions and advice about the need for precision. Moreover, it may well be appropriate at this point to recall the two fundamental concerns of the book found in its title: democratization and empowerment. Each of these matters can be dealt with separately, but each obviously is linked to the other. Yet how this linkage functions is uncertain: Both empowerment and democracy could grow together, but one could just as readily increase while the other weakens. If, for example, a mayor becomes increasingly empowered, that does not automatically translate into greater democracy in the operation of the capital city or the mayor’s office. On the other hand, increasingly democratic prac-

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tices within the capital city or on the part of the mayor may not necessarily lead to greater empowerment for the capital city mayor or for the city’s other elites and important actors. One key and overarching question about future research, therefore, must ask when and how empowerment and democracy can reciprocally assist one another rather than strengthening one at the cost of incapacitating the other. Diane Davis’s chapter on Mexico City raises precisely these issues. Keeping this injunction in mind, we can now turn to some new directions for future research. Note that we have no intention here of enumerating the endless number of substantive questions that might be raised about any or all of the individual cases. Instead, our aim is to identify what new broad questions or issues can be suggested by using our five themes as a springboard. We should note that throughout this discussion we shall make a conscious effort to cut across and/or combine one or more of the five themes to formulate new questions. Empowerment. First, insofar as the theme of empowerment is concerned, the bargaining strength of a capital city mayor is critical to how he or she can acquire, maintain, and utilize power. Therefore, identifying what factors or circumstances tend either to weaken or strengthen a mayor’s position becomes essential. To address such a question, new research must take into account that a capital city mayor’s bargaining position and strength are linked to, and can be influenced by, a variety of actors. These include, of course, the president, but given the presence of democratic politics, other individuals and groups come into play. These include: • • • • • • •

The city council. The mayor’s own political party as well as opposition parties. Interest groups within the city and perhaps elsewhere. The national legislature. The national bureaucracy (ministries). Privatized purveyors of basic goods (e.g., water and electricity). Multinational agencies (e.g., Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, and other sources of funding and loans).

The last of these actors—international and multilateral agencies—not only suggests but insists that future research must incorporate globalization as an increasingly greater force. What circumstances could affect the degree to which Latin American capital cities and their mayors use and/or become dependent upon international sources of capital (private and public) for large-scale projects? Might competition develop for resources or

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investments, either between capital city and provincial mayors in one country, or perhaps between or among capital cities in different countries? And would such competition for resources, public or private, serve to weaken or strengthen the autonomy of capital city mayors? Would the search for such external resources reduce the likelihood that lower-class residents and their needs might be ignored? Whatever the particulars, this line of questioning brings to mind Edward Banfield’s (1965) classic query: “How is influence concerted into action?” but with an additional corollary question: “And what are the results of that action, and for whom?” A mayor could use any or all of the groups or entities enumerated here to his personal and/or city’s advantage; a mayor could just as easily become beholden to one or more of them. Then, if and when a capital city mayor moves to increase his power by aligning himself with one or more of such groups, how do such alignments take shape? Do such arrangements improve the mayor’s bargaining position? For how long, and for what ends? Is the cause of democratization also being served? For instance, can such alignments help to address poverty or inequality or other quality of life issues, or can they increase access or representation for marginal groups? One possible way to address some of these questions may be to examine individual political leadership. That the characteristics and individual behaviors of metropolitan leaders may be responses to particular settings, cultures, legal codes, and even idiosyncrasies is, of course, true. But can cross-national comparable data on leadership styles and tactics show how the individual who holds office at a particular moment in time can be empowered, and how the office of the mayor might gain institutionalized empowerment? Such questions require attention to a number of factors, including patterns of political recruitment to the position of mayor (and city council) and the ability and willingness of the mayor to create coalitions (see theme four below, “Changing Interest Group Coalitions”) that could become of lasting value to whoever occupies the alcaldía and not just for the then incumbent. Policing and public security. The theme of policing and security in large Latin American cities has only recently surfaced as a major research concern. The possibilities for new and exciting work are so numerous that discussing them systematically would take more space than is available in this context. Nevertheless, our cases suggest two dimensions of policing and public security with a high potential to provide new and important insights into capital city politics. One involves the situations that lead political parties to take a public stance on policing. The other examines the

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conflicts that develop between the different kinds of police forces in metropolitan areas and their consequences. Both relate to the deepening of third wave democracies that occurred in the 1990s and to citizen demands for more accountability. Turning to the first dimension, our cases found almost no tradition of parties taking on the issue of policing prior to the triumph of third wave democracy in the 1980s. This is probably because the absence of democracy meant that the policing apparatus was always tied to the national state, used primarily as a repressive force, and thus not configured for public discussion. But in third wave democracy, concern over policing constitutes part of the partisan political agenda. Leftist parties in particular and other parties that were either persecuted by the police and/or opposed to authoritarian rule may hesitate to make police control a salient issue, even though they have grounds to do so. Those who used to hold power are equally hamstrung, because they are so fully implicated in the repressions of the past. Nevertheless, political parties and elected local governments now find themselves confronted with the question of what to do about policing and personal security. How and how much should citizens become involved? How decentralized might policing become? What is the proper balance, in terms of efficiency, for example, between local and national control? Addressing these questions opens possibilities for both applied and theoretical social science research. The second major dimension of policing and public security that our cases recommend as high-priority research is the conflict between different “types” of police forces in a metropolitan area. In Greater Mexico City, for example, there is unease between the Mexico City and state of Mexico police and between both of them and the federal police. Similar tensions surfaced in Greater Caracas when President Hugo Chávez Frías and Superior Mayor Alfredo Peña clashed over the reorganization of security forces to police the capital region. In both instances, tensions derive in part because different police forces answer to different levels of government in the same territory. These different police often have different functions. The national police, for example, deal with drugs and terrorism. On the nonfederal levels, one police force can be labeled as preventive because it enforces urban regulations. Another, the judicial police, answers to attorney generals (on each of these levels of government) and deals with criminal investigations and arrests. But different police forces working in the same territory produce competition, overlaps in functions (informally as much as formally), and conflicts and tensions among them. Democratization after the 1980s intensified the problem because different political parties control different levels of government, and these

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parties sometimes use the police for political purposes. This general problem of partisanship as well as unclear and overlapping jurisdictions is, first of all, one of organization. Approaching it from this perspective raises three important research questions: (1) How does this confused configuration impede law enforcement? (2) In what way was it exacerbated by democratization? and (3) How does it limit what citizens can do to reform police? Entitlements. One way of thinking about future research questions under the general subject of entitlements involves separating capital city versus provincial struggles over entitlements from struggles within the capital city over entitlements. Many of the case studies in this volume related instances of the first; we suggest some questions here that emerge by focusing on within city differences over entitlements. The assumption that capital city residents have an innate sense of entitlement and that they prefer to see national resources invested in their city is all well and good. But the level of generalization in this assumption may obscure the possibility that debates over resource distribution (i.e., who is entitled to what?) within the city may be equally critical, especially if and when a capital city becomes more heterogeneous and/or its governance becomes increasingly democratic. Prior to World War II, perhaps, capital cities of most Latin American nations, even the most ethnically diverse, were for the most part unrepresentative elite enclaves of Spanish or other European descent, and social class differences might not have been starkly drawn. But with the onset of massive cityward migration, especially from provincial and rural areas, many Latin American capital cities have taken on a new complexion. For the first time since the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors imposed their system of settlements on the New World, capital cities in the region have populations that do not differ significantly from those found elsewhere. What distributional choices will confront city authorities as urban stimuli generate increasing numbers of politicized demands, needs, expectations, and wants from increasing numbers of people? Mayors are subjected to new pressures as cities grow more complex and as social conditions once thought immutable are challenged, if not replaced. Class-based identities and allegiances may emerge in such a setting, and while their appearance is by no means automatic, individual would-be leaders as well as groups often attempt to claim their rights as legitimate spokespersons. On the other hand, the mayors in our cities also experience pressures from alliances that cut across social classes. Regardless of the particular form all of this may take in one setting or another,

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social class awareness, distinctions, and animosities may well come to occupy a crucial position in the struggle to obtain political power and to influence the distribution of resources in the capital city. If through migration a capital city becomes increasingly proletarianized, how might poverty by itself (or in conjunction with class-based tensions) play a critical role in shaping urban political dynamics and the content of capital city policymaking, whether by the mayor, the municipal council, or the national executive? For one thing, leadership based on populist, personalist appeals to the urban lower classes has prospered in several Latin American capital cities (most notably but not exclusively in Chavez in Caracas and Fujimori in Lima), if for no other reason than the sheer weight of votes that the poor represent. Likewise, the presence of wide and/or widening gaps between a capital city’s wealthy and poor classes makes privilege an issue for the wealthy as well as the poor. How can an elected mayor balance one against the other, especially when resources are finite? National as well as municipal elites may have to worry about political restiveness (the theme of security, discussed above) when inequalities become extreme. For example, how should city authorities react if and when the middle sectors live in perpetual fear that their property could be invaded and taken over by slum dwellers? Or where and how does organized labor fit in, if it finds itself compelled simultaneously to speak up for the poor while protecting the privileges of its members? If anti-establishment leaders and groups agitate continually, how can establishment political party leaders adapt themselves to rapidly changing realities so as not to lose influence with class-based or cross-class interests? Finally, in a question raised in several of the case studies, are there circumstances that increase the willingness of capital city dwellers—business owners and homeowners alike—to pay more taxes, which their cities clearly need. How can a city and its leaders make the sorts of infrastructural investments required to make water, electricity, paved streets, or police protection available, to tackle the seemingly universal and intractable traffic snarls of every city, or to provide a satisfactory sense of personal security? The answer is clearly resources, financial and otherwise. But as our cases show across the board, funding from the national level is uncertain and subject to partisanship. Where and how can the city look for more stable and autonomous sources of revenue? One possibility lies in local taxation, which requires administrative capacity to update and maintain tax records and to enforce collections. Unless, however, residents perceive that their taxes are efficiently and transparently used, their cooperation will be, at best, grudging. What procedures can best change

