Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean: Democratic Purgatory and the Viability of Consolidated Democratic Regimes 3031384806, 9783031384806

Citation preview

Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean Democratic Purgatory and the Viability of Consolidated Democratic Regimes Christopher M. Brown

Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean

Christopher M. Brown

Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean Democratic Purgatory and the Viability of Consolidated Democratic Regimes

Christopher M. Brown Department of Political Science & International Studies Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-38480-6 ISBN 978-3-031-38481-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For Jeneane And for Ciara and Declan, And also for Gator, who was present at the creation.

Preface

This book aspires to address a curious gap in the literature on democratization: understating how democracies might breakdown through democratic means. The summer prior to my undergraduate studies at the University of Florida I had the opportunity to live in Venezuela amid the turmoil that led to the un-making of their democracy. The experience profoundly influenced me throughout the extended journey of earning my BA in Political Science. After working in politics, I returned to graduate school to study political development in the region. Working mainly in the insular Caribbean, I struggled to understand the deep commitment to democratic norms and principles of populations that are so abused by their politicians. I began to wonder what it would take for a society deeply committed to democracy to constitutionally evict not just poor representatives but their entire system. And, then it happened. Venezuelans elected Hugo Chávez on his promise to end the country’s long-standing consolidated democracy. Non-constitutional efforts to provoke democratic breakdown were unsuccessful because they were not a legitimate medium for regime change. Breakdown could only come about through free and fair elections. This is not something that is addressed in the literature on consolidated democracies. The discovery of Democratic Purgatory that arose from the heuristic case study of Venezuelan collapse is illustrative to understanding how democracies must adapt to the general will of the people or become undone.

vii

viii

PREFACE

Heuristic case studies are common in the social sciences, their utility rests in their explanatory power. The rise and fall of Venezuelan democracy contain an intriguing narrative that elucidates how consolidated democracies can fail through democratic means. The objective of this monograph is to explain how these political developments have arisen, to provide evidentiary cases that represent the occurrences of democratic purgatory, and to supplement the existing theoretical outline that informs the study of democratization. The structure of this book is as follows: The introduction offers a discussion of the expectations of democratic regimes in the post-modern era, following the second world war; Chapter 1 describes the context in which Venezuelan democracy had been completely lost; Chapter 2 charts the development of democratization through its many phases; Chapter 3 serves as the framework for understanding the theoretical claims for political regime changes, transitions, and the possibilities for consolidation; Chapter 4 is the heuristic case study of Venezuela explaining how the country went from being a shining example of Latin American democracy to a global pariah state; Chapter 5 examines the construction of democratic purgatory in Venezuela; Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 provide the additional case studies of Colombia and its National Front and Nicaragua and the Sandinistas; Chapter 8 builds a more complete theoretical framework for the study of democratization through the inclusion of democratic purgatory regimes; Chapter 9 concludes the monograph with a discussion of the importance of representation and adaptability to cultivate healthy democratic regimes. Statesboro, USA

Christopher M. Brown

Acknowledgments

With love, all things are possible. Without the loving support of my family to embark on this foolish academic journey, I would not have the opportunity to earn a living by putting thoughts to a page. Above anyone and everyone, I owe the most profound gratitude to my wife and best friend, Jeneane. My incredible children, Ciara and Declan, who help me each day to remember to take joy in the little things and to keep singing, however silly the lyrics may be. Sadly, this man’s best friend, Gator, did not outlive my writing delays. He was always beside the desk or ready for a walk when I needed to clear my thoughts. A monograph is not a short-term project and so I would be remiss if I did not repeat my admiration for scholars who have contributed willingly or unknowingly in indulging my academic passions. In no particular order, a sincere “thank you” to the following enablers: John F. Clark, Harry D. Gould, Nicholas Greenwood Onuf, Ken I. Boodhoo, and Astrid Arrarás, (Florida International University); Angela Kachuyevski and Warren Haffar (Arcadia University); Damian J. Fernandez (Warren Wilson College); Karen Weekes (Pennsylvania State University); Michael Hooper (Temple University), Lisa M. Samuel (NYU), William Kelso (University of Florida), Elisabeth Prügl (University of Geneva), and Zachary Karazsia (Valdosta State University). I would like to thank the Department of Political Science and International Studies at Georgia Southern University for their support and for hiring me for a tenure-track position. I owe a debt to Dr. Jacek

ix

x

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Lubecki, for his encouragement throughout my entire experience at GSU. Special recognition is also due to my Department Chair, Barry Balleck for his continued support and collegiality. A professor’s professional life is a lonely one; I am happy to have a few kind-hearted colleagues. For their unconditional patience and stead-fast support, I need to thank the editorial team at Palgrave-Macmillan, specifically Alina Yurova and Ashwini Elango. Thank you for taking a chance on an unknown kid.

About This Book

This research addresses the breakdown of consolidated democratic systems via constitutional overthrow. Venezuela’s failed democracy presents an ideal heuristic case employed to outline how consolidated democratic political systems can suffer a democratic breakdown through “democratic means.” The monograph illuminates a phenomenon known as “democratic purgatory” that pre-disposes democracies to fail. The political trajectory of Colombia and Nicaragua are offered as additional cases. The implications of the present research on democratic purgatory have real-world applications for those political systems that are currently transitioning and/or consolidating their democracies as well. The key lesson for democratization is the need for the promotion of regime adaptability based upon representation and governability defined by regime stability.

xi

Contents

1

Introduction to Democratic Purgatory Setting the Stage The Inviolability of Consolidation Democratic Failures During Transition Democratic Breakdowns in the Literature Outlining a Heuristic Why Venezuela? Legitimacy and Effectiveness Building Theory The Plan of the Book Bibliography

1 1 3 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13

2

Democracy’s End: A Tale of Two Referenda Dreams, Deferred Punto Fijo’s Last Stand A Tale of Two Democracies The Only Game in Town Same Game, New Rules Democratic Breakdown Through Democratic Means Bibliography

15 15 17 19 20 21 22 24

3

Operationalizing Democratization Points of Departure Operationalizing Democracy Architects of the New World Order

27 27 28 29 xiii

xiv

CONTENTS

The Experience of Modernization Breaking It Down: Transitologists and Stages of Transition The Transitions Project Democratization and Consolidation Tracing the Ideal Bibliography

32 35 36 37 37 40

4

The Blueprint for Democratization Influence of Prior Regime Type Authoritarian Regimes Regime Solidarity Regime Disunity On Liberalization The Ruling Elites “Modes of Transition” from Authoritarian Rule How Political Systems Transition (in the Abstract) Foundational Pacts Democratic Consolidation Becoming Consolidated Democratic Failures Break Down from Democratic External Pressures Democratic Breakdown by Internal Pressures Reconciling Democratic Breakdowns Bibliography

43 45 46 48 51 52 53 54 56 58 59 61 62 63 64 65 68

5

From Exemplar to Pariah: The Heuristic Case of Venezuela’s Breakdown From Exemplar to Pariah Illustrative Case Study of Venezuela Pre-Democratic History in Brief: Nation-State Building Liberalization to Democratization (1935–1958) Failed Democratic Experiment and Democratic Learning Pacted Transition: The Pacts of Punto Fijo Foundational Pact of Venezuelan Democracy Accommodation and Exclusion Democratization (1959–1973) Rules of the Game Democratic Elections and Power Transfers Consolidation Democracy in the Consolidation Phase (1974–1987)

69 69 72 72 74 76 80 84 86 89 89 91 92 94

CONTENTS

xv

Deepening Democracy Democratic Breakdown (1987–1998) Chavismo (1998–2000s) Bibliography

94 99 103 108

Institutionalizing Instability: Prologue to a Farce or Tragedy Venezuela as a Failed Democracy Venezuela as Another Latin American “Democracy” Five Patterns of Democratic Breakdown Why Venezuelan Democracy Failed Structural/Economic Factors Political/Institutional Factors Political Cultural/Political Learning Factors Democratic Failure Through Democratic Means Democratic Purgatory Democratic Breakdown in Venezuela Wither Representation? Bibliography

111 111 112 114 116 117 120 122 124 128 130 132 136

7

The Long Shadow of Colombia’s National Front Era Chapter Overview Introduction to Colombian Political Development Independence War of the Supremos Nueva Granada to La Rebelión The War of the Thousand Days to La Violencia Modernization and Internationalization La Violencia Classical Dictatorship The National Front Era Consolidation of Democratic Purgatory Convivencia, Again Democratization Conclusion Bibliography

139 139 139 143 145 147 149 151 154 156 157 159 160 162 163 166

8

Democratic Purgatory and Dictatorships in Nicaragua Chapter Overview Introduction to Nicaraguan Political Development

167 167 168

6

xvi

9

CONTENTS

Spanish Governance Independence Foreign Intervention in the Age of Imperialism The Rise of the Nicaraguan National Guard Somoza and Civil War Family Legacy 1972 Earthquake and Corruption Sandinistas and Civil War Transitional Government American Obstructionism and the Contra War Democratic Transition: Foundational Election of 1984 Turnover of Party Control in the Election of 1990 Democratic Consolidation: Two-Turnover Test Democratic Breakdown Orteguismo: Sultanism in Nicaragua Conclusion Bibliography

169 170 171 176 177 179 180 181 184 187 188 190 192 194 196 198 203

Democratic Purgatory Introduction to Democratic Purgatory Democracy’s Structure of Representation Modeling Democratic Purgatory Phases of Democratization: Democratic Purgatory Phase One: Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Phase Two: Honeymoon/Learning Phase Phase Three: Institutionalization Institutionalizing Instability Democratic Regime Types Type A: Legitimate and Effective (Toward Consolidated Democracy) Type B: Legitimate and Not Effective (Transitional Democracy) Type C: Effective, But Not Legitimate (Democratic Purgatory) Type D: Not Effective and Not Legitimate (Proto-Democracy or Twilight Democracy) Phase Four: Consolidation of Regime Types Consolidating Democratic Purgatory Regimes Bibliography

205 205 208 210 210 210 215 219 220 221 221 223 224 227 228 230 234

CONTENTS

10

Conclusion: Representing the General Will The Right to Govern Situating the Study Within a Larger Context Democratic Breakdowns Revisited Bibliography

Index

xvii

235 235 242 243 248 251

About the Author

Christopher M. Brown who holds a Doctorate in International Relations from Florida International University, is a faculty member at Georgia Southern University’s Department of Political Science and International Studies. His primary research agenda addresses normative issues of democratization and democracy theory, particularly regarding representation and policy implementation.

xix

List of Tables

Table 6.1 Table 9.1

Goals of the Bolivarian Revolution (MVR) Democratic Regime Types

130 221

xxi

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Democratic Purgatory

Setting the Stage Stepping away from actively managing political campaigns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I chose to pursue a graduate degree in International Relations with the goal of promoting interest articulation via representation in developing countries. Democratization (or the process of crafting and deepening democracy) is the primary normative context for geopolitics today, and the driving force for me as a political operative was to enhance representation in quantity (e.g., increased voter registrations, election turnout through outreach, and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) initiatives) and quality (e.g., articulation of interests, political transparency, effective policymaking). The euphoria of the post-Soviet collapse and the promise of a new wave of consolidating democracies was palpable in the literature of my studies. Skepticism existed; as it should in all the sciences, but it was often reserved for only a handful of failed states. Political systems that were too authoritarian and/or had political cultures too illiberal were a notoriously elite club who escaped meaningful discussion of a transition toward democracy. For consolidated democracies, talk of a “democratic rollback” was cautionary. Only flawed democracies still needed guide rails; consolidated democracies were in a league all their own, resplendent in the triumphalism of Fukuyama’s inspired, “The End of History and the Last Man.”1 Failure was for states who were attempting to make the difficult transition to democracy, not ones that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_1

1

2

C. M. BROWN

were already consolidated. In the Caribbean, where the European colonial reverence for democratic norms and representative governance had been deeply institutionalized prior to independence, democracy scores are quite high—often on par with those earned by the United States. For example, according to the most recent Democracy Index (2022), the United States (7.85) and Trinidad and Tobago (7.16) and Jamaica (7.13) have remarkably similar scores and all three are currently considered to be flawed democracies.2 Despite a troubled past, Latin American democracies made significant strides in the latter part of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century as well. Uruguay (8.91), Chile (8.22), and Costa Rica (8.29) have very high-quality democracies; other regimes have made significant progress in the twenty-first century (Argentina, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, and Suriname) have all increased their scores over the past 15 years of the study.3 And yet, the realities on the ground reveal a curious contrast: the political culture of most Caribbean states is deeply committed to the ideals of democratic governance; however, democratic government across the region is not particularly effective. In modern democracies, popular sovereignty is expressed through the structure of representation that exists in each political regime. Therefore, the viability of a democratic political regime rests upon the adaptability of the regime’s structure of representation. There is an incongruity between the legitimacy of democracy and its effectiveness in the region. This widening gap led me to consider a democratic taboo: Under what conditions might an electorate overthrow its democracy through democratic processes? It seems hard to imagine that a democratic breakdown could emerge through electoral and constitutional channels; it is surely the nightmare scenario that keeps scholars of liberalism awake at night. A consolidated democratic regime must be dynamically stable; it must retain the quintessential requirement of adaptability. And yet, most consolidated democratic regimes are static, unresponsive, and ineffective in providing and addressing the demands of their citizens. Scholars of democratization have cultivated a menagerie of terms to describe political systems that deviate from the ideal. And yet, there is a teleology embedded in the liberal tradition, reinforced by the aspirations of the modernization literature that offers democratization the weight of determinism. The litany of adjectives for describing less-thanperfect democratic regimes seems to reflect a discipline-wide subconscious belief that democracy is inevitable and imperfect. It is as if the ideal is too difficult to achieve, and so literature has simply come to demand less

1

INTRODUCTION TO DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

3

of these flawed regimes. Democracy can express itself in unusual ways, but for it to become a truly consolidated and perennial regime it must maintain its existential foundation on representation. Governability is not democracy. There are challenges to be sure at all levels of political institutionalization, but once a democracy completes a transition and can be said to be “consolidated” then there is no alternative to the operational reinforcement of democratic norms leading to a feedback loop which further buttresses the system. There is no turning back, at least not by choice. Democracies are supposed to be self-correcting over time; citizens are supposed to be capable of creating a government that reflects their collective will. But, what if the reinforcing norms of the democratic regime fail to maintain their adaptability? Citizens who maintain a deep commitment to democratic values might come to realize that inflexible bureaucratic governance violates the core principles of democratic consent. What if a constituency was so committed to democratic procedures and norms that the only prudent way to overthrow their democracy was by a public vote? It seemed inconceivable that the citizens of a consolidated democracy would vote to remove their political system. Until it happened.

The Inviolability of Consolidation This book attempts to fill the academic space that neglected to explain why relatively stable democratic regimes have suffered democratic breakdowns arising from the “general will” of sincere democratic voters. The book asks the blunt question, under what conditions might an electorate overthrow its democracy through democratic processes? To offer a reasonable answer, it is necessary to discuss the embedded theoretical claims that inform the understanding of democratization and to place them into the real-world political histories of regimes whose remarkable breakdowns have been given too little scrutiny. There is something missing from our broader expectations for consolidated regimes. The very nature of a consolidated regime makes it immune to breakdown from within; in other words, being consolidated means that the rules of the political game have already been codified and accepted by elites as well as the public. Politics determine the people, issues, and where an agency can be found, but the regime in which these are embedded remains beyond critique. To be sure, there are always detractors and would-be tyrants, but the political culture of democracy is too overwhelming to give those forces any meaningful space. Far above the rabble, high-minded liberal

4

C. M. BROWN

elites can abide a hypothetical tolerance for all perspectives as being a necessary condition for democratic participation, but the organization of illiberal constituents can fester into a real and tangible threat. The literature on democratic breakdowns anticipates the threat from antidemocratic forces. But like a coastal fortification that aims its battery toward the sea, not enough attention has been afforded to threats from another direction. Consolidation, following Linz and Stepan (1996), “refers to the embedding of democratic procedures into the infrastructure as a whole so that that system is secure and is generally seen as the appropriate way of organizing political life…when no alternative methods of organizing politics are seen as appropriate replacements of the democratic process.”4 Consolidation rests upon the conviction that democracy is “appropriate” for the value system of the individual and/or that the “rules” are the best way to structure society. At its fundamental level, consolidation is a function of legitimacy and/or effectiveness of the democratic regime. As a process, consolidation helps to deepen the norms that frame the regime, and citizens are overtaken with an awareness that democracy is the “only game in town.”5 Consolidation in practice occurs when democracy becomes routinized and institutionalized in social and psychological life so that citizens can take it for granted in making most of their life’s decisions. Linz and Stepan expand consolidation into three overlapping dimensions: behavioral (people behave in accordance with democratic norms), attitudinal (where the legitimacy of democratic norms remains unchallenged), and constitutional (where the rule of law is applied universally to all members of society regardless of position).6 The political processes of consolidation reveal a miraculous metamorphosis that turns the hungry caterpillar of authoritarianism into the butterfly of egalitarianism. Once taken flight, it cannot voluntarily go back to an earlier stage. The only way that truly consolidated democracy ought to be undone is by force; a free people do not willingly resign their political rights. And yet, as the world watched, Venezuela did exactly that. The horrors that have been visited upon the people of Venezuela and continue to antagonize their descendants have occurred as direct consequences of elections, referenda, and the legal dismantling of democratic safeguards. The current work provides an understanding of how it happened. Furthermore, by putting Venezuela’s democratic breakdown into the larger theoretical construct of democratization, it becomes clear that it was not an exceptional event.

1

INTRODUCTION TO DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

5

Democratic Failures During Transition The existing scholarship on democratization lays claim to two deeply mined areas of scholarship that address the demise of democracy. The Venezuelan case simply does not fit into either of these categories of explanation. Before getting too far along in the journey of democracy’s unlikely rise and even more unexpected collapse, it is helpful to demonstrate the gap between understanding and social reality. The starting point for understanding democratic failures focuses on where in the overall process a breakdown occurs, if only for the sake of clarifying a complex phenomenon. The literature on democratization has been successful in explaining democratic failures in the case of failed or incomplete transitions ; these are failures that occur early in the process of transition, in which nondemocratic political systems are attempting to transition to a democratic regime yet suffer a set back that thwarts these efforts. When states have proceeded a bit further in the process of democratization to the point of having undergone a transition, and then experienced a failure, these phenomena are known as “failed democratic experiments .”7 Once a transition has occurred, the process of consolidation begins in perpetuity. After the completed transition, should a democratic regime suffer a collapse, the phase democratic breakdown is used in the literature. Recognizing the conceptual importance of understanding the distinction between failed transitions and failed consolidations, this work focuses on regimes that are determined to have suffered a failure after having created, nurtured, and maintained robust consolidated democracies. It is useful to maintain these distinctions in the larger schematics of democratic failure, so that when the term “democratic breakdown” is employed in the literature, it is reserved for failures that occur once regimes are consolidated. It must also be distinctly understood that this work addresses democratic breakdowns. The democratization literature has a strong record of scholarship on modelling how democratic breakdowns occur at the hands of nondemocratic forces (i.e., conquest by foreign enemies or by internal nondemocratic opposition). In brief, a consolidated democracy is overthrown by forces either within or outside of the democracy and is undone. Illustrative cases found throughout the history of the democratic literature may be the fall of Democratic Athens or Nazi Germany’s occupation of France and its division of Czechoslovakia following the Munich Agreement. The literature could not have started with a bigger bogeyman:

6

C. M. BROWN

the collapse of the Weimar Republic and its descent into Hitler’s Reich. While the comparisons are tempting and salacious to be sure, there are concerns about putting too much faith in Weimar as a consolidated democracy. Suffice to say here at the onset, existing scholarship has done yeoman’s service in drawing the distinction between the types of democratic collapse as a function of where these occur in the overall process expected for regimes along the continuum of democratization. Furthermore, democratic breakdowns (those suffered by consolidated regimes) are found to be in the hands of forces that are antithetical to the regime (i.e., anti-democratic) often at the tip of the spear.

Democratic Breakdowns in the Literature The breakdown of democracy by internal nondemocratic opposition rests upon the overthrow of a democratically elected government, usually in the form of a coup d’état. These have often taken the form of a militaryled coup where members of the armed forces of a given political system enter the political realm to take control, thereby subverting the democratically elected government. However, democracies may not only be forcibly overturned by those in positions of authority or those whose justification for usurpation is given by their position as a member within the existing state. Putsches are defined as an overthrow of a standing government by non-state groups within a given political society, and their causes are also well-documented in the existing literature. What is missing is an explanation of consolidated democratic regimes that breakdown through democratic processes. These regimes are found to be in a condition referred to as Democratic Purgatory. What makes a discussion of the breakdown of democracy through democratic means problematic is that it lacks the explosiveness of a military coup. It is difficult to determine at what point a democracy has come undone “democratically.” What passes as the normal function of a democracy that claims no right to rule outside of the consent of its citizenry may mask a deeper shift away from democracy but be seen only as the expression of popular will. Or what may seem like a dangerous flirtation with autocracy may be an accurate projection of popular sentiment in response to a perceived societal need. At the time of this writing, investigators are piecing together the subversive political forces behind the January 6th Insurrection (2021) in the United States in which President Donald J. Trump attempted to prevent Congress from certifying his electoral defeat

1

INTRODUCTION TO DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

7

by coordinating his disgruntled extremist and conspiratorial supporters to assault the US Capitol. A related concern is the need to limit subjectivity in determining when a democracy has in fact been subverted to the point of a breakdown. It might be less obvious that democracy has been undermined where it has been done so through constitutional measures. The issue arises in cases when forces hostile to the existing democratic political system gain access to the political system, and in doing so they acquire legitimate means to subvert it. However, in cases where hostile groups have sought to overturn the existing order and later have been invited to participate in that order, they have failed to maintain their revolutionary zeal. History has shown that antagonistic groups can become co-opted by offers of inclusion. Anti-establishmentarian populism in practical terms has had a limited impact in established democracies, although it is worth noting that the threat has increased in recent years. Historically, the most virulent mobilizations have always been converted into forces that are easily coopted and/or accommodated by more adaptable representation systems. In other words, to speak meaningfully of democratic breakdown in the face of populism, there must be a visible differentiation between the old democratic order and the new order ushered in by the agents of populism. The visibility of these changes may be ideological, structural, or constitutional, but they should reflect the substantive difference between the old and new regimes.

Outlining a Heuristic Democracy is about human social relations and the decisions made by, for, and of the people really do have real-world impacts. As an object of study, it requires more than philosophy; scholars ought to provide a grounded context. As the study of democracy has evolved over time, methodologies have grown closer to practice than wrestling with proof claims based on abstract logic. Today, a prudent understanding of democratic breakdowns can be acquired through an investigation of the political history of a regime with an eye toward gleaning from it a set of concepts that will exceed the case itself. The mighty case study succeeds through both detail and distillation: this is known as the heuristic case study method. To draw the conclusions contained within this monograph, Venezuela has reluctantly offered itself up as an ideal heuristic for illustrating how democracies breakdown through democratic means. Heuristic case studies

8

C. M. BROWN

begin like other case studies that seek to describe the historical trajectory of the political system as it has evolved over time; where they stand apart is that they seek to draw lessons which are applicable beyond the original case. In short, the heuristic case study method was designed to identify hypotheses based upon the specifics of the case. Instead of seeing cases as unique only to themselves, the heuristic grants both local significance (understanding the uniqueness of Venezuela’s political development), but also draws out more pivotal elements upon which the configurative elements have hinged, i.e., what lessons can be drawn from the Venezuelan case that may be applicable elsewhere? By identifying these structural components of the Venezuelan case, they can provide a benchmark for examining cases that may appear to have similar structural markers.

Why Venezuela? Venezuela has been selected purposely because it has experienced a democratic breakdown through democratic means. The collapse of the Punto Fijo democracy and the transition to a Bolivarian Republic under Chávez’s rule represents a significant political shift that does not fit gently with existing democratic theory. Venezuela’s democratic breakdown has not come by foreign conquest, military coup, or an aborted attempt at democratic transition. Venezuelan democracy has suffered a breakdown by democratic means. This phenomenon raises interesting questions in the understanding of democratic failure that are not addressed in the wider literature. The uncomfortable silence from the field of democratization on the failure of democracy outside of conquest, coup, or immature transition begs further investigation into this issue. And yet, academics provide a rough treatment of Venezuela’s political history. Scholars have alternatively discovered that Venezuela was as wildly successful democracy and a spectacular failure owing to a unique arrangement of circumstances that make Venezuela seem extraordinary. Its exceptionalism is most often ascribed to its unique economic dependence on oil rents, its party structure, and/or a peculiarity found in the political culture. Over the span of 50 years, it was lauded as a gleaming example of how Latin American democracies can thrive and lamented as just another failed Latin American democracy that fell to populism. It has been discounted as both exceptional and typical.

1

INTRODUCTION TO DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

9

Viewing the Venezuela case through the lens of democratic theory provides a more enlightening and purposeful explanation of democratic breakdown. The collapse of Venezuelan democracy was due to its success. Venezuela was neither exceptional nor typical; it was representative of a particular type of consolidated democratic regime that is not fully appreciated. It is critical to examination the way Venezuela failed to really grasp how deeply the democratic norms had penetrated society. The heuristic reveals that the unlikely triumph of Venezuela’s consolidated democracy also cultivated a resistance to adaptation. Political and military elites created a democratic system whereby full political participation was discouraged by the unwillingness of those in power to accept or incorporate new political actors. Over time, the regime could not acclimate to a widening lack of fit between the general will of the voters and the expectations of their democracy. The structural relationships gleaned from the Venezuelan case have revealed a phenomenon that shows that the type of consolidation that a regime undergoes is often linked to those forces that serve to provide the basis for democracy during the period of transition. In Venezuela, the functional arrangements made to establish modern socio-political systems have also served to institutionalize the powerful interests present at its foundation. Representation was increasingly sacrificed; political parties lost their claim to represent the interests of the electorate. Venezuelan collapse was a dispute over an incongruency between the general will of the people and the institutions assigned to translate that will into governance. As a result of the political system being co-opted through the dominance of political parties whose interests were institutionalized as the basis for the creation of the democratic structure, alternative perspectives for policy positions were subverted. Committed to democratic norms, Venezuela’s well-intentioned electorate did what they had to do: they voted out their democracy.

Legitimacy and Effectiveness The stability of democracy depends upon both the effectiveness and the legitimacy of the regime. Effectiveness is defined in terms of “actual performance, the extent to which the system satisfies the basic functions of government as most of the population and such powerful groups within it … see them.”8 Regime effectiveness has an instrument character among students of political science through Harold Lasswell’s well-echoed phrase “who gets what.”9 Whereby demands are met or at least satisfied to the

10

C. M. BROWN

degree that the system is still understood to be effective in its distribution of societal goods. Measuring effectiveness rests upon not only that societal goods are distributed in a way that satisfies demands but also matters a great deal how those goods are distributed and whose demands are addressed. The structure of representation matters. In a democracy, requited representation is at the heart of both legitimacy and effectiveness, so a nondemocratic regime may be effective and fail to be representative, but a democratic regime cannot. If effectiveness rests upon meeting demands, then democratic effectiveness includes the additional requirement of meeting the demands of a citizenry by ensuring that their will is congruent with their governing institutions as well as the actions of their leaders. Legitimacy rests upon whether the citizens of a democracy find that the present system best corresponds with their core beliefs, values, and expectations, or at least offers a reasonable correspondence to these principles. Democratic institutions should cultivate, reinforce, and deepen norms that are congruent with the values of the society in which they operate. A dynamic of co-constitution intensifies society’s commitment to the established norms as well as how those norms are embedded in the structures and continually internalized by the citizenry so that incongruencies are adulterated. Where effectiveness and/or legitimacy are absent, agents within the system should work to ameliorate the structure to suit their interests. While it would be naïve to argue that opposition groups do not exist that seek to challenge existing institutions from outside socially acceptable processes, the structure of political institutions in a consolidated democracy ought to be supported by most of the population and powerful groups, and therefore must be perceived as effective and legitimate (this is consistent with the underlying acquiescence through either tacit or expressed consent). This is how democratic consolidation occurs, and therefore, it is so difficult to imagine that citizens deeply committed to democratic norms would choose to undermine democracy. Democratic Purgatory And yet, Venezuelan voters did it. How democratic breakdown occurred in Venezuela highlights the interplay between effectiveness and legitimacy: it is possible that consolidated democracy can exhibit a paradox called “democratic purgatory.” This study demonstrates that the elements in society that function as direct participants in the establishment of a democratic political system can maintain their position in the new order through an expansion of their ability to meet popular demands through clientelist arrangements. While these corporatist groups

1

INTRODUCTION TO DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

11

may serve to facilitate social mobilization during the establishment of democratic regimes, they do so only as far as they can maintain social control of in-group membership without fully providing for representative democracy. Once these institutions become consolidated as key parts of the democratic structure, these corporatist arrangements provide for a type of unstable democratic purgatory: democracy is not fully representative, yet it is not completely unresponsive to the demands of the electorate. Democratic Purgatory arises because of consolidation whereby the conditions upon which the regime rests remain inflexible to change. In pursuing stability over flexibility, democratic consolidation tends to suffer a system-wide loss of representation over time. It is a direct consequence of the lack of adaptability in democratic purgatorial regimes that provides the conditions under which democracy can breakdown through democratic means.

Building Theory This work introduces the larger theoretical expectations of researchers of democracy and finds that something is missing. Venezuela’s democratic breakdown cannot be accounted for in the existing literature, and it becomes an ideal heuristic through which to demonstrate democratic purgatory. Once the structural elements surrounding the sole case study are outlined, the methodological focus shifts from a question of reliability to one of utility. The larger case of Venezuelan breakdown is supplemented with two additional cases in which democratic purgatory has occurred. The “building block” technique offers an even greater degree of confidence in the hypotheses gleaned from a limited number of cases.10 The building block approach consists of performing a series of heuristic case studies which are representative of an observable phenomenon. Because it allows the researcher to move beyond a single case and to analyze cases using the method of “controlled comparison” it is ideal for building theoretical claims build on real-world experiences.11 To promote a higher degree of confidence in the propositions, multiple cases are deployed and so the theoretical claims are constructed in seriatim.12 To demonstrate the utility of the heuristic derived from the Venezuelan breakdown, I show how Democratic Purgatory has also occurred in other political systems in the region. In the wake of La Violencia, Colombian elites came together to protect their waning control over the country’s political economy. To do so, they established a series of agreements that

12

C. M. BROWN

became known as The National Front. Exclusive, democratic, and stable democratic purgatory under the National Front framework has had grave consequences for the Colombian state decades after the official agreements had run their course. After years of warfare, Nicaragua became an unlikely democracy as well. However, the structure of the consolidated regime was incapable of adapting, and when challenged became more authoritarian rather than expand representation. The political trajectory of Venezuela, Colombia, and Nicaragua and their experiences with democratic purgatory are discussed in later chapters.

The Plan of the Book The scope of the present work is a study of a consolidated democratic political system that has undergone a democratic breakdown through “democratic means.” This monograph has objectives that ought to be revealed at the start. I aim to demonstrate that the present literature on democratic breakdown does not give space to the phenomena of democratic purgatory. Secondly, I place Venezuela democratic decline on exhibit as a deep case study on democratic purgatory a basis for heuristic comparison. Third, the lessons drawn from the conditions of democratic purgatory in Venezuela are not unique; they existed in other states, specifically Colombia and Nicaragua. Fourth, democratic purgatory has its proper place in the revised blueprint of democratization and democratic breakdown. Lastly, placed within a typology of democratic regimes, it should be easier to identify the political divergence between regime legitimacy and regime effectiveness to improve democratic quality more generally among consolidated democracies. Thus, the heuristic case offers a broader theoretical understanding which can be operationalized to provide a framework for understanding additional cases with a practical goal of deepening democratic representation and policy performance. The final chapters outline a more thorough framework for Democratic Purgatory to broaden the discussion of democratic regime types. A particular requirement for meaningfully deepening democracy is a structure of representation that is dynamically stable and inclusively adaptable. The conclusion offers additional considerations for expanding democratic theory and insight into new cases where democratic purgatory seems to exist.

1

INTRODUCTION TO DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

13

Notes 1. Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man (Harlow: Penguin Books, 1992). 2. Economist Intelligence Unit, Democracy Index 2022 (London: EIU, 2023), 14–15. The EIU ranks political regimes on a 10-point scale with scores closer to 10.0 representing higher-quality democracies. 3. Ibid., 15–16. 4. Graeme Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization: Elites, Civil Society, and the Transition Process (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 57. 5. Ibid., 235. 6. Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996), 5–6. 7. Clark, John F. The Failure of Democracy in the Republic of Congo (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008), 7. 8. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man; The Social Bases of Politics (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1981), 77. 9. Harold Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When and How (New York: McGraw Hill, 1936). 10. Harry Eckstein, Regarding Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), 143– 144. 11. Alexander L. George, “Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused, Comparison,” in Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy, ed. Paul Lauren (New York: Free Press, 1979), 51. 12. Harry Eckstein, Regarding Politics, 143–144.

Bibliography Clark, John F. The Failure of Democracy in the Republic of Congo. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008. Eckstein, Harry. Regarding Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992. Economist Intelligence Unit, Democracy Index 2022. London: EIU, 2023, 14– 15. Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Avon Books, 1992. George, Alexander L. “Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison.” In Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy, edited by Paul Lauren, 43–68. New York, NY: Free Press, 1979.

14

C. M. BROWN

Gill, Graeme. The Dynamics of Democratization: Elites, Civil Society, and the Transition Process. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Lasswell, Harold. Politics: Who Gets What, When and How. New York: McGraw Hill, 1936. Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Lipset, Seymour Martin. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1981.

CHAPTER 2

Democracy’s End: A Tale of Two Referenda

After we consolidate the victory and after we beat the opposition at the voting stations and in the streets, they will not dare [to] not recognize the triumph of the Bolivarian Revolution. —Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (2/ 12/2009)

Dreams, Deferred ¿Sí o No? Along the wide avenue named for the patriotic revolutionary who endeavored to liberate Venezuela from Spanish exploitation, a crimson convergence surged throughout the morning, pressing toward the stage straddling Simon Bolivar Avenue. Ordinary citizens filled the streets with hope for change. Some supporters traveled days across the country just to get a glimpse of their savior in person—they stood on benches, sat on window ledges, leaning into each other to better hear the former paratrooper, and failed coup leader’s nationalistic exhortations to participate in what would become a historic moment. Scattered clouds began to pass silently over the ceros surrounding the Caracas cityscape above an ocean of red hats, shirts, Venezuelan flags, and the din of chants, horns, and drums. Beyond the azure seas of the Caribbean, a fragment of the Andean cordillera rises along the northern coast. The surrounding ridges drop deeply and settle into an irregularly shaped central valley, which seemed to Francisco Fajardo, the Spanish mestizo conquistador, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_2

15

16

C. M. BROWN

invested in managing the exploitation of this region, an adequate location to provision expeditions for gold and slave-raiding deeper in the jungles of the empire. When it was established in 1557, great hope must have surrounded the governor in his career and his new town. It was not to last. Fajardo found himself in a dispute with more politically powerful adversaries, Spanish imperial officers of his father’s lineage who threatened his claims; however, it was the treatment of the indigenous groups of his maternal ancestry who ultimately rebelled against his governance, destroyed his city, and ended with his assassination.1 The town was rebuilt only to be destroyed again in 1566. Reconquest came swiftly in 1567, as the city was renamed Santiago de León de Caracas, reflecting the influences of its emergence. Twenty years after it rose to become the Capitol of the Spanish province of Venezuela (1577), English pirates ravaged it. The city grew slowly over time as it was periodically leveled several times over by earthquakes, such as those in 1755, 1812, and 1967.2 Today, shockwaves of a different source would require that capital and country would need to be entirely rebuilt. A husky man lumbered atop the stage, waving to his faithful legions, ´ The whole of Caracas seemed to Hugo ascended to the podium. “¡Sl!” be as cacophonous as a summer night above Catatumbo; chanting and beating drums joined a raucous chorus of trumpets and other horns. Scanning the audience with confident approval and tired eyes, he had become resplendent in the machinations of his orchestrated redemption. “¡Sí , Va!” This vote would come to have a profound impact on the trajectory of Venezuela’s prospect for democracy, but these were points for future academic discussions. It was too soon to imagine the violence that was to come. Too soon to think of these same streets bathed in red; not from waving flags, but in the blood of Venezuelan citizens whose crimes of protest were fueled by starvation. It was still too soon to pontificate on the collapse of Venezuelan society and the migration crises that would come to impact the entire hemisphere. It was still too soon to realize the kleptocratic authoritarianism that was to come, although in this case, there had been red flags. Red flags were waving from the streets to the rooftops in support of Hugo Chávez. This daily triumph was enough, for now. Por ahora. As in other Western cultures, El Día del Amor y Amistad in Venezuela was estranged from its bloody origins of Christian martyrdom and had become a very commercially successful celebration of love and friendship. The extravagances of simple gifts of affection are far too costly today,

2

DEMOCRACY’S END: A TALE OF TWO REFERENDA

17

as close to 80% of the county lives in extreme poverty.3 However, on the eve of Valentine’s Day in 2009, Chávez surrounded himself with a sea of admirers to ask for only one totem of his followers’ affection; the massive rally was only one small part of a coordinated campaign to regain the momentum of the movement known as Bolivarian Socialism. He was anxious but hopeful that the answer to his question would be “yes.” For Hugo Chávez’s social transformation to continue at pace, he needed this vote. In addition, to win it, he needed to do better among disenchanted Venezuelans. The exhausted opposition had only barely stopped him one time. The entire scenario must have generated a profound sense of déjà vu; the crux of the referendum had already been decided only a year and a half ago. Internal divisions mounting and resources thinning, the opposition had not been able to capitalize on their singular triumph. Chávez’s political machine only grew more menacing each time it felt threatened. With the old guard discredited, the opposition’s only cohesive loyalty hinged on their opposition to Chávez. They had no other unifying message in their defiance of the messianic Hugo. In 2009, it was a hard sell. Hugo’s supporters in red already believed in him, he was one of them—“El Corazón de la Patria.” He was among those who felt dispossessed by the traditional elites and denied access to the vast wealth of the country; he was one of those who suffered from being cheated of the Venezuelan Dream. Charismatically awakened Venezuelans who had grown tired of their democratic system wanted more. For Hugo to make good on those promises of change, he needed the votes to change the constitution—one he had engineered in 1999—so that he might be able to remain in the Presidential Palace of Miraflores long enough to deliver on them. This, he stated, would take at least until his self-selected abdication date of 2021, beyond the constitutional limitations on presidential terms.4 Surging amid the masses of citizens who saw in him a new vision that served all Venezuelans, not just those who made up the traditional political cliques and their privileged supplicants, Chávez beamed. “¡Sí , Va!” He would not lose this vote as he had in 2007. He would not lose again.

Punto Fijo’s Last Stand ¡No! In stopping the relentless march of Bolivarian Socialism in 2007, Venezuelan democracy was revived. After years of stinging defeats and the loss of power by traditional party politicians, the old defenders of Punto

18

C. M. BROWN

Fijo had all but lost hope. The blatant power grab to eliminate term limits gave urgent cause to rally the remnants of anti-Chavismo. The opposition, dressed in blue, marched arm-in-arm surging down Simon Bolivar Avenue only 15 months ago to reject a similar referendum. Aware that his presidency was limited under the 1999 Constitution to two six-year terms, a referendum calling for thirty-three critical reforms to promote his “21st Century Socialist” agenda was held in 2007. The opposition launched a rear-guard assault on these reforms by building an uneasy coalition of groups that would be impacted in one way or another by the scope of the proposed reforms. The opposition found a new life and a unified sense that things could be different. The opposition felt that they could wake up from the nightmare of Chávez and retake the political economy and the spoils it had always produced for its elites. From their surprising defeat in the 1998 Presidential election, anti-Chavismo parties witnessed a string of electoral defeats at the hands of Hugo’s political machine. These losses included not only the presidency but also the old Punto Fijo Constitution—the bedrock of the Venezuelan republic, the legislature, and countless deputies of government across a range of agencies. The old democracy was gone. The people had voted for something else when they elected Hugo. The politics of Punto Fijo poisoned the democratic well, and the people voted it out of existence. In that present moment, there was a flurry of talk as to whether Venezuela was still democratic and, if it was a democracy, what kind of democracy was it? However, Venezuela’s honored place in the democratic world was resistant to the forces of a traditional democratic breakdown. Despite all the transformations that were occurring in their government, the people’s reverence for democratic practices remained. In 2007, a “yes” vote (Si Va) would enable Chávez to escape the term limits that were established in the 1999 Constitution, effectively allowing him to remain in power if he were willing (and able). Chavismo had grown in power since then, and along with it, his ability to manipulate the electorate to grant his demands for longevity in office became possible. The vote was close: 51–49%, but the measure failed. In December 2007, Chávez had been checked by the opposition that was thought to be demoralized into inaction. When it seemed as although the red tide had subsided, divisions among the opposition permitted Bolivarian Socialism the space it needed to survive.

2

DEMOCRACY’S END: A TALE OF TWO REFERENDA

19

A Tale of Two Democracies At the time, the decline of Chávez’s sway over the democratic process was proclaimed by Venezuela’s opposition groups and by observers outside the political system. Scholars began to reconsider the implications of his first electoral defeat. Pundits spoke of a changing political tide, and in the short term, the opposition gained ground through the subsequent round of municipal elections. Praise for a successful democratic referendum was cast upon all participants. Only a few months earlier, at what may be considered the pinnacle of Chávez’s global popularity/notoriety, standing in front of the whole United Nations, the Venezuelan leader referred to the US President as “the devil” and made the most of his platform to challenge American global hegemony.5 In response to his defeat in the 2007 referendum, President George W. Bush, in a White House Press Conference, lauded the election results declaring that in defeating Chávez’s attempt at “one man rule…[Venezuela had] voted for democracy.”6 Venezuelan democracy seemed to have survived its greatest threat since consolidation. The 2007 referendum served to provide evidence of a commitment to democratic rules of the game, despite what many feared were authoritarian designs by the Chávez Administration. Both sides could claim a mandate in what would be revealed as a pyrrhic victory. The opposition claimed its victory based on the electoral triumph: the referendum demonstrated the resolve of the Venezuelan people to maintain democratic governance by holding the line on limiting executive power. By winning a close but fair election, the opposition was able to prevent the passage of a bill that would have given unprecedented constitutional authority to the Chávez administration. They argued that the people had seen Chavismo, and they rejected it. The government also claimed victory despite the electoral loss by virtue of respecting the democratic process: Chávez’s loss won him democratic credibility. The world was relieved to discover that his administration, the controversial National Electoral Council (CNE), and the entire Venezuelan political system of his design were in fact still democratic. Furthermore, people in the opposition were beginning to allow themselves the freedom to hope that the Chávez regime had already played out as some sort of bad dream. Despite the loss, the controversial political regime could now be gilded with the adjective of “democratic”: democratic vindication and legitimacy were evident in the acceptance of the defeat. Por ahora.

20

C. M. BROWN

The Only Game in Town Over the 15 months between the two referenda, Chávez would once rise to challenge the opposition’s characterization that he is a mercurial fool.7 Circumstances were far more auspicious for victory in 2007 than in 2009. Surprising most academics and policymakers, his resurgence came concurrently with three major developments, each thought to be enough to derail his vision of progress. Long reliant on the petroleum industry, oil prices are the lifeline of the Venezuelan economy. Unforeseen reductions in oil prices, normally a harbinger of political chaos, had a negligible impact on the political system. A shift in American policy via the transfer of power from the hardline Bush administration to the Obama administration yielded few meaningful policy changes, limiting opportunities for Chávez to appeal to moderate voters. “Yankee” imperialism, a real and powerful theme in the experience of Latin America, served to promote polarization, thus benefiting leftists. Finally, the most surprising and long overdue was the resurgence of an opposition capable of challenging him. If only these groups could capitalize on their coordinated efforts of 2007, they could rebuild a national organization capable of reuniting the disestablished sectors of Venezuelan society to turn back the red tide of Bolivarian Socialism. However, despite these challenges, Chavismo regrouped. Hugo Chávez had spent the last year and a half absorbing this first political setback, learning from the experience, and stacking the deck to push forward his ideology for progress. In conceding the lost referendum, international critics began to have second thoughts about his authoritarian inclinations. He even urged his followers to accept the results—and to respect the robustness of the democratic outcomes even in defeat. He himself took the lead by congratulating the opposition. The one-term Trump administration failed to support American democratic norms on each of these points in 2020, instead orchestrating a paramilitary assault on the US Capitol. In Brazil, Bolsonaro supporters did the same in the wake of his electoral loss in 2023. In sharp contrast, Chávez was gracious and upheld democratic decorum. The loss had tempered his populism; he had learned to play by the rules. What the world had just witnessed was a political system that was deeply democratic—Venezuelan democracy was not dead; it had only updated its institutions to become more inclusive of the lower classes. The Secretary General of the OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza, called the referendum results “a fair, clean process,”

2

DEMOCRACY’S END: A TALE OF TWO REFERENDA

21

further adding, “quite a few myths on the Venezuelan democracy are falling down. It works, like all democracies.”8 Bolivarian Socialism was not lost. In the aftermath of the 2007 referendum, Chávez was forced to re-evaluate his strategy but not his objectives. One week after the 2008 municipal elections, Chávez announced his intent to induce the National Assembly to promulgate a referendum calling once again for the elimination of term limits for elected offices.9 After perfunctory discussions among legislators, the measure to remove limits on reelection was slated for another national referendum (declared illegal by the opposition upon arrival). Nevertheless, in fifteen months, Venezuelans would return to the polls to decide whether to place their faith in the grand designs of the Bolivarian Revolution by dismantling the last barricade against authoritarianism. The second referendum would provide a clearer mandate for the future of Venezuela. There would be two fundamental differences between the questions being asked of voters in 2007 and 2009. First, term limits would be eliminated for all elected officials, not just for the president. Second, the only item on the referendum was the term limit issue—gone were the remaining provisions from the 2007 reform package. Despite some grumbling about it falling on St. Valentine’s Day weekend, the referendum was set for February 15, 2009.

Same Game, New Rules Unlike in the 2007 referendum, Chávez would emerge victorious in his bid for unlimited reelection. The CNE was able to certify the results, showing an eight-percentage-point difference in favor of eliminating term limits. The U.S. State Department conceded that the election was a “fully democratic process” and that eleven million out of the more than sixteen million eligible voters cast a ballot, yielding a turnout of 67%.10 There was little ground for legally challenging the results, and the collectivities of opposition groups conceded to the CNE’s official results. Despite the reported civil rights concerns lodged against the Chávez Administration, the repression of an independent press, voter intimidation, and widespread abuse of office and public resources for campaign purposes—all of which were trademarks of the Chávez political machine—the opposition failed to rise to the challenge the second time.

22

C. M. BROWN

Granted that Chávez had additional time to consolidate his regime, he was in a more advantageous position in December 2007 than in February 2009. Oil prices per barrel were approximately $87 at the end of November 2007 compared to $34 per barrel at the end of January 2009, having risen to $124 in July 2008 before falling to a five-year low.11 The 2007 Referendum only failed to win by a margin of approximately 1.8%,12 with a low turnout by Venezuelan standards of only 56%.13 Not only was Chávez able to flip the vote in his favor by close to 10% but his campaign also mobilized approximately 1,962,000 new voters (a 31% increase from 2007). During that same span, the opposition was only able to bring their total number up by approximately 685,000 (a 13% increase from 2007).14 This resurgence is even more curious given that it occurred after a major shift of political momentum; opposition parties claimed victories in the previous two-electoral contests. The blue wave had crested, and Chavismo’s momentum surged once again.

Democratic Breakdown Through Democratic Means It is ironic that Chávez was seen as both anti-democratic by his opposition and as a true democrat in the minds of his supporters. In truth, he was neither. The key to Chávez’s power could be found in his skillful use of the regime-justifying glow of electoral democracy—in short, he owed his own success directly to the democratic processes that he ultimately and purposefully disassembled. It was all done in the light of day and with the assistance of millions of votes from regular citizens. However, he was far from democratic in his ambition, feeling more akin to unashamed autocrats such as Castro than to any other democratically elected world leader. Chávez succeeded in cultivating the seeds of an undemocratic regime through democratic procedures. After his failed coup, all his bids for power came because of some form of plebiscite and through constitutional avenues. What is most remarkable about the demise of Venezuela’s consolidated democracy is that it was undone by democratic means. Chávez found a way to legitimize a nondemocratic regime using democratic procedural norms (e.g., elections, referendums, parliamentary debates over proposed legislation). By electing Hugo Chávez in 1998, a candidate who campaigned with a singular promise to bring down Venezuela’s democracy established 40 years ago at Punto Fijo, Venezuelans voted out their democracy. In the referenda, the world witnessed

2

DEMOCRACY’S END: A TALE OF TWO REFERENDA

23

the reverence of elections as the only legitimate means through which to dismantle provisions for good governance. Through free and fair elections, Venezuela once again voted against democracy. Chávez is often seen as an ostentatious manifestation of the killer of democracy in Venezuela. His political ascension is a direct consequence of the democracy that Venezuela once maintained. His achievement as a political savior occurred because of the breakdown of a democracy that was already on its deathbed. No democrat himself, Chávez, and the movement that took his name (Chavismo) was a product of Venezuelan democracy. However, Chávez is not a product of the present transition from democracy, which he orchestrated until his death and succession by Maduro; Chavismo is a product of Venezuela’s last transition to democracy fifty years ago and the way it was consolidated. Venezuela’s democratic breakdown is illustrative for the present task: this book tells the story of the end of democracy, not through violence, coups, or conquest, but through the very normative processes that define it.

Notes 1. Real Academia de La Historia, “Francisco Fajardo,” https://dbe.rah.es/ biografias/9179/francisco-fajardo (accessed February 15, 2023). 2. Arturo Almandoz Marte, “Caracas,” in Oxford Bibliographies, https:// doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199766581-0165 (accessed February 15, 2023). 3. Sara Kinosian & Vivian Sequera, “Extreme Poverty in Venezuela Rises to 76.6%—Study,” Reuters (September 29, 2021), https://www.reuters. com/world/americas/extreme-poverty-venezuela-rises-766-study-202109-29/ (accessed February 15, 2023). 4. Jaime Daremblum, “Can Chávez Be Stopped?: Consolidating a Dictatorship,” News Corporation (February 18, 2009), http://www.weekly standard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/165deuiu.asp (accessed February 18, 2009). He cites in full the quote from Chávez that is infamously repeated in news stories on his ambition. In November 2008, Chávez stated, “I am ready, and if I am healthy, God willing, I will be with you until 2019, until 2021.” 5. David Stout, “Chávez Calls Bush ‘the Devil’ in U.N. Speech,” The New York Times (September 20, 2006), https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/ 20/world/americas/20cnd-chavez.html (accessed November 25, 2018). 6. Janicke, Kiraz, “Venezuela Accuses U.S. of Double Standard over Constitutional Reform Referendum,” Venezuelanalysis.com (December 4,

24

C. M. BROWN

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

2007), http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2961 (accessed February 19, 2009). “Hugo Chávez’ Venezuela: Oblivious to the Coming Storm,” The Economist (February 5, 2009), http://www.economist.com/research/art iclesBySubject/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Storyid=13061800 (accessed February 19, 2009). The Economist refers to Chávez as “Mr. Bozo” echoing the image of the opposition who refer to President Chávez as “El Bufón” (“The Clown”). Venezuelan Information Office, “Results of the 2007 Referendum on Constitutional Reforms,” http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/dow nloads/Venezuela%202007%20Referendum%20Results.htm (accessed February 18, 2009). “Venezuela: Chávez Pushes for Indefinite Re-election Measure,” Stratfor Global Intelligence Report (December 2, 2008), http://www.stratfor. com/analysis/20081201_ (accessed on February 19, 2009). VOA News, “US Official: Venezuela Referendum ‘Fully Democratic,’” VOA News (February 17, 2009), http://www.voanews.com/english/arc hive/2009-02/2009-02-17-voa50.cfm?CFID=167877685&CFTOKEN= 71778859&jsessionid=8830e053da9bea31504172656b611261554a (accessed February 18, 2009). Energy Information Administration. EIA World Nominal Oil Price Chronology, 1970–2007 , http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/timeline/oil_ chronology.cfm (accessed February 19, 2009). Two separate proposals were defeated on the 2007 ballot. Both were defeated by averages of 50.9% against and 49.1% in favor. Source Venezuelan Information Office, “Results of the 2007 Referendum.” Venezuelan Information Office, “Results of the 2007 Referendum.” Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), http://www.cne.gov.ve/.

Bibliography Daremblum, Jaime. “Can Chávez Be Stopped?: Consolidating a Dictatorship.” News Corporation (February 18, 2009). http://www.weeklystandard.com/ Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/165deuiu.asp (accessed February 18, 2009). Energy Information Administration. EIA World Nominal Oil Price Chronology, 1970–2007 . http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/timeline/oil_chronology.cfm (accessed February 19, 2009). “Hugo Chávez’ Venezuela: Oblivious to the Coming Storm.” The Economist (February 5, 2009). http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySu bject/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Storyid=13061800 (accessed February 19, 2009).

2

DEMOCRACY’S END: A TALE OF TWO REFERENDA

25

Janicke, Kiraz. “Venezuela Accuses U.S. of Double Standard over Constitutional Reform Referendum.” Venezuelanalysis.com (December 4, 2007). http:// www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2961 (accessed February 19, 2009). Kinosian, Sara, and Vivian Sequera. “Extreme Poverty in Venezuela Rises to 76.6%—Study.” Reuters (September 29, 2021). https://www.reuters.com/ world/americas/extreme-poverty-venezuela-rises-766-study-2021-09-29/ (accessed February 15, 2023). Marte, Arturo Almandoz. “Caracas.” In Oxford Bibliographies. https://doi.org/ 10.1093/OBO/9780199766581-0165 (accessed February 15, 2023). Real Academia de La Historia, “Francisco Fajardo.” https://dbe.rah.es/biogra fias/9179/francisco-fajardo (accessed February 15, 2023). Stout, David. “Chávez Calls Bush ‘the Devil’ in U.N. Speech.” The New York Times (September 20, 2006). “Venezuela: Chávez Pushes for Indefinite Re-election Measure.” Stratfor Global Intelligence Report (December 2, 2008). Venezuelan Information Office. “Results of the 2007 Referendum on Constitutional Reforms.” http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/downloads/Venezuela% 202007%20Referendum%20Results.htm (accessed February 18, 2009). VOA News. “US Official: Venezuela Referendum ‘Fully Democratic.’” VOA News (February 17, 2009). Wagner, Brian. “Venezuela to Hold Vote on Ending Term Limits.” VOA News (February 14, 2009).

CHAPTER 3

Operationalizing Democratization

Points of Departure Democratization can be more broadly thought of as a range of processes whereby political systems adopt, expand, and deepen democratic norms and institutions as the only legitimate means to manage a political community. This is a complex undertaking. While seeking to understand democracy, the field must bridge the philosophical and the practical; as such, it engages and informs both theory and practice. As an abstract creation driven by a zealous moral commitment to the natural rights of human beings, democracy owes its formulation and motivation from the writings of more philosophical and ethical realms. For its modern history, democracy has persevered as a sort of quest to translate fundamental assumptions about humanity into righteous institutions that best serve to promote the inherent dignity of those people who are eligible to fully participate in political society. With the collapse of empires and the expansion of the post-World War II order, understanding the institutions that cultivated democracy was but one tier of engagement. Can the successful establishment of democratic norms be translated beyond those who have long enjoyed them? Does democracy have external validity? Can authoritarian societies learn to become democratic? Security, human rights, and all things seen as good in the international realm required a democratic foundation. Democratization comes of age during the Cold War amid the decolonization programs of the newly independent states © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_3

27

28

C. M. BROWN

and/or those struggling toward autonomy. The overarching goal was to build a new world order: to rebuild global society with better norms than those that led to the devastation of the early twentieth century. Democracy became a highly securitized concept over the remainder of the century and continues to be today. The victors of the global conflicts that ended the meaningfulness of monarchies and crushed fascism were mostly democratic. The other victors were authoritarian-socialists or those who soon would be provided with the next battlefront in the war of liberalism. As the Cold War became manifest, liberal democracies needed a plan of battle: Democratization and the promotion of free trade are the twin pillars that have defined the post-World War II global order. Both the political and economic systems that provide the structure of the world today are founded upon the same fundamental liberal understanding of human beings and the moral obligation for the veneration of individual rights. This was not by default, nor by serendipity. Liberalism was actively deployed to make the world safer, saner, and more productive. Beyond the inalienable complementarity of humanity and democratic governance, in its highest form, it was an orchestrated altruistic strategy to build a better reality than any in the past. Scholars and policymakers decided that democracy must be operationalized so that it could be both universally meaningful and applicable in any human environment in the latter decades of the twentieth century. Democracy may have been born from the ideation of liberal agency, but democratization was tasked with how to operationalize these ideals in human societies. Its primary objective is the development of political structures that honor and promote the co-constitutive norms of rights and freedoms.

Operationalizing Democracy Democracy can be defined as a political system characterized by free, open, and broadly participatory elections held at regular legally mandated intervals with the results of those elections deemed legitimate by the people and that this process is supported and enforced through established norms that are also seen as legitimate by the stakeholders of that political system. This definition emphasizes three primary elements that are essential to modern democratic regimes: an intrinsic belief in the value of a given political system in which one is a stakeholder or citizen, that the outcomes and those norms guiding the political system are deemed

3

OPERATIONALIZING DEMOCRATIZATION

29

legitimate by the citizenry and that a structure of equitable representation of the will of the citizenry is constitutionally paramount and respected. A subtle irony that passes unnoticed today is that the academic study of how to construct a democratic rule for the newly independent countries of the postwar world began with explaining why they have failed in the past. Linz and Stepan’s 1978 work on democratic breakdowns serves as a sort of coroner’s report on the deaths of several failed democracies, thus providing the pathologist’s checklist for democratic postmortems.1 In their groundbreaking collaborations, they implore future scholars that a “high priority…should now be given to the analysis of the conditions that lead to the breakdown of authoritarian regimes, to the process of transition from authoritarian to democratic regimes, and especially to the political dynamics of the consolidation of post-authoritarian democracies.”2 In other words, if the goal of the research is to be able to draw lessons from the collapse of a political system, it is necessary to understand the entire political trajectory of the system that has failed. This is the challenge taken up by this chapter.

Architects of the New World Order With the decline of the imperial system that collapsed over the two world wars that book-ended a catastrophic global economic depression, the victors sought to rebuild the political economy based on their own operational realities. With a plethora of new states and colonies seeking autonomy, the era of decolonization offered serious challenges for charting a way forward. The old structure of direct colonial control had been undone, and its self-defensive logic was undermined by the determined efforts of Allied soldiers. The two main postwar global norms are found in the programs that would emerge to construct and maintain the new global economic order and to promote democratization. They would coalesce into a set of theories loosely referred to as the “modernization” paradigm; to scientifically remake social reality into a rational, secular, Western world based on the tenets of classical liberalism. The two most pervasive ideologies that emerged to form the basis for the postwar order were quite familiar to Western leaders: capitalism and democracy. Standing amid the rubble of fallen empires, the new architects of postwar liberalism sought to understand what needed to be done: (1) to make citizens out of subjects, (2) to promote an active and engaged constituency,

30

C. M. BROWN

and (3) to build guidance for democratic governance. Legions of policymakers were called upon to serve in this global project of reconstruction. Using the examples that they had on-hand, political theorists grappled with a range of social sciences, philosophies, and humanities. To this end, they would integrate quantitative methodologies and logic proofs and economic formulae. It was from these proto-democratization scholars that a set of claims would emerge that would guide their policy prescriptions for would-be democratic regimes. Briefly, these assumptions are as follows: 1. Mass support for democracy is necessary to make democracy take root. People need to be educated about the logic of democracy, and then they will embrace democracy and make it work. 2. Democracy creates its own logic and staying power. Once democracy gets a strong foothold, people become proponents of democracy for the long haul. 3. Economic modernization is a necessary requisite to democracy. Once modernization takes place, a middle class is established, and democracy becomes the logical course to follow. 4. Remnants of the former regime must be rooted out. They must be placed on trial so that democratic citizens can feel a sense of justice.3 Despite the hope of a new liberal era, remaking a world was a daunting task mired in uncertainty, mistrust, and violence. It did not take long to realize the challenges of transferring paper to plan: there was little foundation upon which to construct the ideal democratic institutions as prescribed. A new paradigm began to form around the frustrations of modernization’s failed promises. Modernization was claiming undue successes that just did not fit the timeline. The regimes that had begun to make the move toward democracy in earnest were far from being “modern.” Most states had been subject to colonial rule and were purposefully integrated into the colonial order to provide raw materials for their imperial masters; these societies were hierarchical, deeply constructed upon caste (often racially designated), and not universally liberal in orientation, despite what high morals the elites claim to embrace among themselves. What political structures that existed in these states operated as top-down, extractive organizations designed to promote the export of needed goods and to promote social control. Elites managed

3

OPERATIONALIZING DEMOCRATIZATION

31

the government to facilitate exploitation in the service of the empire. Nor were policymakers beginning with a tabula rasa. Local structures, institutions, and leaders maintained their own political spheres that would need to be mollified or eliminated to move the project forward. Of even greater frustration, it was often the most promising regime that would suddenly (and often violently) reverse course. The pressures of economic modernization, in contrast to the democratizing expectations of liberal scholars, overwhelmed the political system with new demands, forging alliances with elements of the ancien régime to cooperate to re-establish order and deactivate popular demands, often with violent measures.4 This revelation did little to bolster modernization’s claim that economic development makes democrats. In addition, it silenced the claims of democratic inertia and gave a clear and deadly warning that democracy was not unidirectional. Another curiosity that challenged the assumptions of policymakers was that during these transitions, it was the elites , and not the masses, who had initiated these transitions to democracy. That is, not to say that the populace played no role in the breakdown of nondemocratic regimes, but that during the actual negotiations required for having grievances addressed, the elites were critical. The people became instruments through which elites could manifest their power in relation to each other and as a potent pressure point against the endurance of colonial governance. Not surprisingly, socioeconomic stressors tended to precede political opposition to the status quo. Even reformers with the best democratic intentions exist in a perilous and uncertain environment. Since many of the political systems that undergo regime change do so because of preexisting economic pressures, the new democratic regime often finds itself assuming power in situations of great economic and political turmoil. Democratic reversals serve as reminders that the pretransition political landscape often frames policy options during the transition process. How elites dealt with these crises and what institutions, or policy changes were employed to mitigate economic and political conflict became the focus of the democratization business. This emphasis led to a major change in the study of democratization: elite interaction and bargaining took precedence over popular concerns during periods of transition. Governability became the currency of democratization, and the field flirted with a serious hypocrisy: democratic scholars claimed to examine political systems that rest upon the language of equality and the “will of the people,” and yet, to do this, they studied oligarchs!

32

C. M. BROWN

A focus on leadership produces a strong tendency to confine the measurement of democratization to the degree to which elites support democracy. Elites are expected to represent the interests of their followers, or at least to act (or to be perceived as acting) in the best interest of their followers. This perverse over-emphasis on elites tends to bolster the claim that democracy rests upon elite support when in fact it should require popular support to be considered a proper democracy (a form of rule based upon effective popular sovereignty). Democratic transitions often begin with elite bargaining; however, for the new regime to be stable, support for democracy must be expanded among nonelites, either through a belief that democracy is intrinsically a good thing (legitimacy), through co-optation (effectiveness), or through a mix of both. Governability is not democracy. However, a cottage industry grew around any observation in which nondemocratic regimes shared a trait with democratic ideals. People began talking about a class of “hybrid” regimes and attached countless hyphens to offer partial democratic legitimacy to authoritarian rule. Drawing on the positives of these practices was a clear shift from thinking of regimes as either authoritarian or democratic, thus opening the door to consider the quality of democracy as a range or scale. Negatively, democracy as an ideal became watered down, and politicians anywhere could acquire democratic creditability while continuing to govern undemocratically. It was as if the recognition of transition was indeed challenging, so half-measures were seen as progressive. Regimes that were not truly democratic could get a free pass if they embraced the economic prescriptions for modernization. In addition, a litany of regimes that were little more than authoritarian could suddenly become poor excuses of democracy, but “democratic” nonetheless. The term has become stretched so thin that it threatens to no longer have any real meaning in the field of comparative politics.

The Experience of Modernization The modernization paradigm had to be created in the aftermath of the destruction brought about by global warfare. There was little rest between campaigns; even before the end of the Second World War, the roots of modernization were being redeployed to fight the Soviet threat. First, policymakers outlined the foundation of democratization. The complexity of the postwar order complicated their assumptions, and the discipline evolved to respond to these developments. There arose

3

OPERATIONALIZING DEMOCRATIZATION

33

three main avenues for engaging the construction of democracy that arose from modernization. Initially, modernization scholars linked economic and political liberalism and discovered that certain economic and social requisites are necessary preconditions for launching a democratic transition. Known as the “Lipset Hypothesis” (named after Seymour Martin Lipset and his work entitled, Some Social Requisites of Democracy). In a phrase, the Lipset Hypothesis claims that “prosperity stimulates democracy.”5 Prosperity requires the presence of a middle class (middle sectors) that emerges due to the expansion of education that serves to generate attitudes that are receptive to democratic values. These values correlate to an expansion of civil society, which promotes a political culture that is in tune with a democratic society. Furthermore, the proliferation of capitalist norms works to undermine traditional sources of wealth that are often antagonistic to the tolerance and political equality required in a democratic political system.6 Second, postwar scholarship looked even closer at the notion of political culture as a prerequisite for democratic transitions. Democracy is said to be possible in societies that embrace certain cultural or psychological attitudes, or what is called a “civic culture.” This perspective is often called the “Almond/Verba Hypothesis.” In political environments where people are endowed with the ability to have meaningful participation in decision-making, they also tend to maintain a higher degree of identification with that political system.7 Third, democracy can also take root by establishing the appropriate social and/ or political structures and institutions necessary to establish and facilitate its trajectory.8 In other words, democracy can be taught by structuring conflict, conflict resolution, and codifying democratic rules and values linked through effective political organization.9 One of the major proponents of an institutionally designed path toward democracy is Arend Lijphart.10 It is interesting to mention that in the more fundamental institutional arguments, the democratic values that are fostered through institutionally conditioned rules are only necessary among those in the political class: “democratic stability requires a commitment to democratic values or rules, not among the electorate at large but among the professional politicians – each of these presumably linked the other through effective ties of political organization.”11 Each of the three paths to democracy is embedded in the same liberal traditions but has different drivers. Lipset promotes economic growth as the mechanism to promote a political culture supportive of democracy. Almond and Verba look for social values that best align with the civic

34

C. M. BROWN

culture necessary to build a deeper commitment to democracy. Lijphart’s institutional approach suggests that attitudes can be engineered in support of democratic values by constructing institutions that promote democratic values. It is important to note that these approaches are not mutually exclusive; in fact, they often reinforce each other. As observations that have grown out of the early efforts to promote democratization, they are still relevant, and any subsequent work must engage these perspectives. One of the first criticisms of the modernization paradigm led to a novel approach called “transitology.” Dankwart Rustow’s “Transition to Democracy” (1970) reframed academic discourse over postwar democratization into a research agenda that emphasized the critical dimension of regime transition. Transitologists (as they came to be known loosely), led by Rustow’s charge, challenged these claims arising from the Modernization paradigm from several angles. To start, the three schools do not truly focus on “how a democratic system comes into existence,” instead they address questions that deal with “how a democracy, assumed to be already existent, can best preserve or enhance its health and stability.”12 To answer these questions, they use contemporary data, statistics, etc., so that “their key propositions are couched in the present tense.”13 In other words, “when studying political parties, electoral institutions, civil society organizations, or privatized enterprises, analysts compare their findings with expectations of what these institutions and organizations would look like in a consolidated democracy and market economy.”14 Collectively, Rustow’s main argument against the earlier postwar hypotheses was methodological: scholars began with an ideal type of consolidated liberal democracy and compared systems on how closely they matched the criteria of those ideals. The individual experiences of societies were placed on a “democratic rubric” that neglected the more substantive and nuanced elements of the societies themselves. Variations from the ideal are seen as aberrations, and there was no room for unique expressions of democracy. Furthermore, measuring the uncertainty inherent in transitions against stable consolidated liberal capitalist democracies was like comparing a sandstone quarry on Aquia Creek to the US Capitol building. Instead of comparing works in progress to the ideal forms, transitologists changed the question: “What conditions make democracy possible and what conditions make it thrive?”15

3

OPERATIONALIZING DEMOCRATIZATION

35

Breaking It Down: Transitologists and Stages of Transition Democracy exists as a form of controlled chaos in even the most consolidated regimes. For democratic theory, institutions and attitudes help to give shape to the general will that provides the foundation from which democracy grows; in actual transitions, these elements need to be constructed and implemented in context. However, complex the everchanging republic may be beneath the surface, the construction of a democratic regime is a lengthy and muddled process. With the benefit of empirical experience, transitologists have recognized that different demands are placed on political systems at various times. Therefore, to better investigate the influences of these demands on a political system at a given time, scholars have found it prudent to divide the processes into various stages. Painting with broad strokes, these stages are the breakdown of the prior regime, the transition, and finally, consolidation. Understanding the diverse array of challenges that may arise during each stage is daunting. However, this is exactly what the next generation of democratization scholars busied themselves with figuring out. They sought to identify the location of political systems along a democratic pipeline, and they looked for places where pre-scripted policies might work best to move the entire process toward consolidation. It is important to note that these stages have a considerable amount of overlap and that it is often difficult to determine when one stage ends and another begins. For example, it might be clear in the case of a military coup that the prior regime has experienced a breakdown, but the differences between a democratic transition and a democratic consolidation are not as obvious, although no less remarkable. Without sacrificing the scientific designs from modernization, transitologists realized that there was artistry needed as well. Elections provide a useful context clue for transition to post-transition, but even this requires a deeper look. While they are necessary, elections are not a sufficient basis for democracy. Scholars need to dig deeper. Surface evidence of elections did not mean democracy; only the possibility or even the probability that democracy could take root in all types of soil.

36

C. M. BROWN

The Transitions Project As Transitology expanded among a new group of scholars, they began to conduct new methodological approaches on a grander scale. Scholars involved in these efforts constructed a new epistemological explanation for studying transitions in the later part of the twentieth century. Comparative analysis was employed to identify what explanatory factors were present that might best serve to frame the study of transitions. This research leaned more heavily on case studies. Recognizing that external pressures for democratization did exert influences on political systems, the “Transitions Project” (launched by Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter in 1979) focused mainly on the domestic level.16 In contrast to the sweeping philosophical claims of the earlier era, Transitologists argued that to understand the processes and challenges of regime transitions, it was critical to look at what was happening on the ground in these places. Transitologists simply found that earlier perspectives on democratic transitions overemphasized the role of external forces and larger top-down expectations reflected in theoretical claims. In the past, successes were the result of good policies followed prudently: following the blueprint and it will all come together as planned. Blame fell upon those who failed to heed the advice of experts. In contrast, the transitions project tried to examine the political landscape of states during the transition process to divine understandings of the structural limitations inhibiting their efforts at democratization. Environmental influences condition the actors themselves, their core beliefs, their issue positions, and their level of risk aversion. Structural conditions may offer positive or negative inducements to would-be stakeholders in the form of international support for democracy (or against authoritarianism) or in the form of perceived economic benefits for regime opening. Amid the uncertainty (the defining characteristic of transitions), it was necessary to try to make sense of political realities in each transitional environment. The new epistemology gave preference to the importance of institutions, conflict mediating procedures, leadership, historical processes, the importance of timing, and the influence of prior authoritarian regimes on the transition process.17 In other words, stakeholders within the local domestic context interpreted the influences, felt the pressures, and evaluated the benefits of structural changes through their own operational realities. Even with long-term structural pressures on individual states, domestic agency, and elite commitment are critical for promoting, establishing, and deepening democracy.

3

OPERATIONALIZING DEMOCRATIZATION

37

Democratization and Consolidation Through the comparative case study methodology employed by the transition project approach, it became clear that distinct sets of challenges arise at distinct stages of political change. First, transitions to democracy needed to be examined differently than democratic consolidation.18 Beginning with an assumption that transitions from authoritarian rule need not mean that democracy is preordained as an end-goal opened a realm of possibilities for regime change.19 The processes of transition are unique and wide-ranging. Empirical observation and reflective practices, informed by historical and structural factors, provided the laboratory context for understanding transitions on a broader scale. Democracy is a condition without a fixed endpoint; therefore, it is normally considered “consolidated” when those features that exist in mature democracies are capable of maintaining themselves.20 Since the expression of public opinion and interest articulation is structured to have a measurable impact on policy, the degree of democracy a state exhibits can only extend to the inclusiveness of the population that is identified as the citizenry and to the degree to which their will is represented by the government. The extent to which the processes of consolidation can be said to be underway rest upon the functionality and responsiveness of democratic processes within a given polity. The depth at which a society is committed to those processes is most obviously assessed when the political system is forced to function in moments of crisis. Therefore, the institutions that transmit the will of the citizenry to their government must not only be in place and operating properly but also be seen to be legitimate to be able to speak meaningfully about consolidation. Deepening the legitimacy and effectiveness of these institutions is critical for the dynamic stability required to maintain democratic consolidation.

Tracing the Ideal At this point in the story, it is possible to trace a very general trajectory as to how the field anticipates the development of democracy. The ideal storyline goes something like this: a nondemocratic political system will undergo some form of transition toward democracy that will in time cultivate appropriate conditions necessary for the consolidation of that democracy. Beginning with the end in mind, the last stage of the treacherous and rewarding journey through democratization is a

38

C. M. BROWN

fully consolidated democracy. The first stage is the breakdown of the nondemocratic regime that gives rise to the transition to another form of political regime. This is presumed to signal a shift toward a transition of a democratic kind (ideally), where the old regime has suffered a sufficient breakdown and because of some influence, pressure, or demands, the political system seeks to construct (or reconstruct) a democratic political regime in its place. This is the archetypical path toward consolidation. Practical experience, however, has revealed that not all regime breakdowns yield transitions to democracy. Transitions can be simply authoritarian repositioning or reforms, or they might consist of liberalization without a corresponding democratization. In addition, sometimes, there is no transition going on at all; incendiary headlines that announce authoritarian demise simply do not burn long enough to matter. Sometimes, it is simply part of the political game—the normal course of political interaction within a given system. What is often missing is the deeper context; the process of democratization is a longer development that most often encompasses much more of the political history of a given society and not simply the events surrounding the approval of a new constitution.21 While it may be difficult to measure the weight of influence that past political history has on a current political system, its relevance for providing a political trajectory and as the basis for political culture is almost always recognized. As scholars began to compare their investigations across political regimes in transition, individual cases were employed to be heuristic: each case could offer tantalizing evidence for a broader theoretical understanding of the entire process of democratization. Examined as a theoretical whole, it becomes helpful to think of the study of democratization by examining its blueprint. This is the goal of the next chapter.

Notes 1. See: Juan J. Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Re-Equilibrium (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). See also: Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1996). 2. Juan J. Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic, x. 3. Steven J. Hood, Political Development and Democratic Theory: Rethinking Comparative Politics (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), 31–32. The

3

4.

5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20.

OPERATIONALIZING DEMOCRATIZATION

39

experiences of Argentina and Chile have provided for some counterfactual evidence of this claim. Guillermo O’Donnell, “Toward an Alternative Conceptualization of South American Politics,” in Promise of Development: Theories of Change in Latin America, eds. Peter F. Klarén and Thomas J. Bossert (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986). His concept of Bureaucratic Authoritarianism helped to explain why particular authoritarianism could remain stable despite initial liberalization. Robert J. Barro, Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-country Empirical Study (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998). Ibid., 51–52. Gabriel A. Almond & Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture Revisited (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1989), 191. Another amazingly influential work on civic culture can be found in Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work. Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1993). Dankwart A. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model,” Comparative Politics 2, no. 3 (April 1970): 338. Ibid. Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1999). Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy,” 338. Rustow is paraphrasing the work of Robert A. Dahl. See Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1989) and Herbert McClosky, “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” American Political Science Review 58 (June 1964): 361–382. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy,” 339 (italics added). Ibid. Jordan Gans-Morse, “Searching for Transitologists,” 335 (italics original). Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy,” 337. Guillermo O’Donnell & Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1986), 4–5. Abraham F. Lowenthal, Foreword to Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, ix–x. Ibid., x. Guillermo O’Donnell & Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1986), 3. Linz pragmatically simply declares that “stability breeds stability.” Juan J. Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and ReEquilibrium (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 8.

40

C. M. BROWN

21. In the “Transitions Project,” O’Donnell and Schmitter label these as distinct “moments” in the requisite pacts for negotiating the transition to democracy that include separate, but not unrelated pacts that resolve fundamental issues to allow the regime to move forward. They include the “Military,” “Political,” and “Economic” moments. Guillermo O’Donnell & Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1986), 37–47.

Bibliography Almond, Gabriel A., and Sidney Verba. The Civic Culture Revisited. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1989. Barro, Robert J. Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. Dahl, Robert A. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City, 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1989. Gans-Morse, Jordan. “Searching for Transitologists: Contemporary Theories of Post-Communist Transitions and the Myth of a Dominant Paradigm.” PostSoviet Affairs 20, no. 4 (2004): 320–349. Hood, Steven J. Political Development and Democratic Theory: Rethinking Comparative Politics. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004. Lijphart, Arend. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1999. Linz, Juan J. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and ReEquilibrium. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Lowenthal, Abraham F. Foreword to Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies by Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1986. McClosky, Herbert. “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics.” American Political Science Review 58, (June 1964): 361–382. O’Donnell, Guillermo. “Toward an Alternative Conceptualization of South American Politics.” In Promise of Development: Theories of Change in Latin America, edited by Peter F. Klarén and Thomas J. Bossert, 239–275. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986.

3

OPERATIONALIZING DEMOCRATIZATION

41

O’Donnell, Guillermo, and Philippe C. Schmitter. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1986. Rustow, Dankwart A. “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model.” Comparative Politics 2, no. 3 (April 1970): 337–363.

CHAPTER 4

The Blueprint for Democratization

Of what use is a dream if not a blueprint for courageous action. —Adam West

The study of democratization, or the processes by which political regimes undergo transitions toward democracy and consolidation, has been well-established over the course of decades of scholarship and practice. It is not the easiest laboratory in which to function given the urgency, uncertainty, and violence that provides the medium through which hypotheses had to be assessed. Nevertheless, from modernization and transitology, between normative theoretical expectations, failures, and the incorporation of real-work engagement, the field has discovered a reliable framework that serves as the foundation for the larger discourse community of people speaking about the processes of democratization. The field is well-operationalized and maintains a very straightforward blueprint. To make sense of the complexity, it was helpful to divide the larger holistic project into smaller parts or stages, each of which maintains blurred boundaries but was meaningful and distinct, nonetheless. Countless investigations over the later part of the last century would reveal the discovery of an arc that would emphasize four main procedural stages: authoritarian breakdowns, democratic transitions, democratic consolidations, and democratic breakdowns. While each phase is intimately tied to the one that precedes it, each stage is unique in relation to the others and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_4

43

44

C. M. BROWN

is meaningful. While there is a tendency to see a unidirectional trajectory to the operationalization of stages, especially given the liberal provenance of the field and its affection for teleology, in practice, one would not have to wait long for political systems to backslide from promise to illiberalism. Deploying stages do not assume determinism in the process; the upper limit may just be wishful thinking. Nevertheless, each phase provides the context and the structure and identifies the agents from which each subsequent stage might emerge. The field also came to recognize that each phase has its own substance and character but that it was not altogether clear where stages begin or end. Despite the ambiguities, a blueprint has emerged; from a schematic perspective, democratization supports the following stages: (1) Authoritarian Breakdown (Prior Regime Type) (a) Non-Democratic Regimes (b) Breakdown of Non-Democratic Regimes (B) Transition (toward democracy, although not always), including: (a) Failed Transitions, i.e., to nondemocratic regime type, or "Aborted Transition"), and/or (b) Post-Transition Failure (or failed “Democratic Experiment ”) (C) Consolidation, with two distinct outcomes: (a) Consolidation of Democratic Regimes (b) Failed consolidation (D) Democratic Breakdown This chapter organizes the overall arc of democratization and lays clear the expectations of each of the stages. The goal is to set the theoretical stage for the results of the heuristic case study that follows. To best understand the entire process of democratization, it is helpful to undertake a closer examination of the blueprint for democratization.

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

45

Influence of Prior Regime Type In the early days of theorizing about the nature of democracy, employing ideal types was customary practice, so political regimes were placed along a binary scale between the ideal totalitarian regime and the ideal democratic regime. Then, political regimes would be ranked along this continuum based on whether they maintained characteristics of one form or the other. Once placed upon the scale, prescriptions for democratization would be applied based on eliminating elements that were not democratic and promoting those attributes that were typical of ideal democracies. It did not take long to realize that regimes were multidimensional and did not fit well on this linear scale. According to the measuring tool itself, totalitarian regimes were clearly prescribed to a ridiculously small class (as were democracies in those early days). To cultivate a more useful measure, additional criteria for regime types were added to help the theory more closely mirror reality. The sheer number of new states that emerged in the wake of the Second World War through decolonization demanded a rethinking of the basic Cold War metrics. Democratization evolved from binary pairing to a tripartite paradigm. The traditional totalitarian-democracy axis of political systems was already limited by the 1960s, and in fact, most regimes came to be classified as authoritarian but not necessarily totalitarian.1 Thus, a “catch-all” category arose to accommodate those regimes that were not democratic yet were far from totalitarian. This new class of authoritarian regimes came to be much more inclusive and over time, and it came to replace totalitarianism as the opposing pole from democracy on this same linear scale. As case study research expanded significantly, it was far more likely to find authoritarian regimes, particularly with the decline of overtly totalitarian political systems in the aftermath of the Cold War. Linz (2000) defines authoritarian regimes as “political systems with limited, not responsible, political pluralism; without elaborate and guiding ideology, but with distinctive mentalities; without extensive nor intensive political mobilization, except at some points in their development, and in which a leader or occasionally a small group exercises power within formally ill-defined limits but actually quite predictable ones.”2 The “pluralistic element is the most distinctive feature” and that should be understood to mean, not the “almost unlimited pluralism” of democratic regimes, but a “limited pluralism” where political activation is closely controlled and sufficiently inclusive to not threaten the regime.3 As the study of

46

C. M. BROWN

democratization expanded to include a burgeoning international system in the wake of decolonization, Transitologists discovered even more unique characteristics that begged for further expansion in the number of regime types beyond the tripartite paradigm.4 The generally recognized regime types grew to five: democracy, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, post-totalitarianism, and sultanism.5 The prior regime type casts a long shadow over the potential pathways for democratization and tends to set the parameters for producing regimes of superior quality.6 Prior regime type limits the available options for democratic transition, so it offers avenues for outlining path dependency. When scholars went outside and looked around, they realized that most nondemocratic regimes could be better defined as authoritarian; and even more intriguing, they noticed that authoritarian regimes seemed to transition in similar ways. Appropriately, the literature on democratization became framed in terms of transitions from authoritarian to democratic rule.7 From revolutionary governments through decolonization and beyond the collapse of post-communist states in the wake of Soviet defeat, the world came to see the transition as largely resting on the dynamics of the authoritarian regime that provided the basis for democracy’s path dependency.

Authoritarian Regimes Beginning from the more diverse yet authentic category of authoritarian regimes, understanding what kinds of tasks each regime must undertake to promote democratization became the primary focus. It became necessary to examine prior regime types to understand the context of authoritarian regime transition, i.e., why authoritarian regimes may undergo a transition to democracy and by which path. It was assumed from the start that “the most urgent goal of any authoritarian regime, whether it be based on a totalitarian, religious, economic, moral, or any other principle, is to stay in power.”8 Authoritarian leaders believe themselves to be the most capable of rulers, by whatever right they might claim as the basis for doing so. Trust is often in short supply outside of any loyalties among a ruling coalition. Non-regime actors and even the general population are not only seen as incapable but they represent a profound threat to the state. To defend this perceived right that they hold, authoritarian leaders “fear opposition and the threat of opposition… [and they] are ever suspicious of political opponents and fear circumstances

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

47

that could lead to their loss of power.”9 Despite the longevity of some authoritarian regimes, this political condition is inherently unstable. Over time, criticism from both within the regime and outside of it will lead to the creation of groups that stand in opposition to the ruling coalition. Even minor or unconnected issues will often provide the spark for greater opposition. If unchecked, the limited pluralism of the regime may spin away from the capability of the regime to control political dissent. The ability of an authoritarian regime to manage opposition (either internal or external to the government) may further be hampered by the lack of a strong ideological claim to authority (as opposed to a theocratic and/ or totalitarian system), the allowance of pluralism (however limited), and the absence of existing mechanisms to mobilize support and/or neutralize opposition. Under these circumstances, authoritarian leadership will have to make difficult choices on how to manage a growing array of threats to the regime and its position of power. Depending upon the amount of political power that leadership holds in relation to challengers, choices for dealing with threats include the suppression of new political demands and actors through violence or through co-optation, where opposition groups can be controlled. They may allow for some form of liberalization and/or democratization where the opposition offers a level of threat that is perceived as significant enough to offer a successful challenge to the position of leadership. Alternatively, in the face of an overwhelming opposition, authoritarian leadership may lose power outright in a political coup, be forced to abdicate, or attempt to negotiate their own abdication when they feel as although they have the capability to do so. For authoritarians, change is something that arrives without willing invitation, most often in the form of economic crises. The capabilities for redressing conflict and instability in these states are subject to local conditions since economic and political power is usually held by the same stakeholders. The authority to manage the crisis is local, but capabilities vary; if not managed in a timely manner, the foundations of governability will be under increasing threat. Since many authoritarian structures emerged from power bases constructed in a bygone era (e.g., colonialism, plantation economies, etc.) the social forces unleashed by economic modernization and/or globalization represent an existential threat. A prolonged economic crisis could give rise to the mobilization of opponents who question the credibility and/or competence of the regime to govern. What at first may have been a question of the ability of government to manage the economy may blossom into a broader mandate

48

C. M. BROWN

questioning its legitimacy to rule. Policymaking in a challenging climate will often exacerbate existing disputes and create more political enmity among major actors in the regime. Decisions made under cross-pressures from both within and beyond the ruling class may lead to a change in regime policy. Given the preference for the status quo, policy shifts will tend to upset partners in the ruling coalition whose support for the ruling coalition is based on concessions acquired by earlier agreements. In seeking to manage the crisis, the state is forced to make tough decisions that affect the interests of groups in society—particularly those who are most supportive of the regime, further undermining support. Next, the economic crisis and the policy decisions that the regime must make are often at odds with the commercial/industrial sectors of society, which have usually had the most success under the existing regime policy and therefore have been supportive of the regime if only for the instrumental benefit. This is particularly true when external forces, such as globalization or economic modernization, are seen as the primary source of the crisis. As authoritarian regimes work to limit their exposure to further risk, they also imperil those social interests who are benefiting from those networks. This can lead to a rupture in support for the regime, making further economic decisions more limited. As the interests of these groups are negatively affected by the regime’s economic policy shifts made in reaction to an economic crisis, they tend to mobilize independently from the regime, often leading to the creation of formal political opposition. The “instrumental notion of legitimation (with legitimation stemming from performance)” inherent in most authoritarian regimes (particularly those that lack a deeper unifying ideology), once undermined, naturally leads to “questions about the appropriateness of the regime’s utility for staying in power.”10 Giving public space and a voice to doubts concerning the legitimacy of the regime can fuel additional crises of confidence among the stakeholders of the regime, including those who comprise the authoritarian regime itself. The leadership may come to question whether it can indeed rule or even whether it has the right to do so leading to a crisis of regime solidarity.

Regime Solidarity Authoritarian regimes that cannot manage crises will lose their legitimacy to rule. The first stage of failure is most often signaled by divisions among the leadership cadre of the ruling authoritarian regime. The conditions

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

49

that have been found to affect the cohesion of ruling regimes include religious reforms (these may include secularization or theocratization), external actors (i.e., from the promotion of democratic norms, as in the EU’s stance toward potential members), and demonstration effects (spillover effects whereby authoritarian leaders tackle democracy superficially but then find themselves unable to control the political agenda).11 Regime legitimacy is often tied to the entitlements that guarantee loyalty among authoritarian elites, so it stands to reason that regime unity rests on the degree to which a political economy can continue to pay dividends for its fickle supporters. For authoritarian regimes lacking a deeper ruling ideology, “legitimacy can be regained only by success in policy formation and implementation.”12 It is little wonder why many authoritarian rulers aim to construct a cult of personality as a form of charismatic insulation. One of the major preconditions for processes of democratization to begin to emerge is economic development: states must reach a minimum threshold of socioeconomic growth to be ready for a transition.13 However, it is not as simple as an exchange of legitimacy from authoritarianism to democracy; democracy arises as a prudent pathway due to the absence of alternatives.14 In other words, the rejection of the authoritarian regime rests more upon whether stakeholders can consider other options. Where those options may not be available in the presence of elites conceptualizing regime change gives proof to the questioning of regime legitimacy.15 Lacking alternatives, stakeholders who do not have the will or the capabilities to take power themselves may nudge the possibilities for change closer to pluralism and compromise. These stakeholders are leaders of respective groups in society at large and can often mobilize their factions in such a way as to significantly impact regime stability. During periods of stability and social peace, the preferred climate for authoritarianism, elites can remain confident in their legitimacy to govern. However, in the face of increasing social unrest, a crisis of confidence might trigger another crisis of legitimacy, which may then expose the ruling coalition to self-reflection as to whether leaders hold the mandate to collectively govern. While the perception of regime disunity may spiral into a fracture of the ruling coalition, it could also simply be an opportunity for elite repositioning. Elites may seek to accommodate new demands and/or eliminate perceived threats by co-opting the opposition. Continuity for authoritarian regimes rests upon having an effective mechanism for dispute mediation. Dispute mediation among long-standing relations among

50

C. M. BROWN

elites in a stable environment permits the longevity of nondemocratic regimes to remain in power. However, when the existing interests represented by the regime are forced to reckon with emergent groups with new demands, these offer a firm test for the limited institutions for mediation. Interest representation and leadership familiarity are likely to become diluted over time if the regime must rely upon its ability to expand the capacity for co-optation as new demands arise. This is a significantly underrepresented issue in the literature. Regimes in which legitimacy has an intrinsic basis (i.e., the stakeholders support the regime because they believe it to be good in and of itself) have greater endurance when confronted with adversity. This is especially the case with regimes whose legitimacy is based solely on instrumental rewards or sanctions. Regimes are forced to find a way to manage the appearance of new interest representation as it appears on the political scene. To manage these pressures, those in power can usually choose to include or exclude these interests based on whether they play to any advantage. If the interests are strong enough to demand inclusion, however, then regimes must find space for them among the ruling elites. This is usually accomplished through co-optation of the movement. This can be done by expanding the base of the authoritarian leadership (to form “catch-all parties”) or by undermining the leadership cadre through special accommodation, thereby neutralizing the organized opposition. Either of these two options is much harder to achieve when faced with limited resources and/or during economic crises. Lacking the capabilities for coercion and/ or the resources for co-option, regime legitimacy will rest upon whether it is intrinsically good for the political classes in power. Since authoritarian regimes seek to limit political mobilization that is independent of the regime’s interest and/or control, it becomes increasingly “difficult to maintain political passivity without extensive organizational controls and the exercise (or threat) of high levels of coercion” in the face of economic crisis.16 Under economic strain and increasingly limited financial resources, the state’s ability to benevolently co-op political opposition through welfare provisions or the granting of privileges is hampered.17 Mobilization of non-regime-controlled opposition represents a clear threat to the regime, and “its very existence challenges the regime’s preferred set of societal arrangements…it constitutes a rejection of the regime’s political model and thereby of the regime as a whole.”18 At the very least, it highlights a critical weakness in the regime and its

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

51

ability to rule, as elements in society have had to successfully circumvent the regime as a means toward goal achievement.

Regime Disunity Conflicts among the ruling coalition serve as the chinks in the armor of authoritarianism. Apart from externally induced regime change, all cases of authoritarian breakdown began with the emergence of noticeable cleavages within the ruling coalition. Regime disunity signals a real decline in support for the regime’s policies, platforms, and/or leadership that can lead to challenges that drive further division and breakdown. This is a particularly acute problem where separate groups exist within the regime that serve different interests and where these interests are increasingly framed in terms of a zero-sum situation because of the regime to effectively manage the economic crisis. While “authoritarian regimes are, by definition, not accountable or responsible in any direct, institutional fashion to the populace over whom they rule,” their ability to exercise rule rests upon the relationships that they can engender among certain key groups in society.19 In addition to the inevitable opportunities for personal aggrandizement, the success of political survival is often linked to general economic prosperity; thus, it is in the interest of political leadership to promote economic growth as “the key to ensuring social passivity” through the “provision of economic goods and services” as a means for cultivating support and improving governability.20 The emphasis on economic growth in the construction of a governing coalition tends to make the business sector complicit in the authoritarian regime primarily through the provision of political stability, preferential pro-business policies, and perhaps of greater significance, labor regulation, and control. These accommodations benefit domestic and transnational firms, thus expanding the opportunities for willful collusion. The keys to power rest firmly on labor compliance and a compulsion for maintaining an apolitical populace. The importance of institutional design as a function of interest representation is critical for regime stability, especially in cases “where the authoritarian regime relies heavily upon its capacity to deliver material resources to key support groups in order to maintain their support, as authoritarian regimes tend to do, economic crisis challenges the social support bases upon which they rest.”21 Regime legitimacy relies upon tangible material provisions; it is the raison d’état of authoritarianism.

52

C. M. BROWN

Therefore, any threat that undermines the regime’s ability to maintain its institutional commitment becomes an existential threat. In the absence of any deeper ideological basis for intrinsic legitimacy, economic performance and elite privilege provide the structure for a fragile stability. The degree of commitment to maintaining these institutional barricades often rests upon the willingness of the regime to use force to meet perceived threats to the social order. However, coercion is not the only path to authoritarian survival and can be employed in conjunction with liberalization efforts.

On Liberalization Liberalization occurs where the autocratic regime by choice, force, compromise, or threat begins a process of reducing state control, and by doing so, affording more room for autonomous action by its population or by parts of the population that are granted a wider range of self-control. Liberalization may include such things as the provision of substantive rights to the population, concessions for demands of groups who are not part of the ruling coalition, and/or a partial opening of that coalition to allow for greater pluralism. Seen as a process, liberalization teases that an ongoing progression toward a future where rights are fully developed has begun. States that begin to grant concessions to people and groups place themselves on a projected path toward full liberalization. This is often a dangerous political move, but one that has become necessary for regime survival. Threats from those who feel that they are losing power and the raised expectations for greater freedom must be managed well to avoid additional loss of support. What liberalization does in a real-world political context is that it allows for dispersal of state control without directly threatening its right to rule. Liberalization, however, is not democratization. There are limits; specifically, the point where the regime’s capacity to rule is sufficiently challenged remains a firm cap. While liberalization offers a great degree of political participation to members of society, the regime is still in control; any new participation will have a limited capacity for meaningful change. This is the distinction that marks liberalization apart from democratization, although they frequently overlap. Democratization “is a process which involves making the governors accountable to the populace;” liberalization offers no clear promise of meeting this condition.22 However, it is difficult to imagine democratization without liberalization.

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

53

The prospects for liberalization are often strengthened and less violently contested when the ruling elites are given reassurances that they will not be facing a society seeking retribution for past abuses. As a result, negotiations can take place under less polarizing conditions so that compromises can be made that do not sacrifice too much too quickly. What incentive does a military leader accused of human rights violations have to negotiate a peaceful transfer of power if he knows that for him democracy means a firing squad?

The Ruling Elites Stakeholders in the authoritarian regime are distinguished by being “hardliners” (those who are committed to the present authoritarian regime) and “soft-liners” (those who are willing to entertain a regime transition).23 It is a common belief that because democracy is a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” it is therefore created “by the people.” However, democratic transitions start with elites seeking negotiated settlements. Since there is little structure during the period of transition, stakeholders can create space for future bargaining. Transitional spaces are constructed simply through the instrumental negotiations of actors who have a sufficient minimum capacity for gaining a seat at the bargaining table. The disunity among the political class leads to the opportunity for regime opening and lays the groundwork for democratic transition. It may be assumed that elites would fundamentally be against any full-scale regime change, preferring to react to threats through small, incremental changes in particular policy areas than to advance their own interests. Liberalization that leads to regime change does not occur due to the benevolent sentiments of ruling elites to build a democratic regime; it occurs because of the inability of elites to gain a one-sided victory for their own interests amid the uncertainty during a period of regime disunity: “In short…authoritarians opt for democracy because they see that no other alternatives exist but democracy.”24 Authoritarian regimes lose legitimacy ultimately because they are unable to make the case that the ruling elite’s institutional structure represents the best way for a political system to govern itself. Authoritarian breakdown continues because those regimes fail “to acknowledge the larger potential of individuals, their rights, their belief in justice, and their ideas about right and wrong.”25 It is important to not only wrestle with elite interests but also the context in which

54

C. M. BROWN

negotiation occurs. All authoritarian regimes are not the same, nor are the dynamics of potential transition.

“Modes of Transition” from Authoritarian Rule In a review article, Stradiotto and Guo (2010) nicely organize the collective literature that addresses how authoritarian regimes transition. They are seeking to understand whether the mode of transition impacts the prospects for democratic consolidation.26 They outline the four types that are common to the field (although not often with commonly used labeling): 1. Foreign Intervention 2. Conversion 3. Cooperative 4. Collapse Beyond the options for democratization from external forces (foreign intervention), there are three main forms of democratic transition from within a given political system that rely on the relative strength of contending groups in the transition process. While several scholars have thought to create their own labels to best capture the substance of these forms, the important distinction is the mode in which the transition occurs, not the labeling itself. The distinction that is made between modes of transition rests upon the relative degree of power that either the regime or the opposition can claim during the actual processes of transition.27 The unity of the opposition and/or the regime is rarely a cohesive reality, so the relativity of power must be kept in mind. 1. Foreign intervention as a mode of transition is the most obvious and/or clearest type of transition mode. As expected, it occurs when foreign military intervention is employed to overthrow an authoritarian regime, which then leads to a transition toward democracy. It is often referred to as “regime change” in foreign policy circles. The three main avenues for internal democratic transition are (1) conversion/transition through transaction, (2) cooperation/ transition through extrication, and (3) collapse/transition through replacement.

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

55

2. Conversion/Transition through transaction “occurs when the elites in power took the lead in bringing about democracy … they institute liberalization and thereby initially shape the process of transition.”28 This type of transition is expected to occur under circumstances where the old regime is in a stronger position than the opposition. It begins with disunity in the current regime, wherein reform elements can gain a significant measure of power within the regime. Attempts at liberalization fail, further dividing the regime between those who wish to promote deeper liberalization as a move toward democracy and those who are willing to employ force to repress and/or reverse the reforms. The reformers then work against the more conservative elements, but only as far as they do not produce a backlash.29 Last, the reformers now in control of the regime will co-opt outside opposition to the regime through negotiations and pacting.30 3. Cooperative/transaction through extrication “occurs when the regime is weakened, [and] seeks to extricate itself from power, but is in a weaker position to be able to dictate terms than in [other] cases of transaction.”31 The position of the opposition is stronger than the regime in this case, but it is still not sufficiently strong to bring change without the assistance of reformers within the regime. The process begins with the regime’s attempts at liberalization, which cause a further loss of control. The opposition took advantage of the liberalization measures to put greater pressure on the regime to relinquish control. The regime’s conservative elements react with increased repression to limit or reverse the opposition’s gains. At this point, a “standoff emerges,” and moderates on both sides attempt to mediate a solution.32 4. Collapse/transaction through replacement occurs “when opposition groups [take] the lead in bringing about democracy, and the authoritarian regime [collapses] or was overthrown.”33 The process requires little negotiations on the part of the old regime, as it is the reformers who hold all the power to force the regime change (or at least enough power to cause the collapse of the old regime). Following the opposition-triggered collapse, negotiations among those both within and outside of the prior regime (i.e., actors within the political system who have sufficient political clout and the will to use it in this milieu) consist not of a transition from something, per se (as the something has already been upended),

56

C. M. BROWN

but of democracy-building (a transition to something—in this case, democracy).34

How Political Systems Transition (in the Abstract) While the trajectory of the narrative is building toward democratic consolidation, it is useful to remember that successful transitions are far from guaranteed and more often end in frustration and failure. A necessary “background condition” that must be satisfied to provide a solid foundation for the wider processes of democratization is national unity.35 Stakeholders must at least believe that they are a part of the same national political community. Divided political loyalties provide for inauspicious beginnings; to be able to speak constructively about building a regime, even opposing perspectives agree on the parameters of what is at stake. Once the issue of who constitutes the political society is settled, successful democratic transitions tend to pass through three internal phases: the preparatory phase, the decision phase, and the habituation phase. It is important to note that these stages are not inevitable (nor inevitable once initiated), nor is it easy to clearly demarcate one from the next. 1. Preparatory Phase: This phase is marked by the manifestation of competing social forces usually consisting of “a new elite that arouses a depressed and previously leaderless social group into concerted action.”36 What is needed is the appearance of loyal opposition. Loyal opposition is a group or groups that oppose(s) those in power but recognizes their legitimacy to hold that power and therefore plays within the rules of the political structure to challenge the authority that power gives them. It is loyal in this context because it must adhere to the maintenance of the national unity principle. In the preparatory phase, some groups will form that “must represent well-entrenched forces, and the issues must have profound meaning to them.”37 In other words, the arrival of contending forces means that leadership has taken up a significant cause (whatever it may be) that is important to a particular group of people (whoever they may be). For the preparatory phase to continue, the struggle between the contending forces ultimately will lead to a zero-sum situation whereby the opposing sides

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

57

will be unable to defeat their rivals and thus are forced to coexist as polarizing issue representatives.38 Despite the limited conditions found in these earliest phases, the appearance of this loyal opposition and the polarizing nature of its raison d’être provide a basis for an increased democratic opportunity. The preparatory phase can be said to be complete once regime disunity is recognized and institutions for grappling with the pressures offer alternatives that are supportive of liberalization. 2. Decision Phase: The Decision Phase is the point at which political leaders make the decision (or a series of decisions) that democracy is the favored outcome by those in power.39 Democracy can be “purchased wholesale,” such as when the political leadership chooses to adopt a new constitution that endorses democratic principles. It can also be purchased on an “installment plan” where the political system takes a series of steps, each one closer and closer to the embrace of a democratic political regime. The Mode of Transition rests upon the relative degree of power among a limited group of stakeholders (i.e., those political elites who have sufficient capacity to gain a seat at the bargaining table). It is important to note that the stakeholders in the negotiation process at this phase may or may not have been those that gave rise to the onset of polarization during the preparatory phase. Once a space is opened that allows for the airing of grievances, any number of issues public may arise. What is important for the sake of negotiation is who has sufficient influence to gain access to the discussions surrounding political change.40 This ambivalence in attitudes toward democracy may be to a large degree due to the “mixed motives” that function as the primordial ooze from which democracy may evolve democracy may not have been the original goal but may have arisen as “incidental to other substantive issues.”41 As referenced earlier, the potential for democratization often arises more as a result of one group being able to dominate the others. Democracy emerges more because of a practical, although less than ideal, compromise. Therefore, for all parties, democracy is a consolation prize that encapsulates political conflict into a regulatory framework that allows for continued differences in policy preferences.

58

C. M. BROWN

3. Habituation Phase: Once the political leadership has determined the basis of the democratic compromise, this arrangement must then be introduced to a wider public. Architects of democracy must be able to transmit these rules among politically active groups and to a wider, latent public. The deepening of a commitment to democratization is subject to path dependence provided by earlier preferences for democratic decision-making among elites. Once decisions are made and agreed upon, following those decisions is reinforced by the logic that initiated the need for compromise in the first place. Incentives exist to reinforce the commitment made to democratic obligations, particularly where they have proven to be useful, as in the capacity to successfully manage conflict. The decision(s) made during the Decision Phase stands as a testament to the ability of compromise to manage conflict in the democratic model. The Habituation Phase builds on earlier successes to reward those who play the democratic game and punish those who do not. Democratic deepening occurs because of three processes. First, past successes in conflict resolution help to build trust in those institutions, give opportunities for learning, and reinforce these rules as candidates for future avenues of conflict resolution. Second, the positive experiences gained from practicing democratic procedures offer positive reinforcement for those practices. Third, elite democratic practice facilitates the expansion of democratic values and processes among a broader group of stakeholders through party identity, thus widening political circles beyond the palace walls.”42

Foundational Pacts Regardless of whether they are formal or informal, all elite negotiations that yield a framework for future interactions are pacts. Some pacts are very formalized and structured, such as the Pact of Punto Fijo discussed in the Venezuelan case in the next chapter. Others are not as elaborate as to warrant a public title but serve the same purpose. In an environment of uncertainty, elites must agree on a set of guidelines as to how politics interact. Nevertheless, elite negotiations that lead to pacted settlements, even those that lead to democracy, have positive and negative consequences. Pacting is often necessary to “limit the uncertainty associated with democratic transitions, and thereby, give some guarantees to those

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

59

who potentially have a lot to lose as a result of transition.”43 Additionally, since pact-making is a form of conflict resolution, it provides a practical opportunity for opposing interests to learn to work together to achieve a goal. Since this will be the modus operandi of the new democratic order, it offers a solid foundation for continued democratization. However, pacts can also limit further democratization by “marginalizing those seeking greater change and demobilizing the populace.”44 Those who are able to negotiate the pacts that will provide the basis for a new regime are often the same people who have established interests in the present regime (especially in a smooth transition). Pacting is a way for regime elites to control the transition to maintain as much of their political resources as possible. Pacts moderate political disagreement, often to the degree to which more radical opinions are marginalized. They are exclusive as well; limiting the number of perspectives increases the chances for successful negotiation. Pacts often begin as depoliticizing settlements. This is the paradox of pacted transition: “They [Pacts] move toward democracy by undemocratic means. They are negotiated by a few actors, they reduce competitiveness and accountability, they attempt to structure the agenda of polity concerns, and they distort the principle of citizen equality.”45

Democratic Consolidation One of the most pronounced distinctions between the stages of democratization can be found in the shift from transition toward consolidation. As discussed above, transitions occur at the point where the nondemocratic regime cannot maintain control without giving up some element of control over the system. Again, there is no reason to assume that all transitions will be toward democratization; however, consolidation represents the potential goal of transitions. A democratic transition is considered complete when the rules and procedures of democracy have been codified and supported. Elections to determine political leadership are held in accordance with democratic principles, and the elected government has the right to govern by virtue of the free and popular vote. Consolidation “refers to the embedding of democratic procedures into the infrastructure so that that system is secure and is generally seen as the appropriate way of organizing political life.”46 Democratic consolidation maintains a relationship based upon the co-constitution between public attitudes and

60

C. M. BROWN

corresponding behavioral practices that are defined as and supportive of democratic principles. A consolidated democracy is defined as the awareness of actors that democracy is the “only game in town” where the practices of democracy become routinized and institutionalized in social, institutional, and psychological life and “in calculations for achieving success.”47 This definition consists of three parts: behavioral (people behave in accordance with democratic norms), attitudinal (where the legitimacy of democratic norms remains unchallenged), and constitutional (where the rule of law is applied universally to all members of society regardless of position).48 Nevertheless, only by taking into account the wide array of forces that influence breakdown, transition, and consolidation can a more complete picture of democratization occur. The difficulty, however, is that no list can be truly exhaustive, nor can it measure the weight that should be given to each factor. This problem is confounded by the nature of democracy itself: In seeking to explain the creation of a political regime that by its very definition is structured uncertainty tends to obscure its dynamism. Efforts to make the concept of consolidation less esoteric have been met with limited success. One of the most popular measures, Huntington’s (1991) two-turnover hypothesis argues regimes are consolidated where the parties competing to control the government endure twoelectoral turnovers.49 A troubling assumption of quantifying consolidation this way is that once the two-turnover milestone is reached, democracy is no longer seen as being “at risk” since stakeholders in the regime have embraced democratic values. It is possible, however, that even after two turnovers in which peaceful transfers of power occur between alternating political party controls, the system may still be far from consolidated. For example, consolidation may be only embedded at the elite level, as in the Colombian case discussed in a later chapter. In other words, the degree of democratic consolidation is limited to the elites in a political system, and therefore, the democratic rules are only appropriate to them. Or worse, democratic rules may only be seen as appropriate for them. In the former, elites would accept and adhere to democratic rules among themselves and fearing a wider “liberalization” of democratic attitudes and beliefs may represent a threat to their access to power. In the latter case, democratic rules that are perceived as only appropriate for them lead to a form of leadership caste, wherein only those of a particular class or kind are considered fit to rule.