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such perceptions? And can a success in one capital city be relevant to another? Changing interest group coalitions. This theme perhaps more than any other created the greatest difficulty for generalizations. Many of the authors of the case studies argued that neatly defined city-oriented and nationally oriented groups or coalitions simply did not exist, or if they did, then their political weights and relevance were insignificant as such. But this finding does not mean that interest groups are not important; quite the contrary. As elected third wave officials became the rule, the role of interest groups has become more and more critical. As our discussion of local empowerment has shown, Latin America’s capital city elected mayors must be constantly involved in creating and maintaining groups that can assist him or her. One key problem, of course, occurs if and when a coalition that is helpful on issue A cannot function for issues B or C, meaning that new coalitions must be cobbled together and that the mayor must be a consummate politician. Yet if such coalitional games become the modus vivendi for a mayor, politics thus becomes inherently unpredictable at best and even unstable, depending in the extreme on the ability of one individual to make the system work. These and related questions open up an area about which little, indeed, is known: the origins and recruitment of political leadership, especially for capital city mayors. Looking across the cases in this book, the nature of political leadership in Latin American urban settings represents a meaningful but poorly understood variable in most of our cases and thus is a potential source for many new inquiries. First, what factors affect the nature of political leadership? One likely answer might be the degree to which the political system in which a leader operates is structured or institutionalized. If political leadership is predominately personal, due in large part to the absence of institutional political parties, then the office of capital city mayor may take on high salience, with struggles over resource allocation being ad hoc, individual, and restricted. In an urban setting where political institutionalization is high (e.g., well-established political parties, unions, professional guilds, and neighborhood groups) and where the rules of the democratic game are widely accepted, resource allocation tends to be more codified, associational, and less dependent on the individuals occupying positions of leadership. Nevertheless, as events since 1992 in Venezuela demonstrate, even the most robustly institutionalized political party systems can implode if the conditions are ripe. The postimplosion urban political environment in Caracas was unstable and dominated by strong personalities. It had more in common with other Latin

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American capitals in which democratic party systems had not been institutionalized than with the conditions that prevailed in Venezuela’s capital when AD and COPEI were dominant. Most dramatically, during the coup and counter-coup of 11–13 April 2002, the mayor of Greater Caracas (Alfredo Peña) and the mayor of its component Libertador municipality (Freddy Bernal) played important roles in the clashes that led to the removal of President Hugo Chávez Frías and to his restoration to power. A second question related to interest group formation involves the need for systematic knowledge about the recruitment of political leaders in capital city politics, whether for the mayor’s office or for other elected positions of power. What factors influence patterns of recruitment? As just discussed, the nature of politics and of the political party system might again figure prominently among a host of explanatory variables. For example, are certain pathways through the ranks of a party up to mayoral candidacy more common than others? What are they, and why are they prominent? Does the presence of a strong party system lower the possibility that an independent could become a viable candidate? What conditions overall increase or decrease the chances for an independent? Do such candidates tend to emerge more frequently if the party system is more fluid? Are any rules in place that require or encourage women to become involved in capital city politics and/or to be viewed as viable mayoral/ council candidates?1 Most of the chapters in this volume agree that the office of the capital city mayor has become the second most important electoral position in their countries, after the presidency; all agree it is a highly visible position anywhere. Yet no evidence exists that moving from mayor to president is automatic or easy. Thus, the question emerges: What factors facilitate or hinder the move from capital city mayor to the presidency? Can crossnational comparisons help to identify what conditions expedite the move from mayor to president? It may well be the case that these two questions of recruitment (for the position of mayor and from that position to the presidency) are related, but just what the nature of that relationship might be remains unclear. For example, if mayoral candidates are recruited on an ad hoc basis, movement from the municipal to the national level may also be ad hoc, subject to unpredictable and shifting coalitions. In more highly institutionalized electoral systems, the likelihood that a party could recruit an individual and move him or her from stage to stage (“up the ladder”) might be high. Finally, a number of new directions already developed overlap with the formation and conduct of interest group coalitions. Social class, poverty, and inequality may all influence coalition arrangements and

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behavior, but just how and when each of these factors individually or in combination will do so is uncertain at best; how they might empower leaders or groups or might promote or hamper democratization are only two of many possible specific areas of inquiry. It should be remembered that coalitions do not occur only within a city. Are there circumstances when the office of the capital city mayor may become pivotal for articulating and aggregating demands for urban areas in general and/or for mobilizing interest groups to support urban policies in general? A number of our cities point out instances in which capital city mayors are at odds with their counterparts in provincial cities, especially where the latter see the former as taking too great a share of scarce resources. However, might certain conditions be obtained so that all urban authorities might prefer to speak with a single voice? And if so, what circumstances might make the mayor of the capital city be the logical spokesperson for such a coalition? In the same way, can a capital city mayor become the most logical and compelling advocate for decentralization and for strong municipal government, especially if the mayor presides over a dominant and resource-hungry city? Urban form. Our cases suggest that each of the five themes discussed in this volume interact with each other. The theme of urban form and meaning may be the one most readily influenced by the others. Why should this be the case? To answer this question, let us assume that built environments possess cultural and political attributes that authorities exploit to legitimate their rule (Kostof 1991). If this is so, then we can assert that authoritative decisions about what attributes are to be imposed on urban forms will reflect the distribution of power among capital city interests and their capability to exert influence. Data from our nine cases suggest that the relative capability of interest groups to influence the local executives in Latin American capitals changed fundamentally between 1944 and 2000. In part, this transformation reflects new social and economic conditions: growth in population, expansion of the zones occupied by squatter settlements, and construction of high-rise buildings. Not surprisingly, change also derives from the replacement of appointed local executives with ones chosen by popular election. In terms of cityscape transformation, these changes have altered the outcomes of policymaking. At the end of the period covered by our cases, authorities in Latin American capital cities were investing in different kinds of built environment projects than at the beginning. Our nine capitals suggest several directions for fruitful research that relate to the theme of urban form and meaning. The first asks: What have

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been and might be the consequences for choosing public works projects by facilitating the involvement of community groups in the making of policy? The second line of inquiry flows from the preeminence in third wave democracies of urban public works that symbolize the good life: What kind of institutional structures will operate those projects efficiently if capital region populations are dispersed among multiple local governments? And finally; How can we follow and analyze the flow of capital for investment in urban real estate, especially financing for the construction of high-profile building projects? The evidence suggests that this focus can uncover valuable information concerning the exercise of political control and influence in urban Latin America. Attempts to involve community leaders in decisions that would transform cityscapes were exceptional in our cases. Moreover, politicians and their financial backers for the most part determined how the built environment would be changed; they seldom consulted professional city planners in arriving at a decision. The expertise of professional city planners normally came into play if and when technology would make it easier for political and economic elites to build as they wanted. In the few instances when authorities did involve community groups in the making of a cityshaping decision, such as in the relocation of Caracas’s central bus terminal, this involvement frequently shaped or altered final decisions. In the case of Caracas, the course of events revealed that class conflict became an important factor in determining the city’s physical development, which was not what local and national politicians had in mind when they politicized the issue of relocating the central bus terminal. What are the political consequences if and when community involvement is meaningful? If cities are to run efficiently and/or reflect the preferences of residents, these consequences must be identified and analyzed. Striking differences exist between the projects that shaped Latin American cityscapes in second and third wave democracies. Second wave democrats built many projects that projected “high” national meaning, while their third wave counterparts focused almost exclusively on public works that symbolized the government’s commitment to the good life. These latter projects, as discussed earlier, included modern public services, shopping malls, and high-rise buildings. The construction of physical infrastructure to support new malls and high-rise buildings, as well as the expansion of existing public services (such as water, sewage, and mass transit) to accommodate population growth, involved activities that extended into multiple municipalities of capital regions. When the central government had been the preferred vehicle for shaping the capital city’s