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

61

This is not to downplay the importance of elections in democratization, especially founding elections, where “democratic gains can begin to be consolidated or lost depending on the entire election process and the behavior of pro-democratic and anti-democratic elites.”50 Elections are the necessary prerequisite to any discussion of democracy; before scholars can talk about any other democratic attributes or institutions, elections must be taken as a priori. Advancing the study of transitions beyond electoralism is necessary, but elections are critical to the existence of democratic governance. However, as the requirements for consolidating democracies expand, so too do the problems of defining them. Many of the conceptions of consolidation rest upon the individual’s beliefs that democracy is “appropriate” (value-judgment that rests on legitimacy and/ or effectiveness) or that the “rules” are the best around (limited knowledge of other rules). Either of these is a function of legitimacy and/or effectiveness of the regime, and this is a theme that will be discussed in greater detail in later chapters.

Becoming Consolidated Once a democracy can be said to be consolidated (by whichever criteria is utilized), its future seems much more predictable. Ideally, consolidated democracies should continue to expand their democratic values and deepen citizen commitment to the principles of democracy as the co-constitution gains momentum through each successful democratic action. Primarily, this would mean simply maintaining the rules of popular sovereignty with respect to the interests of citizens through the representation systems. Since democracy has no real end stage, consolidation takes the form of responsible governance based on popular interests. In a consolidated democracy, whenever a rule is executed in concert with the interest of the citizenry, democracy is being consolidated. Democracy, however, is a form of relationship between the governed and the governors that requires constant cultivation. In effect, there is no telos or final form of democracy that once reached becomes invincible to neglect or corruption. This leads to the second possible avenue for consolidated democracies: democratic breakdowns.

62

C. M. BROWN

Democratic Failures Just as all transitions are not the same, democratic failures represent a diverse range. All democratic failures are not breakdowns; the language of failure is heavily contextualized by where it occurs in the continuum of democratization. For example, if a regime in transition toward democracy undergoes a reversal and returns to some form of authoritarian retrenchment, it is thought of as a failed or an aborted transition.51 Oftentimes, these early attempts at creating a democracy are seen as critical learning periods that presage a later transition toward democracy that offers a higher probability for success due to those lessons gleaned from the initial failures. If a regime completes its transition and then suffers a reversal or a collapse, the failure is seen as a failed democratic experiment. What is important here is that there is clear recognition that a transition has been completed. Like failed transitions, those failures that occur after a period of transition can offer a good basis for predicting a democratic regime with a greater chance for success in the future. However, failure at any junction may also undermine the credibility of democratic reformers, as efforts toward democracy create additional hardships or appear to be unworkable solutions to resolving social problems. Expectations are also often to blame, as transitions to democracy are usually greeted by the masses with a sense of hope. The road to democracy is littered with unfilled expectations, and these feelings of disappointment can fuel indifference, or worse, they can cause once-hopeful democrats to become jilted authoritarian. At any point along this continuum, political systems can suffer backsliding as well; regimes can become less democratic than they once were.52 When democratization scholars refer to democratic “breakdowns,” the context is always one in which failure occurs in a consolidated democratic regime. Once a regime is said to be a consolidated democracy, a reversal occurs where that democracy is undermined to the point at which the regime that is substituted in its place is markedly dissimilar. Moreover, when consolidated democracies break down, they do so spectacularly; failures of a consolidated regime seem wildly unlikely. Embedded in the study of democratization is a belief that linear progress toward democratic consolidation is the ultimate endgame of any political system. The mere fact that democratic breakdowns are so rare is what gives them a curious attraction for scholars.53 Therefore, why do democracies break down?

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

63

Break Down from Democratic External Pressures The most evident way that democratic breakdown can occur is by external pressures; this is usually because of conquest and/or defeat in war. In these cases, the regime can be subverted by the right of the conqueror to directly dismantle, reorganize, or eliminate the existing arrangements for self-rule. One example is the rule of the “Thirty Tyrants” in Athens following Sparta’s victory in the Peloponnesian War. Germany’s occupation of France during the Second World War offers another example of where democracy broke down under the conditions of war. External pressures causing democratic breakdown might include both direct occupation and conquest or democratic breakdown due to conditions of peace. In the latter, the victor of a conflict maintains sufficient leverage to force a regime change without direct occupation. Here, the loser in a conflict could relinquish the democratic regime as a condition of surrender. Another type of externally driven democratic breakdown can be a coup via sabotage. This occurs when external forces support or attempt to initiate sufficient support to overthrow an existing democratic regime. While it is certainly evident that foreign elements (overt and covert, political and economic) play roles that influence the stability of a given political regime, the issue regarding democratic breakdown is a matter of intent to overthrow a particular regime. There have been many cases throughout history where foreign agents have sought to facilitate a regime change. A distinction may be made as to whether these elements act alone to cause a regime breakdown or whether they work in concert with domestic interests seeking the same goal. The same argument can be applied to a war-related collapse. A war-related collapse may occur because of the inability of a democracy to manage opposition due to war fatigue (where the population is so strained by having to support a condition of war that it overthrows the regime that is continuing the war, its inability to challenge demands by its internal opposition, or hyper-executive privileges claims by the leadership in the capacity of commander-in-chief). Since the argument in this book addresses democratic breakdowns via democratic means, the focus of the study is on internal threats.

64

C. M. BROWN

Democratic Breakdown by Internal Pressures Democratic breakdown that occurs because of internal pressures is most often a result of nondemocratic elements within the political system that exert themselves to topple the existing regime. If those forces are part of the existing regime, then it can be said that the internal democratic breakdown is the victim of a coup d’état. For a coup to be a military coup, it must be initiated and conducted by members of the legitimate armed forces of the state who are acting in that capacity. Where the regime is overthrown by non-regime-based forces that are in each political system, as in the case of irregular militant groups or other antidemocratic forces, the democratic breakdown is the result of a putsch. In contrast, the disloyal opposition exists as elements that are part of a political system but are opposed to the regime. Such opposition cannot be repressed or isolated. These groups are the basis for the internal pressures for regime change. Regime change occurs with the transfer of legitimacy from one set of political institutions to another. The disloyal opposition in failing to gain enough support to directly challenge the government blends “illegal actions with a formal legal process of transfer of power” where success or failure is a function of military support.54 Breakdowns occur because of the disloyal opposition’s ability to gain sufficient strength to initiate a regime change due to the pervasiveness of social problems. In the last analysis, breakdown is a result of processes initiated by the government’s incapacity to solve problems for which disloyal oppositions offer themselves as a solution to a population that is increasingly exasperated. Because of the persistent problems that the democratic regime is helpless to reconcile, the disloyal opposition gains a greater platform to challenge the struggling regime. A concurrent shift occurs in the legitimacy of each group: the regime’s loss of legitimacy is the opposition’s gain. What remains to be seen is the form in which this opposition takes to trigger a democratic breakdown. Democratization scholars recognize the difficulties of a nonviolent form of democratic breakdown, conceding that “Only the direct intervention of the military seems to be able to topple regimes in modern stabilized states.”55 Democratic Breakdowns are an unlikely potential outcome for consolidated democracies, which suffer some significant and lingering social problems that provide a space for a disloyal opposition to use nondemocratic means to promote regime change. The cases in this book, however, do not address democratic breakdowns through a coup or by a disloyal opposition that seeks

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

65

power outside of constitutional means. This book seeks to understand how democratic breakdowns can occur through democratic means.

Reconciling Democratic Breakdowns The literature on democratic breakdowns allows for democracy to be undermined through several different avenues, all of which rest upon a particular group of people who are opposed to the democratic regime and are seeking to replace it through extraconstitutional measures. Breakdowns occur as follows. The democratic forces lose support (legitimacy) because of their inability to oversee major (unsolvable) problems, thereby allowing those who do not favor the present democratic arrangement (disloyal opposition) to gain an opportunity to assert (or reassert) themselves upon the political system. This disloyal opposition is then able to orchestrate a democratic breakdown often (if not always) with the support of the armed forces. In the literature on democratization, our entire understanding of democratic breakdowns is predicated upon the unexpected but eventual victory of nondemocratic forces over democratic forces through extraconstitutional measures. Robert A. Dahl, the renowned scholar of democratization, confidently claimed, “I am not aware of any instance of a country where all the essential democratic institutions were fully in place for a generation or more in which a majority has actually decided, by democratic procedure, to replace their democratic system with a nondemocratic regime.”56 In stark contrast to the above assessment of the scholarship on Democratic Breakdown and Professor Dahl’s statement, the next chapter will outline the curious case of Venezuela’s democratic breakdown through democratic means. Venezuela’s political trajectory not only provides a new and troubling avenue for consolidated democracies, but the patterns that emerge from the case study offer enticing clues to identifying similar fragility in other political systems in the region.

Notes 1. Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996), 38–39. 2. Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 159.

66

C. M. BROWN

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

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

Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, 161. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems, 40. Ibid., 42. Ibid., 38. It is interesting to note that what becomes known as “transitology” (or the study of transitions was so comfortably couched in terms of authoritarian-democratic transitions, that it was only in the aftermath of the post-Second World regimes toward some other political system that its lack of widespread application became apparent. Sovietologists attempted to apply the same principles to the opening of the Warsaw Pact countries, only to discover the weaknesses of this approach’s claim to universality. For an excellent discussion of this, See Jordan Gans-Morse, “Searching for Transitologists: Contemporary Theories of Post-Communist Transitions and the Myth of a Dominant Paradigm,” Post-Soviet Affairs 20, no. 4 (2004): 320–349. Steven J. Hood, Political Development and Democratic Theory: Rethinking Comparative Politics (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), 6. Hood, Political Development, 6. Ibid., 12. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 44–46. Huntington, The Third Wav, 44–46. Hood, Political Development, 52. Adam Przeworski, Democracy, and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (New York: Cambridge UP, 1991), 71. Graeme Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization: Elites, Civil Society, and the Transition Process (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 33. Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization, 14. Ibid., 17. Ibid., 17. Ibid., 35. Ibid., 35. Ibid., 13. Ibid., 49. Ibid., 19. Hood, Political Development, 65. Ibid. Gary Stradiotto & Sujian Guo, “Transitional Modes of Democratization and Democratic Outcomes,” International Journal on World Peace 27, no. 4 (2010): 5–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23266546.

4

THE BLUEPRINT FOR DEMOCRATIZATION

67

27. These types do not represent all the ways in which transitions occur, as I am only concerned with transitions toward democracy here. 28. Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization, 68. Gill reminds us of the other labels for these types of transitions. Linz and Stepan call this “refomapactada, rupture-pactada.” Linz refers to it as “reforma” and Huntington tags it “transformation.” 29. Huntington, The Third Wave, 138. Huntington refers to this as “backward legitimacy.” 30. Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization, 68–69. 31. Ibid., 69. Huntington refers to this as “transplacement.” 32. Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization, 69. 33. Ibid. The term “replacement” is also from Huntington (1991). Linz (2000) refers to this kind of transition as “ruptura.” 34. Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization, 70. 35. Dankwart A. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model.” Comparative Politics 2, no. 3 (1970): 350. 36. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy,” 352. 37. Ibid., 352. 38. Ibid., 354. 39. Ibid., 356. 40. Ibid., 356. 41. Ibid., 357. 42. Ibid., 357. 43. Ibid., 57. 44. Ibid., 57. 45. Guillermo O’Donnell & Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1986), 58. 46. Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization, 57. 47. Linz and Stepan, Problems, 5. 48. Ibid., 6. 49. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave, 266–267. 50. Hood, Political Development, 62. 51. Juan J. Linz, The Breakdown, 8. Linz refers to these types as being either “stillborn” or “embattled new democracies.” 52. Larry Diamond. “Democracy’s Arc: From Resurgent to Imperiled.” Journal of Democracy 33, no. 1 (2022): 163–179. doi:10.1353/jod.2022. 0012. 53. Another side-effect of our faith in democracy arises in our investigation of political systems that appear nominally as democracies, or those that exhibit some degree of democratic institutions. For these political systems, scholars often generate a “hyphenated” appellation to describe them as “not quite democratic” or “not quite authoritarian.” Because

68

C. M. BROWN

of the ill-fitting dialectic of “democracy-authoritarian,” or the unabashed rush to find democracy everywhere, scholars end up becoming apologists for political systems that do not merit the moniker of democracy. 54. Linz, The Breakdown, 15. 55. Ibid. 56. Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution? 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2003), 166.

Bibliography Dahl, Robert A. How Democratic Is the American Constitution? 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2003. Diamond, Larry. “Democracy’s Arc: From Resurgent to Imperiled.” Journal of Democracy 33, no. 1 (2022): 163–179. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2022. 0012. Gans-Morse, Jordan. “Searching for Transitologists: Contemporary Theories of Post-Communist Transitions and the Myth of a Dominant Paradigm.” PostSoviet Affairs 20, no. 4 (2004): 320–349. Gill, Graeme. The Dynamics of Democratization: Elites, Civil Society, and the Transition Process. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Hood, Steven J. Political Development and Democratic Theory: Rethinking Comparative Politics. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004. Huntington, Samuel P. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. Linz, Juan J. Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000. Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Przeworski, Adam. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. New York: Cambridge UP, 1991. Rustow, Dankwart A. “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model.” Comparative Politics 2, no. 3 (April 1970): 337–363. Stradiotto, Gary, and Sujian Guo, “Transitional Modes of Democratization and Democratic Outcomes.” International Journal on World Peace 27, no. 4 (2010): 5–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23266546.

CHAPTER 5

From Exemplar to Pariah: The Heuristic Case of Venezuela’s Breakdown

From Exemplar to Pariah Beginning in the 1960s, Venezuela was seen as the model for Latin American democracy and promoted as the benchmark to which other failed Latin American political systems could be measured for forty years. Venezuela had a vibrant party system, a series of free and fair elections held at regularly determined intervals that witnessed the peaceful transfer of power from one rival political group to another and back again for close to forty years. Venezuela’s democracy was universally acclaimed to be based on the Pact of Punto Fijo of 1958. The success of the Pact of Punto Fijo facilitated by the spirit of cooperation among stakeholders helped establish a democratic constitution in 1961 that served as the cornerstone of Venezuelan democracy. This system lasted until 1999 with the adoption of a new constitution promulgated by the Chávez Administration. Venezuela was successful in its transition and its consolidation of democratic governance. The alternation of rival parties for almost forty years meets the minimum requirement for democratic consolidation. However, Venezuela maintained an active political party system with high voter participation that promoted the consolidation of a (primarily) two-party political system over that time. The widely available civic freedoms of press, expression, political activism, and the like affirm Venezuela as a deeply consolidated democracy. That Venezuela was a democracy governed by the constitution of 1961 based upon the spirit of the Pact © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_5

69

70

C. M. BROWN

of Punto Fijo is commonly understood. The present Constitution of Venezuela was approved by referendum, and it has eliminated the key structures of the Punto Fijo constitution. Ideologically, it was written and approved to promote an alternative way to govern the electorate. What is more telling is that substantively, the stakeholders of the new regime have been written out of the political system. There is no question that Venezuela endured a massive political shift, due specifically to a democratic breakdown of the fundamental elements of Punto Fijo democracy. Officially, the consummation of a new constitution advocated by a new political order marked the end of Venezuela’s democracy. With the rise of Hugo Chávez and the breakdown of Punto Fijo democracy, scholars dejectedly resigned themselves to the belief that Venezuela, in the end, has gone the route of other developing countries (particularly those in Latin America’s populist history). Appearing from a military background outside of the main channels of political participation and employing racial undertones to promote his solidarity with the disaffected masses (who themselves were found to be the target of racism by those in power), Chávez was not the type of candidate that Punto Fijo democracy was designed to elect. Where once scholars claimed that Venezuela was exceptional in the rise and fall of its political trajectory when the dust settled, it became mundane: it was just another Latin American country led by a charismatic populist leader with authoritarian inclinations. Scholars have made two mistakes in examining Venezuela’s political history. The first is that they placed too much emphasis on the notion of exceptionalism. Venezuela was not exceptional at all—it was a democratic regime that had completed a democratic transition and had become consolidated. The second mistake that scholars have made in the Venezuela case is that where they once saw Venezuela as exceptional when it was not, now they see Venezuela as ordinary. However, its situation has become unique. Examining the rise and fall of Venezuela’s democracy provides an ideal opportunity to investigate how democracies break down through democratic means. As such, Venezuela becomes an extraordinary heuristic through which to explain democratic breakdown under a condition that has thus far defied analysis. With democratic consolidation, the structure of representation was confirmed. The pacted agreements that were established to promote stability and protect the country from widely polarizing factions were

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

71

implemented early in the transition process. Revolutionary and/or reactionary threats to these arrangements were held off because of these agreements; potential defections were co-opted to remain in the coalition through the widespread use of oil monies to provide subsidies and financial incentives. Where direct financial incentives were impractical, policy preferences were given to those whose loyalty to the existing structure was clear. The pursuit of policy goals, often those in contention or outright opposition, could be pursued because of the funds generated from oil revenues and the conciliatory nature of political negotiation between elites. The threats from within the political regime were checked by a moderate electorate that was able to have their demands met by their leaders. Elements of the disloyal opposition on the far right or far left were left out of the system and neutralized through nondemocratic means. These leaders were often in the position (and of the mindset) to facilitate corruption and graft but did not feel the sting of public wrath regarding corruption until the inability for those demands to be met became paramount. For the time being, the party structure that defined the democratic regime in Venezuela was consolidated. It would undergo a deepening of consolidation with the rise of oil revenues. However, the inability of the system to truly represent the interest of its population would reveal the lack of legitimacy in this structure of representation. The political regime was democratic and effective; citizen demands were met through a representative structure. However, the ground for this representative democracy was based on the effectiveness of the system to meet the instrumental needs of its politically engaged citizens. The Venezuelan political system was very capable of providing legitimacy based on effectiveness; however, democracy lacked intrinsic support. When the ability to meet public demands faltered, support of not just the regime but of democracy itself began to wane. Nevertheless, democracy would continue to be consolidated. Venezuelan democracy facilitated the development of a political culture that was supportive of elections as the means for the acquisition of legitimate authority; the day of the arbitrary caudillo had ended. Punto Fijo had established a particular political system that had to be respected, but its inflexicurity planted the seeds for its collapse. It never cultivated an intrinsic basis for legitimacy; support was contingent on instrumental gains. The legitimacy of the democracy in Venezuela was based on its effectiveness in meeting the demands of those groups who formed the core of the regime. Surprisingly, the breakdown of democracy in

72

C. M. BROWN

Venezuela came about through democratic means. A constitutionally elected democratic regime that had survived over forty years of powersharing rule was replaced. What makes this democratic breakdown and regime “substitution” unique is that it occurred entirely through constitutional and democratic processes. Chávez’s campaign promises left little confusion about his intentions. He campaigned on a platform that outlined the end of Punto Fijostyle democracy in Venezuela. During his campaign, Chávez ran on the promise to dissolve the national legislature, reconvene a new Constituent Assembly and establish a new constitution that would eliminate the existing entrenched interests that defined Venezuelan democracy. Chávez ran an “anti-Punto Fijo campaign.” His candidacy was nothing less than a campaign against democracy. He argued for the rejection of traditional party politics, the Church, labor unions, the middle classes, and any of the groups that had meaningful participation in the existing political order. In 1999, Chávez’s first decree called for the creation of a Constituent Assembly to rewrite a new set of laws. Venezuela’s consolidated democracy failed in December 1999 when an overwhelming majority of the electorate approved the new constitution. A consolidated democracy was voted out of office.

Illustrative Case Study of Venezuela Pre-Democratic History in Brief: Nation-State Building Venezuela’s early political history could be characterized by its neglect. Continental areas with sedentary Indigenous populations supported by or located next to lucrative sources of wealth (usually mineral) provided the primary target for European exploitation of their discoveries. Conquest and occupation led by military dominance were followed by other imperial agents of the Spanish Crown, the Church with its Inquisition, and the Crown bureaucracy that would place the stamp of European Spain directly atop the indigenous systems of authority. The trajectory of the Spanish Empire’s influence in the Americas was far less felt in Venezuela than in areas with more obvious wealth. The insular parts of the Americas were denuded of people after contact, saw the little tangible wealth extracted, and the remaining natives relocated to other places (usually Santo Domingo) through the work of slave raiders. The lack of Spanish interest generated a limited Church presence and yielded a smaller Spanish

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

73

presence among the population and in the political economy of the colony. A plantation economy would spring up in the absence of other wealth that would serve as the basis for social class in the country. At the top of the colonial order was a social class that was more closely identified with European Spain (peninsulares ). Next, was the native-born of the Spanish descent (criollo) class who had acquired social status through the (largely) illicit and lucrative trade of cacao. The pardos were lower still, consisting of those freemen of mixed blood who made up the bulk of colonial society. At the lowest levels were those of mixed-Indigenous blood (mestizos), the Indigenous groups themselves, and the non-free (slave and indentured) labor. Venezuela was remarkably like its Caribbean neighbors: a mature plantation economy focused exclusively on an export economy complete with a racial hierarchy. Differing bases for political legitimacy defined the era of the wars for independence. What might have been an all-out racial war was mitigated by regionalism and demands equality. The failure of the first two attempts at creating a republic in the region was their exclusionary nature. The third republic’s success came because it promised limited citizenship that was not based on racial restrictions. With the collapse of Bolivar’s Gran Colombia, Venezuela launched its bid for political autonomy. The colonial administration of Venezuela via Caracas was reinforced over the next hundred years, as the country became the subject of competing claims of legitimacy through rival caudillos. At the heart of the era of the caudillo was the debate over federalism, or how the political structure of Venezuela was to be administered as a singular entity. Despite the Caribbean-focused political economy that came to maturity in the colonial era (and was again revived in the post-independence era), Venezuela had another political pole represented by its Andean population and interests. It was the caudillos of the Táchira state that would resolve the issue of nation-building. The controversy over federalism appeared to be more of a question of which vision of progress the country would follow: the Andean or the Caribbean. Political unity came in a compromise that was uncomfortable for either element. The era of the caudillo was confirmed by the successive military dominance of the Caracas-centered economy by Andean Táchira leadership. In the process of nation-building that occurred through fits and starts throughout the country’s history, elements of that plantation economy had been dismantled. Regionalism came to supplement racism

74

C. M. BROWN

as the defining characteristic of Venezuelan politics. Regional identities were occasionally muted with the dictatorships of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that sought to integrate the country physically and espouse symbols for national unity. When caudillos began to see themselves as national leaders, the dynamics of federalism changed. The modernization that came under Gómez was the final stage of centralization, and the primacy of the federal over the regional governments was established. This unification came by way of repression. Gómez was able to succeed where others failed in large part because the times had changed: the massive new wealth that the country had discovered in the form of oil after the First World War made centralization much easier than in the past. The oil booms, despite being restricted in their distribution, were able to promote the nationalization and modernization campaigns that had begun with the collapse of Gran Colombia. By the time of Gomez’s death, the Venezuelan state had become consolidated with its political capital centered on Caracas. National unity, however, came at a price. Years of repression had created the undercurrents of those political forces that would tear apart Venezuela’s autocratic past and promote a new form of hegemony in the form of democratic rule. Liberalization to Democratization (1935–1958) It is logical to begin the examination of Venezuelan democratization and the influence that the prior regime had on the processes of liberalization. The background prerequisite of national unity was forged by Gómez and his predecessors. His successors had to wrestle with the consequences of a modernized political economy, and the new pressures unleashed as a result. One day after Gómez’s death by natural causes, military elites appointed his long-time supporter, General Eleazar López Contreras, as president of Venezuela. In contrast to Gómez’s reign, Contreras embarked on a campaign to improve the quality of life for Venezuelans beyond the ruling elites. Calling for a campaign known as “sembrar el petróleo (sowing the oil),” Contreras sought to utilize the revenues raised from oil exports to modernize the economy through infrastructure improvements and the promotion of new sources of wealth (both in oil exploration and non-petroleum industrialization). He established a central bank to expand credit opportunities and sought to improve the quality of higher education.

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

75

Political liberalization arose because of Contreras’ tenuous hold on power. In seeking to broaden his claims for legitimacy, he embarked on an amnesty program by freeing political prisoners. With the more repressive parts of the police state broken up, political exiles felt safe enough to return to the country. In 1936, Venezuela witnessed the establishment of its first modern political party organizations.1 Contreras permitted the organization of opposition political parties, condoned an expansion of the media franchise, and allowed for public debates to occur among proponents of different philosophies than the ruling parties. In this spirit of restricted openness, political parties were founded. ORVE, or the Movimiento de Organización Venezolana (Movement for Venezuelan Organization), was created at this time, and Rómulo Betancourt assumed control of the party. He would oversee the evolution of the party into one with a clear message and organization. The inclusion of leftist groups changed the tone of the party, giving it a more solid base upon which to critique government policy. Under Betancourt’s leadership, ORVE would merge with another party (although not legally recognized), the PDN, or the Partido Democrático Nacional (National Democratic Party). The combined strength of these two groups promoted a rival contender for the presidency in 1941. Their candidate, Rómulo Gallegos, was unsuccessful in unseating the appointed General Isaías Medina Angarita, but his candidacy did provide a united cause for the people to rally around in the name of democracy. In addition, despite being banned from political activity, prominent socialist and communist parties became actively organized at this time as well. Communists who had fled from the persecution of the Gómez regime returned to work against the government.2 General Medina Angarita’s election was widely condemned as far from democratic, further fueling anti-governmental political activism. Legislative elections were scheduled in October 1944 that would determine those Congressional leaders who would appoint the next president in April of 1946. Emboldened by the public outcry, ORVE and PDN merged to become Acción Democrática (Democratic Action, or AD), openly stating the goal of the opposition. AD was the first truly nationalized political party that was mobilized to campaign in every district and region. Adopting a “Leninist structure whose operations were inspired by democratic centralism,” AD saw itself as a “leftist revolutionary, nationalist, populist, multiclass, anti-imperialist” party that worked to achieve “social democracy.”3 In response, Medina Angarita formed a pro-presidential party, the Partido Democrático Venezolano (Venezuelan

76

C. M. BROWN

Democratic Party, or PDV), which won a legitimizing victory in the congressional elections of 1944.4 The nondemocratic regime began to show signs of strain as Medina broke ranks with his conservative rightwing Táchira military support and nominated a liberal civilian who was the ambassador to the United States. AD overwhelmingly supported this nomination, but the tension within the junta behind the presidency gave rise to political tension that led to whispers of civil war.5 An unlikely combination of communists and government supporters thwarted AD’s bid to change the government. AD had been campaigning for universal suffrage, secret balloting, a wider distribution of oil revenues to improve the quality of life for average Venezuelans, and a higher percentage of reinvestment in the “sembrar el petróleo” policy.6 These elections would be significant in that they would lead to the breakdown of authoritarian rule in Venezuela, at least for a short period, known as “The Trienio” (1945–1948). The authoritarian regime was facing additional pressures from both within Venezuela and beyond. Despite remaining nominally neutral throughout WWII, Venezuela supplied the Allied cause with oil and later joined the war effort on the Allied side. The international messages promoted by the Allies both during the war and in the aftermath would play an important ideological role in nudging people to support democracy. More significant, however, was the frustration of the junior military officers within the government, particularly those from outside Táchira state. Angry about the bias against non-Táchira officers and the slowness of reforms and modernization efforts within the military, they formed a secret group called the Unión Patriótica Military (Patriotic Military Union, UPM).7 Failed promises of modernization were particularly felt by the younger officers who, despite being trained as professional soldiers, found themselves in a secondary position to the old guard who earned their positions, not through merit but through kinship ties.8 Failed Democratic Experiment and Democratic Learning On October 18, 1945, the authoritarian government of General Medina Angarita was overthrown by a democratic coup d’état led by the AD and the UPM. The “October Revolution” placed government control in the hands of a junta led by AD that was supported by the UPM in control of the country’s armed forces. Democratic institutions were put into place completely with universal suffrage. New political parties

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

77

and labor unions were permitted from which the leadership cadre would emerge for a new class of political parties. The Trienio conceded that capitalism was the only path to modernization, but in choosing reform over revolution, they sought to redistribute the country’s wealth and improve living conditions. To do this, the junta created the Venezuelan Development Corporation and expanded the state’s role in providing infrastructure and social reforms. To fund these efforts, they reworked their contracts with petroleum industries to give the state a greater share of the profits. Then, using the new revenue structure, they enacted social service initiatives, expanding education and health care quality and access. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1947 oversaw the redistribution of property ownership from the latifundios (exceptionally large, often hereditary agricultural land holdings) to the peasantry (campesinos ) to stimulate the rural economy and food production. The junta also prosecuted acts of corruption by officials from earlier regimes.9 All military officers of a senior rank were retired immediately after the coup, many to face criminal charges because of their role in the earlier repression.10 Despite only lasting three years, The Trienio provided a good deal of democratic learning that the country could count on in later years. AD reaped the benefit of the myriad of political transformations that they made during the transition to democracy. Throughout the Trienio period, AD won each election with over 70% of the vote. They drafted a new constitution in July of 1947 and held their first presidential election that included universal, direct, and secret voting.11 All political parties were legalized and AD won the vast majority of congressional seats; Rómulo Gallegos became the first democratically elected president of Venezuela.12 Nondemocratic opposition to the AD could be found in the elements of the ancient regime, mainly the Catholic Church, wealthy landowners, and parts of the armed forces. Bolstered by electoral legitimacy granted by the inaugural election, the new government immediately instituted a progressive reform program with little concern for the conservative opposition.13 Their plans to secularize education alarmed the Catholic Church. Their stated goals of promoting “social justice and better conditions for the workers” were not well received by the business community or the foreign-owned sector of the economy.14 Their radical land reform bills soon caused the rural oligarchy to conspire against the new democracy. With hopes running high for AD, they became a catch-all party for those who were eager for change. Non-AD supporters of democracy were

78

C. M. BROWN

often incapable of finding space for their messages and were unable to attract voters. Despite initially lacking a coherent message that could challenge AD on democratic grounds, pro-democratic outsiders learned how to build organizations that would play important roles in the future. The Unión Republicana Democrática (URD) was founded as a hodge-podge of all groups that were not united with AD; they existed simply as a counterweight to AD’s influence. AD’s biggest democratic rival, the Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente (COPEI), was also formed at this time. Initially, consisting of Catholics who were concerned that the Church was being drowned out by leftists, COPEI did not see itself as a political party at first but later sought to adapt Christian humanism to political authority. Rafael Caldera headed it.15 Venezuelan president Rómulo Gallegos took office on February 15, 1948. After only eight months into his administration, the military demanded that AD allow the more conservative party organizations (mainly COPEI) to be allowed some meaningful participation in policymaking, in essence, demanding a coalition government that would serve to slow the pace of the liberal reforms of AD.16 By November, Gallegos was forced from office by the armed forces in a military coup, and the democratic experiment in Venezuela had failed. The new Junta Militar de Gobierno (JMG) annulled all of the political changes that were undertaken during the Trienio: elections were voided, the constitution was annulled, political parties and unions were made illegal, newspapers were closed and even land that had been redistributed was returned to the original owners and peasants were forcibly removed.17 At the heart of the military coup was a breakdown in the agreement between AD and the UPM leadership. Civilian control over the military did not comport with the UPM’s vision of democracy. The UPM was fully aware that democracy existed only because the military allowed it to exist. Several small-scale military uprisings occurred during the Trienio, but these were limited in their effect.18 What proved to be the final straw was the submission of a budget that called for a significantly reduced role for the military in conjunction with reduced financial entitlements.19 The threat of a military coup, resulting from a breakdown between the UPM and the AD, was never far. Despite getting the lion’s share of support in the democracy they had created, when the military threatened to end the democratic experiment, “the people’s party had no one to defend it.”20 For the next ten years, Venezuela would be under the control of the military, first by the JMG itself (with Carlos Delgado Chabaud at the

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

79

head of the junta) and then by its appointed president, General Marcos Pérez Jiménez. All leftist political activity was banned, including the AD. Activists were persecuted through arrest, torture, or forced impressments into work camps. Special prisons were built just to house political prisoners, many of whom never regained their freedom. Others were forced to flee into exile. Anti-government protests led to the closure of universities and media outlets. Teachers who were seen as anti-government sympathizers were persecuted. In this atmosphere, General Chabaud was assassinated, and the JMG declared that it would hold elections to replace him. The JMG permitted the URD and COPEI to participate in the elections (due to their conservative right-wing affiliations). URD and COPEI backed their candidates, Jóvito Villalba and Rafael Caldera, respectively. On Election Day, things deteriorated for JMG candidate General Pérez Jiménez. Finally, the election results were halted when it became obvious to all that the opposition would defeat the government’s candidate. After a substantial delay, the electoral returns were made public, and to no one’s surprise, Pérez Jiménez had “won” the presidency. At that point, the JMG resigned and turned power over to him.21 Pérez Jiménez wasted no time drafting a new constitution that was adopted by congress, making all municipal positions subject to appointment only. Additionally, presidential elections would no longer be subject to a popular vote; presidential selection would be limited to congressional action. Persecution of political opposition, particularly by the extensive use of the secret police forces (Seguridad Nacional ), was rampant. While Pérez Jiménez’s program of El Nuevo Ideal Nacional (New National Ideal) publicly spoke of improving public works, adding new infrastructure, and increasing defense budgets, it served as an irresistible opportunity for widespread graft and corruption. Extraordinarily little monies were spent on social service programs, as the administration and its inner circle enriched themselves at the expense of the public’s welfare.22 A plebiscite sponsored by Pérez Jiménez in December 1957 showed that 85% were in favor of his policies.23 What the administration announced as a confirmation of their legitimate right to govern was widely recognized as a mockery made of public choice. All the remaining political parties (legal and illegal) joined together to form the Junta Patriótica (JP) and called upon Pérez Jiménez to bring back legitimate democracy. Strikes became widespread among union groups, and rioting began

80

C. M. BROWN

at universities led by student protestors. Soon, elements of the military began to rebel against the government.24 On January 1, 1958, the Venezuelan Air Force bombed parts of Caracas as a signal to the rest of the armed forces that the military coup had begun. While the expected military-led rebellion failed to come about due to improper planning, the bombings were perceived by the civilian-led opposition groups that sufficient disunity was prevalent within the armed forces. A general strike was called, and people rushed into the streets to overthrow the regime.25 Soon, the Air Force rebellion was supported by the Navy, the Church, the media, and the JP. Street fighting occurred in late January 1958 between forces loyal to the government and the opposition groups in Caracas, and the army forced Pérez Jiménez to resign. As he fled into exile, the branches of the military re-established the Junta Militar de Gobierno (JMG) and promised to hold elections within one year.26 Pacted Transition: The Pacts of Punto Fijo Venezuela’s successful transition to democratic rule would begin on January 23, 1958 (El Movimiento de 23 de Enero) when several groups emerged with the common cause of rebuilding the government.27 In the absence of a common foe, the membership of the Patriotic Junta reverted to their political camps, making it impossible to find united support for a singular candidate to lead the transition.28 However, in light of the aborted Trienio Period, the new collection of political players realized that their future required a united front. Divided by ideology but linked by practicality, the remnants of the JP sought to maintain the coalition that supported the core of a democratic regime. The political elites of the “Generation of 1928” who were able to survive and remain politically salient in the aftermath of the events of 1958 had learned the value of moderation and compromise. Lacking democratic tradition in the country, they sought to create one by honoring the pacts among those corporatist groups who were present at the time of creation. The “core of this transformation” is based upon “the emergence and the strengthening of a diverse party system that has progressively converged toward the center-left in its ideology and its policy orientation without abandoning pluralism.”29 Political consensus and the limitation of conflict was the key to stability and their political fortunes. This notion of regime unity would become even more resolute due to challenges from the far left and the far right and as a bulwark against interventions by foreign governments. For

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

81

its part, the JMG made good on its promise to hold free elections on December 7, 1958, to elect an entirely new government, including the president, legislature, state assemblies, and municipal councils.30 Between the overthrow of the Pérez Jiménez regime, the establishment of the JMG, and the relaunching of the democratic experiment in December 1958, the democratic leadership held a series of negotiations that would provide the foundation of the new democratic regime. These pacts established the primary rules for political competition and set a common policy agenda based on a coalition-style government. In the aftermath of the failed Trienio democracy and a decade-long dictatorship, the democratic leaders who were fortunate to have the opportunity to return to positions of authority realized that to avoid past mistakes, they would have to collaborate to maintain a lasting regime. The basis for this collaborative endeavor was a series of related pacts that culminated in what is commonly referred to as “puntofijoismo” (puntofijoismo). Named after the estate of COPEI-party leader Raphael Caldera where the actual “Pact of Punto Fijo” (El Pacto de Punto Fijo) was signed, puntofijoismo would become the overriding ethos of Venezuelan democracy for over forty years. The agreements promoted stability, conciliation, and cooptation as the means to prevent another authoritarian reversal. While it was successful, the inadaptability of these arrangements would come to create rigidity that would in time be unsustainable. In the immediate aftermath of the social revolution, armed with the knowledge of past failure, Venezuelan moderates collectively decided to moderate interparty tension by finding common ground and reducing the stakes of controversial issues.31 However, cooperation was not solely among the leadership of those parties interested in building a democracy. To expand the franchise of stakeholders, “business and professional groups joined, as did key elements of the military and in popular organizations linked to the political parties.”32 These negotiated agreements among these diverse groups consisted of arrangements that were institutionalized as the basis for the new regime’s survivability. To ensure that all significant interests were represented, these pacts provided for accommodation among competing interests who would recognize the legitimacy of these arrangements through compliance. Initially, foundational pacts “are necessarily comprehensive and inclusive of virtually all politically significant actors…they are only successful when they include all significantly threatening interests.”33 The

82

C. M. BROWN

Venezuelan pact had enough support to limit threats posed by groups not included in the agreements as well. Second, while foundational pacts are “substantive (about the main tenets of policy) and procedural (about the rules of policymaking),” they must begin with the goal of establishing consensual rules on bargaining.34 Despite being “inclusionary, they are simultaneously aimed at restricting the scope of representation to reassure traditional dominant classes that their vital interests will be respected.”35 Foundational pacts are “anti-democratic mechanisms, bargained by elites, which seek to create a deliberate socioeconomic and political contract that de-mobilizes emerging mass actors while delineating the extent to which all actors can participate or wield power in the future.”36 The foundational pacts of puntofijoismo managed to successfully negotiate a transition to democracy by guaranteeing the interests of those stakeholders who were powerful enough to leverage seats at the bargaining table and who chose to play by the rules. The Venezuelan military agreed to go back to the barracks and remain outside of politics with the promise that past abuses would be left unpunished. In addition, having learned from their past mistakes, the resurgent AD-led democratic coalition provided real benefits in the form of training, equipment, housing, and pay to a new generation of military officers. Furthermore, the AD-led coalition imbued the military with a new mission to protect constitutional democracy against those forces that sought to gain power outside of electoral legitimacy.37 The actual defense of the regime was required due to attacks from both the disenfranchised extreme left and the disposed reactionary right. The leadership at the table during the Punto Fijo negotiations committed to endorsing political parties to “respect the electoral process and share power…and enacted a ‘prolonged political truce’ aimed at depersonalizing debate and facilitating consultation and coalitions.”38 The junta allowed for the emergence of new political organizations if they rejected violence to acquire power. As the AD shifted toward the center to facilitate power-sharing, a political cleavage grew between the moderate left (AD) and the far left (PCV and MIR, or Movimiento Izquierda Revolucionario, Movement of the Revolutionary Left). A dispute over the appropriate means for political dissension was to be the catalyst. Increasingly dissatisfied with the conciliatory attitude of AD toward its traditional opposition, elements of the extreme left became more vocal, taking their protests into the streets, despite the government’s ban on street protests. The far left claimed the streets as legitimate means of expressing dissent and gaining a political

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

83

voice. AD disagreed and reaffirmed that the voice of the people in a democracy can only be through their representative organizations. This struggle determined that Venezuelan politics would tolerate the conflict, but only within the ranks of recognized political structures and only from legitimate political leadership. The economic policy also divided the left as AD abandoned democratic socialism in part to bolster the nascent democracy and win over former opponents. The business community was given extra assurance to support democracy as the primary beneficiaries of the new regime’s commitment to repay past debt, expand subsidies, and sow the oil revenue into local development projects. Capitalists gained significant state subsidies and were given guarantees against property redistributions or socialist-style expropriation principles. Furthermore, the new government made promises to promote labor peace.39 The AD-led coalition was able to minimize the severity of strikes and work stoppages by moving away from its more socialist leanings, but in doing so, it alienated its farther left-wing supporters. Urban labor was given political representation, the legalization of trade unions, and new rules for allowing collective bargaining; however, these would be conducted within government-approved political channels. With increased legitimacy, urban labor became a major force in the democratic political party system, maintaining strength in all the major parties. Not surprisingly, AD would come to have the closest relationship between labor organizations and political power. To bring the traditional agrarian opposition into the democratic regime, the coalition rejected earlier efforts at massive expropriation and redistribution, opting instead for programs that called for “heavy capital investment and colonization” of new areas. Where expropriation did occur, it was usually in uncultivated areas, and landowners were well compensated.40 In addition, landowners were given special agricultural credits and subsidies by the government, which often arranged special pricing to buy their goods at higher than market cost.41 Opposition to the gradual land redistribution strategies led to the purge of radical agrarian peasant leadership from political significance. Many of the more vocal members were forced to enlist with the more far-left groups who were denied political representation in puntofijoismo.42

84

C. M. BROWN

Foundational Pact of Venezuelan Democracy The provisions that define the rules of puntofijoismo can be found in five documents. The first document is a communiqué from New York signed by the leadership of the exiled political parties with consultation from business, church, and military representation to actively support the overthrow of the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship under the aegis of national unity.43 While the ethos of puntofijoismo evolved from discussions of exiled democrats in New York and elsewhere, as an artifact of policy (and the second document), it began with the Plan de Emergencia (Emergency Plan) in the days after Pérez Jiménez’s ouster in 1958. To appease the traditional elements that may have endangered a second democratic experiment, the provisional government authorized an agreement to pay the debts incurred by the former regime. The military government and those who sought to lose most with its collapse were promised financial restitution. Furthermore, the plan announced a public works effort on a grand scale to generate employment, particularly among the newer urban migrants who flooded into the cities from the countryside. Karl (1997) argues that this was the first indication that the new regime espoused the “desire to appease all interests through the liberal use of petrodollars and to avoid hard political choices regardless of the economic circumstances.”44 The third document was drawn up in April 1958 under the direction of the AD-led provisional government. The Avenimiento Obrero-Patronal (Worker-Owner Accord) brought the labor wings of the three major parties (AD, COPEI, URD), along with the Communist Party (PCV, or Partido Comunista de Venezuela, Venezuelan Communist Party), together to forge a labor peace with the business elites. It called for mutual respect for democracy and workers’ rights and restricted labor demands on wages to “consultative contract negotiation mechanisms.”45 Prior to the scheduled elections, elites negotiated deals that sought to expand the groups that would be invested in democratic success. The fourth and fifth documents included the support of the political parties, the Church, and business elites. The Pact of Punto Fijo established the core power-sharing arrangements between the three main political parties. In accordance with The Pact of Punto Fijo, the URD, AD and COPEI agreed to abide by the election results by supporting the winner, and all parties were expected to participate in the coalitional presidency of that winner.46 The winner of the election, AD’s Rómulo Betancourt, made good on the agreements by immediately structuring his administration

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

85

by including only two members of AD, three of COPEI, three of URD, one from the armed forces, and four independents.47 The Declaration of Principles and Minimal Program for Government (fifth document) established a mutual understanding for all parties regarding the political economy. It legally clarified the boundary between private and public sectors, protected private property rights, and placed expectations upon the government to provide a degree of social services. Particularly relevant for building a supportive coalition was the protection of capitalist property rights and the negotiations over education that gave the Catholic Church an interest in participating in democratic reform efforts.48 The Declaration of Principles and Governing Program provided the framework for a common policy agenda for all of those present for the elaboration of the pre-democratic policy agenda. All the major parties that were present at the foundation of the Punto Fijo democracy (AD, COPEI, and the URD) agreed to follow these basic guidelines for governing the country. To assuage the business classes (both foreign and domestic), they agreed to “respect principles of capital accumulation and the sanctity of private property.”49 Local industry was to be given preferential legislation to protect it against foreign competition and was to be subsidized by the state-controlled Venezuelan Development Corporation. Labor was given widespread freedom of association and collective bargaining. To accommodate both landowners and peasants, land reform would be re-established. However, it would be undertaken on a more measured calculation considering the current use of the land, the provision of due process, and the landowners were to be compensated based on reasonable value. State subsidies were guaranteed for all the basic and social services, including food, housing, and health care. The stated goal of the Punto Fijo arrangement was to “institutionalize a ‘prolonged political truce’ by including as many citizens as possible within a popular consensus in favor of the civilian, democratic project.”50 The political economy was to be managed through the president’s office in the form of a planning office, known as CORDIPLAN (La Oficina Central de Coordinación y Planificación). CORDIPLAN was responsible for economic development initiatives issued through multiyear planned targets based upon these negotiated policy goals. The final document that codified the rules of the game for Venezuelan democracy was the Venezuelan Constitution of 1961. The constitution formalized the institutions that arose from the negotiated pacts and placed

86

C. M. BROWN

them into a structure of consensual governance. Under Punto Fijo constitutionalism, Venezuelan democracy would survive for almost forty years. Reflecting the interests that are represented in the coalitions, a “system of negotiations, transactions, compromises and conciliations among the groups” was established as the functional convention on which democracy rests.51 These institutions provided the basis for the political rules of the regime, covering universal suffrage, and those mechanisms provided for the structure of representation. Groups that had been left out of the early democratic experiment, such as the business classes, landowners, the military, and the Church, were all given a seat at the negotiating table in this transition. The two groups that were left out of both transitions were the extreme left and extreme right. Accommodation and Exclusion The inclusion of the Catholic Church and the exclusion of elements of the Far Left provide two illustrative examples of incorporating key groups into Punto Fijo democracy. A one-time opponent of the democratic experiment and the principal antagonist of AD during the Trienio period, the Catholic Church came to support post-1958 democracy. To bring the Church back into the political fold, the AD significantly increased subsidies and revised the anti-Church legislation passed during the decade-long dictatorship.52 In addition, AD was able to resolve its early confrontation with the Church over education reform. Historically, education was the responsibility of the Catholic Church, and AD attempts at changing both the control and the ideology of education were met with the staunchest opposition. However, by reframing talks over education in “technical” terms and separating them from questions of “philosophy and orientation,” a compromise was forged. Furthermore, these discussions were held in secret to promote “privacy, centralization and control” over the negotiations, giving them a better chance of success.53 In addition, the inclusion of COPEI as a member of the coalition gave the Church a political voice through which to leverage a degree of conciliation.54 The conduit of the party system reinforced the concept of trading participation in exchange for the moderation of group demands. The political regime was built upon this type of trade-off: groups that could find a way to work within this structure not only survived but were also often rewarded.

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

87

On the other hand, groups that were incapable of reconciliation with the new basis of coalitional democracy or failed to concede to the promotion of stability were cast out. This is what happened to the far left. An early supporter and advocate of democratic opposition to the dictatorships of Gómez and the post-Trienio decade, the far left was initially disappointed with the attempts of its center-left partner, AD, to moderate political demands in exchange for coalition building. Younger members of AD and those of the far left felt that a sizable opportunity existed to “push forward quickly with radical programs of change”; however, this idea was against the spirit of the Punto Fijo agreements; thus, it served to isolate them politically.55 When the far left chose to reject conciliatory democracy that provided no space for challenges to the new authority, they found themselves to be outcasts. The shearing from the far Left occurred over a period as AD moved further toward its coalitional partners as both a means to honor the agreement and to survive politically without its more radical support. As extremist elements rejected the compromises required of Venezuelan democracy, they found themselves increasingly bereft of political access. Denied avenues for expression of interest that they deemed legitimate, the far left initiated a guerilla war that lasted throughout the 1960s, serving to reinforce the commitment of moderates in their rejection of far-left causes. The lesson of the far left’s exclusion underlined the core tenet of Punto Fijo: groups who maintained a different conception of political legitimacy were excluded. Political legitimacy in the Punto Fijo democracy meant working through the corporatist democratic core that emphasized stability. The successful consolidation of the Punto Fijo democracy was made possible over time by reinforcing core stability. The continued commitment to democratic principles came largely because of its effectiveness in meeting group demands, primarily through the exploitation of the country’s oil wealth. The core principle of Venezuelan democracy required that political elites remain moderate and committed to the rules of the game. The stability of the governing coalition made it possible to fend off the disloyal elements of the political system and reward or co-opt threats. First, they were able to neutralize counterrevolutionary elements from the extreme Right, who sought to overturn the latest democratic experiment. Then, they alienated groups of the extreme Left who were disappointed in the compromises of Punto Fijo. In either case, the Punto Fijo democracy had no room for those elements that were not committed to a moderate democratic regime. With no other avenue for their competing opinions

88

C. M. BROWN

to be heard, these interest groups were pushed to the margins where they finally assumed anti-democratic efforts to topple democracy. It is interesting that AD had the most to lose from holding this position, as they were one of the main left-leaning parties. With Betancourt and his philosophy of coalitional democracy, the extreme Left was left out. As a result of the pacted democracy, AD slowly lost members over time, as the more radical ideologues were pushed out of meaningful political activism. The crucial link between the pacts and its participants was that to play the game of politics, people and groups had to agree to the political rules of the game. In other words, to gain political recognition, groups had to subscribe to democratic institutions. Doing so gave them access to instrumental benefits in the form of economic subsidies and entitlements as part of the common agenda that was supported by the pact negotiators. Political activation within the boundaries of the political regime rested upon the elimination of alternate bases for legitimacy; “thus, the issue of survival was tacitly removed from politics, at least for the signers of the pact and the forces they represented.”56 The negotiated pacts that surrounded the transition to democracy from 1958 to 1961 formed the basis for this new democracy. They were codified in the subsequent constitution that was adopted to cement these pacts into the fiber of the Venezuelan democratic political regime. Having learned their lessons in the wake of the failure of the Trienio, elites chose to promote stability more than anything else. To manage the stability of the regime, they agreed upon a similar policy agenda that sought to manage conflict to prevent polarization or defection from the core of the pacted agreements. The elites and the interests that they represented constructed a democratic political system that ensured that their demands would be paramount. These interests were wide-ranging and diverse including labor and business, landowners, and peasants. The negotiated pacts established a form of political cooperation among corporate groups that formed the basis for the democratic regime. In other words, Venezuelan democracy consisted of a common ideological basis represented by the interests of those groups who were present at its creation. Prior to the 1961 Constitution, Venezuela had twenty-five different constitutions from its independence in 1830.57 The new Constitution established a separation of powers and a republican format like that of the United States. However, the executive branch held a significantly stronger legal position in Venezuela. The Constitution formalized the political equality of all the country’s citizens and went to great

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

89

lengths in protecting civil and human rights. It includes specific positive rights obligating the government on several policy areas (e.g., the number of working hours allotted per week, minimum wage, freedom for labor strikes, and protection of the natural environment).58 However, the Constitution of 1961 was more than a legal procedural manual; it included the hardwiring of the Punto Fijo Democracy.

Democratization (1959–1973) Rules of the Game Despite the lofty expectations placed upon Betancourt and the ADdominated Congress, a robust democracy was far from guaranteed. Decades of corruption, rampant spending, and waste left the treasury of the new democracy empty. In addition, the massive expenditures on construction projects that were the mainstay of the Venezuelan economy (both through oil exploration and exploitation and through infrastructure/public works) led to a large unskilled and underemployed labor force. Betancourt had to service the existing debt load and seek additional funds to promote economic development, and he settled on a familiar refrain: sembrar el petróleo. Betancourt’s government maintained an interventionist economic policy to reap revenue from oil rents, creating the Corporación Venezolana del Petróleo (CVP) as a proto-nationalization effort to oversee the petroleum industry. He was also instrumental in the creation of OPEC in 1960 along with other oil-producing countries. The plan once again was to reinvest the revenue from the petroleum industry into non-oil-based industries, infrastructure, and agriculture. His administration was successful in implementing pro-union and pro-campesino policies that were initiated under the Trienio (ex. collective bargaining and credit association, land reform, among others). AD’s special relationship that earned the support of both rural peasants and urban workers was deepened. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1960 expropriated land and redistributed it to campesinos and promoted infrastructure to improve farm-to-market costs for the rural poor. Urban workers received a new labor code; they were further supported in the formation of credit institutions and given freedom of association and collective bargaining. Residents of the barrios (urban poor) were induced to support the AD administration through the provision of social services, including housing subsidies, and party-dependent jobs. They also relaunched efforts at

90

C. M. BROWN

funding education and other social services, including sanitation, healthcare, and forms of social security. Political support became the avenue for social advancement, especially because “barrio dwellers usually found that their treatment was commensurate with their support for the dominant political party.”59 In addition, showing that AD had learned from the past, the Betancourt administration paid sufficient heed to the demands of the armed forces. Betancourt established the rules of the game and stayed true to the ruling coalition. By virtue of their pacted agreements, all parties who had sufficient representation in those agreements had sought to capitalize on the new administration’s programs; they were successful in gaining policy preferences in the new regime. Given the restrictions on deviance, it was no surprise when opposition arose from those who rejected the inertia of compromise. Puntofijoismo faced its first rebellion from elements of the military in 1960, who felt that the administration was denying them appropriate influence in policymaking. From 1960 to 1963, different elements from within the armed forces threatened to erase the gains of democracy over the previous few years by threatening to come out of the barracks and take an active role in governance. However, the greatest threat to democracy came from the disappointed leftists who felt that Betancourt had betrayed them. Fidel Castro would soon shift from announcing Cuba’s solidarity with Betancourt’s Venezuela to actively funding and equipping communist guerillas in their efforts to overthrow democracy. The younger, more radical members of the AD split from the party to form a more militant left-wing party, known as the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (Movement of the Revolutionary Left, or MIR). MIR membership chose to adopt a Marxist–Leninist strategy that called for guerilla warfare and urban terrorism once efforts at widespread demonstrations were unsupported by the population since they felt that they were being denied access to the halls of power.60 By 1963, MIR and radical elements of the URD came together to establish the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (Armed Forces National Liberation, or FALN) and the Frente de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Front, or FLN), whose efforts succeeded in encouraging the Betancourt administration to suspend democratic civil liberties on several occasions.61 Public opinion was divided on the merits of leftist demands, and the public largely tolerated their existence in the political arena until the FALN organized a mass killing of national guardsmen on a train in September 1963. The public had had enough violence and came together

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

91

to protect their democracy and the president’s ban on the MIR and other revolutionary or reactionary political parties.62 Rebellions on both the right and left characterized the first few years of Venezuela’s nascent democracy, causing political moderates to become entrenched in maintaining the stability of the political system by throwing in their lots with each other. The violence of the left helped to consolidate Venezuelan democracy by “making the AD look – to its many former enemies on the right – like a better of two alternatives. At the same time, the insurgency provided a vital military mission to the armed forces, one that removed them still further from direct participation in politics.”63 Thus, the right-wing military forces who might have rejected democratic rule found themselves well-supplied and financed in their struggle to save democracy from far-left revolutionaries. Without popular support, over time, the radical elements of the disloyal opposition lost their momentum; they were further discredited as a viable political option by the electorate. The election of 1963 would witness the first constitutionally elected president peacefully relinquishing power to another constitutionally elected president through widespread population participation (92% voter turnout) among nine competing parties.64 This transfer of power solidified the transition toward democracy in Venezuela. AD was again victorious with the election of Raúl Leoni. However, COPEI made a good showing and rose to become the primary opponent of AD within the democratic structure of the country. This arrangement would form the basis of the centralized two-party structure of Venezuelan democracy.65 Democratic Elections and Power Transfers Raul Leoni’s administration required that he maintain the coalition-style government, and he established the Amplia Base (Broad Base) coalition offering concessions to smaller party interests to gain policy support for his platform. His political alliances served to reinforce the center-left/ center-right characteristic of Venezuelan democracy born through Punto Fijo. COPEI functioned as part of a loyal opposition, and the basic structure of representation was maintained. Leoni’s administration provided continuity to the policies put into place under Betancourt, and he cultivated both urban labor and agricultural campesino support and good relations with the military.66 His administration was also successful in negotiating a new oil contract that gave the government an even greater

92

C. M. BROWN

say in the petroleum industry and increased the taxation of foreign corporations. In addition, the CVP was given the responsibility of supplying one-third of the domestic market for oil. The presidency of Leoni was a significant stage in the institutionalization of democratic procedures in Venezuela. During the next election cycle, AD suffered interparty dissension over their candidate nomination procedures. In seeking to maintain control of the party apparatus while also promoting itself as a catch-all party, AD struggled with sharing the reins of power with its political allies. The lack of unity of AD was COPEI’s gain as Rafael Caldera won the presidency in 1968. Nevertheless, democracy was deepened even further with the first peaceful transfer of power between opposition parties. Ninetyseven percent of registered voters participated in the election.67 Despite some ideological differences (mainly in the realm of foreign relations) between AD and COPEI, the change in administration did not affect the operation of government in any major way.68 COPEI rejected the multiparty cabinet structure of AD’s previous administrations but upheld the core of the coalitional arrangements otherwise.69 In other words, COPEI exercised its right to appoint a single party cabinet but enacted no other substantive changes to the pacted agreements from Punto Fijo. Caldera pushed for increased nationalization efforts by promoting the 1971 Hydrocarbons Reversion Law, which required foreign-owned petroleum operations to turn over their assets to the state after their contracts expired. Caldera also sought to fix oil prices to maximize the state’s revenue. Otherwise, his administration maintained AD initiatives for land reform, expansion of the infrastructure, educational access, and the development of natural resources.70 Politically, Caldera achieved reconciliation with the radical left, provided they would join the political mainstream; the communist and socialist parties (including the MIR) were permitted to participate in politics again, and amnesty was offered to the guerilla forces, who accepted in great numbers.71 Consolidation Venezuelan democracy was consolidated by the 1973 presidential elections. In a heavily financed battle between AD and COPEI, AD reclaimed the presidency, and the “two-turnover test” was passed in the process. Venezuela officially underwent a democratic transition in 1958 that led to the establishment of a democratically elected president (led by AD)

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

93

who surrendered power in 1963. In 1963, the AD held onto power institutionalizing democratic rule. In 1968, the incumbent party lost and surrendered the government to COPEI. In 1973, the system again peacefully transferred power from one party to another. With the election of Carlos Andrés Pérez, AD would once again reclaim the executive over COPEI. The success of AD in 1973 was, in large part, due to the efforts of Betancourt to bring the divergent factions of AD back together to vie for the presidency.72 Venezuela could boast of having a consolidated democracy. With democratic consolidation, the model for Venezuelan democracy was confirmed. The pacted agreements that were established to promote stability and to protect the country from widely polarizing factions were implemented early in the transition process. Revolutionary and/or reactionary threats to these arrangements were held off because of these agreements; in addition, potential defections were co-opted to remain in the coalition through the widespread use of oil monies to provide subsidies and financial incentives. Where direct financial incentives were impractical, policy preferences were given to those whose loyalty to the existing structure was clear. The pursuit of policy goals, often those in contention or outright opposition, could be pursued because of the funds generated from oil revenues and the conciliatory nature of political negotiation between elites. The government’s ability to renegotiate for greater control over oil wealth was a necessary element in the political prosperity that ran like a third rail along the course of Venezuelan democracy. The threats from within the political regime were checked by a moderate electorate that was able to have their demands met by their leaders. Disloyal opposition on the right or left was left out of the system and neutralized through nondemocratic means. These leaders were often in the position (and of the mindset) to facilitate corruption and graft but did not feel the sting of public wrath regarding corruption until the inability for those demands to be met became paramount. For the time being, the “partyarchy” that defined the democratic regime in Venezuela was consolidated. It would undergo a deepening of consolidation with the rise of oil revenues. However, the inability of the system to truly represent the interest of its population would reveal the lack of legitimacy in this structure of representation. The political regime was democratic and effective; citizen demands were met through a representative structure. However, the ground for this representative democracy was based on this effectiveness.

94

C. M. BROWN

Democratic consolidation is often accompanied by a corresponding belief in the importance of democracy as a political system, which is the best means for a political society to govern itself. The Venezuelan political system was very capable of providing legitimacy based on effectiveness; however, the democracy lacked intrinsic support. In the meantime, however, Venezuela’s corporatist democracy would continue to be consolidated. The presidencies of Pérez and his successor Campíns would reveal that increased oil revenues could stave off any problem—indeed, it had to, or else the democracy in Venezuela could not survive.

Democracy in the Consolidation Phase (1974–1987) Deepening Democracy With the price of oil skyrocketing in the 1970s, Carlos Andrés Pérez could do no wrong. His priority was to extend his predecessors’ policies, but with the money that was pouring in, he could afford to expand their programs exponentially. The country was in a unique position to make good on all its promises for Venezuelan economic self-sufficiency. He began a monumental campaign for the nationalization of resources. To achieve economic independence, Pérez first nationalized the iron industry. By offering sufficient compensation and negotiating a transition period wherein private companies (mainly foreign) would train the new locals to take over, he was successful in this effort. The nationalization of the iron industry was a prelude to the larger nationalization of the petroleum industry, which was completed in 1976. To facilitate this transition and to manage the industry as a state-run capitalist endeavor, the CVP had been rechristened the PDVSA, or Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.73 By 1980, the petroleum industry would account for 70% of the country’s tax or import revenue and 26% of its total GNP.74 To prevent a rise in inflation because of the sheer volume of oil revenue, Pérez created investment funds to offer loans to other cashstrapped countries, including contributing to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Inter-American Development Bank. Pérez was able to throw money at any problem, foreign or domestic. He extended agrarian reforms and provided sizable subsidies for agricultural and industrial goods (especially the promotion of hydroelectric power). He increased expenditures on infrastructure, created small

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

95

lending agencies (particularly for peasant farmers), and promoted employment in government-mandated and government-support wage increases. He promoted technological and industrial scholarships to anyone who was eligible to study in those areas, so much so that the number of graduates outpaced job demand.75 In his five-year term, Pérez spent more money than all other Venezuelan administrations combined since independence.76 The bureaucracy ballooned with the number of programs, so much so that public employment doubled during his five-year term. In addition, he passed the 1974 Law of Unjustified Dismissals, severely inhibiting employers from firing workers and making very generous severance packages mandatory to those who were let go.77 With wide-ranging support, Pérez successfully acquired constitutional consent to rule by decree; he passed over one hundred decrees in a nine-month period in 1974.78 Pérez was keenly aware of the long-term problems that he was creating with his massive expansion of administrative programs and yet did little to prevent the trouble that would inevitably come. He had the foresight to avoid the existing political entitlement system by creating new entities, either semi-autonomous or autonomous, that were funded by the government’s oil windfall. In the four years following the 1973– 1974 oil boom, he created 163 entities covering all areas of industry and manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and more.79 These entities were launched with government start-up capital and then enjoyed little to no oversight. The political economy of Venezuela was too difficult to navigate to achieve policy goals. As a result, Pérez bought another bureaucracy, albeit one that was decentralized, to conduct his aggressive policy agenda. Once given life under the aegis of a state-established corporation, these firms began not only to draw money from the government in the form of subsidies but also to borrow on the government’s foreign debt. In these four years, public-sector debt was at $12 billion dollars (a fivefold increase), of which 70–80% was directly contracted by these new firms.80 In time, Pérez had run afoul of the AD party organization. Elements of the party began to comment on the rampant corruption of his administration. Particularly damning was that not only was the critique coming from his own party, but that party founder, Betancourt, began opposing him as party leader. As a result of the corruption controversy, AD was again divided into the 1978 elections. The corruption issue was particularly hard felt by the poor. Despite the massive spending that was occurring

96

C. M. BROWN

across the country, it did little to reach the poorest of the population; income inequality was worse in 1976 than it had been in 1960, and 40% of the population was still malnourished.81 The experience of this decade seems to have created a population that maintains a love–hate relationship with bureaucracy. While the bureaucracy is by far the country’s largest employer and most Venezuelans owe their employment directly or indirectly to the giant state government, they have also been highly critical of it.82 Despite providing jobs for them and/or their family members, Venezuelans feel the “growth of the bureaucracy contributed to corruption, fiscal irresponsibility, and a declining level of services.”83 This largess would ultimately expedite the collapse of the Venezuelan democracy because it threatened to undermine the ability for it to mask the nature of its illegitimacy. It was not the fault of a single administration but the lack of adaptability of how Venezuela’s democracy had become consolidated that restricted the political effort necessary to promote healthy growth. Once again, party control of the government was passed onto COPEI, as it became clear that AD and COPEI were the only two parties worthy of support (combined, they captured over 90% of the vote).84 Luis Herrera Campíns was elected president and immediately set to work on controlling inflation from the excess of oil revenue flooding Venezuelan markets by canceling price controls on goods and services. He argued that private competition would lower the cost of living, but the opposite occurred, and inflation increased, hurting all Venezuelans except the wealthiest. Congress sought to counteract inflation by offering more income to working-class people. However, the increases in public salaries, the minimum wage, and pension and disability benefits only served to contribute to increasing the cost of living, putting even essentials out of reach of the poorest Venezuelans.85 Despite periodic but short-lived economic booms because of international supply shortages (from the Iranian hostage crisis and the Iran–Iraq War in particular), Venezuela’s foreign debt spiraled out of control. The small booms worsened the situation overall because they relieved Campíns of his campaign promises to tackle the unsustainable rate of spending and bureaucratic growth. When the price of oil drastically fell in 1983, interest rates skyrocketed, and national debt bloomed. For the first time, Bolívar was devalued, indicating that it was too late to change the situation outside of a drastic reconfiguration of the economy.86 The devaluation of the Bolívar that accompanied the massive debt led to capital flight

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

97

from Venezuela. The agency that was established to manage exchange rates (Regimen de Cambio Diferencial /Differential Exchange Regime) was soon found to be one of the more corrupt public offices.87 Campíns also quite surprisingly initiated corruption charges against Pérez to scapegoat his predecessor (although fairly). He was found guilty of “fomenting a climate of political corruption, but [he] was exonerated… [of] moral and administrative responsibility for any specific charge.”88 Largess would expedite the collapse of the Venezuelan democracy because it threatened to undermine the ability of the system to mask the nature of its illegitimacy. It was not the fault of a single administration but the lack of adaptability of how Venezuela’s democracy had become consolidated that restricted the political effort necessary to promote healthy growth. Foreign debt, public expenditure, and corruption were intimately related to the need to maintain a prominent level of effectiveness in meeting interest group demand. Once programs were initiated, they defied termination, if not for economic cost, then surely for political reasons. The Punto Fijo system had been constructed upon satisfying group demands as the basis for political stability. To manage change, either the political system would have to adapt, or economic challenges would need to be neutralized. Political reform and economic relief were the two options available to Venezuela’s democratic regime. Prima facie evidence supports the notion that Venezuela had a greater ability to initiate domestic political reform than it could change the dynamics of international economic forces to a more favorable outcome. However, if interdependence determined Venezuela’s economic fortunes, then a different type of interdependence had ossified its democratic regime, preventing real reform. In the early days of democracy, Venezuela was able to maintain the corporatist structure of its pacted democracy, by throwing money at whatever issue group arose to the level of threat to this regime. Oil was not the basis for creating this type of democratic regime, but it served to prevent it from meaningful changes once it was established. Oil revenue was a proxy for the deepening of representation as Venezuelan democracy matured. The system was effective because it provided for citizens’ demands; people supported democracy because they got paid. At the Pact of Punto Fijo, representation was given to those groups who agreed to play by the political rules. Venezuela’s successful consolidation to democracy and its modernization brought about by the “sowing of the oil” campaigns had produced a society that required greater inclusiveness. Political demands were met with payoffs from oil revenue; political reform

98

C. M. BROWN

was impossible under the current regime. Oil was the enabling agent that maintained a particular structure of representation well after it was no longer viable. AD would once again take presidential power in June 1984. President Jaime Lusinchi gained support for combating the deepening economic crisis with the passage of the Ley Habilitante (Enabling Law). Using the provisions of this law, he was able to refinance the foreign debt to stabilize the situation for a time. However, another round of devaluation occurred, which further increased the cost of living.89 Despite all attempts at correcting the economic crisis in Venezuela, politicians were helpless: the rigidity of the system prevented them from undertaking massive political realignment. The structure of representation upon which the democratic regime was constructed needed to be adapted to fit the apparent realities. Without major political reform, economic reform was impossible because the political economy of Venezuela was elaborately intertwined, supported by subsidies and entitlements that guaranteed political support. For thirty years, the rules of the game had remained intact: “reform rather than revolution [had] been the goal of both major political parties.”90 “Sowing the seeds of oil” provided the “link uniting different factions within and between the two major parties.”91 However, after thirty years of consolidating their democracy, it was beginning to show the strain of political torpor. Despite the changes that came with modernization and increased quality of life, slight changes occurred in the political economy that formed the basis of the regime. Problems were solved by throwing money at the issue or the person causing a disturbance. Punto Fijo democracy survived because of its effectiveness in meeting the demands of the people who had built the system. It was consolidated by co-opting new political groups into the system of largess and payola. The legitimacy of that system would undergo its greatest test when the resources that ensured that effectiveness was threatened. Ominously, opinion polls found that “many Venezuelans felt as though they had little impact on their leaders and the way that policies were drafted and implemented.”92 The polls failed to consider whether those in power felt as if they had any influence on policy either.

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

99

Democratic Breakdown (1987–1998) By the late 1980s, the public mood focused on corruption, and the wheel of fortunes turned in Carlos Andrés Pérez’s favor once more. Now seen as an outsider due to his public break with the AD elite, he was re-elected to the presidency again in 1988.93 His triumphant return speaks more about how he was able to manage the awkwardness of the Venezuelan political economy and produce positive results than it does of its character. The system was corrupt, but Perez had once found a way to make it work. Hope was tempered in his inaugural address; he warned of fiscal austerity and the sacrifice required of the country in the short term. By 1989, it was all too clear that Venezuela’s economic situation was untenable; the price of political stability through concessional governance had grown too expensive. Facing thirty-five billion dollars in foreign debt, Venezuela had to not only spend a good deal of its revenue to service the debt, but it still had to make good on its domestic expenditures to maintain what little political support remained for the existing party structure. Petroleum revenues allowed politicians to maintain a basis of political allegiance through clientelist networks. By borrowing when prices were down and spending when exports were high, oil was the lubricating agent for Venezuelan governance. Punto Fijo Democracy was a consolidated democratic regime that substituted the distribution of dividends for real democracy representation. The economy could no longer support the political network of subsidies, debt services, and rampant corruption in the face of a 50% drop in the price of oil during 1986.94 The institution of the Plan de Ajuste Económico (Economic Adjustment Plan) would be the epitaph of the AD party leadership. Structural adjustment measures that were required by the International Monetary Fund—were a last resort that Pérez was forced to accept. The reforms required by the IMF strike at the very heart of corporatist democratic structures, demanding the reduction of public spending, economic restructuring, and fiscal accountability.95 The “Economic Package” (as Pérez’s structural adjustment measures were commonly called), called for increases in the price of public services, privatization of statecontrolled industries, and continued devaluation of the Bolívar. The core of Venezuelan stability rested on maintaining the effectiveness of the system. Structural Adjustment pierced the myth of representative democracy. The consequences threatened to rip Venezuelan democracy from its foundation, as “the adoption of new economic measures signaled that one

100

C. M. BROWN

of the traditional rules of the Venezuelan political system – the creation of a consensus regarding major decisions – was being ignored.”96 It was too late to fix the situation. Venezuela had constructed a political economy that was so tightly bound to the distribution of goods and services based upon meeting the expectations of a privileged elite. Once the means for this political system to meet these demands was lost, the legitimacy of the political system, and indeed democracy itself, was in peril. Two days after Perez’s inauguration, ratification of the Economic Package led to massive street protests, among the urban poor (those hardest hit by the run-away inflation). The Caracazo, as it became known, was a popular rejection of democratic norms that would express its frustration with the electoral rejection of Punto Fijo democracy. Soon, a heavy-handed response by troops and police killed over three hundred people, causing a precipitous loss of faith in their democracy among the public.97 February 1989 marked a particularly swift decline in anti-democratic means to influence government policy. A frustrated population who had been used to having its demands met was suddenly faced with severe shortages of basic goods and increasing limited avenues for political redress. General strikes were called in May to protest the Economic Package. Riots occurred in June over gas price hikes. Gas price hikes must have seemed otherworldly to the average Venezuelan; blessed with an abundance of petroleum deposits, cheap gasoline had become a birthright—their personal share in the exploitation of the country’s resources. In March 1991, students protesting high living expenses were killed by police. Police killed ten more protesters, causing secondary schools and universities to be closed. In January 1992, demonstrations began to spread from Caracas throughout the whole country. The common goal of these protests was the removal of Pérez from the presidency, as the economic crisis rapidly deteriorated. Venezuelans knew that structural adjustment was making things far worse in their day-today lives, but few realized that it was causing democracy to crack at its foundation. In February 1992, a military coup led by junior military officers erupted in several cities. While this coup was eventually put down, its leader Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frías gained national notoriety in his televised speech calling for his comrades in arms to surrender the fight against the government for the time being. The unexpected military coup against the long-standing democracy raised significant alarm. Pérez formed a commission of representative interests across the Venezuelan

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

101

political and social spectrum with the state objective of identifying solutions to the political and economic problems plaguing the country. This was an attempt to delay, but there was nothing that could be done. The system had been consolidated for 40 years, and it was not designed for the flexibility necessary to manage dynamic changes. When these recommendations were ignored by the Pérez Administration, another military coup erupted in November. This time, senior military officers and members of the extreme left worked together to overthrow the democratic regime. However, again, nondemocratic means were frustrated by overthrowing the government, barely. A week after the November coup, municipal elections were held that continued the trend of popular defection from the major parties: abstention was higher than in past elections, regional support for AD and COPEI had become significantly weaker, and as a result, voters were more willing to place their votes with outsider parties. 1989 marked the first direct popular election of regional governors allowing regional and/ or non-major parties and opportunities to occupy a smaller constituency base to build a platform that could eventually compete on a national level.98 It was in this environment that impeachment procedures were brought against President Pérez; these would be successful on May 21, 1993. Institutionally, Congress was successful in performing a constitutional “coup d’état” where unconstitutional efforts had failed. The stakeholders of Venezuela’s political regime supported the country’s democratic processes as a means of presidential replacement. With Pérez out of office, the Economic Package was halted, and reforms were reversed.99 The reelection of Rafael Caldera into the presidency was the political regime’s last chance at allowing the major parties to fix their situation. AD and the “nostalgia of plenty” that came in Pérez’s first administration was tainted by the adoption of the Economic Package. Although Venezuelans were increasingly willing to defect from the major parties locally, the livelihoods and/or their government entitlements required political support for a major party on the national level. Venezuelans were having difficulty affording things that they had once enjoyed, but now they could not afford to abandon the current system of disbursements without sacrificing what remained of their standard of living. In addition, with AD discredited, Venezuelans looked to COPEI to resolve the economic crisis. Caldera was re-elected by a slim margin and was forced to change his political style to build a new coalition to rule. He formed the Convergencia party while riding the remnants of COPEI to

102

C. M. BROWN

victory; this new party consisted of an alliance of seventeen different political parties of different interests. Despite Convengencia’s victory in the executive branch, the legislature was no longer a two-party affair. Five parties would share 20–30% of each body.100 What is interesting is that the major party leaders were aware that the only way that they could manage to change political course was to work outside of the system that they consolidated as the basis for their democracy. Venezuela’s political system was incapable of enacting the necessary reforms to manage the economic crisis. Venezuelan democracy was simply too well consolidated to adapt to the changing circumstances. Until Pérez, no one in the system was willing to undertake the necessary steps to tackle problems of the political economy head on. His spectacular failure highlights the inflexibility of the political order. In the face of this economic crisis of a political design, the major parties were in no position to undermine the system that they created. Pérez and AD failed. So would Caldera and COPEI. Caldera was powerless to stop the decline; he faced the worst economic crisis in the history of Venezuela, bearing high inflation, widespread banking collapse, and economic contraction. Anti-government protests continued to mount, and Caldera began to suspend civil liberties to manage the unrest. Claiming urgency due to extreme economic strain, the Caldera administration oversaw a breakdown in legal processes and individual rights, leading to the widespread violation of human rights. The systematic unraveling of democratic governance continued to spiral out of control. Hugo Chávez was depicted by his opponents as the clown who stole their democracy. This is partially unfair, while he campaigned to overthrow democracy, Puntofijoismo was like Frankenstein’s monster, returning to destroy the political interests that created it through the negotiated settlements of 1958. In a show of amnesty against political opponents, Caldera released Chávez from prison in 1994.101 Over the next few years, as a consequence of his high-profile surrender and his popularity among the disenchanted, Chávez was able to build a democratic political campaign and surprisingly captured the presidency in 1998 with over 56% of the popular vote.102 For the first time in Venezuela’s democracy, the presidency went to an “outsider party.” Venezuelans voted against the parties that had built a system that was not capable of adapting to the changing economic climate. Venezuelans not only voted the major parties out of office but also voted their democracy out of office.

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

103

Chavismo (1998–2000s) The election of Hugo Chávez Frías was a major blow to the two parties that controlled the system, but it provided two possibilities for the immediate horizon. The first possibility was reform. Chávez, lacking the political obligations of the major parties and their guaranteed disbursements to their once-supportive interests, might be able to initiate real democratic reform in Venezuela. To cure the economic situation, the array of ossified political arrangements needed to be re-evaluated and, in many cases, dismantled. Chávez, as a true outsider, could succeed where the major parties failed. In this scenario, the arrangements that anchored democracy would be pried loose, but new arrangements might salvage Venezuelan democracy. Chavez may have campaigned and won a democratic election, but this was a means to a different end. Venezuela’s political rules could only allow a democratic election to ordain a legitimate administration. The difficulties of eliminating entrenched interests presented a daunting task. If the two parties that had constructed the democratic regime were powerless to enact alterations, even when they were willing to sacrifice themselves to do so (such as Pérez and Caldera), how would a political outsider be capable of making the necessary transformations? The second path, chosen by Chávez, was revolution. What made Chávez’s “Bolívarian Revolution” unique in its earliest manifestation was that it was a revolution conducted through constitutional procedures. In other words, contrary to expectations, Venezuela’s democratic regime was overthrown via a “coup d’état démocratique.” Chávez’s campaign promises left little confusion about his intentions. He campaigned on a platform that outlined the end of Punto Fijostyle democracy in Venezuela. Specifically, he sought to alleviate the concerns of the poor, fight corruption, and reduce income inequality. Altogether, these slogans alone would fail to distinguish Chávez from any other politician. However, few legitimate contenders for public office have successfully run on a program to dismantle the existing democratic system. During his campaign, Chávez ran on the promise to dissolve the national legislature, reconvene a new Constituent Assembly and establish a new constitution that would eliminate the existing entrenched interests. From Venezuela’s experience with democracy, the campaign was nothing less than a campaign against democracy. He argued for the rejection of traditional party politics, the Church, labor unions, the middle classes,

104

C. M. BROWN

and any of the groups that had enjoyed meaningful participation in the existing political order. It was possible that after his electoral victory Chávez would temper his rhetoric and scale back his plans for reform. It was also possible that the preservation of existing entitlements that were strangling the Venezuelan political economy would bring him down, as it had the major parties that had created it. Although Venezuela’s democracy was terminally ill, it was not dead. In 1999, Chávez’s first decree called for the creation of a Constituent Assembly to rewrite a new set of laws. New elections were held in July that established a Constituent Assembly of 131 elected individuals (of whom 125 were Chavistas ), which created the framework for the new constitution.103 The adoption of the new constitution was the decisive step in the life of Venezuela’s democracy. Venezuela’s consolidated democracy failed with its adoption in December 1999, with 72% of the electorate approving the new constitution.104 The importance of Chávez’s electoral victory is crucial in explaining the end of democracy in Venezuela. From 1958 until 1999, no coup had any real chance to substitute the legitimacy that democracy enjoyed in Venezuela. Just as democrats had learned the lessons of compromise from the Trienio, Chávez’s post-coup prison term was well spent. Chávez’s frustrated coup in 1992 only reinforced the notion that Venezuelans had a deeply supported democratic political culture. Democracy in Venezuela facilitated the development of a political culture that was supportive of elections as the means for the acquisition of legitimate authority. The only way to rise to power to the presidency in Venezuela was through democratic elections. The days of the caudillo were over. Puntofijoismo, for all its flaws, had established a particular political system that had to be respected. However, Puntofijoismo rigidity and lack of adaptation cultivated the seeds of its breakdown. There was no intrinsic basis for legitimacy. The legitimacy of the democracy in Venezuela was based on its effectiveness in meeting the demands of those groups who formed the vested interests at the core of the system. On the surface, it is so shocking that the breakdown of democracy in Venezuela came about through democratic means that there is no terminology in place to capture the reality of the occurrence. A constitutionally elected democratic regime that had survived over forty years of power-sharing rule was replaced by another constitutionally elected regime type. What makes this democratic breakdown and regime “substitution” unique is that it occurred entirely through constitutional

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

105

and democratic processes. To be certain, some events challenged democratic rule outside of the norms of democracy (specifically the military coups of 1992 and the explosive situation surrounding the Caracazo of 1989); however, these failed given Venezuela’s faith in democratic norms. Subsequent coups to oust Chávez have suffered the same sad fate as those that tried to upend the Punto Fijo Democracy. It once seemed unlikely that a consolidated democratic regime would vote itself from political office, which is exactly what happened in the Venezuelan case. It is too easy to ascribe the democratic breakdown to an economic crisis. It is also highly unfair to restrict the possibility for Venezuela to have espoused a democratic political culture over more than forty years. Nor is it satisfactory to attribute the failure of Venezuelan democracy to any external pressures. While all these arguments may help to explain elements that facilitated the breakdown in Venezuela, none of them is sufficient in explaining how a consolidated democracy can electorally deconsolidate and vote out its political regime. It is only through a re-examination of the issues of legitimacy and effectiveness can one identify the conditions under which democracies might fail through democratic means.

Notes 1. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study (Washington, DC: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1990), 10. 2. Michael H. Tarver & Julia C. Frederick, The History of Venezuela (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 86–89. 3. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 88. 4. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 11. 5. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 88–89. 6. Ibid., 89. 7. Ibid., 89–90. 8. Ibid., 92. 9. Ibid. 10. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 11. 11. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 93. 12. Ibid., 93. 13. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 11. 14. Rudolph, Venezuela, 11–12. 15. Ibid., 11–12. 16. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela, 12. 17. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 94–95. 18. Ibid.

106

C. M. BROWN

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 12. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 94–95. Ibid., 96–97. Ibid., 98. Ibid., 98. Ibid., 99. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 13. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 99. Ibid., 99. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 13. Rudolph, Venezuela, 13. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 99. Daniel H. Levine, “Venezuela since 1958: The Consolidation of Democratic Politics,” in The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Latin America, eds. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1980), 93. Daniel H. Levine & Brian F. Crisp, “Venezuela: The Character, Crisis and Possible Future of Democracy,” in Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, 2nd ed., eds. Larry Diamond, et al. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999), 379. Terry Lynn Karl, “Dilemmas of Development in Latin America,” Comparative Politics 23, no. 1 (October 1990): 11. Karl, “Dilemmas,” 11. Ibid., 11. Ibid., 11–12. David J. Myers, “The Normalization of Punto Fijo Democracy,” in The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela, eds. Jennifer L. McCoy and David J. Myers (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2004), 21. Myers, “Normalization,” 11. Daniel H. Levine, Venezuela since 1958, 99. Levine, Venezuela, 97–98. David J. Myers, The Normalization of Punto Fijo Democracy, 21. Daniel H. Levine, Venezuela since 1958, 97–98. David J. Myers, The Normalization of Punto Fijo Democracy, 17. Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), 98. David J. Myers, The Normalization of Punto Fijo Democracy, 17. Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty, 101. Karl, Paradox, 99–101. David J. Myers, The Normalization of Punto Fijo Democracy, 17. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 14. Rudolph, Venezuela, 14.

5

51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76.

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

107

Daniel H. Levine, Venezuela since 1958, 94. Levine, Venezuela, 94. Ibid., 94. Ibid., 95. Ibid., 98–99. Ibid., 94. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 61. Howard J. Wiarda & Lêda Siqueira Wiarda, Venezuela: A Country Study (Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1990), http://lcweb2. loc.gov/frd/cs/vetoc.html, 3. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 103–105. Ibid., 106–107. Ibid., 111. Ibid., 112–113. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 14. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 113–114. Ibid., 114. Ibid., 116. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 17. The only major policy distinction between the AD and COPEI governments was in foreign policy. COPEI abandoned the so-called “Betancourt Doctrine” whereby Venezuela refused to have relationships with regimes that did not come to power through electoral means, or those that ruled through military regimes and/or were established by coup (i.e., Castro’s Cuba). COPEI instead adopted a “policy of ‘pacification’” to all governments, thus normalizing relations between the Soviet Union and its satellite states (James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 16). An excellent resource for Betancourt’s foreign policy as it relates to Venezuela’s geopolitical development can be found in: Robert Jackson Alexander, Rómulo Betancourt, and the Transformation of Venezuela (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction, 1982), 524–525. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 119–120. Ibid., 119–220. Ibid., 120. Ibid., 120–121. Tarver and Frederick also detail an interesting footnote to the consolidating election of 1973 is that it was largely a product of US campaign management. The retention of American public relations campaigns with political consultants provided an election with the label “Made in the USA”. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 124–125. Ibid., 125. Ibid., 126–128. Ibid., 125.

108

C. M. BROWN

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104.

James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 17. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 126–127. James D. Rudolph, Venezuela: A Country Study, 18. Rudolph, Venezuela, 18–19. Ibid., 18. Howard J. Wiarda & Lêda Siqueira Wiarda, Venezuela: A Country Study, 4. Ibid. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 130. Ibid., 130–131. Daniel J. Seyler, Venezuela: A Country Study, Chapter III. (Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1990), http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/ cs/vetoc.html, 2. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 131. Ibid., 134. Ibid., 132–133. Howard J. Wiarda & Lêda Siqueira Wiarda, Venezuela: A Country Study, 8. Ibid. Ibid., 9. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 136–137. Daniel J. Seyler, Venezuela: A Country Study, 2. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 140. Ibid., 140. Ibid., 142. Howard J. Wiarda & Lêda Siqueira Wiarda, Venezuela: A Country Study, 2. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 145–146. Ibid., 146–147. Ibid., 146–147. Ibid., 148–149. Ibid., 152. Gregory Wilpert, “Venezuela’s New Constitution,” Venezuelanalysis.com (August 27, 2003), http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/ 70 (accessed February 18, 2009).

Bibliography Alexander, Robert Jackson. Rómulo Betancourt, and the Transformation of Venezuela. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction, 1982. Karl, Terry Lynn. “Dilemmas of Development in Latin America.” Comparative Politics 23, no. 1 (October 1990): 1–21.

5

FROM EXEMPLAR TO PARIAH: THE HEURISTIC CASE …

109

Karl, Terry Lynn. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997. Levine, Daniel H. “Venezuela Since 1958: The Consolidation of Democratic Politics.” In The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Latin America, edited by Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, 82–109. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1980. Levine, Daniel H., and Crisp, Brian F. “Legitimacy, Governability, and Reform in Venezuela.” In Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience, edited by Louis W. Goodman, Johanna Mendelson Forman, Moisés Naím, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Gary Bland, 223–251. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995. Myers, David J. “The Normalization of Punto Fijo Democracy.” In The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela, edited by Jennifer L. McCoy and David J. Myers, 11–29. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2004. Rudolph, James D. Venezuela: A Country Study, Introduction and Chapter 1. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1990. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ frd/cs/vetoc.html. Seyler, Daniel J. Venezuela: A Country Study, Chapter III. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1990. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/vetoc.html. Tarver, H. Michael, and Julia C. Frederick. The History of Venezuela. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Wiarda, Howard J., and Lêda Siqueira Wiarda. Venezuela: A Country Study, Chapter 2. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1990. http:// lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/vetoc.html. Wilpert, Gregory. “Venezuela’s New Constitution.” Venezuelanalysis.com (August 27, 2003). http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/70 (accessed February 18, 2009).

CHAPTER 6

Institutionalizing Instability: Prologue to a Farce or Tragedy

Venezuela as a Failed Democracy Beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Venezuela was seen as the model for Latin American democracy and was promoted as the benchmark to which other failed Latin American political systems could be measured for close to thirty years. Venezuela had a vibrant party system, a series of free and fair elections held at regularly determined intervals that witnessed the peaceful transfer of power from one rival political group to another and back again for close to forty years. Venezuela’s democracy is universally acclaimed to be based on the Pact of Punto Fijo of 1958. The success of the Pact of Punto Fijo facilitated by the spirit of cooperation among stakeholders helped establish a democratic constitution in 1961 that served as the keystone for Venezuelan democracy for close to forty years. The foundation of a new legal charter and the significance given to new rules governing political stakeholders provide a solid starting point for recognizing the birth of a new political system. The establishment of a new constitution built through the cooperation of political elites provided a clear signal that Venezuela had shifted toward democracy. With the successful replacement of the autocratic regime, democratically inspired elites sought to build a new political system. This system lasted until 1999 with the adoption of a new constitution promulgated by the Chávez Administration.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_6

111

112

C. M. BROWN

Venezuela was successful in its transition and consolidation to democracy. The alternation of rival parties for almost forty years would exceed even the minimum requirement for democratic consolidation. Furthermore, Venezuela maintained an active political party system with high voter participation that promoted the consolidation of a primarily twoparty political system. The widely available civic freedoms of press, expression, political activism, and the like all believe in the notion that Venezuela had not reached a phase of consolidation. Those stakeholders of the pre-1999 constitution who held the reins of power for almost forty years no longer provide the basis upon which democracy was founded and is maintained. There can be no question that Venezuela has endured a significant political shift.

Venezuela as Another Latin American “Democracy” Scholarship on Venezuela has attached an aura of exceptionalism to political history since 1958 to insinuate that Venezuela’s success (and failure) is the result of forces that fail to manifest themselves outside of Venezuela. Venezuela is special in its own way. Considering the breakdown of Punto Fijo democracy and the rise of Chávez, scholars have re-examined their notion of Venezuela as being exceptional. Initially, scholars promulgated the “Venezuelan Exceptional Thesis” to explain why, out of all the Latin American transitions to democracy, Venezuela was successful. Embracing modernity, Venezuela was an ideal model for others. What further confounded scholars was that this success was not easily replicated in other developing countries. Therefore, while it had all the elements of a democracy, it appeared as an outlier that had found its way to modernity and democracy because of unique circumstances. The Venezuelan Exceptional Thesis explained Venezuela’s privileged status as a stable consolidated democracy as a function of one or more of the following elements: “geographic position, rich oil and mineral deposits, and a set of historical experiences that included Venezuela’s social composition, patterns of miscegenation, foreign presence, and the absence of extreme nationalism.”1 With the rise of Hugo Chávez and the concurrent breakdown of Punto Fijo democracy, scholars dejectedly resigned themselves to the belief that Venezuela, in the end, has gone the route of other Latin American countries. Appearing from a military background outside of the main channels

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

113

of political participation and employing racial undertones to promote his solidarity with the disaffected masses (who themselves were found to be the target of racism by those in power), Chávez was not the type of candidate that Punto Fijo democracy was designed to elect. His candidacy was the flashpoint that made the Venezuelan Exceptional Thesis “untenable for scholars and policy officials.”2 In place of any notion of exceptionalism, scholars now see Venezuela as just another Latin American country led by a charismatic leader with authoritarian inclinations. However, scholars have made two mistakes in examining Venezuela’s political history through this lens. The first error is that they have placed too much emphasis on the notion of Venezuela’s so-called exceptionalism under Punto Fijo. Venezuela was not exceptional at all—it was a democratic regime that had completed a democratic transition and consolidated the results of this democratic transition. Democracies are not supposed to break down under these conditions. The second error that scholars have made in the Venezuela case is that where they once saw Venezuela as exceptional when it was not, now they see Venezuela as an ordinary run-of-the-mill Latin American democracy. Its current political trajectory reveals it as particularly unique. Examining the rise and fall of Venezuela’s democracy provides an ideal opportunity to investigate how democracies break down through democratic means. What makes Venezuela exceptional in the current analysis is that it provides a clear example of a democracy that has broken down through democratic means. However, the findings will serve to demonstrate that the possibility of democratic breakdown is far from limited to Venezuela’s political system. Venezuela provides an exceptional example of why its political system is not exceptional. The overall objective of this study is to investigate the failure of democracy in Venezuela to understand under what conditions democracies might fail through democratic means. Finding an answer to this research question via the use of the heuristic case study method will yield a deeper explanation for democratic breakdowns than currently exists in the literature on comparative democratization. To properly situate the case study in the context of the present research, we must inquire as to our present understanding of why democracies break down.

114

C. M. BROWN

Five Patterns of Democratic Breakdown In the latter stages of democratic decline, where the disloyal opposition gained considerable momentum due to the present regime’s inability to rectify unsolvable problems, Linz and Stepan (1996) found five patterns for democratic breakdown. They are: 1. An unconstitutional displacement of a democratically elected government by a group ready to use force, whose action is legitimated by institutional mechanisms planned for emergency situations. Interim rule is set up with the intent to reestablish the democratic process with certain deviations at a later time.3 2. The assumption of power by a combination of undemocratic, generally pre-democratic, authority structures that coopt part of the political class of the previous democratic regime and integrate elements of the disloyal opposition but undertake only limited changes in the social structure and most institutional realms. 3. The establishment of a new authoritarian regime, based on a realignment of social forces and the exclusion of all the leading political actors of the preceding democratic regime, without, however, creating new political institutions or any form of mass mobilization in support of its rule. 4. The takeover of power by a well-organized disloyal opposition with a mass base in society, committed to the creation of a new political and social order, and unwilling to share its power with members of the political class of the past regime, except as minor partners in a transition phase. The outcome may range from the establishment of a self-confident authoritarian regime to a pre-totalitarian regime. 5. The takeover of power that fails even against a weakened regime and requires a prolonged struggle (civil war). Such a conflict can be the result of one of two variables, or more likely a combination of them: the willingness of the democratic government to resist the pressures to relinquish power by demanding the obedience of the coercive instruments of the state and the support of the population, combined with the inability to defeat its opponents; and the existence in the society of a high level of political and social mobilization, which may or may not be with the democratic government but is ready to challenge the takeover by its opponents.4

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

115

If we re-examine the reasons for the democratic breakdown, Venezuela is a deviant case: Venezuelans democratically voted their democracy from office. The election of Chávez and the adoption of a new 1999 Constitution was the end of Punto Fijo democracy (and may well be the end of democracy in Venezuela, altogether). Punto Fijo democracy was based upon a particular legitimacy that is markedly different from both the regime that came before and the regime that has arisen as its replacement. In the literature on democratization, democratic breakdowns can occur because of external or internal pressures. Despite the fluctuations of the global marketplace that dictated the price of oil, and thus a good portion of the state’s ability to afford its effectiveness, Venezuelan democracy did not fail through conquest, occupation, or any direct external pressures. Venezuela also did not sacrifice its political regime due to indirect external pressures from war-related fatigue or through the work of foreign agents. It was not defeated in war or forced to give up on its democracy as a condition of surrender. The death of Venezuelan democracy was an inside job. The literature on democratic breakdown does well to explain the breakdown of Venezuelan democracy in 1948. The reforms of the nascent democratic regime failed to compromise, lost the support of the more reactionary elements of society (if it ever had any support from them, to begin with), and the military came out of the barracks to re-establish order. The experience of the Trienio provides additional support for arguments for bureaucratic authoritarianism. The Democratic breakdown in 1948 fit the pattern of a failed democratic experiment. The failure of democracy in 1998–1999, however, is unaccounted for in the literature on democratization. Consolidated democracies break down due to the establishment of a nondemocratic disloyal opposition that can gain sufficient support to initiate a regime change. Furthermore, since these regimes are based upon a completely different understanding of legitimacy (i.e., one that is not based on electoral, democratic, or constitutional legitimacy), they are free to pursue illegal means to promote the overthrow of the democratic regime. This requires the use of the military to overthrow the regime by force and institute a new regime. The nondemocratic disloyal opposition claims to be able to resolve the “unsolvable problems” that have led to the paralysis of the existing regime. A protracted inability to reconcile these major problems, usually economic in nature, leads the citizenry to appeal to these disloyal elements to take control. This takeover, usually by forceful means, occurs through unconstitutional means. Thus,

116

C. M. BROWN

democratic breakdowns occur through nondemocratic means. However, in Venezuela, a consolidated democracy broke down through democratic means. The democratic regime that had rejected nonauthoritarian claims to legitimacy for over forty years had cultivated a political culture that identified legitimate political leadership with elections. In Venezuela, power must come through constitutional processes. Key stakeholders of Punto Fijo democracy were forced to relearn the lesson they had inculcated when they abandoned their constitutionality in April 2002. In the face of widespread general strikes against the Chávez regime, led by the oil industry bureaucracy, the military rebelled, capturing Chávez and demanding his resignation. The military commanders then appointed Pedro Carmona, a strike organizer, to head the transitional government. After two days, Chávez was back in power.5 To answer the general research question of why democracies break down, the Venezuelan breakdown must be accounted for. In other words, to fill the gap in the literature on democratic breakdowns, we must first answer the more specific question, “under what conditions might democracies fail although democratic means?” Venezuela demonstrates that this phenomenon is real. Using the heuristic of Venezuela, we can supplement existing theoretical knowledge on democratic breakdowns.

Why Venezuelan Democracy Failed While democratization cannot explain how democracy has failed through democratic means, area studies scholars have sought to address the failure of democracy in the Venezuela political system. Arguments for the breakdown of Venezuelan democracy can be grouped into three main categories. These are the economic/structural argument, the political culture/learning argument, and the political/institutional argument.6 In reality, all of these explanations provide clues as to why democracy in Venezuela has failed; however, they do not capture the whole story, nor do they provide sufficient answers as to why Venezuelan democracy suffered its breakdown through democratic means. Explanations for Venezuela’s political development rest upon the contextual elements of the country’s historical past. While this work supports the basic conception that the past influences the present, it also has been argued that case studies, when used as heuristic devices, can yield statements that can lead to hypotheses. Reasons for Venezuela’s success and justifications for the other state’s failed democratic experiments were attributed to

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

117

propositions that amounted to Venezuela’s “exceptionality.” Venezuela’s democratic success had to be the result of extraordinary circumstances that defied reproduction and that served as the causal requirement for stable Latin American democracy. Different theories of Venezuela’s exceptionalism have included “favorable natural circumstances including rich oil and mineral deposits,” historical experiences that promoted social cohesion, and “after 1958…a political process, born out of a pacted democracy and sustained by petroleum revenues, which appeared to conserve social peace, ensure the peaceful transfer of power, and mollify class and racial differences.”7 While scholars spent the better part of Venezuela’s Punto Fijo period explaining the uniqueness of Venezuela as a result of a handful of particular aspects that made its democracy what it is, they also came to attribute its breakdown by the same criteria that once made it so stable. Thus, Venezuela is both an exceptional success and an exceptional failure; the same reasons that once anchored its success have become the explanations for its demise. To explain why Venezuelan democracy broke down, we must first engage the main tenets of the “Venezuelan Exceptionalism” thesis. McCoy (2004) supplies a solid explanation of the main elements of the exceptionality explanations for Venezuela’s democracy breakdown.8 She astutely divides them into three categories: structural/economic factors, political/institutional factors, and political cultural/political learning factors.9 Her designations are more than sufficient to capture the breadth of commentary on Venezuela’s extraordinary political development. It is important to re-emphasize that most analysts (including those cited here) combine economic, social, and political explanations, regardless of where they ascribe primacy causation.

Structural/Economic Factors The primary structural/economic factor attributed to the breakdown of democracy in Venezuela is oil and its effects on the political economy of Venezuela. Terry Lynn Karl (1997) offers the most cohesive argument for a particularism of petro-state political regimes. The exploitation of mineral rents (i.e., petroleum industry commodities) as the key to commodity-led growth changes the relative strength of interest groups in that political system, particularly regarding the market and the state. The distribution of this wealth and the very devices through which the state

118

C. M. BROWN

manages this revenue “pervasively influence the organization of political and economic life and shapes government preferences with respect to public policies.”10 With petrolization of the state, public policy choices become increasingly limited; policy undergoes a “structural contingency” where policymakers are unwilling or unable to shift direction as a direct consequence of committing to commodity-led growth strategies.11 Karl defines the “petro-state” as being consolidated when “a definitive shift in its institutional arrangements such that the selective mechanisms and overall incentives for policy become defined predominantly by petroleum, while state interests become separate from and sometimes even adversarial to foreign oil interests.”12 Karl argues that the establishment of the oil industry, coupled with the nature of caudillismo, led to the consolidation of the Venezuelan state. The Venezuelan state transformed from a minimalist state to an interventionist state that came as a direct result of the petrolization of the country under Gómez and beyond.13 As a result of oil, economic policy choices continued to fundamentally change the nature of the political system by (1) altering its relationship with the foreign oil companies that both supported and restrained the state, (2) increasing the capacity for centralization of authority, (3) expanding the state’s jurisdiction into other areas of political society, and (4) changing the preferences of both the state and its citizens because of the oil; the state sought to maximize its share of the oil revenue through nationalization and taxation of the oil industry profits and to use this revenue to resolve problems in society.14 McCoy agrees that the “decades of increasing oil revenues helped reassure Venezuelans of continued income and sustain the myth of a rich country, creating resistance to government attempts to liberalize or rationalize the economy.”15 Furthermore, state preferences for oil generation led to an overvalued currency that inhibited the private sector by requiring additional government support to promote domestic manufacturing to maintain competition, internationally and domestically.16 Karl alleges that the pacted democracy that came to define Punto Fijo democracy and the petro-state came together quite easily because of the petrolization of the state. In other words, although it was not a foregone conclusion, Venezuela’s pacted democracy was undergirded by oil. Since pacted democracies are top-down and exclusive arrangements, they “may bolster top-down the patterns of the petro-state by establishing formal institutions and informal norms that limit contestation and by restricting the policy agenda and the autonomous capacity of

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

119

mass actors.”17 Karl finds that Punto Fijo democracy and the petrolization of the state went hand in hand on three critical junctures: (1) pacted democracy reinforced the centralization of authority and the expansion of the state’s jurisdiction, (2) it also reinforced the politics of “containment through preemptive inclusion,” whereby stability was nurtured in exchange for compromise and conflict avoidance that was buttressed by “clientelist distribution, patronage, and political rent-seeking”, and (3) it placed restrictions on the democratic condition of rule (based upon representation), promoting “rigid political institutions that benefitted from the status quo.”18 According to the economic/structure-based argument, the establishment of Venezuelan democracy (puntofijoismo) came about via the petrolization of the state in its development. While there is little disagreement over the impact of oil’s discovery in Venezuela and the subsequent change in Venezuela’s political institutions, the relationship between oil and the breakdown of democracy in Venezuela is not directly evident. While it is true, it is far too simple to say it was, “the failure to deliver the promise of growth and equity underscored the distributive crisis and doomed the Punto Fijo regime.”19 Oil did play a significant role in the political economy of Venezuela; however, it was not oil per se that initiated or allowed for the transition to democracy, nor was it responsible for the consolidation or breakdown of democracy. Oil revenue was present at each of these phases, and it provided the income that funded modernization in Venezuela. However, blaming the petrolization of the state on the mere existence of oil is akin to attributing immorality to “the devil made me do it” logic. Oil was the lubricant that fueled modernization. Commodity-led development was the objective behind “sowing the oil” campaigns that sought to diversify the Venezuelan economy. In addition, oil revenue has given Venezuela the ability to throw money at social problems. By the 1980s, Venezuela had become increasingly incapable of maintaining the oil-financed stability of the state. In the face of an overburdened state apparatus and declining revenue, Venezuela was unable to honor the guarantees that maintained the key arrangements that underwrote the Punto Fijo democracy. Nevertheless, there is nothing deterministic about petroleum booms that subject a given political regime to rise and fall in oil wealth. A decline in oil revenues should only generate a corresponding lack of faith in the political regime if the basis for the political system rests solely upon the distribution of that revenue. In other words, if a political system has

120

C. M. BROWN

no endogenous basis for legitimacy and rests solely on the spoils from mineral rents, then the basis for the political regime is the intervening element between mineral rents and authority to govern. In this circumstance, the political economy of the region is the conduit through which a citizenry supports/rejects a regime as legitimate, but this rests upon the relationship of how the resources are utilized, not if they are utilized. The problems that facilitated the end of democracy in Venezuela were not primarily economic in nature. Venezuela continued to generate massive amounts of wealth, and the destabilization of social services that precipitated the collapse was “not the result of resource constraints. Resources continued to flow, but the capacity of state institutions to deliver services crumbled under the weight of mismanagement, corruption, and politically bloated bureaucracies.”20 No study of Venezuela can ignore the importance of oil. However, the principal issue is not the oil per se but to what use the revenue generated from that oil was employed. To understand the significance of oil revenue in Venezuela, one must look deeper at the political elements that were institutionalized as the basis for Punto Fijo democracy.