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physical environment (prior to the advent of third wave democracies), national bureaucracies charged with maintaining and modifying the built environment acted with little regard for municipal governments. At the same time, have increased powers for municipalities forced national politicians to rethink the institutional structure through which government reshapes the urban built environment when it builds projects such as aqueducts, subways, and public housing? One solution attempted during the second reverse wave of authoritarianism, and continued in some third wave democracies, involved transforming national bureaucracies into semi-autonomous state corporations with powers to override local governments in the name of efficiency. Enabling legislation frequently gave professionals control of these corporations, but in many cases positions on the boards of directors became patronage controlled by national politicians as the traditional political culture of centralism reared its head. Not surprisingly, some state corporations evolved into the personal fiefdoms of their board of directors. The unresponsiveness of functional fiefdoms is a problem in metropolitan areas throughout the world. What institutional structure(s) can strike an optimal balance between input from local governments and the efficient delivery of services? The third suggested direction for research associated with urban form involves the flows of capital for investment in urban real estate, especially financing for the construction of high-profile buildings. In the international capitalist economy, foreign investors continually search for safe havens where they can place their money. But precisely how and when do national and municipal authorities respond favorably to the interests of real estate investors? Knowing the answers to these questions could indicate that a location, such as a district within a city, is considered secure. Put another way, do international venture capitalists operating in Latin American urban areas view buildings as physical symbols written on the urban landscape as Anne Haila (1997) and Harold Lasswell (1979, chap. 2) have suggested? Under what conditions are real estate investors most apt to prevail in a Latin American urban setting? The striking transformations experienced across the urban landscapes of São Paulo and (to a lesser degree) Santiago may be due to the use of capital along these lines. Our cases suggest that when private developers contemplate large urban projects, international financiers do not approach local developers. Rather, developers based in Latin American capitals and their foreign allies bring projects to financiers, who then decide whether to provide the requested funds. Can we, therefore, suggest that real estate investment flows might link Latin American cities with financial centers in the

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advanced industrial countries? Research that illuminates movement of capital for this purpose would help to clarify the roles played by financial control, something that remains unexplained in the global city literature. What we have listed and discussed here should be more than enough to demonstrate that the field of inquiry we lay out in this volume has an enormous potential and need for additional work. Any single city study could be expanded and deepened; comparisons across two or more cities could be likewise done in greater detail and could focus on existing, modified, or the new hypotheses that we offer in this concluding chapter. We make no pretense here that this volume is definitive; we simply hope that it provides an assessment of what has been done to date and encouragement and signposts for what might be done next.

Note 1. A number of Latin American nations have so-called quota laws that require a certain percentage of all candidates on a slate (for example, for the legislature) to be women. Whether or how such rules apply to capital city races or to local races in general may be less clear. Indeed, the whole question of candidate selection in Latin America is a largely unstudied question.

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The Contributors

Julio D. Dávila is a senior lecturer at the Development Planning Unit, University College London. He previously worked with the International Institute for Environment and Development and with Colombia’s National Planning Department. He has been involved in research, training, and consultancy in more than a dozen countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, mainly in urban planning and environmental management. His most recent publications include Planificación y política en Bogotá: La vida de Jorge Gaitán Cortés, and two coedited books, The Peri-urban Interface: A Tale of Two Cities and The Challenge of Environmental Management in Urban Areas. Diane E. Davis is political sociology professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research interests are the politics of urban policy, urban history, cities and national development, and cities and the rule of law. She is completing a study of the evolution of policing in Mexico City with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Her newest project, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, examines the relationship between public and private police in cities of the developing world. Miguel De Luca is professor in the Department of Political Science at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. He has published extensively on the functioning of Argentine democratic institutions. He is currently working on a project that examines the format and organization of the national executive power in the Latin American presidential systems. Henry A. Dietz is University Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas in Austin. His 389

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major research interests are urban poverty and politics, political participation, and electoral behavior. His most recent publication is Urban Poverty, Political Participation and the State: Lima 1970–1990, also available as Pobreza urbana, participacion politica y politica estatal. Steve Ellner is professor of political science at the Universidad del Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, where he has been teaching since 1977. His major research interests are party politics and political history. His most recent publications include Venezuela’s Movimiento al Socialismo: From Guerrilla Defeat to Innovative Politics and Organized Labor in Venezuela, 1958–1991. Alexandra Garcia-Iragorri is professor of government at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia (on leave since 1998). She is currently working on her Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University and writing her dissertation, “The Myth of a Vibrant Civil Society: Colombia as a Case Study.” Her major research interests are democratization, comparative local politics, and Latin America. She is coauthor of Costos y beneficios de dos modelos de ordenamiento territorial para el Caribe Colombiano. Alan G. Gilbert is professor of geography at University College London. His research interests are in housing, service provision, and urbanization in poorer countries, particularly in Latin America and South Africa. His most recent publications include The Latin American City, The Megacity in Latin America, and In Search of a Home. He also acts as a consultant to organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank, UNCHS (Habitat), and the World Bank. Lawrence S. Graham is associate vice president for international programs and professor of government at the University of Texas in Austin. His major research interests focus primarily on Latin America and the Portuguese-speaking world, especially Brazil and Portugal. He has published ten books and more than sixty articles in journals and edited books and has been actively involved as chair and executive committee member of the Section on International and Comparative Administration in the American Society for Public Administration. Pedro Jacobi is professor of political science at the Universidade de São Paulo. His major research interests are urban political behavior and local

THE CONTRIBUTORS

391

government with an emphasis on Brazil. Over the years he has published numerous books, journal articles, and chapters. David Jickling is a career foreign-service officer who spent twenty years with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Guatemala, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, working on programs related to administrative reform and municipal government. Subsequently, he spent another twenty years as a consultant in these fields with various international agencies in thirty-five countries. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago and has held appointments as a visiting professor at Carleton College, the University of Maryland, and George Washington University. Mark P. Jones is political science professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. His research focuses on the manner in which electoral laws and other political institutions influence elite and mass political behavior and representation. His recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Development Economics and the Journal of Politics. He is currently co–principle investigator of a National Science Foundation–funded study of split-ticket voting in presidential democracies. Giorgio Martelli holds a master’s degree in urban planning from the Universidad Católica de Chile. He is currently the executive director of Transversal and has served as the executive secretary of the Chilean Association of Municipalities. He has published widely on issues related to decentralization in Latin America. David J. Myers is associate professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University. His major research interests are in urban politics, political parties, and democratization—with an emphasis in Latin America. His most recent publications have appeared in Political Parties, Comparative Politics, and Comparative Political Studies. Joseph L. Scarpaci is professor of urban affairs and planning in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech. His major research interests are comparative social policy, Latin American urbanization, and historic preservation. His recent publications include coauthorship of Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis and Plazas and Skyscrapers: The Transformation of the Latin American Centro Histórico.

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Peter M. Siavelis is assistant professor of political science at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem and has been a visiting professor at the Universidad Católica de Chile. He is the author of The President and Congress in Post-Authoritarian Chile: Institutional Constraints to Democratic Consolidation and recent articles in Comparative Political Studies, Government and Opposition, and Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. Martín Tanaka is sociology professor at the Universidad Católica in Lima, Peru, and is also an associate investigator and member of the board of directors of the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. His major research interests are urban politics and democratization. His most recent publication is Participación popular en políticas sociales: Cuando puede ser democrático y cuando todo lo contrario. María Inés Tula is political science professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and a researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani. She has published several articles on the political consequences of electoral laws in Argentina and is presently carrying out an Argentine National Council for Scientific and Technical Research funded study of the effects of the double simultaneous vote in the Argentine provinces. Esteban Valenzuela Van Treek currently serves in the Chilean Chamber of Deputies as representative from the district of Rancagua. He was mayor of the city of Rancagua and has served as the general secretary of the Party for Democracy (PPD). He has a long record of research and publishing in areas related to decentralization and has been a visiting professor at Universidad Arcis, Universidad Diego Portales, and the Universidad de Rancagua.

Index

ABC Revolutionary Society, 170 Acción Democrática (AD). See Democratic Action Acción Popular (AP). See Popular Action Party AD. See Democratic Action Aguilera, Miguel, 247 Aguirre Velázquez, Ramón, 241–244 Albán Holguín, Carlos, 38, 51 Alcaldes menores, 121–123, 129, 346 Alcaldía mayor, 121–123, 329 Alessandri, Arturo, 273 Alfonsín, Rául, 81, 85, 93(n10) Aliança Renovadora Nacional (ARENA). See National Renovation Alliance Alianza, 88–89 Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA). See American Popular Revolutionary Alliance Allende, Salvador, 279 Alvear, Marcelo T. de, 73–74 American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), 199–201, 212–213, 222, 223(n5) Amerindians, 135, 161 ANAM. See National Municipal Association Anapistas, 33–35, 43, 60(n12) Andeans, 98–99 Andrade, Alberto, 201, 209, 212, 214–215, 217–218, 338, 348 Andrés Pérez, Carlos, 96, 103, 109, 115 AP. See Popular Action Party

APRA. See American Popular Revolutionary Alliance Apristas, 199 Araña Osorio, Carlos, 147 Arbenz, Jacobo, 139–140, 143 ARENA. See National Renovation Alliance Arévelo, Juan José, 139–143 Argentina national politics (See also Buenos Aires): 1880–1943, 70–75; 1943–1983, 75–81; Concordancia and, 74; corruption and, 71, 74, 92; democracy and, 81–89; edictos policiales and, 78–79; independence and, 68–69; infamous decade and, 67, 74; ISI and, 74, 75, 340; National Congress and, 70, 74; orden conservador and, 71, 74; PBA and, 65, 69–70, 85; Peronism and, 75–79, 93(n8); Sáenz Peña Law and, 71–73; second wave democracy and, 75–81, 90; third parties and, 84; third wave democracy and, 81–89, 90–92; UCR and, 71–75, 81–83, 85–87, 89, 340–341 Arria, Diego, 103 Arzu, Álvaro, 151, 154, 161 Asamblea de Representantes, 229, 244–246, 248, 262(n17), 330–331 Asociación Nacional de Municipalidades (ANAM). See National Municipal Association Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 165 Authoritarian governments, 11–12, 23, 23–24