Political/Institutional Factors While the petrolization of the state is a major characteristic in the development of modern Venezuela, it only tells a part of the story of breakdown. McCoy summarizes the political/institutional factors that defined Venezuela during the same period: The Punto Fijo democracy was characterized by a highly centralized power-sharing arrangement that was “crystallized in the institutional pact” between the two major parties (AD and COPEI) and “the corporatist relation between the government, business and organized labor.”21 The collapse of this democratic regime came about because the corporatist core “failed to incorporate groups that gained influence as economic and political modernization unfolded.”22 Ultimately, McCoy finds that the “failure to provide representation and a share of the resources eventually led important sectors of these groups to desert the Punto Fijo regime.”23 The success of the two political parties to “effectively shut out all lesser rivals” and to control the entirety of Venezuela’s political economy created a crisis of effectiveness over time.24 Punto Fijo democracy was centered upon the negotiated settlements between elite stakeholders who promoted stability. These pacted agreements sought to manage dissent

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

121

and political conflict through proper party organizations. Levine (1974) found that the “most striking feature of Venezuelan politics after 1958” is the “conscious, explicit decision of political elites to reduce interparty tension and violence, accentuate common interests and procedures, and remove, insofar as possible, issues of survival and legitimacy from the political scene.”25 Learning from the failure of the Trienio and finding the commitment to democracy among the members of political society uncertain, political parties sought to integrate themselves within all areas of the society. Martz finds that the mentality of the party elite was “if the party was properly attuned to the masses, its activities should be unending, rather than limited merely to periodic exercises in electoral democracy.”26 As a result, these elites established a “new political methodology” that emphasized “common procedures, common forms of action, and mutual guarantees.”27 Their success is a function of the party organization’s ability to remain central in all areas of political life. Party strength has enabled leadership to enforce the party loyalty of rank-and-file members. Furthermore, parties have been able to have a pervasive presence in all the corporate entities that make up Venezuelan political life, thus having the ability to be “represented” in all these groups without being representative of any of these groups’ interests. Party leadership has managed “the incorporation of large masses of people into politics”, and “by virtue of their broad and heterogeneous character, the parties per se have acquired an autonomous position with respect to any single sector.”28 The structural and normative nature of Venezuelan party life has promoted what Levine refers to as “the encapsulation of conflict,” or “the development of a self-enforcing set of rules and norms, whose constant use makes the system stronger by committing groups to act within already established processes.”29 In other words, the inflexibility of Venezuela may not necessarily owe its provenance or maintenance due to petrolization but as a consequence of elite interactions that were established to promote regime stability. In addition to agreeing to and adhering to formal pacts, the political parties and those present at the creation institutionalized the place of parties among interest groups in society. AD and COPEI “with direct ties to labor, education and peasant organizations, combined these alliances with linkages to business and finance as a means of assuring their centrality to politics and governance in Venezuela.”30 This is the basis for what Coppedge (1994) calls “partidocracia” or “partyarchy.” Partyarchies define a political system wherein “the political parties monopolize the electoral process, dominate the legislative

122

C. M. BROWN

process, and penetrate politically relevant organizations to a degree that violates the spirit of democracy.”31 It is a political condition where political parties “politicize society along party lines.”32 He declares Venezuela to be “the most extreme case of a pathological kind of political control that [he] calls partyarchy.”33 Coppedge argues that partyarchy was the basis for Venezuelan political stability and ultimately was the source of its undoing.34 Because partyarchy strangles avenues for political participation that fall outside of party control, “citizens who feel that their voice is not heard within or outside the parties become disillusioned with democracy and are more likely to believe that an authoritarian alternative could not be much worse.”35 The institutional design of Venezuelan democracy was established in such a way as to promote the notion of political stability given the country’s tumultuous past. The most curious development is how the political parties were able to manage the entire system based on shared democratic expectations. It was through their efforts to be truly represented in all areas of social life that they suffocated civil society. Politicization of groups had to occur within the confines of the existing system to be afforded space to grow within that system. Nevertheless, groups were allowed to freely form and interact in political society provided they paid homage to the key elements that underwrote the political regime. It is the odd combination of the pervasive influence of the key political parties and the pacted rules that provided the structure of the system. Over time, the logic of this political system and its omnipresent party organizations served to promote a political culture that is supportive of democracy in Venezuela.

Political Cultural/Political Learning Factors McCoy contends that the collapse of Punto Fijo democracy can be attributed to “a utilitarian culture produced by an oil-fed economy, a tutelary approach to democracy, and the nature of political learning.”36 The utilitarian culture is one in which Venezuelans have come to believe that they are in possession of a rich country where all problems can be solved by throwing money at them. This ideology “predisposed policy markets to choose distributive policies over regulative or redistributive ones.”37 This culture, fed by the experience of modernization, only served to build expectations up to a level that led to a precipitous disappointment when the reality of the system’s limitations came full circle.

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

123

Second, lacking a civic culture that was supportive of democracy provided the basis for a tutelary democracy in 1958 that came to be defined by three traits reflected in Venezuela’s political culture: (1) “a corporatism in which groups organized and participated in policy making in a voluntary manner, through formal corporatist mechanisms provided by the state”, (2) a centralism emanating from Simon Bolivar’s preference for a strong executive to protect itself against other powers in a republic”, and (3) “a predilection toward consensus in which prior agreement among established parties in the form of pacts was seen as crucial to avoid conflict by removing contentious issues from political debate.”38 Third, with regard to political learning, the political elites were able to successfully learn from the failed policies of the Trienio period; however, “they also overlearned….they relied on the pact-making strategy and distributive politics that had served them will during the 1960s” even after they were found to be ineffective in correcting the economic problems that became manifest in the 1980s.39 The adherence to these policies was useful when there was something to distribute, but the ossification of this managerial mentality inhibited the feasibility of alternatives. As a result, the “prioritizing of political development and stability over economic development and redistribution of wealth meant that the fundamental social and economic changes needed to confer continued legitimacy on the democratic system became more and more distant.”40 Levine and Crisp (1999) argue that economic considerations are secondary to the political system; the economic crises that undermined Venezuelan democracy “is best understood not simply as the decay of the established system, but rather as a crisis within democracy.”41 Furthermore, they correctly assert, “an exclusive focus on formal institutions would leave out a great deal about the political process.”42 As such, they identify five points that formed the basis of the post-1958 political system. They are as follows: 1. Alliances and coalitions were central to the 1958 transition and have remained at the core of political life ever since. 2. The consensus sought through pacts and coalitions was both substantive and procedural. 3. Party elites deliberately set out to conciliate old enemies and thereby avoid the kind of intense and relentless opposition that had brought democratic government down in 1948.

124

C. M. BROWN

4. The channeling of political participation through controlled pacted agreements and the coalitional political arena leaves few outlets for legitimate political activism outside of regime control. 5. The exclusion of the revolutionary Left.43 Levine and Crisp (1995) maintain that the “core agreements” of the pacts were political: “support democracy, band together to resist challenges to its legitimacy and survival, respect elections, and strive in general to institutionalize politics, channeling participation within democratic vehicles and arenas.”44 These foundational agreements had a knock-on effect later in Venezuelan political history: The rules of the game were simple: in economic terms, strong currency, low inflation, growth and a dominant role for the central state as regulator and distributor of oil-based revenues; in politics, a centralized state, a dominant center, strongly organized national parties that monopolize political action and control social movements, a professional political class, and a subordinated military; and in social terms, great mobility, mass education, and gradual homogenization of cultural and organizational life.45

The breakdown of democracy in terms of political culture arises from an incompatibility that arose in the face of crises that came about from the changing political economy in the 1980s and 1990s. Levine and Crisp argue that pillars of Venezuelan political culture were “undermined or removed” at key points during times of crisis.46 They contend that the belief in Venezuela’s “economic strength” was undermined during the Black Friday devaluations in 1983. Faith in the utility of “social pacts” as well as the comfort of a peaceful society based on the belief in the government being in “control” and maintaining “civil order” were abandoned in subsequent widespread rioting. The political norm that supported “unquestioned executive dominance” was removed with Pérez’s impeachment. Last, a culture that rested upon “party hegemony” was discredited with Chávez’s election.47

Democratic Failure Through Democratic Means Elements of Venezuelan political culture can be said to have lost their appeal, the one core belief that upheld the political system since 1958 (and earlier) has been a profound adherence to democracy. Despite

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

125

unconstitutional attempts at overthrowing the democratically elected regimes of Punto Fijo, the population held onto their faith in democracy. Even when they had chosen to remove Pérez in his second term, they did so through constitutional measures. In Venezuela, free and fair (i.e., democratic) elections are the only way to claim a legitimate basis upon which to rule. It is this faith in democracy that adds a special flavor to the demise of Punto Fijo democracy that provides a clue to the conditions that might lead to a failure of democracy through democratic means. The functional arrangements made to establish the system also served to institutionalize the interests present at its foundation. As a result, in lieu of democracy as an instrument of the people through representative interests, Venezuelan democracy institutionalized these representative interests in the form of political parties as the dominant structure guiding the people’s interests. As a result of the political system being co-opted through the dominance of political parties whose interests were institutionalized as the basis for the creation of the democratic structure, alternative perspectives for policy positions have been subverted. In the Venezuelan example, the establishment of democracy by political and military elites has created a democratic system whereby full political participation is discouraged by the unwillingness of those in power to accept or incorporate new political actors.48 Furthermore, this type of system has failed to respond to the demands of the public, instead seeking to channel public opinion only through the instrument of the party. Thus, representation has been hijacked by the very mechanisms that are intended to be a medium for it. As the lack of fit between the general will of the citizens and public policy widened, rather than serving as advocates for the people, they continued to serve their own interests. Executives and party leadership circumvented the public through the creation and extension of advisory commissions generated by decrees. Advisory commissions are policymaking bodies outside of political accountability that serve to dilute the significance of electoral processes by giving participating interest groups disproportionate access to government. The executive branch creates and legitimizes these groups further undermining the legitimacy of democratic rule. As a result, the Venezuelan state has been fragmented into hundreds of policymaking bodies facilitating consultative policymaking within the executive branch, leading to the phenomenon that any change in government is unlikely to have any systematic effect on government objectives. Overrepresented groups within the closed system, such as private capital, labor, and political parties, gained privileged access

126

C. M. BROWN

at the expense of Venezuelans who were denied access to these governmental institutional arrangements.49 Despite these structural mutations, this is the democratic system that was consolidated. Successful consolidation can be attributed to elite moderation of partisan conflict, effective isolation of far right and left groups by party dominance, the institutionalization of conflict, and the elite perspective of viewing politics as compromise and concession. The system was effective in this regard; however, it produced structural coercion where all political processes had to operate within the party system. While remaining exclusionary, the behavior of actors within the system was concerted and predictable due to the exclusion of destabilizing factions and facilitating elite cooperation, thereby avoiding political fights or zero-sum political contests thanks to the profitability of a petro-state.50 Democracy in Venezuela was not based on popular sovereignty; it was created to manage conflict, resources, and limit participation. Threats would be resolved through continued reliance on anticipated future gains from the petroleum industry. The effectiveness of the structured coercion through political party organization and manipulation gave ideological legitimacy to the system by virtue of its stranglehold on the state. However, this legitimacy required the support of its ability to deliver goods and services to the citizenry based on a policy of patronage. Because of their “vast array of clientelist networks,” the parties came to determine the directives of the state—not the people.51 It was through these networks that parties were able to manipulate massive amounts of wealth generated through oil rents to generate effectiveness. A dramatic rise in the price of oil during the 1970s (facilitated by the cartelization of OPEC) generated a massive revenue surplus that was rolled into the country’s treasury.52 Prior decisions came to limit future choices. When socioeconomic conditions changed, the political decision-making structure was unable to react appropriately to the new landscape.53 The oil boom of the 1970s reified the existing institutional structure that inhibited reform in the political apparatus to make effective political changes through ossification of interests surrounding the exploitation of mineral rents. By the mid-1970s, Venezuela sought to manage this oil revenue by launching the “Great Venezuela” program by putting large investments into domestic industrialization measures. The massive surplus of oil rents led to equally impressive increases in the size of the state, public expenditures, employment, subsidies, and imports.54 The increase in state expenditures fueled

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

127

the rise of an educated middle class that sought to take advantage of their new wealth through consumerism and travel.55 Despite the costs of such public spending, Venezuelans had come to appreciate their new status and arrived at the expectation that oil was the solution for any problem. Borrowing heavily to support the increased public spending with the expectation that oil revenues would cover future debts, Venezuela became “deeply indebted to the international banking system in financing both [domestic] investment programs and the payrolls of state institutions that had acquired the autonomy to borrow abroad unbeknownst to the central government.”56 The massive new wealth from oil provided an environment whereby leadership sought to solve issues through increased expenditure. However, dependence on this primary source of wealth linked to fluctuations in the international market wreaked havoc on a state unprepared to manage such enormous amounts of revenue: “higher oil prices increased government income sharply and unexpectedly, stimulating new public expenditures and new capital projects. When oil prices declined, bringing down incomes, public expenditures and investment outlays failed to subside – in some years they even increased.”57 In the late 1970s, the economy began to shrink due to declining oil prices. In addition, the financial gains to OPEC returned to developed states in the form of cash for arms, machinery, consumer goods, and the maturity of debt payments and interest in the early 1980s.58 Beginning in 1981, the number of people (21%) living in poverty increased, and by 1989, “53% of all Venezuelans lived in poverty.”59 Unable to stem the rising debt and its effects on the economic situation, the vast majority of Venezuelans began to blame the political parties and politicians who administered the oil rents. The wealthy noticed; capital flight, rising foreign debt, and the loss of international credit markets rapidly led to a severe foreign exchange shortage.60 Democracy in Venezuela was only legitimate because it was effective at distributing public goods to support the party system, which was the core of the Punto Fijo regime. The incapacity of the partyarchy to continue to sow the oil to feed and insulate itself from the popular will was its undoing. Corruption, while not new in Venezuelan politics, became the word of the day in an era of scarcity, further undermining belief in politicians.61 Politicians increasingly absorbed the blame of the misappropriation of revenue, the rapid increase in poverty and the growing inequality of rich and poor. Politics became a zero-sum game, where

128

C. M. BROWN

parties increasingly sought to discredit one another, and the stability of the system was in danger of collapse along with intensifications in the absence of popular representation.62

Democratic Purgatory The lack of fit between institutions established in 1958 as the basis of the structure and the expansion of organizations in civil society further weakened the requirement of a loyal opposition to operate within the political party system.63 What was needed was greater representation; instead, elites tried to delay maintaining their stranglehold on the political economy. It was during the failed efforts at reworking “the pact” that reform measures were introduced to both allow Venezuela to regain economic competitiveness in the international market and to restructure its overwhelming debt. In 1989, former statist president Carlos Andrés Pérez was re-elected to the presidency as a candidate from one of the major parties. In defiance of past practices, his appointments to the Cabinet included young foreign-trained technocrats who sought to implement the structural reform program based on the IMF model.64 This would be the final undoing of the legitimacy of the post-1958 partyarchy. Prior demands for greater access, transparency, and inclusion were ignored and disorganized groups could not mount effective collective action. The public policy helped to fund an increasingly affluent society that came to appreciate its newly created status and the benefits of macroeconomically unsound protective measures on subsidies and public expenditure. When the economic effectiveness of the system began to unravel, political parties who administered the oil revenue into bankruptcy were targeted as scapegoats. In the meantime, organizations and political parties representing outside interests emerged as political alternatives, albeit lacking in comparative strength to the dominant party machines. Additionally, elements of civil society gained the ability to exert pressure from outside the partyarchy. The International Monetary Fund’s Structural Adjustment programs signaled to the public that their interests were increasingly being frustrated by the structural limitations of the political system: Thus, the efficacy of Venezuelan democracy was being called into question implicitly by a nation unversed in the theoretical long-term benefits

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

129

of austerity and sacrifice but acutely aware of the real short-term deprivations. Elected officials were perceived as responsive only to the interests of a small, privileged class and as unaccountable to the mass electorate.65 A further loss of faith in the ruling parties came through structural adjustment initiatives launched as the solution to Venezuela’s political-economic woes. The IMF-induced reform package served to splinter support for the Pérez regime and caused his reforms to be abandoned.66 However, the damage was done, and the Venezuelan political structure had begun to crumble. By April 1999, public opinion polls showed that 91 percent of Venezuelans had little or no confidence in political parties and 83 percent had no confidence in congresses.67 The illegitimacy of democracy was unmasked by the inflexibility of the elite party system.

In 1998, political opposition to the partyarchy had matured behind the facade of an unlikely politician. Hugo Chávez Frías, leader of a failed coup attempt seven years earlier, was elected president with a majority of the vote (56.2%). The stage had been set for his candidacy, as public opinion for representatives of the existing political structure was completely discredited due to a concurrent loss of effectiveness and the revelation that prior effectiveness through oil rents and massive public spending masked an unresponsive and illegitimate power structure. Candidate Chavez’s platform sought to implement strict changes in the political and economic system by a complete dismantling of the arrangements under Punto Fijo. In addition, he created the National Constitutional Assembly to revamp the country’s constitution, advocated the slowing of financial liberalization under IMF expectations and called for a complete redesign of the country’s judicial system. His base of support rested on those groups in society that fell beyond the clientelist arrangements of the established system: the poor, the young, and the uneducated.68 On the basis of this mass appeal, Chávez has since sought to undermine the democratic norms of Venezuela. Initially, he established a constitutional committee to generate a new constitution that “reinforced Presidentialism, weakened the legislature…and reduce[d] parliamentary control over military ascension…this constitution was drafted with minimum input from the opposition.”69 Approval of the new constitution immediately “relieved of their duties” all officials who had been elected under the 1961 constitution and made them subject to new elections in 2000.70 In addition, the new Constitution granted the president the power to remove elected officials from office and to dissolve legislative bodies.71 The ability of Chávez to enact

130

C. M. BROWN

Table 6.1 Goals of the Bolivarian Revolution (MVR)73

• Elimination of Puntofijoismo and the existing “elitist” parties of AD and COPEI • Elimination of political parties to be replaced by “Community Counsels” and/or “Bolivarian Circles”74 • Concentration of Power into Executive Branch and the use of “Popular Power” • Promote the Interests of the Poor and all others left out of Punto Fijo Democracy75 • Eliminate “the corruption” of the Punto Fijo politicians76 • Establish Constituent Assembly to Write New Constitution (Completed in 1999)

his personalized form of politics onto the Venezuelan structure lay in the potential for intimidation due to a lack of coherent opposition. With traditional parties fully discredited, Chávez was able to count on support from both popular sectors and the military to consolidate power and to dissuade the appearance of opposition (Table 6.1).72

Democratic Breakdown in Venezuela On the domestic front, states (particularly those comprised of a democratic electorate) must establish institutions with the designated ability to adjust to the shifting demands of the citizenry. These institutions must be seen as both effective and legitimate. Lacking these qualities, they are subject to replacement or require repressive means to execute policy. Since repression falls beyond the definition of democratic institutional mandates, institutions must be responsive or be considered obsolete. In the Venezuelan case, the loss of faith in the political structure came about through the inability and/or unwillingness for institutional change as a response to the changing demands of the electorate. The inefficiency of the system had been masked by an assumed legitimacy due to the massive amounts of oil rents that had been redistributed. As a result of the oil revenues, government expenditures have served to facilitate domestic affluence and a consequent rise of the middle class. Unregulated expansion of the state apparatus as an element of patronage and poor economic management reversed these efforts at maintaining the system, and it collapsed, losing both its effectiveness and its legitimacy.

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

131

The introduction of structural adjustment policies placed on top of an increasingly impoverished electorate was the final blow. Simply stated, Venezuela’s democratic decline came as a direct result of the inability of the state to provide the benefits that the electorate had come to expect. Lack of effectiveness in providing for development unmasked an illegitimate political structure. However, what is particularly unique in the Venezuelan experience is that democracy was still revered, despite the loss of faith in those who were in the position to administer it. Thus, Venezuelans have been able to separate the political system of democracy from the government (although Chávez’s constitutional amendment is putting even this notion in question). For Venezuelans in the wake of the crisis, democracy was the only choice. Coup attempts have failed both pre- and post-1998, yet Venezuelans elected regime change through legitimate democratic means. Thus, the political culture of Venezuela is highly supportive of democracy. While the issue of oil in Venezuela is critical to explaining the ability to maintain an unresponsive political structure, it is not the whole story. Oil, like any export tied to the world market, may generate the same types of structural contingency as with other resources, with larger margins of growth and more unregulated fluctuation. The Venezuelan rise and fall can be interpreted by degree: so much wealth in so short of a time only caused the system to collapse more quickly when it declined. In other words, the rise and fall of oil revenue accelerated the process of development and disenchantment, while the existence of extractive resources with lesser income potential may delay or elongate the process of decline. In the field of democratization, there are those who support the proposition that economic prosperity provides for political stability. As an a priori logical statement, this seems well-founded. If a state can maintain a surplus of wealth, then it can throw money at any problems that arise. At least having the additional resources allows for the political managers of the state to have options when confronted with competing demands. However, this logic is stretched slightly since one would have to assume that those demands could be assuaged only through the deployment of wealth resources. Nonmaterial demands can be minimized in this scenario to the point where they are co-opted by material concerns. Political affect comes to rest upon their material well-being. Or they play no role at all. In the latter case, we are left with only the instrumentalism: Venezuelans supported democracy because it paid. When the party system

132

C. M. BROWN

was no longer able to provide, the people defected. When the parties failed to offer a novel alternative, the citizens voted against democracy. If Venezuela were about to meet the demands of an extensive network of political partners, the effectiveness of the political regime was assured. However, over time, the inability of the political regime to initiate reform efforts was thwarted. Corporatist to the core, democratic through instrumentalism. The loss of effectiveness revealed the inflexibility of the Punto Fijo democracy.

Wither Representation? Venezuelan democracy was based upon meeting the demands of a core group of political participants who were willing to play by the rules to have their demands met. Without the ability to meet demands, democracy was deemed ineffective. This ineffectiveness could no longer hide the absence of intrinsic legitimacy of the democratic regime. While Venezuelans had learned well the rules of the political game, when the government was no longer capable of playing by the rules that they had established and maintained since Punto Fijo, the citizenry defected from those parties. In abandoning the parties that were at the core of the pacted democracy, Venezuela suffered a democratic breakdown. What expedited the regime’s fall was ironically the failed reform initiated from above since it was clearly not capable of coming from within the political system. With the discrediting of alternative paths for economic development, the neoliberal agenda has become the dominant paradigm. States are being required to reduce their domestic spending and the size of the state and its levels of service. However, for developing states, these policy prescriptions are of fundamental importance to the stability of their governments to deliver effectiveness. With the dismantling of the state’s ability to provide employment, the effectiveness of goods and services will be lost. Furthermore, as in the Venezuelan case, without effectiveness under patron–client structures, legitimacy is absent. Lacking the ability to respond to the demands of the electorate, political instability arises. It is in this context that alternatives to the traditional party structure arise, and with the existence of a world leader who advocates another way, perspectives from the left become viable. These are the conditions through which democracies can break down through democratic means.

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

133

Notes 1. Steve Ellner & Miguel Tinker Salas, “Introduction: New Perspectives and the Chávez Phenomenon,” in Venezuela: Hugo Chávez and the Decline of an “Exceptional Democracy,” eds. Steve Ellner & Miguel Tinker Salas (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 1. 2. Ellner & Salas, “Introduction,” xiv. 3. Linz & Stepan, “Introduction,” 81–82. 4. Linz & Stepan, Problems, 82–83. 5. Tarver & Frederick, The History of Venezuela, 152–153. 6. Jennifer McCoy, “From Representative to Participatory Democracy? Regime Transformation in Venezuela,” in The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela, eds. Jennifer L. McCoy & David J. Myers (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2004), 266. 7. Ellner & Salas, “Introduction,” 1. 8. McCoy, “Representative,” 266–275. McCoy refers to Venezuela’s democratic breakdown as “the unraveling of representative democracy.” 9. McCoy, “Representative,” 266–275. 10. Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), 7. 11. Karl, Paradox, 10. 12. Ibid., 73. 13. Ibid., 74–80. 14. Ibid., 89–91. 15. McCoy, “Representative,” 266–267. 16. Ibid., 267. 17. Karl, Paradox, 93. 18. Ibid., 93. 19. McCoy, “Representative,” 266. 20. Daniel H. Levine & Brian F. Crisp, “Venezuela: The Character, Crisis and Possible Future of Democracy,” in Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, 2nd eds. Larry Diamond et al. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999), 387. 21. McCoy, “Representative,” 268. 22. Ibid. 23. ibid (McCoy, “Representation,” 268). 24. John D. Martz, “Political Parties and the Democratic Crisis,” in Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience, eds. Louis W. Goodman, et al. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995), 34. 25. Daniel H. Levine, “Venezuela since 1958: The Consolidation of Democratic Politics,” in The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Latin America, eds. Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1980), 93.

134

C. M. BROWN

26. John D. Martz, “Political Parties and the Democratic Crisis,” in Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience, eds. Louis W. Goodman, et al. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995), 35–36. 27. Daniel H. Levine, “Venezuela since 1958,” 102. 28. Ibid. 29. Daniel H. Levine, “Venezuela since 1958,” 103. See also Amitai Etzioni, “On Self-Encapsulating Conflicts,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 8, no. 3 (September 1964): 242–255. 30. Martz, “Political Parties,” 34. 31. Michael Coppedge, Strong Parties and Lame Ducks: Presidential Partyarchy and Factionalism in Venezuela ( Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1994), 2. 32. Coppedge, Strong Parties, 18. 33. Ibid., 2. 34. Ibid., 156–159. 35. Ibid., 158. 36. McCoy, “Representative,” 272–273. 37. Ibid., 273. 38. Ibid., 273–274. 39. Ibid., 274–275. 40. Ibid., 275. 41. Levine & Crisp, “Venezuela,” 387. 42. Ibid., 371. 43. Ibid., 380–381. 44. Ibid., 381. 45. Ibid., 386 (italics original). 46. Ibid., 387. 47. Ibid. 48. Louis W. Goodman, et al., “Introduction: The Decline of Venezuelan Exceptionalism,” in Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience, eds. Louis W. Goodman, et al. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995), 3–4. 49. Brian Crisp, “Limitations to Democracy in Developing Capitalist Societies: The Case of Venezuela,” World Development, 22, No. 10 (1994): 1491– 1509. 50. Crisp, “Limitations,” 1505. 51. Carlos Gueron, Introduction to Venezuela in the Wake of Radical Reform, ed. Joseph S. Tulchin (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993), 1. 52. Gueron, “Introduction,” 3. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid.

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

135

57. Moisés Naím, Paper Tigers and Minotaurs: The Politics of Venezuela’s Economic Reforms (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, 1993), 21–22, 47–49. 58. Carlos Gueron, Introduction to Venezuela in the Wake of Radical Reform, ed. Joseph S. Tulchin (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993), 4. 59. Gueron, “Introduction,” 24. 60. Ibid., 25. 61. Rogelio Perez Perdomo, “Corruption and Political Crisis,” in Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience, eds. Louis W. Goodman, et al. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995), 322–323. 62. Perdomo, “Corruption,” 321. 63. Brian Crisp, Daniel H. Levine, & Juan Carlos Rey, “The Legitimacy Problem,” in Venezuelan Democracy under Stress, eds. Jennifer McCoy, et al. (Miami, FL: Transaction/North–South Center, 1995), 150. 64. Naím, Paper Tigers, 47–49. 65. Richard S. Hillman, Democracy for the Privileged: Crisis and Transition in Venezuela (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994), 45. 66. Javier Corrales, Presidents without Parties: The Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 2002), 251–252. 67. Julia Buxton, The Failure of Political Reform in Venezuela (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001), 209. 68. Damarys Canache, Venezuela: Public Opinion and Protest in a Fragile Democracy (Miami, FL: Transaction North–South Center Press, 2002), 148. 69. Javier Corrales, “Strong Societies, Weak Parties: Regime Change in Cuba and Venezuela in the 1950s and Today,” Latin American Politics and Society 43, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 104. 70. Brian Crisp, Democratic Institutional Design (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2000), 232. 71. Crisp, Democratic Institutional Design, 233. 72. Steve Ellner, “The Radical Potential of Chavismo in Venezuela,” Latin American Perspectives 28, no. 5 (September 2001): 13. 73. Note: (See “Appendix I” for the key differences between the Punto Fijo Democracy and the Bolivarian Revolution Movement). 74. Cristóbal Valencia Ramírez, “Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution: Who Are the Chavistas?” in Venezuela: Hugo Chávez and the Decline of an “Exceptional Democracy,” Steve Ellner & Miguel Tinker Salas, eds., (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 121–139. “Bolivarian Circles” are organized citizens’ groups of seven to ten people “designed to disseminate Bolivarian ideology and promote the exchange of accurate information and discussion.”

136

C. M. BROWN

75. Jennifer L. McCoy, “Democratic Transformation in Latin America,” in The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, vol. 9, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2008): 24–25. 76. Margarita Lopez-Maya & Luis E. Lander, “Refounding the Republic: The Political Project of Chavismo,” in NACLA Report on the Americas, vol. 33, no. 6 (May/June 2000): 22.

Bibliography Buxton, Julia. The Failure of Political Reform in Venezuela. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001. Canache, Damarys. Venezuela: Public Opinion and Protest in a Fragile Democracy. Miami, FL: North-South Center Press, 2002. Coppedge, Michael. Strong Parties and Lame Ducks: Presidential Partyarchy and Factionalism in Venezuela. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1994. ———. “Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of Partyarchy.” In Constructing Democratic Governance: Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s: South America, edited by Jorge I. Dominguez and Abraham F. Lowenthal, Part III: 3–19. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Corrales, Javier. Presidents Without Parties: The Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. ———. “Strong Societies, Weak Parties: Regime Change in Cuba and Venezuela in the 1950s and Today,” Latin American Politics and Society 43, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 81–113. Crisp, Brian. Democratic Institutional Design. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2000. ———. “Limitations to Democracy in Developing Capitalist Societies: The Case of Venezuela.” World Development 22, no. 10 (1994): 1491–1509. Crisp, Brian, Daniel H. Levine, and Juan Carlos Rey. “The Legitimacy Problem.” In Venezuelan Democracy under Stress, edited by Jennifer McCoy, Andrés Serbin, William C. Smith, and Andrés Stambouli, 139–170. Miami, FL: Transaction/North-South Center, 1995. Ellner, Steve. “Introduction: The Search for Explanations.” In Venezuelan Politics in the Chávez Era, edited by Steve Ellner and Daniel Hellinger, 7–26. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003. ———. “The Radical Potential of Chavismo in Venezuela,” Latin American Perspectives 28, no. 5 (September 2001): 5–32. Ellner, Steve, and Miguel Tinker Salas. “Introduction: New Perspectives and the Chávez Phenomenon.” In Venezuela: Hugo Chávez and the Decline of an “Exceptional Democracy,” edited by Steve Ellner and Miguel Tinker Salas, xiii–2. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.

6

INSTITUTIONALIZING INSTABILITY: PROLOGUE …

137

———. “The Venezuelan Exceptionalism Thesis: Separating Myth from Reality.” In Venezuela: Hugo Chávez and the Decline of an “Exceptional Democracy,” edited by Steve Ellner and Miguel Tinker Salas, 3–13. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Etzioni, Amitai. “On Self-Encapsulating Conflicts,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 8, no. 3 (September 1964): 242–255. Goodman, Louis W., Johanna Mendelson Forman, Moisés Naím, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Gary Bland. “Introduction: The Decline of Venezuelan Exceptionalism.” In Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience, edited by Louis W. Goodman, Johanna Mendelson Forman, Moisés Naím, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Gary Bland, 3–27. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995. Gueron, Carlos. Introduction to Venezuela in the Wake of Radical Reform, edited by Joseph S. Tulchin, 1–18. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993. Hillman, Richard S. Democracy for the Privileged: Crisis and Transition in Venezuela. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994. Karl, Terry Lynn. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997. Levine, Daniel H. “Venezuela since 1958: The Consolidation of Democratic Politics.” In The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Latin America, edited by Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, 82–109. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1980). Levine, Daniel H., and Crisp, Brian F. “Legitimacy, Governability, and Reform in Venezuela.” In Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience, edited by Louis W. Goodman, Johanna Mendelson Forman, Moisés Naím, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Gary Bland (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995), 223–251. ———. “Venezuela: The Character, Crisis and Possible Future of Democracy.” In Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, 2nd ed., edited by Larry Diamond, Jonathan Hartlyn, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999. Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Martz, John D. “Political Parties and the Democratic Crisis.” In Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience, edited by Louis W. Goodman, Johanna Mendelson Forman, Moisés Naím, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Gary Bland (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995), 31–53. Maya, Margarita Lopez. “Hugo Chávez Frías: His Movement and His Presidency.” In Venezuelan Politics in the Chávez Era, edited by Steve Ellner and Daniel Hellinger (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003). 73–92. McCoy, Jennifer. “Democratic Transformation in Latin America,” The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations: Latin America Volume IX, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2008): 19–29.

138

C. M. BROWN

———. “From Representative to Participatory Democracy? Regime Transformation in Venezuela.” In The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela, edited by Jennifer L. McCoy and David J. Myers (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2004), 264–295. Naím, Moisés. Paper Tigers and Minotaurs: The Politics of Venezuela’s Economic Reforms. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, 1993. Perdomo, Rogelio Perez. “Corruption and Political Crisis.” In Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience, edited by Louis W. Goodman, Johanna Mendelson Forman, Moisés Naím, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Gary Bland (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995), 311–333. Ramírez, Cristóbal Valencia. “Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution: Who Are the Chavistas?” In Venezuela: Hugo Chávez and the Decline of an “Exceptional Democracy,” edited by Steve Ellner and Miguel Tinker Salas (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 121–139. Tarver, H. Michael, and Julia C. Frederick. The History of Venezuela. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

CHAPTER 7

The Long Shadow of Colombia’s National Front Era

Chapter Overview Colombia’s historical development stands in contrast to the experience of its neighbors. Despite shared Spanish cultural influences, the way colonial institutions infiltrated society helped to create a unique political economy. Colombia has long maintained two related and persistent themes that define it: a surprisingly long tradition of civic political engagement and a deep inclination toward violence. The fact that both themes have coexisted for so long gives context to the present realities of a lawless narco-state embedded in a modern liberal democracy. This chapter provides a brief case study of the political development of Colombia to demonstrate that despite the historical differences, Democratic Purgatory frames one of the oldest democracies in Latin America.

Introduction to Colombian Political Development Long before the arrival of European conquistadors, the evolution of the land that would come to be known as Colombia owed as much to its geography and its climate as it did to those cultural groups that established civilizations among the long mountainous ridges that trisect the country. For ancient peoples, Colombia was a conduit through which a variety of migratory groups passed through to access South America and the Caribbean. A prehistorical melting pot would emerge as linguistic © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_7

139

140

C. M. BROWN

groups tracing along different valleys would establish a range of loosely linked political networks. For groups such as the Tairona in the Northern Caribbean region, the Muisca in the Central Highlands, or the range of groups that settled in the Southwest and Cauca Valley regions such as the Quimbaya and the Colima, these cultural and linguistic groupings served to link the pre-Colombian peoples through extensive trade networks that yielded sophisticated societies. While the pueblos indígenas of Colombia would suffer the same exploitation and abuses as in other regions of Spanish conquest, these groups still exist today in significant numbers in the same areas where their ancestors lived, particularly in the Eastern Highlands. Not surprisingly, indigenous presence has become the core of the national character even if it is not always celebrated. Today, most Colombians are considered mestizos; the most prominent racial group in the country reveals combinations of Amerindian and European origins.1 Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda, who sailed with Christopher Columbus, was the first European credited with surveying the Colombian coast as part of his explorations of the Southern Caribbean region. It was on his first voyage (1499) that he, along with Amerigo Vespucci, named Venezuela or “Little Venice” due to the palafitos (huts built on stilts above the water) of the Wayuu Amerindian peoples who still inhabit coastal Venezuela and Colombia. On his second voyage, sailing further west, he founded the first Spanish colony on mainland South America at Santa Cruz, Colombia, on the Caribbean coast before exploring the Caribbean coastline of Colombia. Although the colony would only last a couple of months, tales of gold and other riches fueled the gradual occupation of the region by Spanish adventurers and missionaries. The first permanent settlement in Colombia, Santa Marta, was founded in 1525; it would provide the beachhead that Europeans needed to infiltrate deeper into South America. Soon, other colonies would emerge, including Cartagena, a fortress city and slave depot (founded in 1533), and Colombia’s importance as a regional trading hub would serve to later promote the colony on the edge of an unknown continent from a backwater possession to the seat of the Spanish Viceroyalty. The stories of El Dorado loomed large as the conquistadores ventured deeper into the interior; their faith in riches would be confirmed early, as the tombs of the Sinú peoples were stripped of sizable amounts of gold objects that were moved behind the protective walls of Cartagena before beginning their journey to Spain. As word began to leak about the treasures of the cordilleras, new expeditions were mounted to subdue the

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

141

interior. Three separate armed excursions ventured inland to claim the region for the Spanish crown. The most successful expedition left Santa Marta under the command of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, capturing Bogotá in the conquest of the Muisca peoples in 1535. After capturing the indigenous capital, the Spanish sought to crush a future rebellion by assassinating their leadership caste of chieftains and priests through 1537. A second expedition was led by Sebastián de Benalcázar, whose company in seeking the infamous El Dorado conquered northward from Peru. A third Conquistador, Nikolaus Federmann, a German who was in the service of House of Welser, a banking syndicate given concessions by the Spanish Crown started from what would become Venezuelan Colombia.2 Topography influenced migration as well as the avenues open for conquest, reinforcing the division of Colombia into three distinct regions separated by the mountain chains that branch out of the northern Andean range. In the east, the Muisca would be supplanted by the Spanish capital of Bogota. The Caribbean coast was the first area to be colonized, dominated by Santa Marta and Cartagena; these cities would become regional trading entrepôts. In the west, new cities founded atop gold mines funded the development of a mature Spanish colonial bureaucracy. The consequences of these topographic divisions, reinforced by the Spanish political economy, can be seen clearly to this day as “the three regions developed distinctive racial and cultural profiles.”3 It did not take long for the Spanish to import labor in the form of African slaves to build their newest possession. Indigenous groups tended to be too decentralized, too remote, and often too wary to be conquered in large enough numbers for the Spanish to establish themselves atop any political unit as foreign usurpers. Where a labor force was needed, African slaves were introduced in greater numbers; the Caribbean coastline and the gold-mining regions of the western parts of the country became primary destinations. Thus, akin to Caribbean colonization, natives were enslaved (when possible), but African slaves provided the muscle for Spanish coastal expansion. Today, Afro-Colombians represent approximately 10% of the total population; however, the entire country has a legacy of mixed racial heritage.4 The geography, indigenous settlement patterns, and socioeconomic networks introduced by the Spanish conquest cultivated significant regional diversification. The degree to which areas were incorporated into the global economic networks added an additional dimension to diversification. In the Caribbean and Western regions, the introduction of African

142

C. M. BROWN

slaves and the processes of miscegenation among the diverse populations of those regions would cultivate more liberal inclinations. Spanish administrative centers and interior highland communities would be more heavily influenced by the Catholic Church and the more traditional sympathies.5 Leaderless and without access to their traditional lands, Indigenous peoples were coerced into the encomienda system. Santa Fé de Bogotá became a Royal Audiencia in 1549, and its success as a Crown administrative hub later saw the city being elevated to the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Grenada, bringing Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama under its direct control in 1717. In addition to elevating the status of the city in the vast colonial Spanish bureaucracy, “the colonial period also bequeathed to the country one of the continent’s most powerful and conservative church hierarchies.”6 The legacy of the Church and its role in Colombian society would influence the ideological formation of the party system over the next few centuries. In this earlier era of political history, several factors loom larger with the benefit of hindsight. The topographic obstacles that facilitated the emergence of smaller regional groups over a more cohesive unified tribal empire would continue to frustrate Spanish colonial efforts toward increased political unification had that been the Crown’s intention. Furthermore, the ethno-racial hierarchy of Spanish colonial rule served to reinforce local identities and allegiances for the population at large even as colonial elites began to establish themselves as leaders of the disparate peasantries. Colonial bureaucracy in Bogota offered less of a centralized political foundation and more of an administrative center, with its focus being concerned on managing legal and economic affairs in support of the wider Crown system. There was no effort to create a meaningful political identity based on being from New Granada; it was simply a domain subject to the universal sovereignty of the viceroy, the will of the Crown, and at the mercy of the Church hierarchy. However, as an intersection of law, trade, and administration, it helped to establish the rules of civilized political discourse and an elite culture of negotiation. Despite the presence of an organizational structure supported by a parallel ecclesiastical syndicate, Spanish rule was not evenly enforced. In the hinterlands of the empire, and those which were exposed to other external influences, compliance was often more in word than deed. Colombia began its post-Columbian existence as a land divided by geography, demography, economy, and loyalty. These cleavages continued to develop over

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

143

the course of the Spanish imperial era. The paucity of centripetal forces during the Spanish era would lead to increased regionalism over time, as revolutionary forces would sweep out the old order.

Independence Just prior to the era of independence, Colombia was a land separated by geography and ethnic identity and of increasing urgency, the political birthrights granted by Spanish law. Broiling under the surface of the Spanish imperial system was a divided society that held reserved special privileges based on birthright. Peninsulares , those born in Spain, made up the highest class. Criollos , Spaniards born in the Americas, ranked a distant second and clamored for equality, if only among whom they saw as fellow Spaniards. The remaining population of mestizos, mulattoes, Indigenous peoples, African slaves, Freemen, and a coterie of other nationalities also jostled for political and economic rights in New Spain. The flames of rebellion burned particularly bright in 1793 when Colombian journalist Antonio Nariño pushed a translation of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man.7 Nevertheless, like the stirrings of autonomous rule across Spanish America, it was Napoleon’s forced abdication of the Spanish King, Ferdinand VII, in 1808 that provided the impetus for revolution. The replacement of the king by Napoleon’s brother Joseph and the establishment of a liberal constitution undermined the political legitimacy of the Spanish Crown. If divine right was severed, with whom does sovereignty now lie? If the Catholic Church is invalidated by liberalism, where can societal morality be found? Existential threats facilitated new ways of thinking, and the struggle for independence was born amid the unmooring of divine assumptions of political rule. On July 20, 1810, Bogotá rebelled, overthrowing the Spanish governor, and declaring allegiance to Ferdinand VII. Other states would follow suit, as the civil conflict had arrived in Colombia. What began as a reactionary effort to restore the traditional monarchy to power gradually shifted toward independence as Creoles realized that liberation would not be found under Spanish control. Peninsulares held firm to tradition and in their calls for a return to divine order; once-loyal Creoles began to realize that a third way would serve their interests better. Other groups beyond those who could claim pure Spanish descent were also listening and weighing their options. Creoles were not enough to turn the tide of revolution so long as independence denied the possibility of freedom and rights for other

144

C. M. BROWN

groups. When the franchise became inclusive and a broader conceptualization of unity was embraced by the political leadership, the masses mobilized behind the independence movements “adding a social-class dimension to the anti-Spanish turbulence.”8 Revolutionary sentiment was running even higher in neighboring Venezuela. Simón Bolívar, a Creole, organized his own armed rebellion and declared Venezuela independent in 1811 after forcibly removing the provincial governor. However, by not expanding his mandate to guarantee political rights beyond the Spanish creole classes, Bolívar’s forces were unable to hold back the Spanish counterattacks when they came in 1812. As a result, Bolivar’s army of liberation was forced to flee to Cartagena, while the loyal regional caudillos re-established Spanish control over Venezuela. While he succeeded in capturing Caracas again and declaring Venezuela a republic again, this victory was also short-lived, and he was forced once again to flee to Haiti. With the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 at Waterloo, Spain attempted to consolidate control over their American possessions to forestall future revolutionary actions with little success. The flame of independence had already begun to spread, but it would need to become more inclusive to thrive. Having learned his lessons and aided by his Haitian benefactors, Bolivar remained true to his personal convictions calling for an inclusive republic guaranteeing rights to all peoples. African slaves, Freedmen, mestizos, mulattoes, and the Llaneros joined the cause for freedom. The military, as an emergent institution, became an avenue for social mobility for the lower classes; Afro-Caribbean slaves were also granted freedom in exchange for joining the revolution.9 In 1816, Bolivar’s small mixed army surprised the Spanish administration by launching an attack on Bogotá along with the New Grenada Army under Francisco de Paula Santander. The Spanish were defeated at the Battle of Boyacá in 1819, and The Republic of Gran Colombia was established in place of the Viceroyalty of New Granada by the agreements that emerged from the Congress of Angostura. Bolivar assumed the presidency and Santander the vice presidency of the newly independent state. A key development that would become obvious only in the years to come was that the military in Colombia did not exist as a national institution; it was a militia organized under regional leaders, which served to strengthen the semifeudal relationship between local elites and their constituents. The army of liberation was of foreign origin, and after defeating the standing Spanish armies, it drifted back to Venezuela. Supportive local auxiliaries returned to their

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

145

homes and fields in the wake of independence. With the dismantling of Colombia’s patriotic militias and the departure of the army of liberation back to Venezuela, the concept of a national military would not play a meaningful role in Colombian political development. Regional leaders would continue to maintain personal or regional paramilitary forces made available for the political aspirations of their proprietary elites. Furthermore, legislatures formed in the wake of independence would continue to whittle down the size and capabilities of the national army well into the twentieth century.10 While the military would rarely intervene to disrupt the trajectory of Colombia’s political development, the weakness of the national military has come at the expense of the power of the Colombian state. Colombian history is one that stands in opposition to Max Weber’s fundamental definition of the state: “a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.”11 The Colombian state has been continually challenged over its entire existence by a variety of forces, including the Spanish, rival political parties, the United States (in its acquisition of Panama in particular), guerilla organizations, right-wing paramilitaries, and narco-empires.

War of the Supremos The post-independence conflict called “The War of the Supremos ” bore witness to the reliance of regional caudillos and their armed companies as competing warlords seeking to coerce the opposition into accepting their vision for Colombia’s future. A national army had not emerged, and its constitution would be subject to the same regional pressures that would come to define Colombian politics in future generations. Despite its incapacity, the military would become an important avenue for social mobility; for those among the lower classes, who served well and gained the political influence as a result, would find themselves in the halls of power.12 Nevertheless, the opportunity for a unified military force swimming with triumphant nationalism was not to be the reality for Colombia. The liberating army was a foreign one; when it won the wider war of independence, it dispersed to its own hard-won lands. The local auxiliaries in Colombia who fought for the wider ideals were raised levies at the behest of their regional elites and had local identities and allegiances. The shift from Crown to confederation and to territorial state did not hardwire a sense of commitment to Bogota among the peasants or the militias.

146

C. M. BROWN

Colombia’s noticeable lack of national military intervention in the civil affairs of government stands as a testament to the underdevelopment of a centralized agency with a monopoly over the use of force. The political scene at the origins of an independent Colombia would cast a long shadow over the country’s trajectory, as regional caudillos governing lands and the peoples on that land like a feudal arrangement. Elites took advantage of the stability granted by the Catholic Church, and a commensalism emerged between the political and the ecclesiastical leadership to protect their inherited privilege. Disputes that faded into the background of revolutionary warfare soon re-emerged in the wake of peace. Bolivar favored a centralized state; Santander wanted a federation. While both agreed to the proposals to end the slave trade, halt the Catholic Inquisition in the region, and redistribute land to the Indigenous peoples, the relationship between the two heroes soured.13 After Santander was discovered attempting to murder Bolivar, he was exiled. Bolivar would also be exiled, and in 1830, the same year in which nationalist tensions would lead Venezuela and Ecuador to secede from Gran Colombia and enter the global system as sovereign states, he took his last breath. Santander would return to assume the presidency of a much smaller republic, now known as Nueva Granada, but the key political factions that informed the worldview of the two liberators would frame the future of Colombia’s development.14 The main political parties that would lead the country into the modern era were forged in the crucible of the wars of independence and in the early Gran Colombia period. Bolivar’s view of a centralized state with limited franchise and a significant ecclesiastical presence would shape the Conservative Party. Santander’s Liberal party sought decentralized governance, broader and inclusive franchises, and a secular state that was particularly free from the educational control of the Catholic Church. The degree of civility between the two factions can be explained by class and general philosophical orientation. Politics was “elite-instigated” not motivated by popular concerns, and “the two parties shared the same fundamental ideology regarding the social and economic order.”15 In the literature, the term “convivencia” is often employed to illustrate this concept, which means that despite their differences, elite politicians coexisted within the same political space.6F16 Nevertheless, the ongoing tensions between these two contending forces would lead to a series of civil wars that would be underwritten by the blood of the peasants (campesinos ). Regionalism and elite-exclusive politics became mutually

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

147

reinforcing commitments that served to establish and maintain patron– client structures in the wider society. The opposing party organizations reflected the structured realities of Colombia’s political development, far from promoting a sense of national unity, “they were loose confederations of large landowners and merchants, who possessed considerable autonomy in their region.”17 Politicians would maintain civil interactions up to the verge of armed conflict, at which point they would mobilize the population under their economic and social control to serve as militias in extending their political aims. Campesinos became liberal or conservative, not because of their self-discovery but as a function of birthplace. The depth and frequency of these almost medieval-style skirmishes deeply scarred the population, leading to an almost innate polarized hatred for the opposition. Furthermore, political party identification via patron– client social obligations tended to override all other social cleavages.18 Political loyalty in Colombia coevolved as commitments to the regional elites and to the elites’ political ideologies; these allegiances would be rewarded in relation to the degree of political success that the elites were able to glean from interparty spats and by winning governmental favors. The patronage system and the regional elites coevolved, thus reinforcing the existing political order. Colombian politics was defined by instability, as the shift of one faction over another would lead to a “pendulum-like alteration of Liberals or Conservatives in power, rath than to compromise or coalitions.”19 Reinforced over time, elites would compromise only when they could not get what they wanted via other means. Compromise by weakness and political violence are the hallmarks of Colombian democracy. Each round of compromise gave rise to new grievances. Each grievance led to new waves of violence.

´ Nueva Granada to La Rebelion The strength of regional politicians to defy efforts at consolidation gave rise to the Grenadine Confederation, a legalized federation of provincial sovereign units. Wracked by civil war, the federation only lasted from 1858 to 1863. In 1863, the country changed its name to The United States of Colombia, and while federalism was recognized in the process, the provinces cooperated with the federal governor in Bogotá when it suited their local interest. Once again, the regional differences would thwart efforts toward state-making; only in this new era would the philosophical ideals of the Liberals guide the centripetal forces. Nevertheless,

148

C. M. BROWN

the civil government advanced as free elections were held, and powersharing arrangements allowed for politics to remain without wide-scale violence. The degree to which civility reigned among the gentlemen of Colombia’s elite helped to promote power-sharing between the two rival parties, even during periods of bloodshed. The odd conjunction of sporadic civil wars fought between rival political bosses and modern statemaking that was provided by political stability that would allow Liberals to remain in power for thirty years in the mid-nineteenth century would both serve to define Colombia to this very day. The longevity of the Liberal period served to reinforce decentralized governance institutionalizing a weak centralized state, promoting secularism, and expanding franchises for political inclusion. While the system was far from being a liberal democracy, the liberal politicians during this period facilitated the liberalization of political learning. Consequently, political mobilization for both elections and sectarian conflict was widespread as both Liberals and Conservatives continued to exercise autonomy in their home territory in the service of ideological and, more often, personal goals. A state-wide military would be further hampered by the efforts of regional elites to maintain an impotent force that is often smaller and has much less financial support than the regional forces employed by the more powerful faction leaders.20 By the 1880s, the Liberal rule had persisted, but a consequence of dominant party governance had given rise to deep polarization and social division. Political participation in Colombia could only be channeled through the two dominant parties; they had so thoroughly managed legitimate space that no other groups could meaningfully gain access. The regional and ideological nature of the traditional parties over time produced rank-and-file members across the spectrum of Colombia’s social life. There was no room for labor or peasant-based parties since their allegiance was granted to one of the main parties. The near-constant civil conflict among rival elites served to congeal partisan identities over the nineteenth century. The absence of third-party politicians or movements rising beyond the existing managed electorate would not challenge the social order. However, with the Liberals holding power from 1863 to 1885, the balance of power had begun to shift. Having been shut out of the benefits of political patronage for so long, Conservatives became increasingly restless. The narrow space through which political power was channeled also encouraged interparty disputes that could, and often did, thwart the incumbent parties.

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

149

The political response to the Liberal Era came when President Rafael Núñez called for a new “politics of regeneration.” The remedy for political violence was a renewed moralism embedded in Catholicism and a realignment of church and state. Elected first as a moderate Liberal (in 1880–1882), Núñez garnered Conservative support and was re-elected in 1884. As the unexpected champion of Conservatives, he would hold office until his death in 1894 by eliminating the secular Constitution and drafting one that was deeply religious, centralized, and granted the executive widespread powers. In addition to being anti-Liberal, the new conservatism also espoused an anti-American and anti-capitalist sentiment in response to the expansion of the United States and its dealings with its Latin American neighbors.21 With the ratification of the 1886 constitution, the country changed its name again, this time to the Republic of Colombia as it officially recognized today. This constitution would now be permanently replaced until 1991.22 The basic rules of Colombian democracy were established, and political culture was institutionalized in the federal structure over the course of the nineteenth century. The convivencia of the two-party system operate well among elites if there are political opportunities for regional elites on both sides to maintain their own patron–client networks. To maintain this degree of static stability, elites need access to the spoils of the system. The patronage system facilitates the need for party cohesion among elites and between these regional elites and their respective constituents. This critical requirement is the lynchpin of Colombia’s democracy. Over time, elite parties have reinforced their commitment to the politics of patronage through civic participation and their capacity to mobilize violence. If they can maintain their position and status through politics by regular means, then the system will see a low level of conflict. However, when elites feel significantly threatened by an imbalance in the social order, they will readily employ violent means to defend their claims. With modernization looming, the forces that come to threaten the old aristocracy will present new challenges to the status quo.

The War of the Thousand Days to La Violencia The political arrangement in Colombia worked so long as elite stakeholders felt as although they were receiving their rightful share of power and resources. When one party pushed the bounds of the federal government too far in one direction, violence offered a political counterbalance

150

C. M. BROWN

toward the neutrality of policy. Already compromised by the sea change in political fortune and a crippling economic depression, Liberal politicians pushed back against the newest 1886 constitution. In response, the Conservative central government authorized local governors to confiscate their properties and to levy forced loans on leading Liberal elites to cover loans that had been taken out by regional elites and were in danger of default. The ensuing conflict, which started out as “La Rebelión,” would explode from its humble beginning on October 20, 1899, to a countrywide civil that would cost thousands of Colombian lives. It would come to be known as “The War of the Thousand Days.” The Liberal forces, again made up of campesinos that followed their patrons’ cry for battle faced off against their Conservative-led peers in a series of raids and guerilla campaigns that were highlighted by occasional pitched battles over the next three years. At the end of 1899, both forces could claim victories over each other’s forces, each having won major battles. However, by May 1900, Conservatives held their ground under the Liberal assault at Palonegro despite high casualties on both sides. In the wake of the carnage, the tide of war shifted, and the Conservatives gathered their strength. Tactics would shift back to the deployment of smaller bands of raiders attacking rival villages for the next phase of the conflict, which would last until 1903. By then, the countryside had been thoroughly ravaged, and exhaustion had taken the fight from peasants and elites alike, as political infighting among both parties would open a pathway toward an uneasy peace. As the peasants returned home to rebuild their lives, another issue arose from the 1886 constitution that provided a convenient avenue for the expansion of American imperial designs. The region of Panama had long been an autonomous political unit within Bogota’s suzerainty. Despite being lumped together in the Viceroyalty during the Spanish colonial period, the distance, terrain, and evolving networks of trade permitted the region to manage its own affairs. After independence, the Liberal institutions that promoted federalism and decentralized rule benefitted Panama quite well, as it continued as a self-governing territory. The region was even once declared to be a “sovereign federal state” by the legislature.23 With the victory of the Conservatives and the 1886 constitution, it would be demoted and relegated to a department under the new centralized state. As delays accumulated under the French canal-building operation, President Roosevelt worked to acquire the right to take over the project. However, Colombia rejected the treaty that was formulated

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

151

to consummate the American-led project as a threat to their national sovereignty.24 What may have simply been a matter of chaffing under a new regime in Bogota suddenly became a full-fledged independence movement as the possibility of an American-owned canal was threatened. War fatigue, lack of a national army, and the inability to defend the region in the face of American interests, Panama quickly declared and earned its independence in November 1903. The American Panama Canal would take only ten years to build, opening in 1914. Colombia lobbied the United States for redress for its role in parsing Panama; it found it in the form of a $25 million dollar indemnity payment. Although this time the US Congress would fail to sign the treaty, it waited until 1922 to finally accept wording that limited its culpability. While the loss of Panamanian territory may have been an indignity to Colombian sovereignty from a rhetorical position, the absence of a strong national identity or any real engagement in the territory could not have wounded elites too deeply. The real impact of the forced separation served to awaken Colombian elites to the realities of governing a state in a wider global order. Looking outward offered opportunities for trade and economic growth as well as a concern for the future territorial integrity from external encroachment.

Modernization and Internationalization In time, Colombia would re-establish the equilibrium between Liberal and Conservative political parties, and political life would return to normal. Political stability was provided by the expansion of the cash commodity coffee, which, around the time of the 1886 constitution, surpassed gold, bananas, tobacco, and cinchona bark (for use in the malarial treatment drug quinine). Its share of revenue would surge in the early twentieth century, garnering 70% of the country’s foreign exchange revenue by the 1920s (and 80% by the 1950s).25 Owing to the topography and the decentralized political economy, coffee growers were done by smaller- to medium-scale operations. Coffee would help to bring Colombian infrastructure into the modern era as means for transporting the crop to market were needed; roads, railways, and other improvements to ports and even air transportation boomed. Coffee would help to launch industrialization and lead the way for Colombia to engage in external relations. Both Liberals and Conservatives participated in the export of coffee, and the absence of large national growers would promote a divided and unconsolidated middle class.26 A windfall of wealth fell into the hands

152

C. M. BROWN

of Colombians in the 1920s from a variety of sources, so much so that the era was referred to as “the dance of the millions.”27 Between the arrival of US indemnity payments and the success of the coffee industry, the country found additional income from US enclaves around the banana industry as well as oil production.28 With the influx of US dollars as the dominant market for the country’s goods, the country’s credit rating soared, and elites were able to take out massive loans. All this stability and affluence was short-lived; it would end abruptly with the arrival of The Great Depression. Times had changed the nature of political discourse but not the inert stability of the party structure. The old disputes over decentralization, inclusion, and secularism had been resolved. To be sure, regionally and among elites, there were distinctions, but as parties, the old foundational arguments had already placed themselves out. The realities in Colombia, in conjunction with the old Liberal Era, served to make decentralization a de facto reality, even if the Conservative constitution claimed de jure centralization. Colombia was both decentralized, and by virtue of its relationship with other states, it had become increasingly centralized: the country was governed by a narrow political class of upper-middle-class elites. Political decisions were centralized among both party elites, and they failed to deliver substantive improvements to the quality of life for the vast majority. Colombian politics represented one voice (that of the governing elites) internationally, despite the division of power internally being split between party loyalty and the relative degree of sovereignty that elites enjoyed in their own spheres of influence. The urgencies of the global economy helped to reinforce Colombia’s political realities as inequality blossomed. With so much of the country being marginalized and lacking representation, what alternatives were available? The political cleavages had long ceased being about issues over Gran Colombia and individual rights and had evolved into disputes over the distribution of state resources and the maintenance of power among elites. The legitimacy of Colombian democracy was predicated on the effectiveness of elites to guarantee these spoils. The global depression would, unsurprisingly, present a challenge to this legitimacy; the fight to maintain order would lead to a level of violence not yet seen in the country’s history. A generation of economic prosperity helped to give rise to more modern influences that became manifest as the economic situation worsened. Efforts to modernize agriculture led to a series of confrontations in the countryside, while labor organizations sought to expand their security

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

153

against capitalist ownership of the weakened export economy. Conservative president Enrique Olaya Herrera, elected in 1930, took office as a civil war erupting in the countryside chose force over reform and violence intensified. Peasants who had been displaced as Colombia attempted to become more economically nimble in a competitive global economy felt the pain of depression most deeply. Years of land consolidation and struggles over access to good land and water generated an existential crisis for the poorest peasants.29 Liberals under Alfonso López Pumarejo launched “the Revolution on the March” to promote radical changes to alleviate the impacts of global depression. However, the Liberals split over these state-driven reforms. Advocates of this “new liberalism” called for agricultural reform, import-substitution industrialization programs, and social welfare legislation. Meanwhile, both parties sought to expand their own corporatist brands by sponsoring labor organizations.30 Unlike labor organizations elsewhere, their appearance did not significantly change the political discussion. The Confederation of Colombian Workers (CTC) was a Liberal invention. In response, Conservatives established the Union of Colombian Workers (UTC). Organizations were simply co-opted into the Liberal–Conservative divide, preventing alternative perspectives from entering political discourse. Low foreign direct investment and low immigration also made for a less-radical version of labor politics in Colombia; there was no split between industrialists and the working class and no forces demanding reform.31 The election of Conservative Mariano Ospina Pérez in 1942 fueled another round of violence in the countryside, and Conservatives began flirting with Spanish corporatism under the party leadership of Laureano Gómez, who called for a reactionary return to the Church-dominated hierarchy of pre-independence. Despite the reforms promoted by the New Liberals, the party division undermined their efforts to pass legislation, and they failed to win the presidency in 1946, as Conservative unity easily overcame a divided Liberal party. Conservative elites, hoping to use their electoral victory as a foundation for turning back the clock on new liberal policies, began to take extraconstitutional measures to attack liberals and threatened candidates seeking congressional seats. This time, peasant sympathies had been purposefully harnessed by rival elites and mobilized for the mid-term elections in 1948. Peasants, particularly those under Conservative control, began forcibly taking back the land that “new liberal” reforms had recently consolidated. Violence, never far from Colombian politics, once again roared

154

C. M. BROWN

out of elite control. Nevertheless, throughout the 1940s, Colombia maintained “a two-party system, regular elections, and a record of democratic reforms” despite boasting the “usual supposed impediments to democracy: a high rate of illiteracy, widespread poverty, a powerful Catholic church, a dominant landowning class, poor national integration, and a nineteenth-century heritage of political violence second to none.”32

La Violencia In 1948, the simmering tensions exploded into the most violent and devastating civil conflict in Colombian history up to this point. Known as La Violencia, the conflict began with the political assassination of the popular Liberal mayor of Bogotá and presidential hopeful, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, on April 9, 1948. Gaitán’s popularity was due in part to his personality. A Liberal born outside of the oligarchy, his message of expanded franchise and populism emboldened the lower classes. While losing the presidential race due to the Liberal split in 1946, he was the clear favorite in the run-up to the 1950 election. Calling for a “moral restoration” of Colombia, he rallied against the “political country” (elites) and called upon the “national country” (all those people excluded from having a voice) to stand up and be recognized.33 As a noticeably clear risk to the political establishment that worked tirelessly to maintain control among a small aristocracy, he had to go. His death was followed by uncontrolled rioting and violence, called El Bogotazo, which would see over 5000 people murdered and much of the city burned to the ground in only ten hours. However, it was Gaitan’s support among the rural peasantry that would allow this wanton reckoning to roil across the entire country. Elites armed their campesinos, and Liberal and Conservative factions returned to the random and widespread atrocities that had been commonplace at the close of the last century. One of the main strategic aims in the hinterlands was retaliatory landgrabs by opposing forces, particularly in those areas where earlier agricultural reform efforts had led to confiscations.34 Furthermore, modernization cultivated new ideological factions, such as Communists, socialists, and other labor-oriented groups. The attack on the Church served to weaponize Catholics to attack Protestants and other anti-clerical groups. While the world was coming to grips with the atomic age, Colombian peasants were fighting wars whose origins were centuries past. While the conflict was deeply partitioned by party loyalties, La Violencia upheld the strong, rural regionalism that

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

155

the country had developed over centuries. The Colombian population did not have the same degree of concentration as other South American states, and it had maintained its identity, through connections to land. A sense of place, linked with partisan loyalties, made the conflict much more personal, as neighbors who had opposing political affiliations fought each other to a murderous conclusion. Key to understanding the spontaneous expression of widespread societal violence is the lack of access that people and groups had to the political system. There are reasons why the violence was so brutal in areas that were subject to the need for land reform. Reformers and dissenters of the current Liberal–Conservative monopoly on power were forced to either play the game and be content with waiting their turn as they accumulated intraparty power or continue to be frustrated by being ignored. That is, until the violence was unleashed, grievances could be expressed amid the chaos born of civil war. Once these frustrations had been exorcized through bloodletting, the power elites would bring down the social pressure and continue their dominance over the government and the patronage system required to maintain themselves in power. Over the course of this conflict, no Colombian would be spared from the atrocities by both sides, as an entire generation would bear witness to over 200,000 murders committed in the name of the two-party system.35 Considering the violence, Liberals chose to withdraw legitimacy by boycotting the 1949 presidential election, which simply guaranteed a Conservative victory. Consequently, Conservatives closed Congress, packed the courts, shut down Liberal newspapers, and declared a state of siege. To protect themselves, the Liberals formed armed militias, and both sides engaged in retaliatory attacks against one another like The Thousand Days War, but on a much grander scale.36 Sporadic and widespread violence is a well-attested part of Colombian political culture. However, when Conservative Laureano Gómez won the presidency in 1950 and championed the establishment of a fascist state (akin to Salazar’s Portugal or Spain under Franco), moderate elites suddenly became aware that the delicate balance of Colombia politics hinges upon the nexus of Liberal– Conservative control. Regularly bloodied, but beloved by those who pull its strings, Colombian democracy would not abide a change this drastic. Gómez would be overthrown in a coup as a direct result of his powerplay to remove General Rojas Pinilla from command of the country’s armed forces; Rojas would remove the premature fascist. Rojas would immediately offer amnesty to guerilla forces allowing Liberals to return

156

C. M. BROWN

to political life and re-establish the equilibrium, ending the first more violent phase of La Violencia.37 Rojas saved Colombian democracy by reestablishing the legitimacy of the Liberals in the official political space of the country. Moderate Liberals and Moderate Conservatives could re-establish convivencia. To end the civil war, moderate elites of both parties were prepared to descend into a dictatorship by collectively appointing General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla to lead government forces. Rojas enacted populist social policies to bring combatants back into the fields and industries. He promoted economic infrastructure programs that were supplemented by military operations, and little by little, the country began to put down its arms and return to its homes. Exhausted moderate elites allowed General Rojas a free hand, and in exchange for support, their localities benefited from the new development programs. Locally successful in bringing soldiers in from the fields and pacifying mainstream party members, on the national level, they fell short in unifying the state. Nevertheless, the conflict was waning down, and the moderate Liberal–Conservative alliance began to make plans to take back the executive.

Classical Dictatorship As successful capitulation increased, so too did Roja’s authoritarianism; following Peron’s lead in Argentina, Roja’s attempted to launch his own political party, The Third Force.38 By attempting to circumvent the Liberal–Conservative partnership, Roja’s welcome was well-worn. When the need for a dictator was no longer needed, he was forced to step down, and his political party was shunned. Ultimately, the kingmakers among the Liberal and Conservative elites who had deputized General Rojas would also revoke his charter, and yet “when democracy was lost in 1949, much of Colombian politics did not change.”39 After several years of warfare, the elites of both parties realized that they had let events get too far out of hand, appointed a dictator in the classical sense and provided sufficient authority for him to get the job done, and now they sought to return to antebellum normalcy. The military would serve at the convenience of civilian politicians. Those civilian politicians would be drawn from elites among the Liberals and Conservative traditional parties. A power-sharing arrangement presided over by a temporary military junta would guide Colombian politics toward its next phase. While the

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

157

sparks of the conflict still flickered in the regions that had been marginalized and shut out of the national debate, the traditional elites were ready to re-engage the global economy. Colombia’s democracy had been threatened but survived. Gaitán’s leftist populism, Gómez’s right-wing fascism, and Roja’s technocratic attempts at bureaucratic authoritarianism were all undermined by traditional elites before they had a chance to truly threaten the exclusionary corporatism of the Colombia democratic regime. However, groups that had been left out of Colombia’s political discourse pushed back against the pacts that would consolidate power among a handful of traditional elites, locking democracy into the model of an earlier time. Influences from the novelties of modernization that had arrived in the twentieth century also brought new political actors into the fold, urban labor, peasant organizations, and leftist political groups who had been marginalized and ignored now sought to articulate their demands and to be heard. La Violencia would continue to burn with the unrecognized grievances of these groups for years before these political groups matured into more unified anti-establishmentarian organizations. General Rojas, seen as a hero for bringing order and promoting social programs, would also have another opportunity to stand against the traditional party leadership. Groups who stood outside of the corporatist political parties had to find another recourse to gain an audience; often this meant having to work from outside the entire political framework.

The National Front Era By 1957, the lives and energies of the combatants were exhausted; over 200,000 Colombians had died, and no Colombian was spared the experience of warfare; in a more formalized way, leaders sought avenues for collaboration as a means for putting La Violencia behind them. By midyear, former Liberal president Laureano Gómez (the victim of the Rojas coup) and Conservative Alberto Lleras led their respective political parties into a series of pacts that would legally articulate Colombia’s version of democracy. As the main leaders of the anti-Rojas factions of their respective parties, the pact firmly restricted political control of the state to the two main parties by requiring that both parties alternate the executive and have equal representation in the other branches of government. The power-sharing arrangements that the two parties had adopted in between periods of civil war would be codified to maintain both the stability of the Colombian state and the position of these elites in power. This latest

158

C. M. BROWN

expression of convivencia was mandated to remain in effect until 1974. A population tired of warfare overwhelmingly approved the new framework via plebiscite in 1957. The ensuing pact would create a renewed stability, known as “The National Front (Frente Nacional ),” that would consolidate another era of democratic purgatory. Specifically, the National Front had six major elements: 1. The Presidency would alternate every four years between only the Liberal and Conservative parties. 2. All legislative bodies in Colombia from the National Congress to municipal councils would be divided equally between only the Liberal and Conservative parties. 3. All administrative appointments from presidential cabinets to town mayors would be divided equally between only the Liberal and Conservative parties. 4. No new political parties were permitted to participate in elections. 5. A civil service system would be established for non-appointed hires to attempt to limit the “spoils system” that would see massive hiring and firings between different administrations to establish a profession (nonpolitical) government bureaucracy. 6. All legislation required a two-thirds majority to pass into law.40 The National Front went according to design, at least as far as the legitimate political parties were concerned. Political dissent was neutralized or co-opted as it had been throughout Colombia history by the Liberal– Conservative collaboration. The parties alternated the executive, equally divided the rest of the political spoils in accordance with the intraparty patron–client networks and kept nonaligned interests from power. All of this was part of the pact. It was democratic and purgatory by way of coexistence. The leading parties excluded all other concerns and monopolized control over the government harvesting its resources, and they did all of this through democratic means. Elections were held that were free and fair, power alternating between different parties, and laws were followed despite levels of corruption that are common in politics. Despite their hold on power in Bogota, the elite parties neglected to meaningfully accommodate new demands and, in doing so, consolidated an exclusive democratic regime that failed to be truly representative of the interests of

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

159

the people of Colombia. Lacking meaningful avenues for democratic citizenship, frustrated Colombians became disenchanted. Furthermore, the exclusive hold on power and the continued commitment to regional elite convivencia would strain under the rise of alternative political forces. The lack of flexibility would render the state helpless in the face of the forces that it once neglected.

Consolidation of Democratic Purgatory In looking at the political development of Colombia, two main themes that stand out are the widespread sporadic violence and the commitment to democratic governance. Both sets of institutions have been cultivated and maintained by the elite culture of Colombia. As a result, Colombia has been referred to as having an “oligarchical democracy.”41 While it may look different that a more contemporary “liberal democracy” (or it may not), the principle of rule based on the consent of the governed, the common bedrock of democratic regimes, is apparent in Colombia. From the era between 1910 and 1949, elections, another key instrumental requisite for democracy, were held regularly at all levels of government. Furthermore, the opposition parties traded control over the executive demonstrating the “two-turnover test” said to demonstrate consolidation. Regionally, only Uruguay and Colombia were free from being subject to a military coup during this era. In addition, all elections were direct (except the Senate until after 1945) and had a turnout of at least half of all adult males (the franchise was limited by gender and literacy) in the 1920s, which grew to approximately 75% by the 1940s.42 As Colombia’s economy expanded, so too did the constituency. International economic influences were staking their claims in Colombia, working with the political oligarchy to reinforce the existing traditional order. Oligarchical democracy in Colombia was maintained but became increasingly inadequate for managing an increasingly centralizing state undergoing modernization. It was a grand time for the elites; increased bureaucratization and institutionalization provided vast new arenas to promote patronage. Beginning with the Conservative governments of the 1920s and continued by the Liberals in 1930s Colombia, Bogota reached deeper into the regional power structures by creating national institutions and agencies that were compliant with their political benefactors. Amid the global depression crisis, Colombian elites moved toward the center and sought to “regulate the organization of labor, agrarian

160

C. M. BROWN

property relations…strengthened controls over commerce and banking” and established the infrastructure for direct taxation.43 Partisanship represented a means to an end for those whose leadership found themselves in power. Political support became the currency for one’s survival. By expanding their base of support, elites could acquire more power; with more power, elites could expand their patronage networks even further. Structural changes expanded revenues and the opportunities to coopt opposition forces. The traditional oligarchy found itself presiding over a population no longer bound by the old rules of agrarian feudalism. While the old elites were able to carry over their position during the initial period of transition, they became increasingly uncomfortable with the forces of modernization and the rapid politicization of the citizenry. It was Gaitan who realized that the political elites in Colombia were riding atop a jaguar: to save democratic politics, electoral reform was necessary, even if it meant the end of the traditional oligarchy. Thinking they could weather the storm of populism as they always had by activating partisan loyalty, they chose to maintain the old course. To do this, both parties doubled down on patronage through a “un juego doble” (two-faced game) where Liberals “pretended to support democratic institutions, while on the other had they fomented rebellion against legitimate authority for their own partisan purposes.”44 This game was played by Conservatives as well by pretending to support constitutional norms all the while encouraging their regional base and law enforcement agencies toward violence. Institutions already staffed via patronage further lost their bureaucratic functionalism by becoming instruments of political warfare. Modernization cultivated new energies, activated ideological causes, and made polarized warfare less subject to elite control.

Convivencia, Again The viability of Colombia’s political system, however subject to violent episodes, rested upon agreements among powerful elites. Modernization made the old style seem quaint, but elites refused to recognize that it was inadequate. Instead, they sought to reap the economic benefits of centralization and bureaucratization and to utilize the new institutions to bolster partisanship and clientelism. Threatened by new forces unleashed by modernization as well as those groups who had been marginalized during these processes, elites sought to extend their control by historically acceptable mechanisms; they attempted to negotiate among themselves

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

161

for the trappings of control all the while mobilizing their partisan base for wider political conflict. The key defect in Colombian democracy was the lack of inclusion of viable political alternatives to elite interests. Political elites defaulted to widespread violence rather than allowing for political reform that would recognize populist concerns. Throughout the course of Colombia’s political development, traditional elites had always held the reins of partisan conflict; however, during La Violencia, they came to realize that they had lost control. Colombia was alternatively subject to extreme designs that would come to undermine the traditional political classes. Flirtations with fascism, theocracy, socialism, or any other rival regime concept for government control would bring about the end of their generational advantages. They would be displaced if they did not act; and so, they did what they knew to save themselves and the state: they compromised among themselves. Only in the wake of so much opposition did elite negotiation require greater transparency and a public commitment to peace and stability. The series of negotiations among elites was framed around consociational guarantees.45 Prior to 1956, the elites who would form the center of what would become the National Front had not yet reconciled themselves that negotiation was necessary. However, with the militarization of society under Rojas’ emergent Peronist regime, they were compelled to begin a dialog beginning with The Pact of Benidorm in July of 1956. By March 1957, the Civic Front statement was issued. And less than one since the formal beginning of negotiations in July 1957, The Pact of Sitges was concluded. The combined efforts of these moderate political compromises served to resurrect oligarchical democracy, culminating in a plebiscite in December 1957 that overwhelmingly endorsed the restoration of traditional partisan politics. The main political parties would become constitutionally embedded into Colombia’s democracy under the framework of the National Front. In codifying the old informal arrangements into the rule of law, the formal pacts served to bring an end to the present political violence. However, the social cleavages in Colombian society have not been resolved. Old elites failed to address legitimate calls for representation during earlier eras of peace. They flatout refused to permit reform and brought about La Violencia because of their selfish intransigence. By working to rebuild a democracy that anointed itself as the only legitimate political expression of the general will, they neglected to provide for long-term stability. The National Front chose order over-representation and oligarchy over inclusion.

162

C. M. BROWN

Democratization It is little wonder that the main political actors in the history of Colombia were the loosely organized political parties that emerged from the collapse of the colonial order. Topography, colonial administrative management, and strong regionalism served to generate the quasi-feudal order that would become consolidated in the democratic regime that was established in the wake of the La Violencia. The relative equality of political elites and their locally derived power bases reinforced a general lack of broad support necessary for uniting the country. The lack of an effective national military would play into the hands of local elites whose power was contingent on the ability to mobilize their own peasantry. Nevertheless, political elites, while maintaining significant differences of opinion over crucial elements of state unity, were able to channel the frustrations of modernization into their own brand of political conflict. Owing to their similar position in the state’s political economy, they could continue to conduct civil interaction among each other while at the same time fighting small-scale guerilla campaigns against one another in the countryside. New groups that would appear as major contenders for traditional parties in other South American economies failed to cultivate political support sufficient to challenge the dominance of the two major parties. All legitimate political expression in Colombia had to be pursued through the long-standing two-party system; middle-class parties, classdriven parties, and movements that embraced alternatives either emerged via the Liberal–Conservative dyad or were marginalized. The National Front era re-established the two-party system in Colombia and reasserted traditional elites as the only legitimate form of political expression. Once again, the oligarchy would bring proprietary stability to the politics of Colombia. The lynchpin of this era was the pacts that formed the basis for how political representation would be shared between only the two dominant parties. Voters were asked to choose between candidates supported by the two parties, and each party would receive equal representation in government. Of the four presidential administrations during the National Front era, two were Liberal (1958–1962 and 1966–1970) and two were Conservative (1962–1966 and 1970–1974), meeting the definition of Huntington’s democratic two-turnover test.46 Even once the officially declared consociational governance period ended with the election of Liberal Alonso

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

163

López Michelsen in 1974, “full parity continued; all cabinet ministers, governors, mayors, and other administrative positions not part of civil service were divided equally between Liberals and Conservative.”47 Despite maintaining tight control over the entire political system, the lack of political competition served to undermine the capacity to govern effectively. There was no incentive to compete for new supporters or to attempt reform. The two rival parties had drifted so closely together that there was an extraordinarily trivial difference between them. As Colombia accelerated its modernization campaigns and became increasingly linked to the international community, its government remained stagnant. Urbanization, secularization, and the rise of industrial labor all placed new demands upon a system that was operating as if it had for the past hundred years. National Front democracy “generated a set of informal ‘rules of the game’ – increased presidential authority, ad hoc decision forums and summit negotiations, secrecy, increased state capacity combined with selective privatization, patron-client and brokerage ties, and government-sponsored mass organization.”48 Change represented a loss of power and status to the traditional elites, and so long as they could lock themselves away from the maddening crowds, there was little reason to challenge the status quo. As a result of the inflexibility of the National Front, organizations and ideologies that were unable to gain a political hearing began to challenge the system from beyond the rigged electoral processes.

Conclusion The consociational politics of the National Front was a winning formula for the traditional power brokers of Colombia. By realizing that by working together, they could monopolize greater rewards and cut off any efforts to subvert their privileged generational position. Liberals and Conservatives of all stripes would divide the country to continue to promote their own advantages. The arrangement “came to serve the bureaucratic and pork-barrel interests of the national and regional party leaders so effectively that few could imagine doing away with coalition rule.”49 Colombia was governed by a bipartisan coalitional arrangement from the onset of the National Front in 1958 through 1986, well after the end of the formal pacts. The pact served the interest of other corporatist organizations in Colombia as well—all of whom had been beneficiaries of past entitlement. The church, the military, and producer groups quickly

164

C. M. BROWN

came to support the National Front and the benefits that each organization realized by actively supporting it. The technocratic, albeit corrupt, political environment made for a compliant and supportive milieu for international business and Colombian revenue soared. De-escalation of civil conflict, depoliticization, and a static pay-to-play political economy combined to advance the modernization goals that had been delayed by La Violencia. The hyper-mobilization of Colombian society was too much, too fast for traditional elites. Lacking any real interest in alternative regimes, oligarchs watched as the political energy burned in civil war; once they felt that they were on the edge of losing their control, they swooped in to reset the political game in their favor once again. The civil war in Colombia truly reflects the Clausewitzian adage that “war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.”50 Social reforms necessary for the modernization of Colombia and any meaningful transition from democratic purgatory toward democratic consolidation had been aborted by traditional politicians and the corporatist organizations that supported the status quo.

Notes 1. Thomas E. Skidmore, Peter H. Smith, & James N. Green, Modern Latin America, 8th ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2014), 186. 2. Jose Ignacio Avellaneda, “The Men of Nikolaus Federmann: Conquerors of the New Kingdom of Granada,” The Americas 43, no. 4 (April 1987), Cambridge UP, 385–394. 3. Skidmore, Smith, & Green, Modern Latin America, 186. 4. “Afro-Colombians,” Minority Rights Group International, March 17, 2023. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/afro-colombians/. 5. Ibid. 6. Jonathan Hartlyn & John Dugas, “Colombia: The Politics of Violence and Democratic Transformation,” in Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, 2nd ed., eds. Larry Diamond, Jonathan Hartlyn, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999), 254. 7. John Gordon Farrell, “Southern Exposure: Latin Americans View the United States (1783–1900),” PhD diss., UCLA, 2015, 79. 8. Skidmore, Smith, & Green, Modern Latin America, 186. 9. Ibid., 187. 10. Ibid., 186–188.

7

THE LONG SHADOW OF COLOMBIA’S NATIONAL FRONT ERA

165

11. Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Edited by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford UP, 1958). 12. Skidmore, Smith, & Green, Modern Latin America, 187–188. 13. Ibid., 187. 14. Harvey F. Kline & Vanessa Joan Gray, “Colombia: A Resilient Political System with Intransigent Problems,” in Latin American Politics and Development, 6th ed., eds. Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2007), 206. 15. Kline & Gray, “Colombia,” 207. 16. Skidmore, Smith, & Green, Modern Latin America, 184. 17. Hartlyn & Dugas, “Colombia,” 254. 18. Kline & Gray, “Colombia,” 207. 19. Skidmore, Smith, & Green, Modern Latin America, 188. 20. Hartlyn & Dugas, “Colombia,” 255. 21. Skidmore, Smith, & Green, Modern Latin America, 190. 22. Ibid., 189. 23. Ibid., 190. 24. Ibid., 191. 25. Skidmore, 191. 26. Hartlyn & Dugas, “Colombia,” 256–257. 27. Skidmore, Smith, & Green, Modern Latin America, 192. 28. Ibid. 29. Kline & Gray, “Colombia,” 208. 30. Ibid. 31. Hartlyn & Dugas, “Colombia,” 258. 32. Alexander W. Wilde, “Conversations Among Gentlemen: Oligarchical Democracy in Colombia,” in The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Latin America, eds. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1978), 28–29. 33. Skidmore, Smith, & Green, Modern Latin America, 198. 34. Kline & Gray, “Colombia,” 209. 35. Ibid. 36. Skidmore, Smith, & Green, Modern Latin America, 199–200. 37. Ibid., 200. 38. Ibid. 39. Wilde, “Conversations,” 32. 40. Kline & Gray, “Colombia,” 210. 41. Wilde, “Conversations,” 30. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 42. 44. Ibid., 52. 45. Ibid., 61.

166

C. M. BROWN

46. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 47. Kline & Gray, “Colombia,” 211. 48. Hartlyn & Dugas, “Colombia,” 266–267. 49. Ibid., 266. 50. Carl von Clausewitz & Otto Jolle Matthijs Jolles (trans.), On War (New York: Modern Library, 1943), 280.

Bibliography Avellaneda, José Ignacio. “The Men of Nikolaus Federmann: Conquerors of the New Kingdom of Granada.” The Americas 43, no. 4 (April 1987), Cambridge UP, 385–394. Clausewitz, Carl von, and Otto Jolle Matthijs Jolles (trans.). On War. New York: Modern Library, 1943, 280. Farrell, John Gordon. “Southern Exposure: Latin Americans View the United States (1783–1900).” PhD diss., UCLA, 2015. Hartlyn, Jonathan, and John Dugas. “Colombia: The Politics of Violence and Democratic Transformation.” In Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, 2nd ed., edited by Larry Diamond, Jonathan Hartlyn, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, 245–307. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999. Huntington, Samuel P. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. Kline, Harvey F., and Vanessa Joan Gray. “Colombia: A Resilient Political System with Intransigent Problems.” In Latin American Politics and Development, 6th ed., edited by Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline, 199–233. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2007. Skidmore, Thomas E., Peter H. Smith, and James N. Green. Modern Latin America, 8th ed., 186. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2014. Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Edited by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958. Wilde, Alexander W. “Conversations Among Gentlemen: Oligarchical Democracy in Colombia.” In The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Latin America, edited by Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, 28–81. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.

CHAPTER 8

Democratic Purgatory and Dictatorships in Nicaragua

Chapter Overview The entire history of Nicaragua could well be captured by the word division. From its earliest days as an independent republic, the country has been divided by geography, livelihood, social status, and political ideology. There may not have been a political system in Latin America with a lower expectation of producing a democracy in the wake of the 1980s. Its colonial history does not appear distinct from any other backwater Spanish possession. The contested Caribbean shores were the norm for Central American states, as were the regular clashes between Peninsulares and Creoles, between those of Spanish heritage and the peoples of indigenous ethnicity. In the first century of independence, these partisan disputes followed the Liberal–Conservative divide common throughout the region. Foreign intervention, increasing Americanization, and the rise of authoritarianism are hallmarks of Caribbean development. Even the insurgency and civil war, continuing after the revolutionary toppling of the dictatorship between a contrived opposition and the leftist government across neighboring states seem particularly shocking to even a casual observer of the hemisphere’s geopolitics. The greatest surprise is that despite this undeviating Latin American narrative, Nicaragua challenged all expectations by building and then consolidating a democratic political regime. For years, the political system rested on elections that were properly verified, and the government changed hands, changed parties, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_8

167

168

C. M. BROWN

and changed ideologies while democratic norms took hold among stakeholders. However, all of this would come undone after years, as the inability to escape democratic purgatory would provide the structure for an orchestrated slide into electoral authoritarianism.

Introduction to Nicaraguan Political Development Nicaragua has existed as a crossroad of diverse groups throughout its entire history, beginning with its earliest inhabitants and continuing with migrants seeking to reach the US border. Geography and the spread of cultural group practices have conditioned the trajectory of the region’s political history from even its earliest days. The lands that would become known as Nicaragua fell below the core Mayan and Aztec cultural regions of Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico. Nevertheless, the early indigenous people of the Pacific coastal regions and the central highlands—a triangular mountainous area of active volcanic activity in the north of the country—are culturally and linguistically related to an earlier north– south migration. Speaking a Pipil dialect (itself a variant of the Nahuatl language spoken by the Aztec Empire), the earliest peoples traveled south a hundred years prior to the arrival of the Spanish. The Caribbean coastal region on the other side of the central highlands and the large lake that stretches south toward Costa Rica was home to people who migrated north and spoke a Chibchan dialect common in Colombia. Rather than looking toward the regional powers of the Aztec, these groups maintained stronger relations with other Caribbean coastal communities. The Spanish first documented the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua in 1508; however, it would take another 14 years before a military expedition would be sent from Panama to subdue the region for the Spanish Crown. The conquistador, Gil González Dávila, found a warm welcome among the tribes of the southern lands. Three distinct cultural and political groups existed in the Pacific region: the Niquirano, the Chorotegano, and the lesser-advanced, Chontal (the word itself means “foreigner” in Nahuatl), implying a later migration into the region of the more settled tribes.1 Each of these tribal groups consisted of a hierarchical patchwork of village chieftains (caciques) culminating in a monarchy who ruled over their entire network. González contacted the Niquirano Chieftain Nicaragua, whose clan was swiftly convinced to convert to Catholicism. Successful contact would become less frequent

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

169

as the Spanish pushed into the interior, and it was left to a subsequent rival expedition to press Spanish claims over the peoples of the region. Once again departing from Panama, conquistador Hernández de Córdoba established the first permanent settlement in 1524 for the Spanish Crown. The region officially became known as “Nicaragua,” and the two most important colonial cities of León and Granada were founded shortly afterward. Conquest produced little substance, and the Spanish focus remained on the mines of Mexico. When news of Pizarro’s campaign against the Inca became known, most Spanish colonists fled south for a chance at glory and riches. The indigenous population also went south, but not willingly; 200,000 Nicaraguans were sent to work the mines in Peru between 1528 and 1540.2 Nicaragua was shifted under different Spanish administrative units, and having little to offer the empire, it was ignored, as was much of the Captaincy General of Guatemala (the imperially designated region between southern Mexico and Panama). While the Pacific region of Nicaragua settled into a quiet bucolic economy punctuated by occasional tectonic activity over the next two centuries, the Caribbean side saw the interaction of rival European adventurers. Unimpacted by Spanish activities over the highlands, the eastern indigenous groups maintained their way of life until the arrival of English privateers. Seeking to exploit the edges of the Spanish empire, the English began trading with the local indigenous population, and trade networks produced mixed Afro-indigenous tribal groups. One of these clans, the Bawihka of the northeast coast, was given modern gunpowder weapons by the English. With English support, they expanded their control over the Caribbean region, driving rival groups west into the Spanish-controlled territory. A further distinction thus arose by which these pro-English Afro-indigenous groups, known as the “Miskito” peoples and their rivals, the Sumu.3 A Miskito prisoner of the Governor of Jamaica was named the “King of the Mosquitia Nation” in 1687, and the region was then declared to be under the protection of the English Crown.4 The rival claims of the Spanish and English over the peoples and lands of the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua were a part of a much larger geopolitical struggle. Spanish Governance Events far away in Europe would indirectly influence the trajectory of Nicaraguan politics, as The War of Spanish Succession would see the more

170

C. M. BROWN

monopolistic Hapsburgs replaced by the liberal Bourbons; the policy shift that emerged with the new monarch would impact the whole empire, but by different measures. The older, more established groups within the empire felt the loss of trade protection very keenly and began to organize to preserve what they could of their old privileges. As in other places in New Spain, these groups coalesced under the label of Conservatives. They joined ranks with the established elites, the Catholic Church, and the remnants of the former Hapsburg bureaucracy. Not surprisingly, those groups who had discovered ways to find wealth in the emergent global capitalist order embraced the novel changes. Merchants, exporters, and farmers with new commodities that could benefit from more liberal trade policies drifted toward the Liberal cause. Long after the mines stopped being profitable, regional agricultural aristocracies began to emerge around the old Spanish colonial cities of León and Granada. Leon’s primary economic activities were in livestock and the export of animal products (i.e., leather), so they became the champion of Nicaragua’s Liberal political interests. Granada’s economy rested on traditional agriculture and had benefited far more under the old system; naturally, then it became the center of the Conservative party.5 What began as colonial policy disagreements soon became violent, and with each round of conflict, the regional rivalry between these two cities deepened into a dangerous rift that transcended political economy. Over time, regional partisanship would override all other interests, and the rival clans would undermine national sovereignty to score points against their political enemies. Independence As in the entire Spanish-controlled Americas, Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and the forced abdication exacerbated the imperial social structure. Resentment that ran raw under less severe times reached a tipping point with the loss of divine legitimacy for the Spanish Crown when it was on the head of Napoleon’s brother. Peninsulares had maintained old rights due to their birth on the Iberian Peninsula, which made them subjects of the first class. By accident of birthplace, those Spaniards who were born in the Americas were granted a lower tier of rights. The colonialborn Criollo classes, despite being denied full rights under the monarchy, had been able to amass political power through regional and municipal

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

171

administrative units. Neglecting its less profitable colonies only deepened the distance for Criollos in the backwater. El Salvador broke first, overthrowing the Provincial Peninsular administration and replacing them with local Criollos. As the flames of independence spread across Central America, popular revolts erupted wherever sympathetic elites failed to act and the empire began to crack. The Captaincy of Guatemala, subject to the Mexican Empire or General Agustín de Iturbide, declared independence in 1821. Despite Mexico’s resolve to subdue the rebellion, five of the six provinces resisted and organized under a federation of the United Provinces of Central America, officially declaring their independence from Mexico in July 1823 (Chiapas chose to remain with Mexico). The United Provinces of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua attempted to maintain their federation despite overwhelming logistical challenges. Provincial warlords sought to consolidate power among the participating states, leading to civil war in 1826 and 1829. In 1837, Nicaraguan elites organized a Constituent Assembly and voted to leave the United Provinces of Central America. Nicaragua became legally fully sovereign on April 30, 1838.6

Foreign Intervention in the Age of Imperialism While Nicaraguan elites could celebrate de jure sovereignty on the Pacific side of the country, the Caribbean coastal plains still enjoyed British support and served to thwart national unity. With America’s Manifest Destiny accelerated by the California Gold Rush and the expansion of the globalization of the British Empire, Nicaragua’s geography made it a strategic interest for both countries. Britain acted first by seizing a key trade port on the potential entryway to a trans-isthmus canal project in January 1848. Then, they forced the Nicaragua government to sign a humiliating treaty recognizing British claims on the Mosquito Coast. Keen on British expansionism, Nicaraguan elites approached American entrepreneurs who secured exclusive rights to the United States to build a canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. American industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt was awarded the contract, and both countries signed the treaty in September 1849. Vanderbilt began preparing for the canal and utilized a land–sea route to shuttle people and supplies across the country. Complicating issues were British obstinacy, which led to violence between Vanderbilt employees and locals in support of British economic interests. To resolve the dispute, the United States and Great Britain

172

C. M. BROWN

signed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 (without Nicaraguan participation) guaranteeing that they would not claim exclusive rights over the future canal and would work together to ensure smooth operations. In effect, British claims over the Caribbean region and the eastern port were recognized and confirmed; the United States claimed the entire logistical and transportation infrastructure along the route.7 The next instance of international competition between the United States and Great Britain would be initiated by local political rivalries. Conservative General Fruto Chamorro took power in 1853 and promptly exiled the prominent Liberal opposition to Honduras. Returning at the head of a Liberal army supported by the Liberal government of Honduras, a bloody civil war began in which no quarter was given between the political partisans. To end the war, Conservative-led Guatemala invaded Nicaragua hoping to crush the liberals and return order to the region. Liberals sought outside help of their own, and it came in the form of an American filibuster named William Walker. His group of only fifty-six soldiers of fortune soon grew into a formidable force that captured the Conservative capital of Granada. Upon the capture of Granada, the United States diplomatically recognized the Liberal government of Patricío Rivas, whose support relied on Walker and his command of the Nicaraguan military. With British fortunes waning, they lobbied the other four Conservative states of Central America to invade and depose Walker. Swift victory over Costa Rica’s disease-riddled forces gave Walker an opportunity to consolidate power in Nicaragua, win a rigged election for president, and promote annexation of Nicaragua to the United States as a pro-slavery state. Rivas declared war on Walker and his forces by inviting Guatemala and El Salvador to invade, beginning what was later called “The National War.” However, it was siding against Vanderbilt that was his undoing; Walker backed a rival in the hopes of a fresh injection of much-needed funds. Despite the efforts of the British, Vanderbilt, and all the governments of Central America to defeat Walker’s army, they managed to hold on for the time being, and in the process, destroy the city of Granada. Vanderbilt working with Costa Rican forces undermined Walker’s ability to maintain his position by capturing the steam ships on Lake Nicaragua, his source of funds and recruits. In the town of Rivas, Walker’s depleted army was able to defeat repeated attacks by Central American forces in 1857. However, when the US Navy offered to broker a peace deal, Walker accepted and his forces were escorted by US Marines to the fleet, and they sailed back to the United States on May 1, 1857.8

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

173

Undaunted to the end, Walker attempted to reclaim Nicaragua annually until he was captured by the British in Honduras and executed by firing squad. The land–sea route across Nicaragua that supplemented the construction of the canal went unused for the next five years; the canal was never built, although interest remains to the present day. Walker’s departure offered a window of self-reflection for the remaining political elites in Nicaragua who sought to work more closely in the interest of their country instead of for their regional partisan interest. The capital was moved to the city of Managua to offer a neutral venue for a political future of compromise. Rivas completed a third term before yielding to a bipartisan presidency serving as a transitional government guided by the laborers of a Constituent Assembly who elected Conservative General Tomás Martínez to serve as president for the next decade. The era of Conservative rule between 1857 and 1893 (known as the “Thirty Years”) was a time of modernization and stability in Nicaraguan history. Railroads and communication lines were built, and roads, ports, and other infrastructure projects provided support for a burgeoning agricultural economy. Coffee would become the country’s most lucrative export over this period, and banana cultivation boomed as well. Politics often centered on the division between cattle-ranching and coffeeexporters. The peace of the Thirty Years would not last, however, and when it felt old rivalries emerged, and Nicaragua would once again experience foreign intervention. The beginning of the end came about in the wake of the death of incumbent Conservative President Ignacio Chávez in 1889. Fellow Conservative Roberto Sacasa completed the term and was elected in the subsequent election of 1889. With the election of Sacasa, the Conservative Party split; Sacasa was from Léon and not in the camp of the Conservative kingmakers of Granada. When he attempted to remain in power beyond the end of his term in March of 1893, Liberals reemerged under the leadership of General José Santos Zelaya. Liberals and Anti-Sacasa Conservatives promoted a compromise candidate to the presidency, but Conservatives neglected to honor their commitment to share power with Liberals. Taking advantage of disarray among Conservatives, Liberals coordinated a revolt and promoted a Constitutional Convention that quickly elected General Zelaya as the president under a new constitution in 1893.9 Over the course of General Zelaya’s 16-year dictatorship, he managed to subdue the regionalism that divided the country and pushed forward with more aggressive modernization plans. Financing for his national

174

C. M. BROWN

projects came from cozy relationships with foreign investors (mostly American) and the active export-fueled development agenda, based on coffee and banana revenue. He was able to utilize the support of American corporations to promote his national goals by developing a professional national army and creating the infrastructure necessary for modern economic development. American mediation helped Nicaragua negotiate a new arrangement in the Caribbean region: Great Britain would release its claims on the Mosquito Coast in 1894.10 However, Zelaya’s heavy-handed politics threatened to undermine the national unity that he seemed eager to cultivate. When his nationalist rhetoric became increasingly anti-American, people began to take notice. In particular, he became vocal about the degree of US intervention in the hemisphere; in effect, he came to criticize those forces that provided for his stability. In 1903, when he called upon Japan and Germany to develop a rival canal to the new canal built by the United States in Panama, Conservatives withdrew support. Revolt led to repression that spawned a reorganized Conservative elite led by Emiliano Chamorro Vargas, who threatened civil war.11 Civil war would come six years later. Backed by US and British interests, Anti-Zelaya liberals joined the Conservatives to call upon widespread unrest to overthrow the dictatorship. Two American mercenaries who collaborated with the local rebel groups were captured and executed under orders from Zelaya. Diplomatic relations were severed, and 400 US Marines landed in eastern Nicaragua in October 1909. By the end of the year, General Zelaya would resign. The post-Zelaya administrations underscored the weakness of political management from both Liberals and Conservatives. It also revealed that the apparent nationalist unity cultivated by Zelaya did not run deep below the surface. Zelaya’s foreign minister, Liberal José Madriz, took over after the resignation of Zelaya, but he stepped down by August 1910. Juan Estrada, a Conservative rebel leader, took over under the expectation that he would be directing a bipartisan ruling coalition that would ordain a Constituent Assembly to guide the future political structure. Estrada was ousted by General Luis Mena, who endorsed the current-vice president Conservative Adolfo Díaz as president under the provision that Mena would be named his successor in 1913. The United States did not recognize the right of Mena’s succession, and he mobilized the army to overthrow Díaz. Díaz formally requested the support of the United States to protect his government, and a force of 2700 US Marines arrived in 1912 to defeat General

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

175

Mena and restore the electoral process. While troop levels would be much lower over time, the United States maintained a military presence in Nicaragua for the next 21 years.12 Liberal political boycotts ensured Conservative victories in the subsequent elections, as Adolfo Díaz would be elected in 1913. Emiliano Chamorro won unopposed in 1916. The Chamorro administration signed a treaty (Chamorro-Bryan Treaty, 1916) that offered exclusive rights to any potential canal to the United States; since the United States already operated the Panama Canal, this only served to eliminate rival interests and undermined any potential canal across the country. Liberals returned to the polls in 1920 only to be subject to the fraudulent election of Diego Manual Chamorro (Emiliano’s uncle) to the presidency.13 However, in 1925, moderate Conservative Carlos Solórzano would be elected as part of a bipartisan ticket; Liberal Juan Bautista Sacasa served as vice president. It was not to last after taking office, Liberals were forced out of the government, and then Solorzano would be ousted by November. Conservative former president General Emiliano Chamorro took power in 1926. American marines returned. The National Congress then elected former president Adolfo Díaz. When vice president Sacasa returned from exile demanding that the rules of succession declared him to be the proper officeholder, civil war erupted again. US President Calvin Coolidge sent Henry L. Stimson to negotiate a settlement that read as follows: Liberal General José María Moncada would disband his army, Díaz would finish his term, and new elections would be held in 1928. To ensure that both sides would uphold the agreement, the US military would remain in Nicaragua and provide order. At the same time, the United States would accelerate its efforts to construct a professional military force for the country. The goal was to rebuild the Nicaraguan National Guard into a neutral, bureaucratic organization that would serve the interest of the state and not simply be a political extension of the Liberals or the Conservatives.14 However, not everyone was satisfied with what would be known as the Pact of Espino Negro. Liberal rebel leader Augusto César Sandino kept his army of peasants and laborers in the field. Embracing guerrilla tactics against both Moncada’s Liberal administration and the Conservative opposition, he denounced the treaty and those who signed it as traitors. Originally, Sandino’s objective was simply to defend the constitutional procedure that called for Sacasa to replace Solórzano as president. However, after both Liberals and Conservatives conspired to undermine

176

C. M. BROWN

the constitution with the supportive mediation of the US government, Sandino felt that his mission needed to change. Renaming his rebel band, the “Army for the Defense of Nicaraguan Sovereignty (Ejército Defensor de la Soberanía de Nicaragua, or EDSN),” Sandino stood against anyone that he felt worked against the independence of the Nicaraguan state.15 The EDSN had initial successes and captured the spirit of Nicaraguans, particularly in rural areas. Rather than responding directly as in past civil wars, the United States came to rely on its newly trained and equipped Nicaragua National Guard to restore order in the countryside. An additional moderating influence was the establishment of democratic norms as Nicaragua successfully conducted free and fair presidential elections in 1924, 1928, and 1932.16 The Rise of the Nicaraguan National Guard General Moncada would be elected in what was determined to be a fair election in 1928. In 1932, old rivals, Conservative Adolfo Díaz and Liberal Juan Bautista Sacasa, campaigned for president. This time Sacasa won and was able to serve as president. As the United States withdrew its forces from the region under the Good Neighbor Policy, Sacasa accepted the appointment of American-ally Anastasio Somoza “Tacho” García to become Chief Director of the National Guard. Having been deeply involved in the formation and training under American tutelage, García had spent his formative years in Philadelphia and even served as an interpreter for the Espino Negro talks. I did not hurt that he was Sacasa’s nephew and had a close relationship with General Moncada.17 In 1934, Sandino entered a dialog with the Sacasa Administration. Offered amnesty and land for his soldiers, Sandino insisted on the dissolution of the National Guard believing that it was created by foreign intervention and that its creation was unconstitutional.18 After dining with the president on February 21, Somoza had Sacasa and two of his senior officers arrested, executed, and buried in unmarked graves; within a month, the EDSN was completely destroyed by the National Guard.19 It was as if Somoza was draining the power from Sacasa as the two politicians gained/lost influence in direct contrast to one another. By June 1936, Sacasa resigned. Somoza had won having gained the support of the National Guard, the Liberal Party, and even leading Conservatives such as former president Chamorro. It was this coalition that he utilized to launch his presidential ambitions. He was elected in a landslide. As head

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

177

of the National Guard as well as the president of Nicaragua, he assumed power on January 1, 1937, and would hold onto it until his assassination in 1956.20 Somoza consolidated power like a successful mafia don. He rewarded his loyal friends and family with lucrative positions in government and in the military while eliminating competition from potential opponents. As head of the Liberal Party, he was also able to manage the other branches of government by appointing cronies to important offices or leveraging their election through intimidation and fraud. He managed to bend the Nicaraguan political economy for his personal gain, and he amassed an incredible personal fortune through corruption and graft. Blending the National Guard into the institutional bureaucracy of the state, there were few who could seriously challenge his power. Tachito combined a personal charisma with ruthless control over the National Guard to cajole foreign interests, and to make the state and extension of his personal will. The original intent of constructing a National Guard was to provide for a unified non-partisan national security force that could prevent sectarian violence and civil war. Instead, it became a tool of repression and arbitrary terror. Nicaraguans viewed it as a neo-colonial institution created by the United States to continue to control the people by proxy. Which was near to the truth: Tacho always supported US foreign policy goals. The activities of the National Guard under Somoza Garcia did little to ingratiate themselves to the local public. Instead of serving as force for the common good they worked for their own benefit. Permitting the Guard to operate like gangsters by promoting vices like gambling and prostitution and coercing citizens to pay bribes and protection money in order to conduct business, legal or otherwise, corruption was rampant.21 In 1938 when he established a Constituent Assembly that guaranteed that he would stay in office for another eight years, there was nothing anyone could do to stop him at any level of government. Somoza and Civil War Somoza Garcia would control Nicaragua from 1936 until 1956, sometimes as its official president and always as the power behind the state. His longevity was due to his ruthlessness as well as his ability to personally control and claim ownership over the country’s economy. This was made possible by his rarely questioned leadership at the top of the National Guard. Both sources of control rested upon a third, the support of

178

C. M. BROWN

the US government. As far as national interests were concerned, it was mutual—the United States gained an ally against fascism in an area in which most Latin American countries flirted with building the corporatist window-dressing of Mussolini’s Italy or those of the Iberian Peninsula. American administrations and corporations rapidly increased their funding for economic development in the country, and Nicaragua gravitated toward the US economy, with over 90% of its exports being shipped to the US. All the while Somoza Garcia would gain ownership of the Nicaraguan side of the business partnership, amassing a personal fortune of over $60 million by the end of the war.22 By the time Somoza Garcia sought to run for reelection again in 1944, the Liberals had regrouped, having formed the Independent Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Independiente, or PLI), and protested the abuse of political incumbency. However, it was not until the American government sided with the PLI that Somoza Garcia relented. Times had changed; the Allied war to overthrow autocratic tyrannies in Europe and Asia meant that it would not be openly tolerated in the Americas. An astute political mind, Somoza Garcia instead championed Leonardo Argüello, a longtime politician in the president’s PLN party. Arguello was outmatched by the coalition of forces that coalesced against his candidacy, and when it seemed as although the Liberal–Conservative alliance would upend Somoza Garcia’s efforts to establish a puppet regime, the National Guard stepped in and fixed the election. Argüello’s tainted victory was not long enjoyed. When he pushed back against his benefactor, he was overthrown within a month and he was replaced by Benjamin Lacayo Sacasa, a friend of Somoza Garcia. When the United States withdrew diplomatic recognition of the successful coup, a Constituent Assembly was hastily erected to validate the new regime, appointing Tacho’s uncle to serve as president. Despite the anti-communist language in the 1947 Constitution, the United States and Nicaragua did not return to normal diplomatic relations until 1948. Once again, times had changed, and the flicker of hope for a common vision for the postwar world tilted into a competition between Socialism and the Free World. Nicaragua found itself in the middle of this global divide.23 With the nasty succession dispute behind him, Somoza Garcia began to consolidate his gains and to rebuild his coalition of supporters. To do so, he coopted the leftist labor movements by claiming to support liberal policies but installing his own loyalists in key union positions undermined efforts at reform. He promoted a policy of “commercial liberty” that gave