393

394

INDEX

Autogolpe, 200, 202 Aylwin, Patricio, 269, 288, 293 Bairros, 308 Balmaceda, Manuel, 273 BAMA. See Buenos Aires metropolitan area Barbarism, 10, 16 Barco, Virgilio, 37, 40, 51; as President, 39; as presidential confidant, 38; on technical/competent management, 62(n40) Barrantes, Alfonso, 194, 201, 212–214, 350 Barros, Adhemar de, 302–303 Barros, Reynaldo de, 304 Batista, Fulgencio, 171, 172, 173–174 Belaúnde Terry, Fernando, 199, 201, 207, 212, 214, 220, 350 Belmont, Ricardo, 201, 212, 214, 216–217, 348 Bentacourt, Rómulo, 95, 103, 105 Bentacur, Belisario, 37, 38, 40; Bogotá taxation and, 46, 337–338; mayoral appointments, 43 Berger, Oscar, 155–156, 348 Billinghurst, Guillermo, 198 Bogotá, 29–63, 330 (See also Colombia national politics); bankruptcy, 44–46, 52; boundary changes, 30–32, 60(n5); budget/economics, 29–30, 44–47, 55–56, 59, 63(n50); as capital district, 30, 32, 36; city government, 32–37, 33–35, 43–44, 46, 330; ciudadanía en formación and, 54; Congress vs., 41–42, 334–335; crime, 30, 48, 55, 59, 60(n3), 62(n40); Cundinamarca and, 30–32, 42–43, 45, 62(n31), 62(n32); decentralization and, 35–36, 48–50, 53–55, 344; elites and, 58; future of, 58–59; housing, 37, 40, 49; Inter-American Development Bank and, 48, 57; interest groups and, 57–58, 343; as Liberal city, 38, 61(n19); neighboring municipalities and, 31, 32, 42–43, 60(n6), 62(n31), 62(n32); organic law and, 36, 46; political institutions and third wave democracy, 13; political parties and, 33–35, 43–44; population, 8–9, 30, 31, 57; primate cities and, 29, 56;

privatization and, 36–37; public services, 35–36, 42–43, 47–48, 49–51, 62(n35), 62(n39); quality of life, 29–30, 58, 63(n50); as special district, 30–31, 60(n4); taxation and, 45–47, 57, 337–338; Trans-Milenio project and, 41, 47, 51–52, 54, 62(n30); as unique Latin American city, 56–57; urban built environments and, 25, 353; World Bank and, 48, 57 Bogotá mayors, 32–33, 34, 37–40, 40–52 (See also Colombia national politics; specific mayor names); appointed vs. elected, 33, 348; city council vs., 43–44, 46; continuity and, 48–49, 52, 57; corruption and, 43, 45, 47–48, 49–51, 53, 62(n35); effectiveness of, 48–51; goals/ achievements of, 51–52, 53–54; Liberal vs. Conservative, 38, 61(n19); national power vs., 38, 40–42, 56–57, 330; opportunities/constraints, 40–52; profile of, 37–40, 61(n24); technical management vs. political pragmatism, 49–50, 62–63(n41); tenure of, 34, 37, 60–61(n14); urban built environments and, 52 Bohío dwellings, 181 Bouer, Saúl, 82 Bourbon monarchs, 6, 68 Brasilia, 23; population, 8–9; third wave democracy and, 13 Bratton, William, 123, 209 Brazil national politics (See also São Paulo): ARENA and, 303–304; first wave democracy and, 299–301; governors and, 321; historical overview, 299–304; ISI and, 320–321; local empowerment and, 320–321; MST and, 305; Paulista Constitutional Revolution and, 300, 323(n3); PD and, 301; PFL and, 304; PMDB and, 304; PPB and, 304; PPS and, 302; PR and, 300–301; PSD and, 303; PT and, 304, 310–312, 314, 316; PTB and, 302–303, 304; reverse wave authoritarianism and, 301, 303–304, 320–321; third wave democracy and, 320–321; U.S. federalism vs., 300, 322 Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), 304

INDEX

Brazilian Popular Party (PPB), 304 Brazilian Workers Party (PTB), 302–303, 304 Broad Front (FG), 86 Buenos Aires (CBA), 65–94, 334, 347 (See also Argentina national politics); Bourbon reforms and, 68; Cacciatore administration and, 79–81, 329; Cafiero Law and, 86; CD conflicts and, 71; conclusions on, 90–92; constituent assembly elections, 87; constitution, 87–88; as federal district, 67, 70; federalization to GBA, 67, 70–75; housing, 76–77, 80, 351; immigration to, 76–77; JG elections, 86–87, 88–89; legislature, 89, 94(n16), 94(n21); local autonomy, 67, 81–89, 347; municipalities neighboring, 66; to national capital, 67, 68–70, 92(n1); organic law and, 70; Pact of Olivos and, 85–86; Peronism/dictatorships and, 67, 75–81, 90–91; PJ and, 81–89, 91, 93(n11), 94(n14); policing, 78–79, 86, 88–89, 88–89, 92(n2), 94(n17), 94(n20); population, 7, 8–9, 65, 67; PR government and, 79, 81; public services, 75, 78, 80, 82, 84–85, 93(n6); Rió de la Plata and, 68–69; taxation and, 86, 336; third parties and, 84; third wave democracy and, 13; viceroyalty and, 68 Buenos Aires, Gran (GBA), 65, 74, 77 Buenos Aires mayors, 87, 89, 330 (See also Argentina national politics; specific mayor names); 1880-1946, 72; 1943 coup and, 74–75; 19462001, 77; appointed vs. elected, 73, 83–84, 93(n5); Chief of government (JG) and, 86–87, 88–89; early years, 70–75; organic law and, 70; Peronism and, 75–79, 93(n8); political competition/presidential control and, 92; power of, 74–75; term lengths, 70, 72, 77, 93(n3) Buenos Aires metropolitan area (BAMA), 65 Buenos Aires municipal council (CD), 70–75, 82, 330; 1943 coup and, 74–75; corruption and, 82–83, 93(n12), 93–94(n13); early years,

395

70–75; elimination of, 76; formation of, 70; as House of Representatives, 79; post-Peronism, 78; PR elections and, 79, 81; reemergence of, 81; term lengths, 70, 93(n3) Buenos Aires, province of (PBA), 65, 69–70, 85; defeat of, 70; independence of, 69; national government and, 69–70 Bustamante, José, 199 C90-NM. See Cambio 90-Nueva Mayoría Cabildo abierto, 97 Cacciatore, Osvaldo Andrés, 79–81, 329 Cafiero Law, 86 Caicedo Ferrer, Juan Martín: auxilios and, 53, 61(n15); Bogotá taxation and, 46; city council vs., 43; goals/achievements of, 51, 53; jailed, 37, 53, 61(n15); political experience, 39 Caldera, Rafael, 103, 109, 115, 119, 121 Camacho, Manuel, 245–247, 253 Câmara, 312–313, 331 Cambio 90-Nueva Mayoría (C90-NM), 201, 215, 224–225(n11) CANF. See Cuban American National Foundation Capital cities (See also specific cities): defined, 7; interest groups and, 17–22; as key power centers, 7; map of, 2; migration and, 10–11; political machines, 21; populations of, 7, 8; regional fragmentation and, 21; third wave democracy and, 12–13, 14–25; urban built environments and, 22–25; waves of democracy and, 4, 8–12 Captaincies-general, 6 Carabineros de Chile, 291 Caracas, 95–131, 330, 340 (See also Punto Fijo democracy; Venezuela national politics); 2000 election results, 123; alcaldes menores and, 121–123, 129, 346; alcaldía mayor and, 121–123, 326; built environments and, 23, 97, 99, 106–109, 124–125, 131(n26); conclusions on, 125–129; corruption and, 118, 126–127, 128; elites/entitlement and, 97, 98–102, 125–126, 127, 335; as federal district,

396

INDEX

99–102; federal district governors, 110–111, 113; geography of, 96, 116–117, 118, 129(n1); housing, 96, 99, 105, 106–107, 341; institutional changes, 116–125; interest groups/balance of power, 97, 104–106, 124, 127, 343–347; Leninists and, 95; local empowerment, 96–97, 110–111, 116–117, 126–127, 130(n14); mayors/executives, 112–116, 130–131(n16), 330–331, 341; municipalities neighboring, 116–117, 118–122, 131(n21), 131(n22); organic law and, 100–102, 110–111, 130(n15), 131(n17); petroleum and, 95, 99, 108, 110, 126; policing, 97, 104–105, 122–123, 131(n23), 131(n25), 333; political decay and, 108–116; political institutions, 118–122; population, 7, 8–9, 98, 108; power struggles, 97; public services, 103, 124–125, 128–129; second wave democracy and, 102–108, 128; taxation and, 129; third wave democracy and, 13; urban built environments and, 351, 353 Caraqueños, 95 Cárdenas, Cuauhtémoc, 247–253, 263(n21), 263(n22), 344, 348, 350 Cardenas, Parmenio, 60(n4) Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 321 Castells, Manuel, 15 Castillo Armas, Carlos, 140, 143–145, 158 Castillo, Ramón S, 74 Castro, Cipriano, 98–99 Castro, Fidel, 164, 172–184, 187–188, 190, 192, 335, 339 Castro, Jaime, 37, 38; Bogotá taxation and, 45–46; city council vs., 62(n33); city-oriented groups and, 57; goals/achievements of, 53; legacy of, 51; as lopista/gavirista, 61(n21); on mayoral power, 40 CBA. See Buenos Aires CD. See Buenos Aires municipal council CDR. See Committees for the Defense of the Revolution Central government. See National politics Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 140