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

179

cause to the old elites to re-enlist on the promise that their wealth would grow as it did during the war years.24 Unchallenged once again, he ran and was elected president in 1950; the result of “the pact of the generals” in which Conservatives ran a candidate intending to lose so as to give the appearance of democracy in action so that they could acquire special favors.25 In 1955, he asked that Congress grant him another term, which they did to no one’s surprise. However, on the evening of September 21, 1956, at a party celebrating his successful nomination for president, a young poet named Rigoberto López Pérez stepped forward and shot him. Despite a rapid evacuation to the American Panama Canal Zone for emergency surgery, Somoza Garcia died after a week in agony.26 Family Legacy Upon his death, the leadership of Nicaragua was divided between his two sons both graduates of US universities and highly trained. Luis Somoza Debayle assumed the interim presidency. His brother Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza Debayle became the director of the National Guard. An atmosphere of repression soon followed. In protest, the Conservative Party announced that it would boycott the election of 1957. The Somoza Brothers simply manufactured a pseudo-Conservative Party, PCN (Partido Conservador Nacional ), to give the appearance of an opposition. Luis Somoza won by a landslide and ran the country from 1957 to 1963. A student organization, known as the Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN, condemned the continued corruption under the Somoza Dynasty and began to take on the regime through guerilla warfare tactics. However, challenging expectations, Luis Somoza provided for greater civil freedoms and restored the ban on presidential reelection during his short reign. He oversaw the incorporation of Nicaragua into the Central American Common Market and the economy flourished aided by support from the US. The Cuban Revolution sent shockwaves through Latin America, but Nicaragua remained a staunch ally allowing Cuban exiles to stage their training for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Luis supported the Alliance for Progress initiatives of the United States and the economy benefited as a result. Public housing, education, and society security programs followed.27 From 1963 to 1967, the Somoza Brothers endorsed the presidency of family friends, as Luis stuck to his pledge to not run for reelection. While true to his word, the real power remained with the Somoza’s and

180

C. M. BROWN

their control over the National Guard. Intending to run again for election in 1967, Luis Somoza fell ill (and died unexpectedly shortly after the election). Instead, Tachito stood for election and despite an overwhelming national coalition of parties amassed under the newly formed National Opposition Union (Unión Nacional Opositora, or UNO), the National Guard made sure that the Somoza’s remained in power. Taking a page from this father’s political playbook, he was both president and head of the National Guard and he would rule in a similarly sultanistic fashion. Although his term was scheduled to end in 1971, he changed the constitution to give himself another year. However, increased pressure from opposition parties led to a US-brokered deal, which forced him to turnover his presidential authority to a junta between 1972 and 1974 by an agreement known as the Kupia-Kumi Pact. However, as the head of the National Guard, he remained in power from behind the scenes. 1972 Earthquake and Corruption Just before Christmas 1972 an earthquake devastated the country, leaving 10,000 people dead, 50,000 homes destroyed, and 80% of the capital city leveled.28 The National Guard stepped into restore order and begin reconstruction; but instead, soldiers participated in widespread looting and lawlessness. When international aid arrived, it found its way into Tachito’s pockets directly or it was funneled into Somoza family industries and those of the regime’s closest supporters. At a time when the entire country was in peril, Tachito’s wealth increased eight-fold, taking full advantage of the inflow of money intended to help his struggling people. Not only did he take money directly, but he also sold off the international aid materials intended for his people.29 This proved to be the driver that opposition forces needed to mobilize. The business community, devastated by the earthquake, not only failed to receive support, but they also found themselves at the mercy of both the National Guard and their own president’s expanding industrial monopoly. With the loss of employment, labor groups began to organize against the government. His own party abandoned him considering rampant corruption and abuse as the PLN demurred over his announcement to run for president in the 1974 elections. The opposition once again formed an oppositional coalition, the Democratic Liberation Union (Unión Democrática de Liberación), or UDEL, demanding pluralism and democracy. Tachito had few allies;

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

181

however, he still controlled the National Guard. A massive political repression and censorship campaign made way for a fraudulent election which formally returned the office of the presidency to Tachito. By 1973, the middle classes began to seek alternatives and membership and funding for the Sandinistas (FSLN) grew exponentially. Amid a lavish Christmas party of Somoza family members and friends in December 1974, widely seen as being in poor taste given the plight of the country, was visited upon by guerilla forces. In exchange for freeing the hostages the FSLN requested $1 million in ransom, that the government read a political statement over the radio and reprinted in the newspapers and demanded the freedom of fourteen political prisoners to be flown to Cuba along with the kidnappers. As a result of this successful operation, more Nicaraguans were beginning to realize that new radical tactics were needed to challenge Tachito. The government’s heavy-handed response radicalized the Catholic Church, activated a legitimate armed threat, and isolated Somoza internationally.30

Sandinistas and Civil War Originally a student group from the University of Managua in the late 1950s, the FSLN actively began challenging the Somoza regimes in 1961. However, the wake of the earthquake and the government’s predatory response to its own population caused its membership to surge. With each act of repression by government forces, the FSLN gained power in terms of members, material, and money. The group grew so large that in late in 1975 the FSLN leadership oversaw a split into three factions based on strategic preferences. The first faction, the Proletarios, promoted a traditional Marxist model seeking to organize factory workers and the poor. The second group, Prolonged Popular War, promoted a Maoist type of revolutionary regime holding out for a long insurrection that would wear down the government built its support through peasants and urban labor. The third faction also known as the Insurrectional Faction or The Third Way, led by brothers Danielle José Ortega Saavedra and his brother Humberto Ortega Saavedra, sought to mobilize leftists and non-Marxists groups to escalate insurrection and revolutionary movement to expedite Somoza’s overthrow.31 Another important movement in Nicaragua coalesced around Catholic missionaries who promoted a doctrine referred to a Liberation Theology. In contrast to the traditional Church hierarchy who tended to side

182

C. M. BROWN

with conservative regimes (often anti-communist), the missionaries operating in Nicaragua were more sympathetic to the plight of the poor and witnessed the struggles of their flocks as they sought to overcome economic challenges. In the wake of the government’s repression, missionaries were able to see first-hand the human rights abuses and report on them to their superiors and the wider public. This combination of Catholic social dogma and leftist ideology formed the core of liberation theology and provided for a deeper Nicaraguan context to the people who sought to overturn Somoza’s corrupt and oppressive rule. By 1977, even the bishops publicly condemned the Somoza regime.32 Nicaraguans held their collective breath when Tachito was flown to Miami after a severe heart attack, where he would stay for a month and half. Anticipating his death or disability, regime politicians began carving up their own private share of the state’s finances. Planning for a postSomoza Nicaragua was abrupted put on hold as Tachito returned intent on righting this ship of state. Despite the ensuing purge, Somoza’s problems continued to mount.33 Nicaraguan press, led by La Prensa and its celebrated journalist/editor Pedro Joaquín Chamorro were relentless in opposition. Nevertheless, any real change in Nicaragua would require the interest of the United States and with the election of Jimmy Carter, human rights became a foreign policy goal that Somoza had difficulty accommodating. By October 1977, a group of Nicaraguan business elites calling themselves “Los Doce” (The Twelve), met in Costa Rica to organize an anti-Samosa alliance. They strengthen the hand of the Sandinistas by requiring that any discussions for regime change would include Sandinistas. As the struggle continued, the regime was increasingly forced to rely on foreign loans from the US, which allowed Somoza to stay in power. Somoza’s last chapter arrived on January 10, 1978. Pedro Joaquín Chamorro was blatantly murdered while driving to work. His death sparked mass demonstration against the regime and an official statement by the Nicaraguan Roman Catholic Church demanding that Samosa resign. This was followed on January 23 by a nationwide strike of both public and private sectors demanding an end to the dictatorship. Once again, Somoza was able to withstand the strikes due to his control over the state’s security forces. Opposition groups began to collectively admit that only force could bring Somoza down. The FSLN increased its attacks and became more direct by assaulting National Guard installations throughout the country. Citizens began arming themselves and attempting to resist

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

183

government troops, often leading to high casualties and human rights violations committed by victorious and vengeful National Guard units. By February 1978, the Carter administration suspended all military assistance to the Samosa regime forcing him to maintain the national guards as a military strength by buying weapons and equipment on the international market using loans from US banks. New political parties were launched to challenge the regime which coalesced into the Broad Opposition Front (Frente Amplio de Oposicíon), or FAO. The FSLN also organized a formal political party, the United People’s Movement (Movimiento del Pueblo Unido), or MPU. Events began to settle slightly when a private letter from President Carter to Somoza was leaked; Carter credited the dictator with improving the human rights situation which sparked a public outcry denouncing US support and triggering the final stage of what was increasingly being referred to as a “war of liberation” against Somoza and his American puppeteers.34 On August 22, 1978, The Third Way faction of the FLSN led by Edén Pastora Gómez (also known as “Commander Zero”) captured the National Palace by pretending to be a National Guard unit. The Sandinistas held 2000 government officials and members of Congress persons hostage for two full days as Somoza was forced to negotiate their freedom. Commander Zero’s brazen tactics paid off. Somoza was humiliated, the National Guard lost morale, and the success of the Third Way encouraged the other groups to enlist in their orchestration of the war. Tachito had to replace its officers to hold off a military coup and launch a new unpopular recruitment strategy to be able to fill out its ranks. The lack of success by moderate political reform efforts (such as those by the FAO) emboldened the FSLN; with Cuban mediation, the three factions united for a final push for liberation. Despite efforts by the OAS and the FAO to attempt to negotiate a settlement for Somoza to step down, he insisted that he would stay in power until 1981. In February 1979, the Sandinista unification led to the establishment of the National Patriotic Front (Frente Patriótico Nacional) or FPN inviting the opposition to stand behind one banner. Los Dos, the FAO, the business sector, the Church, and all elements of Nicaraguan society came to support the FPN. Emboldened, the FSLN launched widespread military operations across the country. By May, the National Guard began to lose control. In June, a provisional Nicaraguan government formed in exile in Costa Rica; consisting of a five-member junta established the Puntarenas Pact calling for a mixed economy, political pluralism with

184

C. M. BROWN

free and fair elections, and a non-aligned foreign policy.35 As the FSLN marched on Managua, the writing was on the wall for Somoza. He agreed to resign and hand power over to Francisco Maliano Urcuyo who would manage the transition. On July 17, 1979, Tachito left for Miami; later he established residence in Paraguay where he lived until his assassinated in September 1980. The provisional government junta of the FSLN held a ceremony in León officially accepting executive control over the country the next day. On July 19, the army of liberation captured Managua and accepted the surrender of remaining National Guard forces in the capital. The new transitional government arrived on July 30, 1979. It sought to build a divided state that had been ransacked by corruption, foreign powers, and a long civil war. In the simmering Cold War climate of the 1980s, it would not be an easy task.36 Transitional Government The war to overthrow the Somoza family cost 50,000 Nicaraguan lives. Another 120,000 people were in exile and another 600,000 displaced and homeless in the country. The economy was nonexistent, and the country was deeply in debt due to the Somoza regime. And yet, the country was hopeful for the future.37 Any change had to improve the circumstances for Nicaraguans and with the unconditional victory of the opposition forces, led by the FLSN, change was not far off. United in opposition to Somoza, the new junta was challenged with navigating a path forward through their personal political differences. The membership of the new ruling junta consisted of: Daniel José Ortega Saavedra from the FSLN, Moisés Hassan Moreales of the FPN, Sergio Ramírez Mercado of Los Doce, Alfonso Robelo Callejas of the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement (Movimiento Democratíco Nicaragüense) or MDN, and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro’s widow. The priority of the new junta was to re-start the economy and relieve the burdens of war from its people. As international aid came in and loans were re-negotiated, the economy began to take off. Somoza’s private property was nationalized and provided the foundation for state agricultural farms, but the fear of a “second Cuba” had failed to materialize.38 A consultative corporatist representative assembly known as the Council of State was established on May 4, 1980. The junta maintained its right to veto over the council legislation as well as its control over the budget, the Council of State because a legislative body during

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

185

the transition. It was made up of thirty-three members that had been decided through negotiations among the variety of revolutionary groups in 1979. Political groups in the coalition could appoint their representatives, however, the FSLN claimed the right to twelve seats from the original thirty-three. Soon after it was formed, however, an additional fourteen seats were added bringing the total to forty-seven seats. The FLSN claimed twenty-four of these seats which allowed it to maintain its majority rule. Both Chamorro and Robelo left the junta in protest of the FSLN power-grab. Replaced in the short-term, the junta was later reduced to three members with Daniel Ortega firmly in control.39 The FSLN was clearly the most popular and powerful of the anti-Somoza coalition, so there really was not much that could be done to stop their encroachment in these early days. While the Puntarenas Pact called for a non-partisan national security force to replace the National Guard, this too was unlikely to become a reality. The victorious army of liberation was the FSLN; without a legitimacy challenger, the new national army simply became known as the Sandinista People’s Army (Ejército Popular Sandinista), or EPS and the new police force became the Policía Sandinista. In addition, the FSLN sought to organize social and economic groups into mass organizations managed by the Sandinista leadership. These included labor unions, women’s groups, and agricultural groups. The Sandinista Defense Committees (Comités de Defensa Sandinista), or CDS operated in the same manner as Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in Cuba, transmitting information, distributing, and rationing goods, and managing local resources.40 As the Sandinistas attempted to consolidate control over the political institutions of the newly liberated Nicaraguan state, their heavy handedness ended up creating additional rivalries and exacerbating old ones. The indigenous Miskito and African Caribbean populations of the eastern portion of Nicaragua who had always felt themselves to be separate from the Pacific more Latino cultures of Nicaragua began to feel the pressure of the Sandinista program. The government began forcibly relocating indigenous groups to other parts of the country, destroying communities, and giving these populations justification to reject Sandinista rule. Considering the past, Nicaraguans were wary of foreign control (particularly the US), tended to be culturally Catholic, and they were inclined to support socialist policies for development. Once the dust settled on the Somoza regime, business-orientated groups tended to view

186

C. M. BROWN

the population and the Sandinistas with suspicion. However, the new government tended to assuage fears by reaching out to private sector elites to manage the economy—and with these early successes a cautious accommodation was achieved among a range of groups. Financial successes and management of foreign aid facilitated the implementation of the social systems that Sandinistas were eager to put into place. The totality of the Sandinista victory provided an opportunity to govern without considering the prior regime, or so they thought. The deeply unpopular Somoza regime bolstered by the sinister reputation of The National Guard had been swept away, the corrupt president in exile, ill-gotten gains returned to state control. Owing to the scale and breath of the coalition, Somoza’s undoing was cheered from across the social spectrum. However, it was the Sandinistas who were the main thrust of the opposition; they were the group that was the most ideologically coherent, organized thoroughly, and held the moral high ground. Due to their long-standing commitment to the ideals of Sandino and their willingness to place themselves on the front lines to secure victory, the Sandinistas allowed other social groups to participate at their discretion. At the onset of the transitional government and in the pacts that led up to the provisional junta, it was in good faith. The Sandinista factions were still coming together and all of Nicaragua had a common enemy to eliminate. However, as events began to unfold class differences began to manifest. For every influx in foreign aid, pro-business groups were able to slowly rebuild the economy lost to years of warfare, neglect, and corruption. With each new social program, Sandinistas were able to deliver on their promise to help the people. Their near total control over the new institutions of the state, including all the forces for law and order and security established a cautious partnership among society leaders. The United States had supported Somoza, inventing the dreaded National Guard, elevating the Somoza’s to power, and continuing to promote their abuses under the framework of the Cold War contest with the Soviets. Predictably, Eastern Bloc countries and Cuba took the initiative to support the FSLN who already maintained sympathies with Marxist governance. The FLSN was armed, supplied, and trained by antiAmerican states. However, the way the takeover happened did not unleash another Cuban revolution. The FSLN controlled the transition process but permitted for greater pluralism and inclusion in policymaking circles. At its core, it was corporatist; but, as it became more secure, it promoted democratization. Furthermore, the critical recognition of the Church, and

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

187

the Liberation Theology embedded among the lower orders, complicated the advent of socialism without the inclusion of Catholic humanism. The Sandinista Directorate promoted a mixed economy, political pluralism, social programs bolstered by the CDS, and an international policy of neutrality.41 Like other small political systems in Latin America, the other unknown was the American response to the change in leadership and orientation. American Obstructionism and the Contra War In the early days of the Sandinista takeover, the Carter Administration attempted to work with the new coalitional government aided by the decision of Nicaragua to honor its international debt and to resist widespread nationalization of foreign economic assets. However, amity was short-lived. The election of Ronald Reagan in November 1980 made anti-communism the centerpiece of America’s highly active foreign policy and the cozy relationship of the Sandinistas with Cuba and the Soviets put them in the crosshairs of regime change efforts. Reagan ended US assistance to Nicaragua in 1981 and used its influence to stop international lenders from providing aid. Polarization occurred almost immediately within Nicaraguan political elite. In December 1981, Reagan authorized the CIA to build a counterrevolutionary (Contra) presence in Honduras and began organizing armed paramilitary groups to terrorize and harass the Sandinista Directorate.42 The vast majority of the early Contra soldiers were members of the dismantled National Guard who had fled and were living in exile. The Contras were joined by other groups who had been negatively impacted by Sandinista policies, particularly those indigenous and Afro-Caribbean cultural groups on the Caribbean coast. Given how much the National Guard was despised and feared by the population, the Contras never had a chance to win the hearts and minds of the Nicaraguans who lived through their reign. Revolutionary hero, Eden Pastora, tired of what he saw as former revolutionaries swapping places with Somoza’s elites and neglecting their commitment to the poor, chose to return to the field and began a guerilla campaign in the South against the government.43 That the Sandinistas were well organized, funded, and had a significantly higher workforce (due to the institution of compulsory military service) meant that displacement was unlikely. However, the duration of the conflict forced the Sandinistas to dedicate more and more resources

188

C. M. BROWN

to self-defense. This led to immediate and long-term economic problems. Social programs suffered and the regime was forced to spend half of its budget for military defense. Agricultural production declined with the loss of money from foreign companies; refugees abandoned the countryside. In response to Sandinistas abandon their promise for political pluralism and imposed increasingly strict emergency laws increasing censorship in the influential newspapers. The Roman Catholic Church suffered a serious split as the popular church of liberation theology was seen as an undermining influence on the traditional hierarchy and of powerful Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo. This schism came to a head with the visit of Pope John Paul II in March 1983. The pontiff gave an outdoor mass where rival groups of pro-and anti-government supporters vocally clashed on national global television embarrassing the Sandinista Directorate and discrediting the advocates of liberation theology.44 Democratic Transition: Foundational Election of 1984 By 1983, the Sandinista Directorate and the Council of State passed a series of electoral laws to formally transfer power from the wartime transitional junta to a democratically chosen presidential government. A fourth branch of government was established known as the Supreme Electoral Counsel which was responsible for organizing the rules governing and certifying elections. By July 1984 eight parties had announced their intention to run for the office of the presidency. The FLSN was represented by Daniel Ortega. Despite the Reagan Administration’s denunciation of Nicaragua elections as farcical, international observers agreed that the election went off with few problems; and the process was seen as free and fair. Neutral observers welcomed Nicaragua’s return to electoral democracy. After the votes have been counted on November 4, 1984, with 75% of registered Participated, the FLSN won 67% of the votes. The FSLN gained control of the presidency and the majority (61 of the 96) seats in the new National Assembly. Three conservative parties collected twenty-nine seats and three leftist parties collected only six seats. Daniel Ortega began his six-year term on January 10, 1985.45 Despite the transition from revolutionary junta to democratic rule, Ortega still maintained control over the institutions in Nicaragua. The election provided the framework for the 1987 constitution which serve to further institutionalize Sandinista control over the political economy. It also left intact elements for personal rules. In particular, the constitution allowed for

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

189

unlimited presidential reelection. It also vested the president with the authority to rule by decree in both fiscal and administrative affairs and to “direct the country’s economy (and) determine its economic and social policy.”46 The successful elections encouraged the US Congress to push back on Reagan’s war against Nicaragua by restricting funding for the Contra army. In response Reagan called for a total embargo of US trade with Nicaragua in the following month and accused the Sandinistas of threatening US national security in the region by promoting Cuban and Soviet style regime. The economic crisis prompted widespread frustration across the country and to maintain order, the FSLN suspended civil liberties under a state of siege. The Contra war contributed to the economic challenges, but the additional loss of foreign exchange threatened to unravel the gains of the revolution. Congress authorized a new aid package to the Contras in June 1986 forcing Nicaragua to allocate more of its social funding to meet the threats that were now pervasive. As the US Congress deliberated over the extension of military aid to the Contras, revelations came to light that the Reagan Administration had orchestrated illegal arms sales to Iran to circumvent constitutional restrictions on funding the Contras. The scope of what became known as the Iran Contra Affair revealed the degree of criminality that the Reagan Administration went through to maintain their proxy army. In the wake of the scandal, Congress restricted funding for Nicaragua to only “non-lethal aid” and with the end of funding, a military stalemate developed: the Contras would not fight without US support and Nicaragua could not afford to continue to fund a war it did not want.47 Regional efforts to end the conflict began in earnest in 1987 with the Arias Plan (named after Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez). A formal agreement was signed by the presidents of five Central American states in Esquipulas, Guatemala that ended the conflict and laid a political path for reconciliation and amnesty for combatants. This was followed by additional direct meetings between President Ortega and the Contras, which allowed for reconciliation (led by Cardinal Obando y Bravo), a cease-fire agreement, amnesty for all participants, and the lifting of the state of siege. Subsequent regional meetings outlined plans to dis-arm the Contras and to provide for democratic elections in Nicaragua in 1990. In anticipation of the upcoming elections, political freedoms were restored in Nicaragua and political pluralism was permitted. The constitution of 1987 even provided for special autonomous status for the indigenous and

190

C. M. BROWN

Afro-Caribbean populations in the eastern portion of the state.48 Despite the liberalization in the wake of the end of the Contra War, the situation for most Nicaraguans had not improved. The economy, twisted to the needs of self-defense and cut-off from critical aid was in shambles. Force reduction further complicated the labor market by flooding it with newly employed former soldiers. A devastating hurricane in October 1988 added further complications causing $1 billion in damages to the economy.49 Ortega found himself hemmed in by an endless civil war, economic emasculation by the United States, and the incapacity to make good on the promises of the revolution. Nevertheless, the liberalization provided by the transition to electoral democracy provided space for debate, alternatives, and organization to chart a new path forward. Turnover of Party Control in the Election of 1990 By June 6, 1990, 14 parties organized themselves with a singular common goal of denying the Sandinistas further control over the government. This group was called the National Opposition Union (Uníon Nacional Opositora), or UNO; it brought together a broad range of interests whose only real shared platform was being tired of the Sandinistas. The coalition of smaller parties was little more than elite efforts at self-promotion; nevertheless, this loose coalition was able to mobilize groups from across society.50 American funding made the papering over of differences among the collection of opposition parties possible.51 The UNO compromise candidate was Violeta de Chamorro; she would be challenging incumbent president, FSLN candidate Daniel Ortega. The campaign was widely certified as a free and fair electoral process. For Nicaraguans, a vote for Ortega was a vote for more war and suffering. Chamorro offered an end to conflict and the military draft and targeted the economic troubles of the FSLN on her way to victory. Chamorro won the presidency by earning 55% of the vote and she took office peacefully on April 25, 1990. UNO also captured fifty-one of the ninety-two seats in the National Assembly providing a clear mandate as well as a majority.52 The Contras officially demobilized two months later.53 According to Nicaraguan government statistics, the Contra War lasted a decade and cost the lives of 31,000 Nicaraguans.54 In contrast to most expectations, Ortega allowed the presidency to pass to Chamorro without a major incident. At the bureaucratic level,

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

191

however, civil servants and FSLN government employees made the transition difficult. A variety of petty vandalism, administrative malfeasance, and public theft at the lower levels rose in scale with positions of higher access. In order to manage the country after years of FSLN dominance in the public administration, Chamorro and her team was forced to work with the FSLN who swore to “govern from below.”55 Her administrative was defined by conflict with social organizations that were dominated by the influence of the Sandinistas and much of the machinery of government simply continued despite the change in leadership. In seeking a way to manage with minimal opposition, she became increasingly unable or unwilling to challenge the FSLN without her own system. By not doing enough to discredit the FSLN and/or to undermine their pervasive influence she also began to disappoint the expectations of the United States and the UNO. Nevertheless, the leadership change brought about new opportunities as trade began to resume with the United States and the winding down of the Contra War meant that the economy could focus on other needs.56 The increasing support of pro-business class and foreign (including American) aid, the UNO was able to curb rampant inflation and start to rebuild the economy. Importantly, they also introduced political guiderails against the reelection of the president and limitations on executive privilege.57 In particular, the National Assembly sought to re-calibrate the power of the legislature by promoting constitutional amendments that limited the executive. Chamorro pushed back on amendments as they were being driven by the FSLN majority. Ortega also came to realize the limitations that the new rules placed on his political goals (and the constitution that he had established in 1987), and he actively denounced them as well. The FSLN split and a new party, the Sandinista Renewal Movement (Movimiento Renovador Sandinista), emerged to push through the amendments in 1995. This new faction of the FSLN emerged to challenge the new realities of the revolution: Ortega had sold out. The old revolutionaries had become divided in their class loyalty; Ortega and his closest associates had become fabulously wealthy and no longer could identify with the plight of poor Nicaraguans. Socialism became rhetorical as this new Sandinista elites shared their economic fortunes with those of the neoliberal business class and international investors. Ortega and friends began to privatize state assets into their own personal portfolio (known as the “pinata” in Nicaragua), making the pacted agreements more natural than might appear at first glance.58

192

C. M. BROWN

However, Chamorro refused to accept the amendments; the executive and the legislature were working under two different constitutions until negotiations mediated by Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo led to an acceptable compromise. In the aftermath, the National Assembly amended electoral laws to re-staff the CSE with political appointments guaranteeing that party officials would control the electoral system. While it would take time for the full effects to become apparent, Nicaragua failed to take advantage of the spirit of compromise, instead opting to insulate winning party coalitions from challenges to its control.59 Increasingly, the security forces of the state would be utilized to supplement the class division between the FSLN elites/UNO from the lower classes still clinging to the dream of a more equitable Nicaragua.60 Democratic Consolidation: Two-Turnover Test Samuel Huntington (1995) famously argued that democracy could be considered consolidated when elections alternated between parties in two distinct elections.61 FSLN’s Ortega was elected in 1984, UNO’s Chamorro in 1990, and Jose Arnaldo Aléman of the Liberal Alliance (Alianza Liberal), or AL defeated Daniel Ortega in 1996 with 51% of the vote. The AL also won 46% of legislature; FSLN earned 37%.62 The AL was aided by hard-charging support by Cardinal Obando y Bravo, widely seen as a reliable political ballast.63 Once again, these elections were determined to be free and fair with 76% turnout.64 However, they were not without controversy. Pro-US and deeply corrupt, Aléman was incapable of improving the lives of most Nicaraguans even prior to the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 which sabotaged any intended economic recovery programs.65 Saddled with the burden of redistributing the lands owned by Contras that had been nationalized by the FSLN during the conflict, he found himself caught between both a plurality of FSLN on the left and hardliners from his own alliance on the right. Hurricane Mitch killed thousands of Nicaraguans and destroyed much of the limited infrastructure in the hardest hit regions, which included the main drivers (grains, cattle) of the economy.66 Aléman showed himself to be truly “Somoza-esque” in this disaster relief corruption. Over the course of his term, is it estimated that he stole over $100 million from the treasury for his own use in a country whose annual income averaged $430.67

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

193

Aléman was also unable to take advantage of the IMF/World Bank debt-relief plan. In exchange for the international organizations to wipe clean 80% of the country’s debt, Nicaragua was expected to bring its budget and property laws up to a global standard. Aléman would be required to close loopholes that facilitated corruption and to decentralize power; both initiatives would undermine his position and so the opportunity was wasted. The FSLN pledge to rule from below became institutionalized as daily political life was filtered through the party. Despite changes at the top of government, the bureaucracy was deeply invested in the revolutionary leadership of Ortega.68 Aléman found himself in similar position as Chamorro having to govern without being able to manage; he worked to consolidate power through new constitutional reforms. To increase revenue, his administration promoted privatization of energy resources and increased foreign direct investment in the economy. Then, came “The Pact” (El Pacto) between the president and the leader of the opposition. Aléman and Ortega agreed to a political pact that served their own interests above that of Nicaraguan people. At the start of 2000, utilizing their party loyalists, they rewrote the constitution to provide immunity to the president both while in office and after leaving office due to the provision of “automatic membership in the National Assembly to be conferred after stepping down.”69 The pact worked to exclude the participation of smaller parties by only permitting their two parties to control the Electoral Council, the Supreme Court, and the office of the auditor general.70 These groups would be expanded in the number of seats, conveniently so additional appointments could be made by the parties in the pact. These reforms guaranteed that political competition would be limited to the two main parties in the next election. They also lowered the threshold for triggering an automatic runoff for election from 45 to 40% and provided for a plurality victory if the highest vote-getting led by over 5% from his/her closest challenger. Aleman would gain immunity from corruption persecution, the parties would divide the power of the democratic institutions, and perennial-candidate, Ortega, who regularly garnered electoral votes in the 30–40% range would now find the presidency in reach once again.71

194

C. M. BROWN

Democratic Breakdown Just not yet. Once again encouraged by American interests, antiSandinistas converged to support Liberal Enrique Bolaños Geyer for the presidency in 2001, winning 56% of the vote. Aleman would accept his new position in the National Assembly as well as its automatic immunity. Since the majority of seats also went to the Liberals, he became the leader of the legislature.72 Despite being Aléman’s Vice President and chosen successor, once in office he successfully prosecuted his former benefactor for fraud, money laundering, and embezzlement. In recognition of this high-level prosecution, the IMF/WB program offered its debt forgiveness to Nicaragua, canceling 80% of its debt.73 Aleman was imprisoned; however, he still controlled the Liberal Party from behind bars. Aleman and Ortega formed a pact to undermine Bolaños.74 Provisions against criminal prosecution of elected officials became highly politicized; legislative immunity was removed and relations between branches became increasingly adversarial. The Liberals split and Bolanos was politically isolated. Once again, to govern the president had to rely on the FSLN bloc and Ortega personally.75 Ortega expertly in charge of the institutional machinery of government at the bureaucratic levels was able to play both Liberal factions against each to his advantage. The stage was set for the upcoming election as the main parties had begun to suffer divided loyalties. The FSLN once again supported Daniel Ortega. However, it is membership branched off under a party known as the Sandinista Renovation Movement (Movimiento Renovador Sandinista, or MRS), Herty Lewites (until his untimely death), and Edmundo Jarquín. The MRS felt that the FSLN had become corrupted by the temptation of rule; living off the state coffers led to the neglecting its commitment to the poor to social programs. The Liberal Alliance also reshuffled its coalition and the old core party that launched Aleman and Bolanos career, the Constitutional Liberal Party or PLC, broke off and decided to run Aleman protege, José Rizo. The rump Liberal Alliance campaigned for Eduardo Montealegre. Polling showed that Ortega maintained a slight lead over Montealegre, but the four top parties had sizable representation. The Bush Administration chose to issue a statement saying that if Ortega won, the United States would cut funding. While this did help to rally the pro-business sector and the hard-right, most Nicaraguans were still very preoccupied by Yankee intervention and in particular the support for the Contras that caused them so much unwanted harm. In an

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

195

election contest that was heavily monitored by international observers and the Carter Center, and determined to be free and fair, Daniel Ortega and the FSLN returned to the presidency by winning only 38% of the vote. Combined the two leading liberal factions garnered 55%; the PLC with 28% and AL with 27%.76 Daniel Ortega had played El Pacto perfectly, avoiding a runoff by plurality plus 5%. The FSLN also controlled a plurality of the seats in the National Assembly.77 Ortega would not lose again; he would ensure that his command over the institutions of Nicaraguan democracy would not be threatened. He would utilize his near total control over the constitutional and electoral systems to eliminate or coopt any serious opposition. As one of his first official acts, he used his influence over the National Assembly to remove the restrictions on executive power put into power in 2004. He created Citizens Power Councils (Consejos de Poder Ciudadano— CPCs) across the country to further consolidate his control; these were based upon the earlier CDCs in Sandinista-controlled areas during the civil war. Like the Cuban Committees for the Defense of the Revolution these served as grass-roots human intelligence committees. They also circumvented municipal governments by giving Ortega avenues for organizing the public and providing patronage networks making members loyal to him. Cash arrived via Hugo Chávez and Nicolas Maduro and flowed to party loyalists outside of the public view.78 The distribution of resources through the CPC network has served a number of purposes: divided opposition through cooptation, rewarding loyalists, and bring the Sandinista-dominated National Police and the Councils into closer coordination for forestall any counterrevolutionary threats.79 Nicaraguan elections were no longer conducted without widespread irregularities as Ortega went from being a “reluctant utilitarian democrat to illiberal democrat (soft authoritarian) to today’s hardened autocrat.”80 To formally consummate the decline of democratic governance in Nicaragua, Ortega successfully renewed his pact with the Liberals as well as with former Somocistas/Contras, right wing evangelicals, and the Catholic Church hierarchy. Core to this arrangement was the acquiescence of the prominent capitalist neoliberal organization known as COSEP, or the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada). Ortega committed to promoting capitalist interests and worked to create an economic plan that embraced private property in all forms, free trade, transnational corporate investments, and neoliberalism.81

196

C. M. BROWN

Orteguismo: Sultanism in Nicaragua In 2009, Ortega expressed his desire to remain in office for an additional consecutive term. The constitution prevented reelection; however, a Constitutional Court ruled that he was eligible to run again. It was no surprise that he won, only that he was victorious by so much: 63% of the vote. The FSLN also won 63% of the National Assembly in an atmosphere that was determined again to be free and fair.82 In January 2014, the FSLN-controlled National Assembly changed the rules to remove the restrictions on term limits for presidents by a significant margin (64– 25).83 Largely seen as a calculated effort to promote Ortega as dictator for life, the use of democratic norms and procedures employed served to undermine those same norms. Ortega has been in power for a long time, and he has effectively managed his party organization, the FSLN, so that they control the institutions of Nicaragua’s political economy from the national down to municipalities. Specifically, the FLSN “controls the judiciary, the electoral commission, and the national assembly…in a system where there clearly were few checks and balances given the domination of Ortega and the FSLN, the move to facilitate another term in office for Ortega meant that a consolidation of power was in process.”84 In 2016, Daniel Ortega sought reelection for a fifth term as president; his running mate would be his wife, Rosario Murillo. Once again, total control over the Nicaragua government gave way to a 72% victory as well as an increase in the number of seats gained by the FSLN (71 of 92) in the National Assembly.85 The election was widely condemned as a farce.86 By 2018, in response to IMF-regulated changes to social services, protests were met with an excessive government force. Protests exploded and with each round of repression, the situation threatened to get out of control. Police and FLSN-directed street thugs worked outside the law to crush the protests. COSEP began to question the deal that it made with Ortega over a decade ago as the business climate grew more concerned with each new round of repression.87 Human rights groups became increasingly vocal about widespread abuses. The opposition began to organize under the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy calling for new elections and for Ortega, once again, to step down. The inability for the two sides to agree on a way forward only led to greater state terrorism against the Nicaraguan citizenry as the institutions of the state provided for even greater executive authority to address the unrest. Hundreds of Nicaraguans had been killed and 60,000 had left the country

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

197

by the end of 2018.88 Things worsened in 2019 as the National Assembly provided amnesty to the parapolice forces and moved to close opposition media outlets. The only media operational in Nicaragua was owned by the Ortega family and their cronies.89 Political dissent became a crime, and the country abandoned any meaningful democratic practices. Candidates who dared to challenge Ortega find themselves arrested, harassed, and/ or disqualified through the instruments of state control.90 There are issues that arose in the protests of 2018 that are a direct result of Ortega’s political design, which highlight the degree to which democracy has been undone in Nicaragua. Initially, the FLSN was able to take control over the institutional mechanism of the state cutting off any reasonable pathways for dissent. The explosion of protests and the unrest that pervades Nicaragua is in no small part due to the lack of opportunities for political expression; the people had no choice but to fight or to flee. Not only does the FSLN control the branches of government and the security forces (and paramilitary and para-police), but they also control large sectors of the economy. The Ortega-Murillo family and their associates have monopolized the political economy and made the country subject to their personal rule, including putting family members into political positions to promote succession. The encroachment of political cronyism has totally undermined public trust in good governance (the first couple’s eight children are presidential advisors who also manage the “family’s secretive empire of at least 22 corporations involved in oil and gas, hotels and tourism, media, real estate, finance and investment funds, and customs and import–export trade).”91 Today, Ortega controls Nicaragua much like the man he worked so hard to overthrow. The CPCs have politicized and militarized public space so that there is no difference between the FSLN as a party and the Ortega regime as the administrative apparatus of the state. Despite control over the political economy, the young people in Nicaragua have been left out and unable to gain employment without being solid members of the FSLN, who managed based on partisanship and patronage over merit and expertise.92 Part of this is by design: Ortega’s Nicaragua has offered transnational corporate investors a country with easy access, low wages, and a compliant population (via consent or coercion).93 By the November 2021 election, one in which the FSLN won every precinct in the country and Ortega cruised into his fourth straight presidential term (with 76% of the vote), no one believes in that there is democracy in Nicaragua anymore. Abstention rates were said to be close

198

C. M. BROWN

to 80%.94 The elections were not free, not fair, and not democratic. Near total censorship on any opposition has become the norm; Ortega closed over two thousand non-FSLN groups and shuttered fifty non-state media outlets prior to the vote, one hundred civil society organizations were ordered closed, and the six most-likely challengers for the president were imprisoned and disqualified from running.95

Conclusion Considering the violence and revolutions that have defined Nicaragua it was surprising that the country was able to come together and construct a democratic regime. In 1984, electoral democracy began in unlikely and challenging circumstances, however, it worked. The country transitioned by building the necessary infrastructure, constitution, and practices that facilitated its consolidation. It truly was an unexpected Caribbean miracle. And yet, despite all the elections, the citizen inputs, the party politics that occurred, the consolidated democracy would breakdown. However, the breakdown did not occur through violence or a coup d’état by anti-democratic forces: “In Nicaragua, the conditions that weakened democracy in the twenty-first century were not those that produced democratic breakdowns in the twentieth century, namely economic crisis and radical anti-system parties.”96 Nicaraguan democracy suffered a breakdown through democratic means. The type of consolidation that the political system endured was conditioned by democratic purgatory. At the core of the consolidated democracy was a corporatist structure, specifically, the revolutionary organization and “state within the state” of the Sandinistas. Ortega chose democracy because it was the most prudent path under the circumstances. It was a compromise made under duress. US pressure undermined the consolidation of a revolutionary regime but facilitated legitimacy via the transition to democracy. Ortega had control over the transition process as the head of the junta and the institutionalization of the Sandinistas as the primary forces for the new government allowed for him to win the presidency outright and to cultivate the creation of the 1987 constitution. The goodwill from his revolutionary victory was siphoned off under the state of siege throughout the 1980s. By 1990, the political opening/liberalization permitted a non-Somoza opposition to emerge as a non-FSLN opposition. Ortega’s electoral support never close to a majority, he would struggle to retake the presidency over the next election cycles. The rules from below allowed him

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

199

to control the daily business of governance and his political capabilities perverted the concept of a mandate claimed by any other politician in the era. The core of the regime rested on Ortega’s control over the structure of representation. Plurality and organization were sufficient to hold real power from below; nothing could be done with Ortega, but Ortega could not do what he wanted to do without the support of other elected democrats who were willing to undermine the system for their own benefit. El Pacto, an additional element of the democratic purgatory, allowed Ortega to expand his control. It was the beginning of the end of Nicaraguan democracy. There could have been other outcomes. Nicaraguan politicians could have supported Bolanos’ anti-corruption efforts and pushed back against the Ortega-Aleman alliance. They could have insisted on broader representation and inclusion in government; Aleman and Ortega were not especially popular outside of their patronage networks. Instead, Liberals joined the FSLN at turns seeking instrument gain for themselves over defending the integrity of the democratic system. It was a lucrative deal. Democratic Purgatory is a type of consolidated democracy. The major characteristic that distinguishes it from a liberal democracy is the basis of citizen obligation. It maintained democratic elements, i.e., free, and fair elections, active political party engagement, and civil liberties. However, it was never able to free itself from the institutional control of the Sandinistas. It was effective, but not legitimate. The effectiveness often arose from those forces that were most inclined to a deepening of democracy and the elimination of the FSLN control over the political economy. Business classes, international financial sectors, and the United States all sought to break the hold of the Sandinistas by helping to facilitate development (albeit according to their own designs). The United States and its historical imperialism made involvement problematic and promoted reasonable skepticism. Today, the United States is no longer the bogeyman it once was: the United States is Nicaragua’s principal trading partner, no trade or commercial sanctions are in place, Nicaragua is still involved in CAFTA offering preferential access to markets across the region.97 The business classes were coopted, as Ortega has realized that money is the key to maintaining power for an organization and a political system that relies on instrumental loyalties. Sure, the FSLN may have old ideologues as well as devout followers who have embraced Ortega’s unorthodox of folk leftist Catholicism, but to deconsolidate Nicaraguan democracy, he needed money. Embracing FDI and neoliberalism and/

200

C. M. BROWN

or the support of Leftist pariah regimes in the region (or from China) has all been a means to an end for Ortega. A shrewd political survivor, he has consolidated his total control over Nicaragua by incremental and constitutional gains. Democratically elected politicians have orchestrated the demise of their own regime.

Notes 1. Tim Merrill, ed. Nicaragua: A Country Study (Washington, DC: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1993), 3. 2. Merrill, Nicaragua, 4. 3. Ibid., 3. 4. Luciano Baracco, “The Historical Roots of Autonomy in Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast: From British Colonialism to Indigenous Autonomy,” Bulletin of Latin American Research, vol. 35, no. 3 (2016): 293. 5. Merrill, Nicaragua, 5. 6. Ibid., 6. 7. Ibid., 7. 8. Ibid., 8–9. 9. Ibid., 10. 10. Baracco, “Historical Roots,” 296–297. 11. Ibid., 11. 12. Ibid., 11–12. 13. Ibid., 12. 14. Ibid., 12–13. 15. Ibid., 13. 16. David Close, Nicaragua: Navigating the Politics of Democracy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2016), 88. 17. Merrill, Nicaragua, 13–14. 18. Ibid., 14. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Thomas W. Walker & Christina J. Wade, Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2011), 27. 22. Merrill, Nicaragua, Merrill, 16. 23. Ibid. 24. Merrill, Nicaragua, 16. 25. Walker & Wade, Nicaragua, 28. 26. Merrill, Nicaragua, 16–17. 27. Walker & Wade, Nicaragua, 29. 28. Merrill, Nicaragua, 18. 29. Walker & Wade, Nicaragua, 31.

8

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

201

Ibid., 33. Merrill, Nicaragua, 19. Walker & Wade, Nicaragua, 33. Ibid., 33–34. Ibid., 37. Denise Youngblood-Coleman, “Nicaragua Country Review 2022,” CountryWatch, 2023, p. 11. Merrill, Nicaragua, 22. Ibid., 23. Youngblood-Coleman, “Nicaragua Review,” 11. Merrill, Nicaragua, 24. Ibid., 24–25. Walker & Wade, Nicaragua, 45. Ibid., 47–48. Merrill, Nicaragua, 25. Ibid., 26. Ibid., 27–28. Close, Nicaragua, 91. Merrill, Nicaragua, 28. Richard L. Millet, “Nicaragua: The Politics of Frustration,” in Latin American Politics and Development, 6th ed. Eds. Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2007), 469. Merrill, Nicaragua, 29. Close, Nicaragua, 95. Walker & Wade, Nicaragua, 57. Ibid. Merrill, Nicaragua, 29–30. Walker & Wade, Nicaragua, 57. Millet, “Nicaragua,” 467. Close, Nicaragua, 95. Millet, “Nicaragua,” 468. William L. Robinson, “Nicaragua Today: Daniel Ortega and the Ghost of Louis Bonaparte,” Against the Current, No. 221, November/ December 2022, 25, https://againstthecurrent.org/atc221/nicaraguadaniel-ortega-the-ghost-of-louis-bonaparte/. David Close, 99. Robinson, “Nicaragua Today,” 25. Huntington. Youngblood-Coleman, “Nicaragua Review,” 13. Close, Nicaragua, 100. Youngblood-Coleman, “Nicaragua Review,” 14. Millet, “Nicaragua,” 468. Youngblood-Coleman, “Nicaragua Review,” 15.

202

C. M. BROWN

67. Purcell, “Backgrounder: The Rise of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua,” in Geopolitical Monitor Intelligence (November 5, 2021), https://www. geopoliticalmonitor.com/backgrounder-politics-in-nicaragua/ (accessed February 24, 2023). 68. Close, Nicaragua, 102. 69. Purcell, “Backgrounder: The Rise.” 70. Youngblood-Coleman, “Nicaragua Review,” 15–18. 71. Purcell, “Backgrounder: The Rise.” 72. Ibid. 73. Youngblood-Coleman, “Nicaragua Review,” 20. 74. Millet, “Nicaragua,” 468. 75. Purcell, “Backgrounder: The Rise.” 76. Ibid. 77. Youngblood-Coleman, “Nicaragua Review,” 23. 78. Purcell, “Backgrounder: The Rise.” 79. Oliver Della Costa Stuenkel and Andreas S. Feldmann, The Unchecked Demise of Nicaraguan Democracy. (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (November 16, 2017), 2. 80. Richard E. Feinberg, Nicaragua: Revolution and Restoration (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution), November 2018, 4. 81. Robinson, “Nicaragua Today,” 25. 82. Youngblood-Coleman, “Nicaragua Review,” 26. 83. Ibid., 27. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid. 86. Purcell, “Backgrounder: Nicaraguan Elections,” in Geopolitical Monitor Intelligence (October 28, 2021), https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/ backgrounder-politics-in-nicaragua/ (accessed February 24, 2023). 87. Robinson, “Nicaragua Today,” 25. 88. Purcell, “Backgrounder: Nicaraguan Elections.” 89. Ibid. 90. Feinberg, Nicaragua, 6. 91. Robinson, “Nicaragua Today,” 26. 92. Feinberg, Nicaragua, 8–9. 93. Robinson, “Nicaragua Today,” 26. 94. Ibid., 28. 95. Associated Press, “Sandinistas Complete Their Political Domination of Nicaragua,” November 11, 2022. Politico, https://www.politico.com/ news/2022/11/08/nicaragua-sandinistas-ortega-repression-00065603 (accessed February 25, 2023). 96. Close, Nicaragua, 163. 97. Robinson, “Nicaragua Today,” 28.

8

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY AND DICTATORSHIPS …

203

Bibliography Associated Press. “Sandinistas Complete Their Political Domination of Nicaragua.” Politico (November 11, 2022). https://www.politico.com/ news/2022/11/08/nicaragua-sandinistas-ortega-repression-00065603 (accessed February 25, 2023). Baracco, Luciano. “The Historical Roots of Autonomy in Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast: From British Colonialism to Indigenous Autonomy.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 35, no. 3 (2016): 291–305. Close, David. Nicaragua: Navigating the Politics of Democracy. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2016. Feinberg, Richard E. Nicaragua: Revolution and Restoration. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, November 2018, 4. Merrill, Tim, ed. Nicaragua: A Country Study. Washington, DC: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1993. Millet, Richard L. “Nicaragua: The Politics of Frustration.” In Latin American Politics and Development, 6th ed., edited by Howard J. Wiarda and Harvey F. Kline, 464–477. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2007. Purcell. “Backgrounder: Nicaraguan Elections.” In Geopolitical Monitor Intelligence (October 28, 2021). https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/backgroun der-politics-in-nicaragua/ (accessed February 24, 2023). ———. “Backgrounder: The Rise of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.” In Geopolitical Monitor Intelligence (November 5, 2021). https://www.geopoliticalmonitor. com/backgrounder-politics-in-nicaragua/ (accessed February 24, 2023). Stuenkel, Oliver Della Costa, and Andreas S. Feldmann. The Unchecked Demise of Nicaraguan Democracy. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (November 16, 2017). Walker, Thomas W., and Christina J. Wade. Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2011. Youngblood-Coleman, Denise. “Nicaragua Country Review 2022.” CountryWatch, 2023. https://www.countrywatch.com/countrybriefing/countryre views?countryid=126.

CHAPTER 9

Democratic Purgatory

Introduction to Democratic Purgatory The case studies discussed in the earlier chapters highlight the challenges of establishing a consolidated democratic regime. However, Venezuela, Colombia, and Nicaragua all succeeded. Hope gave way to horror as each of the regimes was undone. Democracy can be consolidated in more than one way. The type of consolidation that a regime undergoes is often linked to those forces that serve to provide the basis for democracy during the period of transition. As a result of the legitimacy and effectiveness afforded to democratic regimes, it is possible that consolidated democracy can exhibit a paradox of democratic purgatory. Democratic Purgatory is a political circumstance that arises during the transition toward democracy that institutionalizes a type of regime that can be consolidated provided that the conditions upon which the regime rests remain unchanged and/ or threats to the core of the regime can be mitigated. It is a direct consequence of the lack of adaptability in democratic purgatorial regimes that provides the conditions under which democracy can break down through democratic means.

An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Brown, Christopher M. Introduction to International Studies. (Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt, 2016). The content has been included with permission from this publisher. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_9

205

206

C. M. BROWN

A democracy can be said to be in a form of “democratic purgatory,” or a condition whereby democracy is prevented from becoming fully representative, thereby inhibiting a fully democratic regime; yet the regime can achieve a degree of consolidation primarily because of a unique configuration giving it the capacity for meeting electorate demands. This nuanced perception of consolidated democracy rests upon a re-examination of concepts of legitimacy and effectiveness. Lipset (1960) affirms that a democracy’s stability depends upon the effectiveness and legitimacy of the political system. He defines effectiveness in terms of “actual performance, the extent to which the system satisfies the basic functions of government as most of the population and such powerful groups within it…see them.”1 While Lipset recognizes the obvious “instrumental” nature of system effectiveness, whereby demands are met or at least satisfied to the degree that the system is still understood to be effective in its distribution of societal goods, it is also important to recognize the channel of how those goods are distributed, namely, the structure of representation. In a democracy, requited representation is at the heart of both legitimacy and effectiveness, so a nondemocratic regime may be effective and fail to be representative, but a democratic regime cannot. This is the case because “intrinsic to the notion of democracy is that of popular participation and control, [therefore] any attempt to discuss the stability or future of a democratic regime that ignored the popular role…fail[s] to see a crucial dynamic of the regime and its functioning.”2 If effectiveness rests upon meeting demands, then democratic effectiveness includes the additional requirement of meeting the demands of a citizenry via representation. Lipset reasoned, “Legitimacy involves the capacity of the system to engender and maintain the belief that the existing political institutions are the most appropriate for society.”3 Thus, legitimacy rests upon whether the citizens of a democracy find that the present system best corresponds with their core beliefs, values, and expectations or at least offers a reasonable correspondence to these principles. Furthermore, the relationship between this conception of nomos and political legitimacy is one fashioned by experience. Lipset holds, “The extent to which contemporary democratic political systems are legitimate depends in large measure upon the ways in which the key issues which have historically divided the society have been resolved.“4 Lacking effectiveness or legitimacy should lead actors within the system to change the structure to suit their interests. While it would be naïve to argue that opposition groups do not exist

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

207

that seek to challenge existing institutions from outside socially acceptable processes, the structure of political institutions in society is often supported by the majority of the population and powerful groups and therefore must be perceived as effective and legitimate (this is consistent with the underlying acquiescence through either tacit or expressed consent). In establishing a democratic political system, the major elite stakeholders contest the intertwining elements of legitimacy and effectiveness. It is little wonder that the trajectory of democracy is often established at its foundation. However, this should not be taken to imply that democracies suffer from the determinism of their founding moments. Democracy is a dynamic political regime that requires adaptability to maintain itself in perpetuity. The determinism of its foundation may serve to narrow the options available to that political system going forward, but it must retain the adaptability that is a function of legitimacy and effectiveness as guaranteed through the structure of representation. It is possible, however, for a democratic political regime to be deterministic because of those forces who give it life during the transition and in its preliminary stages. Under conditions whereby the democracy comprises a limited number of corporatist groups who maintain control over the core institutions, a democracy can be consolidated that thwarts a deepening of legitimacy, even if it allows for a sufficient degree of effectiveness. This is what is understood to be a condition of “democratic purgatory.” Political regimes that find themselves in a condition of democratic purgatory are caught between two opposing forces. Liberal theory sees the creation of the democratic political system as the ideal form of selfrule. It can be argued, then, that a pure form of representative democracy is the ideal goal of any conception that imbues humanity with natural rights that include autonomy. The moral rejection of the liberal conception of a human’s natural rights to self-rule would most noticeably take the form of a political system whereby people were not free to choose for themselves, i.e., a political system where inalienable rights were denied. Democratic Purgatory exists as a condition wherein a political regime can be determined to be democratic but has undemocratic characteristics that inhibit its ability to become fully democratic. Citizens can and do participate in political life; however, the core of this regime has as its lynchpin a particular arrangement of forces that inhibit ascension to a better, more flexible form of democracy. These characteristics, embedded

208

C. M. BROWN

in the core of these democratic regimes, are often those represented by the remnants of a nondemocratic past. Furthermore, the corporatist nature of these arrangements violates the spirit of democracy as identified in liberal theory. What is worse, however, is that these corporatist arrangements, in times of crisis, often reveal an inclination toward fascism. Use of the term purgatory, despite its obvious religious provenance, is appropriate here. In common usage, the notion of purgatory is usually employed to imply an intermediate stage between two opposing ideals. Thus, the democratic purgatory can be identified as an intermediate stage whereby the condition is, in and of itself, distinct from its polar ideals (it is not fully democratic, yet it is not entirely corporatist) and yet retains the ability to be generalizable. Not all political regimes will be constituted by the same corporatist forces, and yet, they can be identified under this phenomenon. In its original context, purgatory is a place whereby the soul must wait to cleanse itself from past sins. Here is the purpose of its use in this context: popular sovereignty—, i.e., the representation of the individual’s interest is the quintessence of democracy. To consolidate a liberal form of democracy, political regimes must cleanse their political system from the corporatist arrangement that inhibits true democratic representation. Democratic purgatory consists of a condition wherein a liberal democratic political system is inhibited by the “sins of the (Founding) Fathers.” To reconcile a political regime as a truly representative democracy that allows citizens to fulfill their political (and human) potential, these institutions must be undone and made subject to the popular will through a faithful structure of representation.