Cerezo, Vinicio, 143, 145, 148–150 César Saguier, Julio, 81 CESCO. See Municipal Economic and Social Council Charter law. See Organic law Chávez Frías, Hugo, 96–98, 109, 116–118, 121–125, 331, 362 Chief of government (JG), 86–87, 88–89 Chile national politics (See also Santiago): authoritarian paradox of, 266–271, 278–281; CESCO and, 282; Concertación and, 269, 291; concursos and, 285, 337; Congress and, 281, 295(n5); constitutions and, 271–274; crime and, 293; economic system and, 279, 283; education and, 275, 281, 285, 289; expenditures comparison, 276; FCM and, 278–279, 283, 291–293, 295(n8); government investment and, 275, 280; health policy and, 283, 289; intendentes and, 266, 273–274; ISI and, 274–276, 288; Law of Autonomous Commune and, 272; ministries and, 266, 275; municipal authority and, 273–277, 288; neoliberal technocrats and, 279; organic law and, 282; Pinochet authoritarianism and, 277–281, 342, 352; rebellion of 1859 and, 272; resource scarcity and, 276–277, 293–294 Chilean Telephone Corporation, 290 Cholos, 342 Christian Democratic Party (PDC), 266, 269 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency Cienfuegos, Camilo, 186 Clement Orozco, Jose, 231 Clinton, Bill, 125 CNC. See Federation of Mexican Peasants CNOC. See National Workers Federation of Cuba CNOP. See Confederacion Nacional de Organizaciones Populares Colasuono, Miguel, 304 Collor Plan, 309 Colom Argueta, Manuel, 147 Colombia national politics (See also Bogotá): Bogotá finances and, 45–47; decentralization and, 55; democracy

INDEX

and, 52–53; mayoral power vs., 40–42; National Front and, 52–55 Colonial districts, 22 Colosio, Luis Donaldo, 247 Comision Economica de America Lantina (ECLA). See Economic Commission for Latin America Comisión Interventora de Vecinos, 74 Comités para la Defensa de la Revolucion (CDR). See Committees for the Defense of the Revolution Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), 175, 179, 188 Common Municipal Fund (FCM), 278–279, 283, 291–293, 295(n8) Communist Youth Union, 179 Concejo deliberante (CD). See Buenos Aires municipal council Concertación, 269, 291 Concordancia, 74 Concursos (competitions), 285 Confederacion Nacional de Obreros Cubanos (CNOC). See National Workers Federation of Cuba Confederacion Nacional de Organizaciones Populares (CNOP), 232–233, 261(n12), 262(n15) Consejo Económico y Social Comunal (CESCO). See Municipal Economic and Social Council Consejo Municipal de Desarrollo Urbano y Rural, 151–152 Consejos populares de barrio, 179–180 Consórcio Intermunicipal, 317 Coordination, Administration and Inspection Boards (JUCEI), 175–177 COPEI. See Social Christians Copiapó, Chile, 272 Corona del Rosal, Alfonso, 238–239 Corrola, Joe, 189 Cortiços, 308–309 Council of Mutual and Economic Assistance, 163 Councils, city/neighborhood, 3, 20–21, 329–332 (See also specific cities) Covas, Mário, 304 Crime, 10, 15–16 Criollo, 95, 188 CTM. See Federation of Mexican Workers

397

Cuba national politics, 331, 342 (See also Havana); Communist Party and, 163, 170–171, 177–180, 186–187, 190–192; constitutions and, 166, 171–173, 175–180; corruption and, 169–171, 172, 180–182; Council of Mutual and Economic Assistance, 163; Habaguanex and, 183–184, 187, 190–191; income redistribution and, 173; institutional system and, 178; interest groups and, 171–172, 343; multiparty system crisis, 170–171; National Assembly and, 163, 177, 180, 183, 187, 190; Neighborhood Popular Councils and, 179–180; organic law and, 166; ruralism/antiurbanism and, 181–182, 190; socialism and, 173–174, 188–192; Soviet Union and, 163, 188, 189; Special Period in Time of Peace, 163, 182–186; sugar industry and, 167–168, 172; US dollar and, 184–185, 188, 192; U.S. occupation and, 166–167, 171 Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), 189 Cuban Americans Miami, 189 Cuban Women’s Federation (FDC), 188, 192 Cuentapropistas, 163, 185, 187, 189, 191 Cundinamarca, Department of, 30–32, 42–43, 45, 62(n31), 62(n32) Dahl, Robert, 198 DCG. See Guatemalan Christian Democratic Party De la Madrid Hurtado, Miguel, 242–243 De la Rúa, Fernando, 87–88, 94(n15), 336 Década infame, 67, 74 Decentralization, 3–5, 14, 14–15 (See also Third wave democracy) Decree 051, 205 Decree 776, 208, 216–217 Del Castillo, Jorge, 201, 212 Democratic Action (AD), 96, 102–109, 114–115, 126, 128 Democratic Party (PD), 301 Democratic Union (UD). See Unión Democrática

398

INDEX

Democratization (See also Third wave democracy): modern expectations of, 25; pressures on Latin America, 4–5; waves of, 4, 8–12, 27(n 5), 27(n6) DEU. See University Student Directorate Díaz Ordaz, Gustavo, 238–239 Dignity and Independence Movement (MODIN), 84 Directorio Estudiantil Universitario (DEU). See University Student Directorate Domínguez, Jorge, 82, 87 Duhalde, Eduardo, 85–86 Durán Dussán, Hernando, 51; Bogotá taxation and, 46; political experience, 39; on technical/competent management, 62(n40) Durán, Sonia, 37 EAAB, 35, 49 Echeverría, Luís, 239–240, 261(n13) ECLA. See Economic Commission for Latin America Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), 172 Edictos policiales, 78–79 EDIS, 50, 62(n35) Egydio Setúbal, Olavo, 304 El Golden Gate, 290 El Guavio project, 49–50 El Silencio zone, 99 Elinson, Hannah, 186, 187 Elites, entitlement and, 16–17, 16–19, 332–334 (See also specific cities); capital city vs. provinces, 334–336; conclusions on, 332–334; economic, cultural and political, 2–3; federal districts and, 18; future research, 359–361; historic elites and, 18–19; priorities and, 19; resources and, 336–338; second wave democracy and, 10; taxation and, 335–336 Empowerment, local. See Local empowerment Entitlement. See Elites, entitlement and Erudina, Luiza, 304, 310–311 Farrell, Edelmiro J., 75 Favelas, 308–309 FCM. See Common Municipal Fund

FDC. See Cuban Women’s Federation FDNG. See New Guatemala Democratic Front Federación de Mujeres Cubanas (FMC). See Federation of Cuban Women Federal district governors, 1 Federal districts, 17–18 Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), 179 Federation of Mexican Peasants (CNC), 233 Federation of Mexican Workers (CTM), 233, 238 Fermín, Claudio, 114–115, 131(n18) Fernández de Soto, Aníbal, 48, 51 Fernández de Soto, Gaillermo, 42 FG. See Broad Front Fifth French Republic, 134 Figuereido Ferraz, José Carlos de, 304 First reverse wave. See Waves of democracy First wave of democratization. See Waves of democracy Flagler, Henry Morrison, 168 FMC. See Federation of Cuban Women FNDR. See National Regional Development Fund Fondo Cómun Municipal (FCM). See Common Municipal Fund Fondo de Compensación Municipal, 208 Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Regional (FNDR). See National Regional Development Fund Fórum de Cidadania, 316–317 Forum for Citizenship, 316–317 Four Strategies Development Plan, 40, 62(n28) Fox, Vicente, 255, 256 Fragmentation, 21 Frei, Eduardo, 269, 293 Frente Grande (FG). See Broad Front Frente País Solidario. See Frepaso Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG). See Guatemalan Republican Front Frepaso, 87–88 FRG. See Guatemalan Republican Front Frondizi, Arturo, 78 Front for a County in Solidarity. See Frepaso

INDEX

Fuerza Democrática de la Nueva Guatemala (FDNG). See New Guatemala Democratic Front Fujimori, Alberto, 194, 200–202, 336, 338; budget/economics, 207–208; partisanship and, 212; personalism under, 216–218; power distribution and, 221–222; urban built environments and, 353 Gaitán Cortés, Jorge, 38, 61(n17) Gambling, 172 García, Alan, 194, 201, 212, 350 Garcia-Gallont, Fritz, 155 Gaviria Trujillo, César, 40, 62(n29) GBA. See Buenos Aires, Gran Gil, Federico, 288 Gilbert, Alan, 15 Giralt, Hernán, 78, 93(n9) Glasnost, 188 Global capitalism, 12 Gómez, Juan Vicente, 99, 102, 130(n15) González, Elián, 189 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 188 Grande ABC, 305, 317–318 Grassroots community organizations, 12 Greater ABC District, 305, 317–318 Gross national product (GNP), 265, 306, 309 Grosso, Carlos, 82, 93(n11), 93(n12) Guatemala City, 133–162; ANAM and, 141, 152; Catholic Church and, 138, 145; conclusions on, 157–162; economic system, 138–139, 141, 143, 149–150, 336; elections and, 140, 150; elites/entitlement and, 138–139, 152, 157–161, 335, 342; geography/demographics of, 134–139; historical overview, 134–143; INFOM and, 140, 145, 152; interest groups and, 160–161; liberal reformers and, 138–139; mayors, 141–142, 143, 146–148, 153–156, 157–162, 330, 348; Ministry of Government and, 147; municipal councils (consejos), 151–152, 153, 162(n10); municipalities (municipios) neighboring, 136–137, 138, 156–157, 160; Palacio Verde in, 136, 141, 348; party politics and, 151; party politics and, 153–155, 161, 162(n10);

399

policing, 147, 154, 159, 333; population, 7, 8–9, 136, 147, 162(n2); public services, 141–142, 146–147, 154, 155, 157, 161–162; reverse wave authoritarianism and, 143–148; second wave democracy and, 139–143; taxation and, 149, 152, 161; third wave democracy and, 13, 140–141, 148–157, 162(n9); urban built environments and, 23, 135–136, 141, 147, 158–159, 349, 353 Guatemala national politics: authoritarian rule and, 142–146; coffee and, 138–141, 149; Congress and, 150–151; constitutions and, 148, 153, 156; corruption and, 149, 152; death squads and, 144; ISI and, 143, 158; ombudsman, office of, 150; revolution of 1944, 139, 142, 162(n3); value added tax (VAT) and, 149, 152 Guatemalan Christian Democratic Party (DCG), 145, 148 Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), 151 Guzmán, Abimael, 209 Guzmán Blanco, Antonio, 98 Habaguanex, 183–184, 187, 190–191 Habana del Este, 173–174 Habanaeros, 163 Hank González, Carlos, 241–242, 261–262(n14) Havana, 27(n13), 163–192 (See also Cuba national politics); anti-Havana policy and, 90, 181–182, 335; blackmarketers (jineteros) and, 163, 187, 189, 192; colonial legacy of, 164–170; conclusions on, 190–192; cuentapropistas and, 163, 185, 187, 189, 191; economic system, 164, 165–170, 182–186, 187–189; elites and, 180–181, 190, 339–340; entrepreneurship and governance, 182–186; gambling and, 172; Habana del Este and, 173–174; housing, 164, 173–174, 183–184, 188, 190; ISI and, 172, 190; leadership/authority redefined, 186–189; mayors, 168–169, 173, 175, 190; municipalities neighboring, 175–176;

400

INDEX

petty-bourgeoisie workers and, 163; planning councils, 173; poder popular/local and, 177, 179–180, 182; policing, 191; population, 8–9, 180–181; public services, 166–167; the revolution and, 163, 173–174; second reverse wave and, 177; second wave democracy and, 190–192; technocrats and, 190–191; third wave democracy and, 13, 163, 192; tourism and, 168–170, 172, 182–183; transportation systems, 174, 177; urban built environments and, 163–164, 167–168, 174, 181, 190 Havana province, 175 Haya de la Torre, Victor Raul, 199 Herrera, Alberto, 171 Herrera Campins, Luis, 108, 127 Hommes, Rudolf, 40, 62(n29) Huntington, Samuel, 8, 27(n5), 27(n6); Havana and, 163, 190, 192; Lima and, 194, 196–202; São Paulo and, 320–321 Ibarra, Aníbal, 88–89, 94(n19) Ibero-American colonial period, 6 Illia, Arturo, 78–79 Import substitution industrialization (ISI), 4, 351 (See also specific cities and countries); central tenets, 9–10; second wave democracy and, 9–11; third wave democracy and, 14–15 Infamous decade (década infame), 67, 74 INFOM. See Institute for Municipal Development Institute for Municipal Development (INFOM), 140, 145, 152 Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). See Partido Revolucionario Institucional Instituto Nacional de Fomento Municipal (INFOM). See Institute for Municipal Development Intendente, 1 Inter-American Development Bank, 48, 57 Interest groups, 17–22, 338–348 (See also specific cities); capital city, 339–344; future research, 331–363;

power concentration vs. dispersion, 344–348 Interior, 10, 16–17 Intermunicipal Consortium, 317 ISI. See Import substitution industrialization Istúriz, Aristóbulo, 113–115, 121, 129, 131(n18), 348, 349 IU. See United Left Izquierda Unida (UI). See United Left Jefe de gobierno (JG). See Chief of government JG. See Chief of government Jineteros (black marketers), 163, 187, 189, 192 JUCEI. See Coordination, Administration and Inspection Boards Junta de Coordinatión, Ejecucación y Inspeción (JUCEI). See Coordination, Administration and Inspection Boards Khrushchev, Nikita, 188 La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción. See Guatemala City Ladinos, 135, 158, 161 Lagos, Ricardo, 269, 289, 291 Lansky, Meyer, 172 Laugerud García, Kjell, 147 Lavín, Joaquín, 266, 286–287, 289, 290, 292 Law of Autonomous Commune, 272 Leal Spengler, Eusebio, 183 Ledezma, Antonio, 115, 122, 131(n18), 131(n19), 349 Leguía, Augusto, 199, 220 León Carpio, Ramiro de, 148–149, 150–151 Leoni, Raúl, 102–104 Lesser mayors (alcaldes menores), 121–123, 129, 346 Ley de Comuna Autónoma, 272 Ley orgánica de la municipalidad. See Organic law; Organic law of federal district Liberal Front Party (PFL), 304 Lima, 193–225 (See also Peru national politics); as city/province/district, 195; conclusions on, 221–222; decentralization and, 205–208, 344;

INDEX

demographics of, 203–205; districts, 197, 206, 215; elites/entitlement and, 193–194, 203, 210–211, 212, 221, 342; inequality in, 203–205; informality and, 203–205; interest groups and, 211–213, 217, 347; introduction to, 193–195; migration and, 193, 203–204, 221; policing, 208–210; population, 8–9, 202–204, 207; poverty and, 203–205, 211; power distribution and, 205–208; as primate city, 195–196, 221, 222–223(n1); problems of, 203–205; second wave democracy and, 198–199, 210; security issues, 208–210; serenazgos and, 209; third wave democracy and, 13, 200, 212; urban built environments and, 196, 218–221, 225(n12), 350, 353; waves of democracy and, 194, 196–202, 210, 212 Lima chicha, 204, 221 Lima mayors, 330 (See also Fujimori, Alberto; Lima; Peru national politics; specific mayor names); city council and, 207; decentralization and, 205–208; Decree 051 and, 205; Decree 776 and, 208, 216–217; ideology and, 201–202; municipal elections and, 193–194, 199–202, 205–208, 213, 221, 223(n4), 225(n13); partisanship and, 212–216; partisanship and, 224(n10), 224–225(n11); personalism and, 212–214, 216–218; power distribution and, 195, 205–208, 216–218, 338; taxation/budgets and, 207–208, 211; weakness of, 196 Lima mayors: overview, 227–229 Lima pituca, 205, 221 Limeños, 210–211 Lizarralde, Juan, 142 Llanero, 39, 61(n25) Lleras Camargo, Alberto, 61(n16) Lleras Restrepo, Carlos, 38, 40 Local empowerment, 1–27, 14–15, 328–332; appointed vs. elected mayors, 328–329; history of, 3–5; mayors/city council and, 329–331; neighborhood councils and, 331–332 Local power, 177

401

LODF. See Organic law of federal district López Contreras, Eleazar, 99–101, 131(n21) López Obrador, Manuel, 253–256, 334 Lucas García, Romero, 144, 157 Luciano, Charles “Lucky”, 172 Luis Cantílo, José, 93(n4) Luís Sert, José, 174 Lusinchi, Jaime, 109, 110, 119 Machado, Gerardo, 170 Maldonado, Abundio, 146 Maluf, Paulo, 304, 311–313 Manuel Cortina, José, 170 Manuel de Céspedes, Carlos, 171 Manuel de la Cruz, Carlos, 170 Manuel de Rosas, Juan, 69 Maquila programs, 150 Más Canosa, Jorge, 189 Maya, 135, 144 Mayors, capital city (See also specific cities and specific mayor names): appointed vs. elected, 1–5, 19–22, 328–329; changing roles of, 3–5, 26(n2); city councils and, 329–331; elections, 20–21; elites/entitlement and, 16–17, 19; policing and, 16; as power brokers, 3–4, 25; power struggles with presidents, 20–21; third wave empowerment of, 14–15, 17 Mazuera, Fernando, 51 Medina Angarita, Isaías, 99 Méndez Montenegro, Julio César, 143, 162(n5) Méndez Montenegro, Mario, 142 Mendoza, Enrique, 121 Menem, Carlos, 81–82, 85–86, 93(n11) Metropolitan Police Force (PM), 104–105 Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (RMSP), 305–307, 308–309, 313–315, 323(n6), 323(n7) Mexico City, 227–263; 1928-1952, 230–234; 1952-1964, 234–237; 19641976, 237–240; 1976-1987, 241–244; 1987-1996, 244–248; 1997-2000, 248–253; Asamblea de Representantes and, 229, 244–246, 248, 262(n17), 330–331;

402

INDEX

budget/economics, 235–237, 242, 250–251; conclusions on, 256–259; consolidated democracy and, 253–256; crime, 251, 263(n21); debt crisis, 242–244; demographics, 259(n1); elites/entitlement and, 241, 247, 255, 258–259, 335, 339–340; housing, 232–233, 246, 248–249, 251, 254–255, 262(n18), 339; interest groups and, 257, 340, 346; introduction to, 227–229; modernization of, 230–234, 235–237, 261(n11); neighboring municipalities and, 27(n14), 228; policing, 236, 249, 256, 258, 263(n21), 263(n24), 334; political institutions and third wave democracy, 13; population, 7, 8–9; street vendors and, 245, 248–249, 262–263(n19); taxation and, 235; third wave democracy and, 27–29; transportation systems, 233, 235–239, 241, 255, 260(n6), 261–262(n14), 339; urban built environments and, 23, 229–237, 242, 245–246, 258, 349; waves of democracy and, 257–259; World Bank and, 251 Mexico City mayors (See also specific mayor names; Uruchurtu, Ernesto): autonomy of, 230–240, 244–248, 256–258, 330–331, 345; Cárdenas, Cuauhtémoc, 247–253, 263(n21), 263(n22), 344, 348, 350; city council (ayuntamiento) and, 227, 230; consultative council (cosejo consultivo) and, 233–234, 236, 240, 241; corruption and, 251; elections and, 348–349; overview, 259(n2); power struggles with presidents, 238–239; responsibilities of, 231 Mexico national politics (See also Partido Revolucionario Institucional): 1928-1952, 230–234; CNOP and, 232–233, 261(n12), 262(n15); CTM and, 233, 238; ISI and, 234, 238; NAFTA and, 245, 247–248; PRD and, 229, 251–255, 258, 263(n22) Migrants, 10, 15 Miguel de Céspedes, Carlos, 169 Mockus, Antanas, 52, 60(n8), 60(n13); Bogotá finances and, 47, 62(n37); city council vs., 43–44, 47, 62(n34);

ciudadanía en formación and, 54; goals, 51; goals/achievements of, 53–54; as independent, 38–39, 61(n22) MODIN. See Dignity and Independence Movement Montoro, Franco, 304 Monumentality, 25 Morales Bermudez, Francisco, 200 Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST), 305 Movement of the Fifth Republic (MVR), 122–124, 129 Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). See Movement of Rural Landless Workers Movimiento de la Quinta República. See Movement of the Fifth Republic Movimiento por la Dignidad y la Independencia (MODIN). See Dignity and Independence Movement MST. See Movement of Rural Landless Workers Municipal Economic and Social Council (CESCO), 282 Municipal politics (See also Mayors, capital city): decentralization and, 3–5, 14–15; groups influencing, 3–4; history of, 1–5; second wave democracy and, 9–11; security concerns and, 15–16; waves of democracy and, 4, 8–12, 27(n5), 27(n6) Municipal Urban and Rural Development Council, 151–152 MVR. See Movement of the Fifth Republic National Action Party (PAN), 227 National Administrative Center, 25 National Advancement Party (PAN), 154, 161 National Autonomous Party (PAN), 71 National Democratic Union (UDN), 302 National Federation of Popular Organizations (CNOP). See Confederacion Nacional de Organizaciones Populares National Front, Columbia’s, 52–55 National Municipal Association (ANAM), 141, 152

INDEX

National Opposition Union, 35 National politics, 7 (See also Presidential politics); capital cities’ influence in, 7; decentralization and, 3–5, 14–15; influence on municipal politics, 17–22; ISI and, 9–10, 12; second reverse wave and, 11–12; second wave democracy and, 9–11; security concerns and, 15–16; waves of democracy and, 4, 8–12 National Program for Citizen Security, 209 National Regional Development Fund (FNDR), 278–279 National Renovation Alliance (ARENA), 303–304 National Renovation (RN), 280, 282 National System for the Support of Social Mobilization. See SINAMOS National Workers Federation of Cuba (CNOC), 170 Nationalist Union, 170 Neighborhood associations, 12 Neighborhood Popular Councils, 179–180 New Guatemala Democratic Front (FDNG), 151 New Spain, 6 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 245, 247–248 Odría, Manuel, 199, 202–203, 220 O’Higgins, Bernardo, 271–272, 282 Olivera, Enrique, 88, 94(n18) Open municipal council, 97 Ordaz, Díaz, 27(n14) Orden conservador, 71, 74 Organic law, 5; Argentina and, 70; Chile and, 282; Colombia and, 36, 46, 53; Cuba and, 166; defined, 26(n3); Venezuela and, 100–102, 110–111, 130(n15), 131(n17) Organic law of federal district (LODF), 110–111, 130(n15), 131(n17) Orrego, Eduardo, 201, 206, 212 Pacanins, Guillermo, 103 Pact of Olivos, 85–86 Palacio de Bellas Artes, 23 Palacio Nacional, 23 Palacio Verde, 136, 141, 348

403

Palestinos, 182 Palma, Estrada, 166 PAN. See National Action Party (Mexico); National Advancement Party (Guatemala); National Autonomous Party (Argentina) Pardo, Diego, 43 Pardo, Manuel, 198 Partido Acción Nacional (PAN). See National Action Party Partido Autonomista Nacional (PAN). See National Autonomous Party Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), 229, 251–255, 258, 263(n22) Partido Democracia Cristiana Guatemalteca (DCG). See Guatemalan Christian Democratic Party Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC). See Christian Democrat Party Partido Demócrata Progresista (PDP). See Progressive Democratic Party Partido Democrático (PD). See Democratic Party Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB). See Brazilian Democratic Movement Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). See Workers Party Partido Frente Liberal (PFL). See Liberal Front Party Partido Justicialista (PJ). See Peronist Party Partido Popular Brasileiro (PPB). See Brazilian Popular Party Partido Popular Cristiano (PPC). See Popular Christian Party Partido Popular Social (PPS). See Popular Social Party Partido por el Adelantamiento Nacional (PAN). See National Advancement Party Partido Republicano (PR). See Republican Party Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), 227–228, 242–245, 263(n22); elections and, 247–248; interest groups and, 340; urban policy and, 231–233, 251–252, 258 Partido Social Democrático (PSD). See Social Democratic Party

404

INDEX

Partido Socialcristiano (COPEI). See Social Christians Partido Socialista (PS). See Socialist Party Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB). See Brazilian Workers Party Pastrana, Andrés, 39, 51, 63(n52); Four Strategies Development Plan, 40, 62(n28); goals/achievements of, 53 Pastrana, Misael, 38, 43, 46 Paulista Constitutional Revolution, 300, 323(n3) PBA. See Buenos Aires, province of PD. See Democratic Party PDC. See Christian Democratic Party PDP. See Progressive Democratic Party Peña, Alfredo, 122–123, 131(n24), 346, 362 Peñalosa, Enrique, 61(n23), 61(n27); Bogotá finances and, 47, 62(n36); city-oriented groups and, 57; goals/achievements of, 54; Soacha’s buses and, 32, 60(n8); Trans-Milenio project and, 41, 47, 51–52, 54, 62(n30) Peñrua Ordaz, Luis, 108 People’s Power, 179–180, 182 Perestroika, 188 Pérez Jiménez, Marcos, 95, 102–107, 128, 335, 341 Perón, Isabel, 79 Perón, Juan Domingo, 75–79, 93(n7), 340 Peronism, 75–79, 93(n8) Peronist Party (PJ), 79–89, 91, 93(n11), 94(n14) Peru national politics (See also Fujimori, Alberto; Lima): AP and, 199–201, 212–215, 222, 223(n5); APRA/apristas and, 199–201, 212–213, 222, 223(n5); autogolpe and, 200, 202; C90-NM and, 201, 215, 224–225(n11); as competitive oligarchy, 198; constitutions and, 200–201, 223(n3); Decree 051 and, 205; Decree 776 and, 208, 216–217; interest groups and, 211–212; ISI and, 202–203, 207, 221; IU and, 194, 214, 222; municipal elections and, 193–194, 199–202, 205–208, 213, 221, 223(n4), 225(n13); power

distribution and, 196, 205–208, 223(n2); PPC and, 223(n5); security issues and, 208–210; Shining Path and, 209, 220, 333; SINAMOS and, 200, 210; suffrage and, 200; Vamos Vecinos and, 201 Peters, Philip, 185 PFL. See Liberal Front Party Pinochet, Augusto, 277–281, 342, 352 Pitta, Celso, 304, 311, 312, 313, 316 PJ. See Peronist Party Platt Amendment, 166, 171 PM. See Metropolitan Police Force PMDB. See Brazilian Democratic Movement Poder local, 177 Poder popular, 179–180, 182 Policía Metropolitana (PM). See Metropolitan Police Force Policing, 15–16, 332–334, 357–359 (See also specific cities) Popular Action Party (AP), 199–201, 212–215, 222, 223(n5) Popular Christian Party (PPC), 223(n5) Popular Social Party (PPS), 302 Portales, Diego, 271 Portillo, Alfonso, 151, 155 Portugal, 5–6 PPB. See Brazilian Popular Party PPC. See Popular Christian Party PPS. See Popular Social Party PR. See Propotional representation (Argentina); Republican Party (Brazil) Prado, Manuel, 199 Prado, Martín, 142 PRD. See Partido de la Revolución Democrática Prebisch, Raúl, 172 Prefects, 1 Prefeitos, 301, 312 Prensa Libre, 155–156 Presidential politics, 1–5, 20–21 Prestes Maía, Francisco, 302, 303, 349 PRI. See Partido Revolucionario Institucional Prieto Ocampo, Luis, 61(n26) Primate cities, 2, 26(n1) Prío, Carlos, 172 Programa Nacional de Seguridad Ciudadana, 209

INDEX

Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), 75 Proportional representation (PR), 79 PS. See Socialist Party PSD. See Social Democratic Party PT. See Workers Party PTB. See Brazilian Workers Party Punto Fijo democracy: corruption and, 118; death of, 109; leaders of, 110–111, 114, 126–127; public services and, 124; second wave democracy and, 97, 103, 129(n2) Quadros, Jânio, 302, 304, 311 Rabanal, Francisco, 78, 93(n9) Radical Civil Union (UCR), 71–75, 81–83, 85–87, 89, 340–341 Ramírez Ocampo, Augusto, 38 Ranchos, 105, 107 Ravinet, Jaime, 266, 290, 292, 294 Reconcentraciones, 166 Renovación Nacional (RN). See National Renovation Republican Party (PR), 300–301 Research, future, 353–366; directions, 355–366; elites/entitlement, 359–361; identification of assumptions, 354–355; interest groups and, 331–363; policing and, 357–359; refining questions, 353–354; urban form (built environment) and, 363–366 Revolução Constitucionalista Paulista, 300, 323(n3) Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD). See Partido de la Revolución Democrática Rio de Janiero, 23; political institutions and third wave democracy, 13; population, 7, 8–9 Rió de la Plata, 68–69 Ríos Montt, Efraín, 144–146, 149–151 Rivera, Diego, 231 RMSP. See Metropolitan Region of São Paulo RN. See National Renovation Rodríguez Perozo, Johan, 111 Rojas Pinilla, Gustavo, 60(n4), 61(n16) Roosevelt, Franklin D., 170–171 Rospigliosi, Fernando, 209 Ruiz Cortines, Adolpho, 234

405

Sáenz Peña Law, 71–73 Salim Maluf, Paulo, 303 Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, 245 Salizar Gómez, Roberto, 44 San Martín, Ramón Grau, 171, 172 Sanchez Cerro, Luís, 199 Sanín, Noemí, 61(n16) Santiago, 265–295 (See also Chile national politics); area municipalities (comunas), 265–266, 267–268, 269, 287, 293, 295(n2), 295(n6); barrio alto and, 266–269, 283, 290–291; centrality of, 276–277; colonial period to 1973, 271–273, 295(n3); conclusions on, 288–294; corruption and, 273; decentralization and, 265–271, 277–285, 286–289, 293–294; democracy and, 265, 270, 272–277, 281–285; elites and, 269, 272–276, 278, 286, 290–294, 335; GNP and, 265; interest groups and, 291–294, 342; mayors, 266, 272–273, 278–280, 288–294, 295(n7), 331; municipal councils and, 273–274, 295(n4), 295(n7), 331; policing, 291, 333; population, 8–9, 265, 268; public services, 283–284, 287; taxation and, 276, 287; third wave democracy and, 13; transportation systems, 287; urban built environments and, 271, 289–291, 349, 352 Santiago World Trade Center, 290 São Paulo, 23, 297–323, 331 (See also Brazil national politics); budget/economics, 301, 306–309, 311–312, 314–315, 318–319; civic forum, 316–318; clientelism vs. democracy and, 310–316, 319–320, 320–321, 323(n1), 323(n2); conclusions on, 319–323; corruption and, 310–311, 312, 316; crime, 308, 323–324(n8); demographics of, 305–309; elites and, 297–299, 303, 322–323, 341–342; federal interventors and, 301–302; flooding in, 318–319; GNP and, 306, 309; grassroots organizations and, 305, 315, 319, 323(n4), 323(n5); Greater ABC District, 305, 317–318; historical overview, 299–304; housing, 308–309;

406

INDEX

introduction to, 297–299; jobs and, 309, 318–319; mayors, 300, 301, 321–322, 345, 348–349; metropolitan region (RMSP) of, 305–307, 308–309, 313–315, 323(n6), 323(n7); municipal assembly (câmara), 312–313, 331; policing, 321, 333; population, 7, 8–9, 308, 324(n9); poverty and, 308–309; third wave democracy and, 13; transportation systems, 303, 324(n10); urban built environments and, 322, 349; waves of democracy and, 298–299 Sarmiento, Eduardo, 46 Scarpaci, Joseph, 185 Schwartz, Rosalie, 168–169 Seats of government, 7 Second reverse wave. See Waves of democracy Second wave of democratization. See Waves of democracy Secondary cities, 22–23 Security. See Policing Sentíes, Octavio, 239–240 Serenazgos, 209 Serrano, Jorge, 148, 150–151 Shining Path, 209, 220, 333 Silva Prado, Antônio da, 300 Silva Prado, Fábio da, 302 Simon Bolívar Center, 23 SINAMOS, 200, 210 Siquieros, David, 231 Siri, Emilio, 90–91 Sistema Nacional de Apoya a la Mobilización Social. See SINAMOS Slim, Carlos, 255 Social Christians (COPEI), 96, 102–105, 107–108, 114, 121, 126, 128 Social Democratic Party (PSD), 303 Socialist Party (PS), 78 Somos Lima, 215 Somos Perú, 215 Spain: Buenos Aires and, 68; Caracas and, 98; Guatemala City and, 134, 136; Havana and, 163–166; historical influence of, 5–6 Special Period in Time of Peace, 163, 182–186 Suárez Lastra, Facundo, 81

Suárez, Xavier, 189 Superior mayoralty (alcaldía mayor), 121–123, 329 Tamborini, José P, 75 Themes of change, 12–25 Third wave democracy, 8–9, 12–27, 350, 352 (See also individual cities); capital city political institutions and, 13; global capitalism and, 12; neighborhood associations and, 12; overview, 8–9; themes of change and, 12–27 Toledo, Alejandro, 208, 209 Trans-Milenio project, 41, 47, 51–52, 54, 62(n30) Ubico, Jorge, 136, 139–140 UCR. See Radical Civil Union UD. See Unión Democrática UDI. See Unión Democráta Independiente UDN. See National Democratic Union União Democrática Nacional (UDN). See National Democratic Union Unión Cívica Radical (UCR). See Radical Civil Union Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI), 280, 282 Unión Democrática (UD), 75 Unión Nacionalista, 170 Unitary states, 18 United Left (IU), 194, 214, 222 University Student Directorate (DEU), 171 Urban built environments, 22–25, 348–353 (See also specific cities); casco central and, 351–353; conclusions on, 348–353; future research, 363–366; modernization and, 24; multi-layered, 22; political attributes of, 22; reduced meaning of, 24; second reverse wave and, 23–24; third wave democracy and, 24–25 Urbanization, 18 Urrea, Emilio, 38 Uruchurtu, Ernesto, 259–260(n5), 260–261; Alemán, Miguel and, 259(n4); elites and, 27(n14);

INDEX

presidential influence on, 27(n10), 234–238, 262(n15), 328 Valdivia, Pedro de, 271 Valenzuela, Arturo, 274 Valera, Raúl, 103, 130(n12) Vallecaucanos, 42 Valorization taxes, 45–46 Vamos Vecinos, 201, 215 Vargas, Getúlio, 301–302, 303, 322 Velasco Alvarado, Juan, 199–200, 210, 220 Velásquez, Ramón J., 120 Venezuela national politics (See also Caracas): AD and, 96, 102–109, 114–115, 126, 128; constitution of 1999, 96, 109; COPEI and, 96, 102–105, 107–108, 114, 121, 126, 128; independence of, 98 Vereadores (council members), 312–313, 314 Viceroyalty, 6; Buenos Aires and, 68

407

Villas miserias (slums), 77, 80 Violence. See Crime Waves of democracy, 4, 8–12, 27(n5), 27(n6) (See also specific cities; Third wave democracy); first, 8–9; Lima, Peru and, 194, 196–202; second, 8–11, 22, 349; second reverse, 8–9, 11–12, 14, 349; second reverse wave and, 17, 23–24 Wells, Sumner, 170–171 Workers Party (PT), 304, 310–312, 314, 316 World Bank, 48, 57, 251 Ydigoras Fuentes, Miguel, 144 Yoshiyama, Jaime, 215 Yrigoyen, Hipólito, 71–74 Zaldívar, Andrés, 289 Zedillo, Ernesto, 250 Zubiría, Rafael de, 38, 61(n26)

About the Book

As Latin America’s new democratic regimes have decentralized, the region’s capital cities—and their elected mayors—have gained increasing importance. Capital City Politics in Latin America tells the story of these cities: how they are changing operationally, how the empowerment of mayors and other municipal institutions is exacerbating political tensions between local executives and regional and national entities, and how the cities’ growing significance affects traditional political patterns throughout society. The authors weave a tapestry that illustrates the impact of local, national, and transnational power relations on the strategies available to Latin America’s capital city mayors as they seek to transform their greater influence into desired actions. David J. Myers is associate professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University. He has published extensively on both Venezuela and Brazil. Henry A. Dietz is professor of political science at the University of Texas. His recent publications include Urban Poverty, Political Participation, and the State: Lima, 1970–1990.

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