Democracy’s Structure of Representation The stability of any democratic political regime rests upon its underlying structure of representation; survivability is a function of the adaptability that a given political system can accommodate in this structure of representation. Since the basis for democratic rule rests with the interests of the citizenry, there must be a clear and sufficient means for those in power to both guide and interpret the will of those whose faith in the system needs to be sustained for any democracy worth the label to function as such. This “structure of representation” or the configuration by which the will of the citizenry is translated into policy positions of the

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

209

elites who hold authority in a representative democracy must be adaptable enough to accommodate new elements and manage the shifting inclinations of existing constituent groups. In modern democracies, this structure of representation is fundamentally constitutionally determined. It is “republican” by necessity due to the impracticality of direct democracy and the required condition of being founded and sustained upon the consent of the citizenry. Minimally speaking, the structure of representation is a “constitutional republic.” The utility of a republic rests upon the capacity for representation of the will of the citizenry. A concern over citizen interest arises from the liberal tradition. Another fundamental requirement is a respect for the individual citizen to form her own opinion that is recognized as being of equal value to the opinion of all other citizens. Note that this definition need not require everyone to be considered part of the citizenry; citizenship requirements can be manipulated and still yield a democratic regime; however, this regime should not be considered a liberal constitutional republic.5 Furthermore, because of this equality, majority rule is the only way to determine the outcome of a contested plebiscite. A corollary to the majority rule is minority acquiescence. The minority in each constitutionally justified contest must concede the loss and the results of the contest as binding for all citizens. To ensure that the results of a contested plebiscite are deemed binding, all measures must be taken to guarantee that these elections are conducted freely (with no arbitrary cost to constituent voters), fairly, and regularly (to not be arbitrary or in secret). Last, the minimum component part of the structure of representation is accountability. If the will of the people is translated into policy under constitutionally sanctioned procedures, it must be conducted. Accountability is truly an assurance that representation is working, and it is the people who are indeed sovereign in a democracy. It is for this reason that the structure of representation of a democratic regime is the correct fit. In other words, the interests of the citizenry must be represented by their elected officials (their representatives) to maintain the consistency required of a democracy. Where a “lack of fit” becomes apparent, the regime must be flexible enough to realign those interests to coincide with the appropriate representation. It is the potential for adaptability of a given democratic regime that provides for a greater degree of stability.

210

C. M. BROWN

Modeling Democratic Purgatory As the product of the lessons discovered through the study of Venezuela, the following section provides a brief model of how democratic political regimes can truly fall into the category of democratic purgatory. Remember that democratic purgatory is a concept that arose in response to the absence of a theoretical explanation for the recently witnessed phenomenon (whereby democratic regimes break down of democracy through democratic means). The following model offers an answer to the primary research question: under what conditions might democracies fail through democratic means? The concept of the democratic purgatory makes no attempt to challenge or rewrite the existing scholarship on democratization. As such, it can be thought of as an addition to the literature that has arisen due to a perceived gap in that literature that has only recently manifested itself in political reality. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the notion of democratic purgatory fits comfortably with the existing work and its core concepts. The democratic purgatory model follows the basic outline of democratization provided earlier in the literature review of this volume. It diverges on subtle points, which over the course of political development have potentially significant ramifications for the stability of the democratic regime. This highlights one of the more difficult aspects of explaining democratic purgatory. Because elements of a consolidated democracy and democratic purgatory are so closely related, it makes sense to work with the same linguistic tools to construct a model for either. However, once one begins to see the nuances of democratic purgatory in its relation to democratization, it becomes difficult to use the same words to describe concepts with different component parts that appear very similarly.

Phases of Democratization: Democratic Purgatory Phase One: Transitions from Authoritarian Rule During the transition from authoritarian rule, powerful coalitions guide the old political regime on its path to the creation of a new political regime.6 This is a common observation in the study of transitions. Even in situations where a mass uprising provides the proximate spark to toppling an authoritarian regime, leadership is needed. As such, whether

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

211

those forces who earn a seat at the table are “soft-liners” or revolutionaries, to form a democratic regime, they must establish principles or compromises on which to find a democratic regime. Those stakeholders who direct this transition may have at their disposal a significant amount of political capital upon which to construct the new order. To earn a seat at the political bargaining table during a transition, elites present at the foundation must have enough political power to keep that seat and have their voice heard during the regime change. Oftentimes those represented are soft-liners in the ancien regime, moderate revolutionaries, and military personnel sympathetic to regime change. The composition of these elites will vary depending upon the nature of a transition and the context in which it occurs. What is important is that each of the represented groups has at its disposal a significant degree of influence that warrants their presence at the negotiated transition. Regarding the notion of a negotiated transition, it can be said that too much ink has been spilled on the importance of pacts in the literature on democratic transitions. However, transitions to democracy do not always have such highly visible pacts as in the Venezuelan “Pact of Punto Fijo.” Transitions do not require the formality of the moment given to pacts in the literature. Removing the formality of pacts from the establishment of pacts does nothing to diminish their importance. While scholars can debate whether the term “pact” is appropriate in all venues, the utility of the idea rests upon the negotiations that take place among political leaders during a transition to move that political system toward a new regime. These negotiations always occur, even in cases where democracy is imposed from above—the leadership class who can earn a place at the negotiating table will come to an agreement or set of agreements that will guide the transition toward democracy. Pacts, be they formal or informal, provide the structure that forms the basic framework for rulemaking as a political system attempts to establish a democratic political regime. Those elites that find themselves in a position to negotiate these agreements do so to promote their respective interest and the interests of the groups whose interests they represent. In other words, elites during negotiations are in a unique situation: they must actively promote their interests to maintain their right as representatives of that interest, and at the same time, they must be willing to give up some authority over those interests to establish a democratic political regime in the spirit of compromise.7

212

C. M. BROWN

Nevertheless, negotiations among elites at the time of transition create a structure that ensures that the interests of those elites are overrepresented in the creation of a new political order.8 In other words, the negotiated agreements in the period of a transition usually support the interests of those present at the negotiations as those elites attempt to preserve their privileged positions going into a new regime, solidify their support base, and maintain control over the transition process itself to continue to ensure these goals. These pacts also necessarily encompass the identification of and the division of public goods. What is at stake during these transitions is the control of the political system and its resources. The government is the mechanism through which these resources are acquired and distributed, but the regime establishes the logic of this acquisition and the priorities given to distribution. The political economy questions are often even more salient due to the milieu in which most democratic regimes are born. Economic crises often stimulate the demise of an authoritarian regime: where a regime is seen as illegitimate but provides some degree of effectiveness, it has an opportunity to remain stable for limited periods. When illegitimate regimes lose their effectiveness, they can only maintain control by force. This too would seem to include an expiration date. Nonetheless, the collapse of one regime and the transition toward another are not usually gifted with positive economic times. What most often defines the urgency of the elite in this period of political transition is their position in the economic order. Thus, the transition phase is very much about the rules surrounding the identification, collection, and distribution of societal goods and services in the new regime and the logic that influences the economic winners and losers going forward. This transition period also establishes the “rules of the game” under which political society is to function. These pacts (and/or the leaders whose interests are represented) provide the foundation for the “structure of representation” that will form the basis for the new democratic political regime. Predictably, the structure of representation that is established at the time of transition should reflect the interests of those who are present at the negotiations. They are the political leadership because they represent the interests of particularly powerful groups in society. However, this structure of representation may or may not accurately reflect the interests of the general electorate of a nascent democracy since not all interests can be satisfied under a single accord. Furthermore, people usually have overlapping interests, and the nascent structure may not have had sufficient

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

213

time to facilitate a broad base. It is likely that in early political contests, a wide range of political parties will arise; in time, lesser-capable parties will often either fall out of favor or converge with more popular parties out of political necessity. Political parties may merge due to the need to expand a party’s message and capture a larger number of supporters. Nevertheless, the interests present at the foundation will often have constructed the political landscape to promote their own success. Over time, however, the “lack of fit” problem will exacerbate social tensions, which may reveal the lack of sufficient representation. The leaders (and their corresponding party apparatus) in new political regimes must acquire legitimacy outside the bonds of charisma to be a viable force in democratic politics.9 In other words, the future cannot be predicted, particularly under the uncertain conditions of regime change. Elites do the best job that they can, given their available resources, to construct a new regime that will preserve their position and interests in a spirit of compromise that is necessary for democratic politics. However, the realities of starting down a particular path can be much different from anticipated. The new realities of operating in a democratic political regime will present new challenges and opportunities to those who have constructed the rules of the game. Although they have placed themselves in the driver’s seat, contingency and the very nature of democracy require them to adapt to new circumstances. Although these phases are fluid from one to the next and make it difficult to establish a clear dividing line between them, the first phase can be said to be complete when the rules of the game have been established and the structure of representation is in place. The rules of the game include the more formal declarations that a new political regime has arrived: a formal constitution, democratic institutions, rules on elections and campaigning that ensure a democratically elected government. The structure of representation, however, is far from clear at this stage. Since most elites find themselves in politically uncharted territory, it is difficult for them to gage public opinion. This is made more difficult by the widespread absence of “perceivable” public opinion that marks a new democracy. The leadership present during the transition would carry the greatest sway based on its leadership or position as representative of a particular group or by virtue of both personal charisma and office charisma (ex. popular leader of a trade union). Thus, representation is based solely on this attachment. However, the options that are available for the structure of representation fall into broad categories:

214

C. M. BROWN

1. True Representation of Interests: This is where no lack of fit problem exists, and the interests of society are captured by the leadership group in that society. It is important to emphasize that interests are not static; therefore, for a regime to maintain its representativeness, it must be flexible to capture the changes in popular will. 2. Cooptation of Interests: This is where in the absence of political options, society identifies with a group or leader based on a preexisting corporatist or clientelist relationship. In other words, representation rests not as an expression of popular will but upon a separate arrangement that links support to the receipt of special conditions. 3. Non-Representation of broad societal interests: This is where society faces an absence of alternatives to the existing authoritarian structure and/or lacks the means to change it. Here, society’s interests are not being considered, or the popular will does not have a sufficient vehicle through which to form interests consistent with those in power and/or due to a lack of awareness or capacity to express the popular will. No political system is monolithic. The greatest likelihood is that a combination of the three types will coexist in any given system. Furthermore, no structure of representation will be able to capture the diverse interests of every citizen. It is not important here to discuss the necessity of representation over direct democracy, nor is it critical to delve into the intricacies of voter rationale. Of course, it makes the most sense to view these as “ideal” types of representation. The critical point is the basis upon which the citizen’s interests are being represented. This provides the connection between citizenship representation and democratic legitimacy and effectiveness. The “new” structure must have the ability to incorporate a multitude of demands upon it by an increasing array of actors without radically changing its nature. Therefore, those elements within society must deem the system to be malleable and that it at least offers avenues for addressing grievances. An example of this may be most clearly seen in cases where a loyal political opposition works within the existing structure with the intention of changing its policy outcomes. At this point in the democratization process, the political system is in full transition. Phase One captures the breakdown of the authoritarian regime, the transition toward democracy, and the establishment of the

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

215

basic structure of representation that will constitute the political society at the completion of the transition. Democratic failure during Phase One is usually attributed to an aborted transition (which would signal a change to another, nondemocratic regime), authoritarian retrenchment (where the authoritarian regime has reasserted itself as the political regime), or wishful thinking (where an authoritarian regime simply undergoes selfcorrection that fails to lead to democratization, i.e., liberalization). Once a political regime has completed its transition to democracy, it can then continue to Phase Two; here, the basic rules are codified, and political learning is diffused beyond elites. It is important to note here that there is nothing in this conceptualization that requires one phase to lead to another. In other words, democratization may or may not be linear. Phase Two: Honeymoon/Learning Phase In the immediate aftermath of the establishment of a new democratic political regime, expectations are high, and there should be a good deal of confidence among those who have constructed this regime. There will be a period of accommodation to the new system, with the caveat that after a short while the quality of life of society overall will improve. People, especially elites, do not initiate change with the expectation of worsening their position. Because of the electricity of what is hoped to be a positive change, the sense is often one of patient anxiety. Phase Two signifies that the basic rules of the game have been identified and established and that they are providing direction for the democratic transition. The earlier attempts by the new ruling elites to garner support for the rules of the game are codified at this time. Members of the ruling coalition, usually those who negotiated the transition to democracy, must now acquire democratic political legitimacy as a substitute for earlier nondemocratic or nonexistent foundations for legitimacy that were inherited from the failed regime. This is often easier to do than anticipated. As a result of their political influence in the transition (and perhaps prior to the transition, if they were soft-liners), these groups have put themselves in a very advantageous position in the new regime. As such, these groups have the political resources and support to survive the transition, the entitlements of having provided themselves a privileged position in the political economy of the new regime, and the added benefit of a “honeymoon period.” The honeymoon period provides a special type of partial immunity for those missteps that commonly plague

216

C. M. BROWN

a new regime or administration. The ability to overlook these issues is usually by virtue of regime popularity due to electoral victory as well as the expectation that learning a new job takes time (especially since the new regime is often inheriting the structure and problems of the previous regime). It is during Phase Two that institutionalization of the political rules begins. It is in the preliminary stages of a completed transition that political legitimacy and regime effectiveness are first assessed. As a result of the honeymoon period, most societies might anticipate stagnation or a temporary setback in the quality of political society as the transition occurs, especially while the new regime is in its infancy. However, in no way does the idea of a honeymoon period minimize the expectations placed upon the idea of democracy by the members of a political society. These expectations can put extraordinary pressure on nascent regimes if they are not addressed. The flip-side of providing hope is resentment when that hope turns to disenchantment.10 The period of patient anxiousness gives a particular urgency to those elites in power to guide the early democratic regime in a way that inspires confidence and work to improve the lives of the citizenry (or, to at least give the appearance that it is working to this end, as the necessary basis for support in a democratic regime). As a result of the tumult of the early going, many groups who were initially opposed to the transition to democracy (elements of the ancien régime who lost during the transition, military, nobility, or rural landowners) and/or groups who are not represented or underrepresented in the new regime (groups who sought a more equitable redistribution of goods, peasant groups, etc.) may take the opportunity to attempt to assert (or reassert) themselves by demonstrating the ineffectiveness of democracy to deliver upon its promises. If these groups can exhibit sufficient pressure upon a nascent democracy, they must be managed carefully. These groups may be dealt with forcefully. However, while this may be a politically expedient solution, it does not serve to promote democracy as a practice. While nondemocratic elements will always be present in each political system, the need for a regime to manage those rests upon the degree to which they threaten the regime. Historically, democracies have not shied from the use of force in the face of threatening nondemocratic enemies. During a transition to democracy, elements who reject compromise are often excluded for the sake of moderate interests. Considering the successful transition by these more moderate elements, groups that

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

217

are in the extremes are often induced to either resist through increasingly nondemocratic methods (i.e., violence or terrorism) or they may be pursued to re-engage their opponents in the political system through constitutional measures. Often, those groups that can exert sufficient pressure on a political system to demand attention from those in power can be pursued to support democratic stability through an expansion of privilege. As such, the structure of representation is changed (but not permanently) where possible to accommodate newly enfranchised groups. New groups may arise as new circumstances arise, or as new interests become manifest. They may become organized organically or by allowing special legislation. Alternatively, new groups may be old enemies that have become neutralized by sanctions or inducements to support the new regime (or at least not work against it). In these situations, the structure of representation must be inclusive enough to capture the more urgent demands of these newly politicized groups. Oftentimes, this inclusion takes the form of co-option by existing political stakeholders. Groups that stand to challenge the privileged position of the democratic elite (those stakeholders who have conducted the transition to democracy and have ensured their demands are met at the outset) are not usually easily adopted into the new democracy. Usually, their interests are anathema to those of the new regime, precisely because they were the winners in the previous structure who were overthrown. In addition, counterrevolutionary forces may arise from those who feel that the concessions made to the old guard during a transition were too high a price to pay, thereby stymieing the revolution before it can succeed. In either case, extremists are often difficult to reconcile without a combination of coercion and/or accommodation. Another major consideration at this stage is that it signals the beginning of political learning. This political learning usually begins with elite negotiations during the transition period and continues into early democracy and beyond. It is only when the democratic structure that was negotiated at the transition goes “live” that elites can see the results of their negotiation. Their reaction to their own creation is just as critical to democratic stability as moderating extremists. If one of the major players in the elite negotiations feels that their interests have been neglected or marginalized in the new political regime, they may maintain enough support to threaten the entire enterprise. Thus, it is important for the political regime to honor the elements in the negotiated settlements that provide for stability and the new regime’s survival. Consequently, the

218

C. M. BROWN

pact takes on additional importance. Not only does it form the basis for compromise among diverse (and competing) interests, to hold onto the advantage that they have constructed in the form of a new regime, they must continue to pay homage to the arrangements that form the basis of this regime (the pact). An essential element that may not actively concern the elite is that Phase Two provides for the diffusion of political learning for the political society at large. The concepts of citizenship are inculcated among political stakeholders, and the expansion or restriction of public goods serves to form (or reform) political opinion. It is important that this early political socialization plays a significant role in the future political education of the citizenry. As the citizenry interacts with the political institutions of the regime, it serves to cultivate political attitudes that will help to determine the viability of the regime overall. Political loyalties, rules, and democratic political culture are being learned in this phase.11 This is mirrored in the structure of representation. Political learning offers citizen opportunities to reflect on their political affiliations. Those groups with the greatest ability to capture voters’ interests can occupy a greater share of the political landscape, thereby further reinforcing their position. The structure of representation still occupies the three types above (true representation, cooptation, and non-representation); however, there should be a shift in allegiances as people gain experience with the new political environment. Whether people shift to a belief that their interests are being represented rests upon whether they come to view this new regime as legitimate and they see themselves as either loyal or as members of a loyal opposition. This may be affected by circumstances, changing structural forces, and/ or changing values, as interests are not fixed. What is under scrutiny is the appropriateness of whether the structure of representation affords for these views to be captured and respected. Phase Two signifies that a democratic transition has taken place. As such, a failure at this stage can be mourned as more than simply a failure or aborted transition toward democracy. Failures in the aftermath of a completed transition are those considered failed democratic experiments. The main criterion here rests upon the recognition that what has failed is clearly a regime that is a stage of post-transitional political development. Regimes that survive this initial period of political learning move into the new phase where the rules of the game become more deeply embedded and political allegiance becomes more clearly defined.

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

219

Phase Three: Institutionalization Achieving Phase Three clearly demonstrates that the rules of the game are considered as established and that they are being followed by those in political society who are willing to participate. At this point in a nascent democracy’s political development, willing participants in a democratic regime are those who can be considered either loyal to the regime and/ or those members of the loyal opposition to the regime. Participation and support of political regimes rest upon the three elements of the structure of representation above. In a democratic regime, the degree to which these structures are reflected in the political regime provides an indication of the quality of democratic regime. In Phase Three, earlier issues of legitimacy may or may not have been managed. Regime effectiveness (i.e., the ability for the regime to meet the demands of the electorate) is now translated through the structure of representation. Charismatic leadership has either become institutionalized into a particular party mechanism and/or gained legitimacy through another mechanism. Political leadership now operates through organized political parties whose popularity and depth of support can be traced to the structure of representation. Nevertheless, the structure of representation is established, and it comes to define the political landscape. Democratic regimes fall into four categories based upon the structure of representation that they maintain (see below). The political viability of a democracy can be ascertained during the period of institutionalization. An analog in the democratization literature might be to label institutionalization consolidation. However, the manifestation of democratic purgatory requires an intermediate category between a completed transition and a realization of consolidation. This need is not simply semantically inspired as some device to categorize a substantive change in a transition from transition to consolidation, but because the elements that determine the feasibility of consolidation and give a clue as to what type of consolidation is possible can be determined during this phase. The stability of a democratic political regime is a function of its structure of representation. More specifically, the degree of adaptability is institutionalized in the structure of representation during this phase of democratization. The adaptability of a democracy rests upon the concepts of legitimacy and effectiveness often addressed in the literature. While this should not come as a great surprise to scholars of political

220

C. M. BROWN

theory or democratization, the literature fails to put legitimacy and effectiveness to use in relation to how democracies can break down through democratic means. Institutionalizing Instability The condition under which a democracy can fail through democratic means is a function of the type of democratic consolidation that is understood. Using a very rudimentary matrix, democracy can be identified as being one of four primary regimes based upon the citizen and the relationship they have with relations to their democracy.12 Democratic regimes can be institutionalized into one of the following four ideal types: A. Legitimate and Effective—dynamically stable → consolidated democracy—toward consolidation/deepening democracy B. Legitimate and Not Effective—unstable → change of government/ new ruling coalition—Transitional Democracy C. Effective and Not Legitimate—inertly stable → democratic purgatory → consolidation of undemocratic democracy D. Not Effective and Not Legitimate—unstable → “failed state” (where state lacks power to control)/tyranny (where state has power to control)/Civil War13 Proto-Democracy or Twilight Democracy (Table 9.1). Each of these four regime types has a corresponding viability, as well as a subsequent stage of development, which is intrinsically linked with its category. It is important to note that while these categories are mutually exclusive, democratic regimes can and do change categories throughout their development. Furthermore, it is important to reiterate that there is a clear difference between citizens’ relationship with the political regime and their relationship with a given government or administration. While they are related, they should not be confused in this context. A citizen may feel that a particular ruling administration is illegitimate and/or ineffective and yet their belief in the legitimacy and effectiveness of the regime is unaffected. The critical feature for this context is the relationship between a citizen and his/her regime as a function of the structure of representation. In other words, a modern democracy is based upon the popular sovereignty of the citizenry as interpreted through the structure

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

221

Table 9.1 Democratic Regime Types Regime Legit.? Eff.? Stability type A

Yes

Yes

B

Yes

No

C

No

Yes

D

No

No

Consolidation Trajectory type

Dynamically Consolidated Deepening Stable Democracy Democracy Unstable None Change of Government/ New Ruling Coalition Inertly Democratic Consolidation Stable Purgatory of Undemocratic Democracy Unstable None Failed State (where state lacks power to control) Tyranny (where state has power to control) Civil War (where balance of power between state and opposition is even)

Potential stages Democratic Consolidation Transitional Democracy

Democratic Breakdown (through Democratic Means) Proto-Democracy (in earliest stage of democratic transition) OR Twilight Democracy (in final stage of democratic failure)

of representation that reflects these interests; the stability of a democratic regime is based upon how legitimate and/or effective this structure is in reflecting this core requirement. This breakdown claims that no additional definitional requirements are necessary for constituting democracy than presently exist in the literature. Judgment need not be passed on whether these are democratic regimes: they are assumed to be democracies that have completed a transition to democracy.

Democratic Regime Types Type A: Legitimate and Effective (Toward Consolidated Democracy) All democratic regimes should seek to attain the status of Type A Democracies. This democratic regime is widely seen as both legitimate and effective by its citizenry. Type A regimes are seen as legitimate because

222

C. M. BROWN

they maintain values that citizens believe are intrinsically good or at least citizens have faith that the existing regime is the best possible regime for their political system. Type A regimes are effective because they provide for the highest degree of citizenship satisfaction based on the demands of the electorate. It is important to clarify that not everyone’s demands will be met all the time, nor should it be assumed that each citizen will be satisfied with whatever share of the demands that they may receive. Effectiveness in this context rests upon citizens’ expectation that the democratic regime is an effective means for translating their demands into policy outcomes. In other words, the citizens of a political system believe that the present regime offers the best opportunity for having a fair chance of having their demands met. Type A regimes are “dynamically stable” because democracy itself is inherently dynamic. Borrowing a term from the nautical/aerospace fields, dynamic stability is an excellent way to think of the essence of democracy. Dynamic stability is a condition wherein the general form of the political system remains resistant to drastic change, yet its contents remain in a constant state of flux. As such, the degree of effectiveness of a given population is likely to fluctuate by degree over time. This is due to the pluralistic composition of political society. Thus, it can be argued that Type A regimes are dynamically stable; change is not usually a dramatic upheaval, the structure of representation is upheld, and the rules of the game are followed. Furthermore, rule changes require the (tacit or expressed) consent of all stakeholders (or at least a well-defined majority), i.e., they follow the definitional guidelines of constitutional democracy. Regimes that achieve Type A status and can maintain it will continue to democratic consolidation (Phase Four). However, proceeding to democratic consolidation is not unidirectional. While Type A regimes are dynamically stable, they do not have immunity to the world in which they operate. It is quite possible that in the face of extreme pressures, Type A regimes will suffer a decline in democratic quality to the point of losing their basis for legitimacy. This may occur through prolonged strains on the mechanisms for legitimacy (ex. sudden disputes over core notions of citizenry or founding ideologies that cannot be resolved and lead to polarization of the electorate) or effectiveness (ex. prolonged and profound economic strain that leads public goods to operate more like private goods). In either of these cases, where regime legitimacy or effectiveness is strained for an extended period, it is

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

223

possible that Type A regimes will suffer a decline in the quality of their democracy that may initiate a shift to another regime type. In the face of protracted system strain, the avenue for regime change for a Type A regime is to a Type B regime. The more difficult conviction to attain and to diminish would be citizens’ faith in the legitimacy of the regime. If citizens believe that a system is legitimate, they are more likely to endure temporary setbacks due to ineffectiveness. However, if no legitimacy exists, periods of ineffectiveness lead to a rapid withdrawal of support for the regime. Type B: Legitimate and Not Effective (Transitional Democracy) Type B regimes are legitimate, but they are not effective because they fail to meet electorate demands. Not all regimes will always exhibit effectiveness since, although what we are addressing are political issues or the politics of meeting electorate demands, often these are manifest in political economy terms. Given a global capitalist-based economy, there are always elements that defy regulation and therefore cannot be controlled at an optimal condition at all times. It may be that a Type B regime arises because of a prolonged economic crisis. Type B regimes may also appear over a period of ineffective rule, where elected officials make policy decisions that are unpopular or arbitrary, and the effect over time of this ineffective leadership affords people to support the democratic regime as legitimate but the means of meeting demands as ineffective. Type B regimes are inherently unstable, both by virtue of being dynamic (owing to the legitimacy of democracy and its inherent dynamism) and due to the ineffectiveness of the regime to meet demands. Democratic regimes cannot maintain themselves in a position of ineffectiveness for long without suffering a loss of legitimacy. Since the representation of citizen interest forms the basis of the regime, where the regime is ineffective in representing these interests over time, the basis of the regime’s legitimacy fades. Strategies for Type B regimes to acquire (or reacquire) the requisite need for effectiveness can take common forms. Due to the intrinsic legitimacy afforded to Type B regimes, they have constitutional means through which to reinforce regime effectiveness, including constitutional turnovers of government, often seen as anti-incumbent, policy changes). Alternatively, Type B regimes can initiate uncivil attempts at change, such as blaming others (scapegoating) and nationalism (xenophobia). The degree

224

C. M. BROWN

of civility that has historically been witnessed has unfortunately been less a function of civilization and more a function of resource scarcity. Ultimately, Type B regimes can become Type A regimes if they can resolve to establish an appropriate structure of representation. However, it is likely also that people will become disillusioned by a democratic political regime that fails to deliver on its representation requirement, leading to a Type B regime shifting to a Type D regime (not effective and not legitimate). To transition to a Type A regime, Type B regimes must resolve the issue of a lack of effectiveness through a change in the structure of representation and/or be the beneficiary of external support or a phenomenon that provides temporary relief or convenient distraction. For example, a regime that already maintains a healthy degree of legitimacy that discovers a lucrative resource that can be employed to facilitate regime effectiveness. What is important in this example, however, is that the temporary windfall is used to set up conditions where the regime can be effects going forward, even after the immediate effects of the windfall are spent. It is the “lack of fit” of citizen demands and the effective means for them being conducted (i.e., the structure of representation) that causes a Type B regime to be inherently unstable. As such, Type B regimes cannot proceed directly to democratic consolidation because they are not fully democratic: since democracy rests upon the demands of the electorate, i.e., representation, then the regime must either reorganize itself to gain effectiveness (become Type A), or the regime will ultimately lose what legitimacy it currently has through a failure to satisfy public expectations of democracy, and it will fall into the Type D regime. In this regard, it is most appropriate to view Type B democracies as being a transitional regime. Type C: Effective, But Not Legitimate (Democratic Purgatory) Type C regimes are effective because they can meet the demands of the electorate. However, they are not legitimate because they do not possess an intrinsic legitimacy afforded to the political regime. The regime is supported only because it is effective in delivering on electorate demands, not for its own value. In other words, the legitimacy of the political regime is conditional: political legitimacy is granted only as a function of effectiveness. If a political regime can maintain a sufficient degree of effectiveness in meeting citizen demands, the regime can remain in power.

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

225

The primary means through which a Type C regime can provide for effectiveness is through a distribution of material goods. It would be unexpected for a Type A regime to lose its legitimacy yet maintain its effectiveness and transition to a Type C regime. It would be equally unexpected (though neither is impossible) for a Type B regime to lose its legitimacy while concurrently acquiring a sufficient degree of effectiveness and transitioning to a Type C regime. Far more common would be that Type D regimes, as proto-democratic regimes (see below), would acquire a means to establish a sufficient degree of effectiveness that fails (at least initially) to extend to a corresponding degree of legitimacy. However, Type C could offer a very reasonable path to a Type A regime provided that the effectiveness helps build a corresponding sense of legitimacy that comes to stand on its own over time. Thus, Type C regimes can facilitate the stand-alone legitimacy required of Type A regimes.14 Despite the best laid plans of modernization scholarship, the far more likely experience has shown that an intrinsic form of political legitimacy is much harder to cultivate than once thought. An intrinsic basis for political legitimacy means that the citizenry of the regime believes that the existing political regime is inherently “good” (i.e., the regime is seen as endogenously legitimate). Furthermore, the elements that can promote legitimacy have proven much less capable of validating real legitimacy to the regime that they have established. Type C regimes are most often the product of a democratic transition that has created a structure of representation that rests upon the distribution of public goods as if they are private goods. Type C regimes are established as follows: Prior to and including the transition period, political leadership requires the construction of a coalition that will support the embryonic political formula to gain sufficient support for the creation of a new political regime. Support for a democratic transition is often gained by ensuring that the demands of elite stakeholders are secured in the process. Elements in society that function as direct participants in the establishment of a democratic political system can maintain their position in the new order through an expansion of their ability to meet popular demands through corporatist arrangements. To the extent that these powerful groups can continue to deliver on political demands, their positions remain stable. Thus, Type C regimes rest upon arrangements that are corporatist in nature, i.e., they are characterized by clientelist and/or exclusionary allegiances, maintained by patronage, and where necessary corruption.

226

C. M. BROWN

Type C regimes are surprisingly stable, which allows them to consolidate a structure of representation that is not entirely democratic in nature. Whereas in Type A regimes, democracy is considered dynamically stable, Type C regimes could be described as “inertly stable.” As a result of the elite stakeholders’ ability to maintain allegiances based upon their effectiveness in meeting electorate demands, the political regime can consolidate if these demands are met. Because Type C regime effectiveness is a function of the underlying political economic configuration of corporatist institutions that influence policy, the regime can maintain itself in power. The effectiveness of these corporatist arrangements can be found in the corresponding structure of representation that is reflective of these arrangements. If the major elite stakeholders and their respective organizations can distribute group demands to support their constituents, the regime maintains its stability. These regimes are threatened by new demands or an unexpected downturn in the ability to deliver on electorate demand. Group demands that cannot be assimilated into the existing configuration must either be co-opted (included) or neutralized (exclusion).15 This may be further driven by new group demands because of rising expectations due to the regime’s effectiveness. If people perceive the regime as effective, this may contribute to additional demands. In addition, the transition to democracy often has a corresponding expectation that new group demands will be satisfied. If these expectations are left unfulfilled, regime survival is not long-lived. In addition, external pressures that inhibit the regime’s ability to meet the obligations of these corporatist arrangements threaten to initiate a democratic breakdown.16 As such, the stability of this system relies upon the maintenance of these corporatist arrangements. Since the effectiveness of the regime rests upon its ability to maintain existing corporatist networks, regime survival prefers the status quo. As such, the degree of effectiveness of a given Type C regime is unlikely to fluctuate gradually over time; thus, the system is said to be “inertly stable.” If the corporatist networks that form the basis for regime effectiveness fail, Type C democracies can become Type D regimes. While Type C regimes tend to be exclusive, significant threats to regime effectiveness must be absorbed into the political system, if for no other reason than to be defused. Strategies of Type C regimes to accommodate new pressure group demands include cooptation, enfranchisement through an

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

227

expansion of corporatist arrangements, and the widening of the structure of representation to accommodate diverse interest groups. Type C regimes will often become “catch all” regimes attempting to incorporate diverse and often opposing group interests to maintain the stability of the regime. While this institutional structure of Type C democracies is less than fully representative, the effectiveness of employing corporatist arrangements to meet demands obscures the underlying crisis of legitimacy within the structure. Thus, political legitimacy is exogenous: regime legitimacy is granted only because of regime effectiveness. While corporatist groups may serve to facilitate social mobilization during the establishment of democratic regimes, they do so only thus far as they can maintain social control of in-group membership without fully providing for representative democracy. Once institutionalized, corporatist arrangements provide for a “democratic purgatory”: democracy is not fully representative, yet it is not completely unresponsive to the demands of the electorate. It is only when the demands of the electorate cannot be met (loss of effectiveness) that the corporatist structure reveals its nondemocratic character (loss of legitimacy). However, if regime effectiveness is maintained, and the condition of democratic purgatory persists, the stability of Type C regimes allows them to continue democratic consolidation, despite the undemocratic basis of legitimacy. Democratic purgatory produces a paradox whereby democracy can be undemocratic under certain conditions and that these undemocratic democracies can undergo democratic consolidation because of their stability due to regime effectiveness. Thus, democratic purgation exists as a condition whereby democratic consolidation can occur. Type D: Not Effective and Not Legitimate (Proto-Democracy or Twilight Democracy) All democratic regimes begin (and may end) as Type D regimes. Type D regimes are not effective in meeting the demands of the electorate and are also not legitimate. At the beginning, elite stakeholders seek to create a democratic regime whereby they construct the rules of the game that they wish to play. These rules form the basis of democratic legitimacy and create the structure of representation for determining regime effectiveness. Regimes that transition from authoritarian rule must begin as Type D regimes. Once the rules for legitimacy and the structure of

228

C. M. BROWN

representation are established, Type D regimes must encourage political learning, first among elites and then among new democratic citizens. It is only when these rules are identified, established, and disseminated can the degree of legitimacy and/or effectiveness of a democracy be measured. While Type D regimes are always transitional regimes, they need not exist only at the transition from authoritarian rule. Type D regimes can coalesce as the first step toward nondemocratic rule. Since transitions are not unidirectional, Type D regimes can occur as a failure of either Type B or Type C regimes. Type D regimes are the waystation on the road to or from democracy. They are a place of reassessment and recreation of the rules in each political society. As such, they too are inherently unstable. Where the elite stakeholders of the regime hold the ability to control and/or coerce the electorate, Type D regimes descend into tyranny. Where the stakeholders of the regime do not hold the ability to control and/or coerce the electorate, Type D regimes descend into failed states. Where the stakeholders and the electorate have similar capacities to control and/or coerce, Type D regimes can descend into civil unrest, anarchy, and/or civil war because of the contestation of political control and rules. All these options yield a failure of democracy out of a democracy of inferior quality. While it might be hard to ascribe the label “democracy” to a Type D regime, it is important to see Type D regimes as short-lived stages either on the way toward democracy (as a proto-democratic stage) or just before a democratic failure (nominally democratic prior to collapse).

Phase Four: Consolidation of Regime Types All the regime types listed above rest upon this matrix of legitimacy and effectiveness as an indicator of the quality of the democracy and the degree of stability that each is afforded based upon that quality. The viability of these regime types lends further proof to their capacity for consolidation. As stated above, Type B and Type D regimes cannot be consolidated because they are inherently unstable forms of democracy. Type D regimes are democratic in the sense that the rules for democracy must have a forum for debate, and as such, Type D regimes exist as democratic waypoints for rules, institutions, and the structure of representation to be outlined and evaluated. Type D regimes can be the realm of aborted attempts at achieving Type A or Type C regimes as well. Thus, Type D regimes allow a place where states can still be thought of as democratic

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

229

and yet “going back to the drawing board” to redeploy itself in pursuit of institutionalizing democracy. Type B regimes are also inherently unstable. Ultimately, Type B regimes fail to meet the basic requirement of democracy: meeting the demands of the electorate. They lack a structure of representation that typifies democratic regimes. The instability of Type B regimes exists due to the inability to maintain that condition: over time, a lack of effectiveness will erode regime legitimacy through increased competition for limited resources coupled with the disillusionment of empty promises. Thus, Type B regimes require a more representative structure of representation for effectiveness (becoming Type A), or they will lose political legitimacy (becoming Type D). Therefore, regarding consolidated democracies, Type B and Type D democracies are ineligible for consolidation. In other words, to consolidate, they require an additional transition. Consolidation is only possible where the regime type is stable. Thus, only two types of regimes can be said to be eligible for consolidation, Type A and Type C regimes, primarily because “stability breeds stability.”17 Regarding stability, Type A regimes may be the most dynamic in operation, but this dynamism is encapsulated in a stable political framework. Consolidation then is the further institutionalization of political rules, the deepening of institutions, and the internalization of these rules upon and within the members of the political society. Consolidation as a phase occurs when members of the political society of Type A cannot envision attempting to work outside the existing political order to create a better regime. Consolidation occurs when members of the political society of Type A regimes recognize not only that “democracy is the only game in town” but also that the only way to improve the quality of Type A democracy is to realign the structure of representation as required by the dynamism of the regime type itself.18 It is important to note that there is no such thing as a “consolidated democracy” as an end state of political development. This is due to the dynamic stability required of democracy. The most consolidated democracy is to never stop consolidating. The consolidation of Type A regimes is the type of democracy that is assumed in the literature on democratization that goes beyond electoralism and embracing the broader, abstract conceptualization found in the literature. Recall, for example, Linz and Stepan’s (1996) definition embracing the behavioral, attitudinal, and constitutional.19 This definition offers thick protection against a consolidated democracy being

230

C. M. BROWN

susceptible to a breakdown. And yet, the authors suggest that consolidated democracy could breakdown, not as a result of weakness or problems related to the “specific historic process of democratic consolidation per se, but to a new dynamic in which the democratic regime cannot solve a set of problems, a nondemocratic alternative gains significant supporter, and former democratic regime loyalists begin to behave in a constitutionally disloyal or semi loyal way.”20 Moreover, there is no single form of consolidated democracy. As the heuristic cases discussed in this work have shown, there is another type of consolidated democracy: one defined by democratic purgatory democracy. It is a direct consequence of the historic process of both transition and consolidation that has created the conditions that consolidated democracies can fail through democratic means. The literature on democratization has been remarkably successful in addressing democratic breakdowns in consolidated democracies when they have occurred outside of democratic means. Democratization focuses on a particular type of democratic regime that can only be brought down by forces that are nondemocratic. However, the heuristic case study has revealed that democratic breakdowns can occur under conditions that do not include nondemocratic or external pressures. Discomforting as it may be to scholars of democracy, a consolidated democracy can fail through democratic means. Consolidated democracies fail through democratic means when they are in a condition of democratic purgatory. Consolidating Democratic Purgatory Regimes The inert stability of the corporatist institution that provides for regime effectiveness also allows Type C regimes to be consolidated. This is the paradox of democratic purgatory. A type of nondemocratic democracy can become consolidated. While the regimes that suffer from democratic purgatory appear to represent the interests of the electorate, the electorate fails to attach an intrinsic faith in the legitimacy of the regime itself. It is only when the effectiveness of the regime fails that the absence of democratic legitimacy manifests itself and the regime breaks down. However, the effectiveness of the regime provides a basis for support that is contingent on the arrangements at the core of the regime. If those elite stakeholders who comprise the key players in this arrangement can continue to maintain the primary elements of this arrangement, effectiveness can continue to substitute for legitimacy. Thus, the inert stability

9

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

231

of the democratic purgatory breeds the stability that promotes further consolidation. Consolidation in Type C regimes (under democratic purgatory) follows the same as in Type A (consolidated democratic) regimes; however, the difference between regime types rests upon their basis of political legitimacy: in Type A regimes, political legitimacy is endogenous. In Type C regimes, regime legitimacy rests upon regime effectiveness. In the literature on democratization, when scholars address consolidated democracies and/or the breakdown of democracies, the ideal type that is under discussion is often assumed to be one resembling a Type A regime. However, the corporatist arrangements that provide the core of the Type C regimes, in addition to providing for initial stability during the democratic transition, can generate a particular institutional framework that is very resistant to change. Coalitions present at the creation of a democratic political regime facilitate the conditions for democratic purgatory (unintentionally, one hopes) to maintain their position in political society through corporatist arrangements. Regime effectiveness offers a guarantee to the success of these arrangements, and this success promotes stability and thus a further consolidation of these corporatist arrangements as the core institution that manages the democratic regime. This is especially true during the learning period of the transition; whereby political rules are being inculcated among members of the political society. The institutionalization phase further promotes this consolidation. Thus, an undemocratic form of democracy can be consolidated under the right conditions if those values are promoted as “democratic.” It is important to note here, however, that the inert stability of the Type C democratic purgatory is not a permanent condition. Change, when it occurs, is usually extremely dramatic and unsettling as the very foundations are called into scrutiny. It may take decades to reveal itself, but the “lack of fit” issue arises because of the structure of representation being unable to be maintained due to the absence of an endogenous basis for political legitimacy. The lack of fit must be corrected, or the support for the political regime will be eroded over time. The rejection of a political regime can occur even more rapidly in periods of reduced effectiveness (economic downturn/fundamental changes to the core arrangements). Type C regimes may appear stable, and they will appear stable in their month-to-month operation; however, it is this stability that only worsens the collapse that must come when the regime is revealed to be illegitimate.

232

C. M. BROWN

Notes 1. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1981), 64. 2. Graeme Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization: Elites, Civil Society, and the Transition Process (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 238–239. 3. Lipset, Political Man, 64. 4. Ibid. 5. Given this definition, it can be said that the United States has been a constitutional republic for its entire political history. However, it can only be thought of a liberal constitutional republic at late as the Civil Rights legislation of 1965. The process of removing the exclusion of groups based on arbitrary restrictions (race, gender, wealth, etc.) extends the franchise of the natural laws of humanity and is of rather recent establishment in the history of the world. 6. Since we are discussing democratization, the assumption is that we are in fact transitioning toward a democracy, however with the full understanding that this is not always the intent, nor the expressed goal of regime change. 7. This is one of the reasons why it has been suggested that democracies do not occur as a goal, but as a consolation to those who lack the power to rule as authoritarians. This has a basis in liberal political theory. Natural law allows us to do whatever we want to do if we do not infringe on other humans’ natural rights. Therefore, the freedom of nature is also tempered by the obligations of nature. Since this alone is not enough to save us from the inconveniences (from Locke) of a state of nature guided by natural law, humans construct a government. The establishment of a government that serves to reinforce natural law becomes a necessary consolation to the autonomy granted in the state of nature. See John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C.B. Macpherson (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1980). 8. It is important to note that different groups may form, collapse and reform during a transition. It is not always those groups that initiated the breakdown of an authoritarian regime that hold sway in the period of reconstitution of a political regime. Transitions are full of uncertainty and there is little guarantee that interests entering a transition will be the same as those exiting a transition. 9. See Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, eds. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford UP, 1958), for a discussion of charismatic leadership. Charisma only goes thus far; at some point, leadership must deliver tangible resources. 10. O’Donnell captures the spirit of disenchantment in his elaboration of a system that he calls “Bureaucratic Authoritarianism.” See Guillermo O’Donnell, “Toward an Alternative Conceptualization of South American

9

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19. 20.

DEMOCRATIC PURGATORY

233

Politics,” in Promise of Development: Theories of Change in Latin America, eds. Peter F. Klarén and Thomas J. Bossert (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), 239–275. These habits may also be inculcated over time. The key point is that political rules of the game are being disseminated to the wider political system and that the norms surrounding them are being followed. It is interesting, although not surprising that a similar matrix was employed by Lipset to address a different, although not altogether unrelated issue. See Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1981). See Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1988). This essentially is the main argument in favor of modernization-based (or socioeconomic-led democratization) paths for building democracy. See also “The Lipset Thesis” in Seymour Martin Lipset, “Values, Education, and Entrepreneurship,” in Promise of Development: Theories of Change in Latin America, eds. Peter F. Klarén and Thomas J. Bossert (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), 39–75. The core argument in the modernization literature can be most closely seen in the Developmental State Model. The bureaucratic authoritarian regimes of Latin America that arose in response to the populist demands of a newly politicized urban working class were the result of a failure of the underlying structure of representation to manage the new group demands. In addition to economic downturns, states that are forced to undergo structural adjustment often suffer political turmoil precisely because the legitimacy of the state rests upon these arrangements. Dismantling these arrangements serves to dismantle the legitimacy of the political regimes of these states. Juan J. Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Re-Equilibrium. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 8. Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1996), 5. Linz & Stepan, 5–6. Ibid., 6 (italics original).

234

C. M. BROWN

Bibliography Brown, Christopher M. Introduction to International Studies. Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt, 2016. Gill, Graeme. The Dynamics of Democratization: Elites, Civil Society, and the Transition Process. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Linz, Juan J. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and ReEquilibrium. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Lipset, Seymour Martin. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1981. ———. “Values, Education, and Entrepreneurship,” In Promise of Development: Theories of Change in Latin America, edited by Peter F. Klarén and Thomas J. Bossert, 39–75. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986. Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government, edited by C. B. Macpherson. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1980. Migdal, Joel S. Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1988. O’Donnell, Guillermo. “Toward an Alternative Conceptualization of South American Politics,” In Promise of Development: Theories of Change in Latin America, edited by Peter F. Klarén and Thomas J. Bossert, 239–275. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986. Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford UP, 1958.

CHAPTER 10

Conclusion: Representing the General Will

The Right to Govern This study began as an attempt to answer two main questions. The more general question asked, “why do democracies breakdown?” This is not a novel endeavor: the study of democratic breakdowns is one that has gained considerable attention in the discipline of the political sciences. As such, initial efforts to explain the breakdown of democracy reside in the comfortable milieu of political science. However, it was discovered that the existing explanations provided by the literature on democratic breakdowns assume that democracies fail through the efforts of nondemocratic forces that can overthrow the people’s representatives through the force of arms. In short, democratic breakdown is an act of violence committed by a nondemocratic opposition that can put itself into power at the cost of the existing democracy. Like the transitions from authoritarian regimes to democratic regimes, one concept of legitimacy is being substituted for a different concept. Democratic breakdowns are seen as violent struggles over perceptions of the right to govern (legitimacy); often, these struggles are concurrent with disputes over regime effectiveness. When shifts of this magnitude occur during a regime change, they are usually dramatic events. Considering the Venezuelan experience, it seems as although a gap exists in the current literature that fails to provide a path of democratic breakdown that occurs without the nondemocratic elements. The second

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3_10

235

236

C. M. BROWN

question sought to fill this gap by asking, “under what conditions might democracy fail through democratic means?”. It can be said that these sorts of transitions occur in minor forms during regular electoral politics as well. Candidates compete to earn the right to govern and the ability to redistribute public goods upon taking office as a condition of normal democratic procedures. Provided the rules governing these types of transitions are respected and they occur in a fair manner in accordance with the laws of a given political regime, the results are seen as legitimate. This is all part of the dynamism of representative democracy. Citizens express their preferences in the form of a candidate who best represents their own policy preferences. Where the rules of the game are followed, citizens elect candidates to office who serve to represent their interests. If a particular candidate fails to make good on his/ her promise to best represent the interests of his/her constituency, citizens have the right to recall that representative through a regular legal process. Normatively, the electoral process is the preferred method of recall in democratic politics. Democratic elections are usually adequate to manage the political demands of a political system deemed legitimate by an overwhelming majority of the citizenry.1 Under those circumstances that might require the removal of elected officials to any number of proscribed offenses to the public trust, legal measures provide another means for popular control over their representatives. Therefore, it can be said that democratic political contestation (i.e., the electoral process) is the key means to awarding legitimacy to the political regime, regardless of the policy preferences of the components of that regime. In other words, partisan political views do not affect regime legitimacy provided that those views are not a direct threat to the political regime. Thus, electoral politics also represent a struggle over the right to govern and the right to distribute public goods, like the notion of a regime transition. However, there are clear differences between a regime transition and the results of a political contest within a democratic regime. In the latter, the rules of the game are only subject to review in the abstract; legal transfers of power afford additional legitimacy to a political regime but do not usually determine core issues of a regime’s constitution. In the former, transitions between types of political regimes rest squarely on those questions of regime legitimacy. Transitions are disputes over regime legitimacy; elections are disputes over government (or administrative) legitimacy and/or government effectiveness, wherein questions of regime

10

CONCLUSION: REPRESENTING THE GENERAL WILL

237

legitimacy are once-removed. Democratic Purgatory provides the condition under which electoral contestations are mired in questions of regime survival manifest where an absence of regime legitimacy is found. In consolidated democracies, disputes over regime legitimacy are, as it were, “old news;” consolidation has provided for a citizenry that ascribes political legitimacy to a given regime type, regulating political contestation to the legal confines of electoral and/or constitutionally established practices. It is conceivable that nondemocratic forces, or those who reject the existing political regime as being illegitimate, would generate significant pressure to be able to overthrow the regime through nonconstitutional means. There are plenty of examples of democratic failures, failed democratic experiments, and democratic breakdowns illustrated throughout the literature of comparative politics. Democratic failures, even “breakdowns,” are easy to distinguish when they occur at the hands of nondemocratic forces that are all too willing to reject legal means to acquiring power. This is particularly true given that we can recognize their occurrence on account of their violent and stark contrast from what once was. What seems more unlikely is that forces that reject an existing regime as illegitimate would participate in the constitutional acquisition of power provided by the regime that they openly decry as being illegitimate.2 This is exactly what occurred in Venezuela. Democracy was overthrown through democratic means. The stability of a given political regime is contingent upon the degree of legitimacy that is afforded by those who are in control of that political regime. Intrinsically, political regimes remain stable because of the degree of legitimacy that the stakeholders of that regime afford to them. During normal democratic politics, citizens will participate in elections to promote a candidate who will best represent their interests and policy preferences. Political parties and other political entities provide the usual conduit through which citizen interest is aggregated and translated into policy preference. By way of their participation in the political regime, these groups work together to reinforce a dual sense of legitimacy for the regime. The regime is given legitimacy by interest groups and/or political parties that participate in the politics of the regime. Thus, it is the regime’s participants that give legitimacy to the regime, which in turn bestows legitimacy on those groups to participate in that regime. Participation rests upon the degree to which those groups find the regime to be legitimate. The same is true for the membership of those groups; citizens participate as group members with the expectation that doing so will offer

238

C. M. BROWN

some sort of reward (or at least provide escape from sanctions that might arise from non-membership). During increased democratization, the demands of the electorate, translated through representative political organizations, will be met to ensure continued participation in the political regime. This demonstrates the utility of effectiveness in the stability of a particular regime. It is important, however, to recognize that electoral demands are far from static. As a political system develops over time, the political regime must be responsive to shifting demands. Where citizens come to believe that the political regime maintains a greater claim to rule outside of the instrumental provisioning of public goods, it gains added degrees of legitimacy. Over time, it is possible that the effectiveness of meeting electoral demands will be transferred into regime stability, which in turn will reinforce a form of political legitimacy to that regime. A critical distinction must be made between the concept of political legitimacy that maintains its own intrinsic basis of legitimacy and one that holds claim to legitimacy only, or even primarily, due to the degree to which it provides for instrumental demands.3 If a democratic political system can claim a political legitimacy that is intrinsic (i.e., distinct from the effectiveness of the system in meeting demands), then citizens will not readily defect to another form of legitimacy that is nondemocratic. However, where a democratic political system exists only (or primarily) based upon the degree to which that regime is deemed effective, then an inability or the unwillingness of the regime to meet electorate demands will provoke a corresponding defection of that democratic regime. In other words, democratic viability rests upon both legitimacy and/or effectiveness. Where democracy can establish a basis that is both legitimate and effective, where the legitimacy of the democratic political regime maintains an independent and intrinsic basis for legitimacy among the people, the result will be a “consolidated democratic regime” that is consistent with the expectations in the literature on consolidated democracies. Where the basis for the democratic regime exists primarily because of the degree to which the regime is said to be effective, the regime must find a way to extend this effectiveness into a form of political legitimacy whose source is independent from regime effectiveness. However, regimes based on pacted transitions can provide a necessary means for democratization, but alone, they are not a sufficient means to achieve it. Karl (1997) is correct in her recognition of the following:

10

CONCLUSION: REPRESENTING THE GENERAL WILL

239

Pacted democracies are established through elite bargains and compromises during the transition from authoritarian rule. They ensure their survival by selectively meeting demands while limiting the scope of representation to reassure traditional dominant classes that their vital interests will be represented.4

However, since all democratic transitions are based on some form of negotiated settlements or pacts (formal or informal), democratic transitions that yield democratic beginnings through elite pacts offer even less ground for a priori assumptions for democratic consolidation. What is critical is not stability per se but adaptability. While this may seem counterintuitive, it rests upon the nature of democracy itself: consolidated democracy is dynamic. Democracy is inherently a form of controlled chaos. Therefore, stability cannot be the goal of democratic transition but a particular form of stability that is dynamic. In other words, democracy is a political system that, at best, can only be dynamically stable. This type of stability rests upon adaptability. It has become somewhat of a buzzword in recent years to talk about democratic “backsliding” to describe any regime who seems to have lost its momentum for deepening democratic norms. In light of the stages of democratization, backsliding may mean different things in different contexts. Regimes that are in transition and/ or those who have recently transitioned into democracies and have been progressing toward consolidation often suffer backsliding as part of the dynamic processes inherent in cultivating all that is necessary to instill and normalize democratic processes. Democracy doesn’t advance on a steady pace, but through fits and starts and even re-starts. Backsliding is a normal part of the transition process. It is also a part of the consolidation process: scholars and practitioners who design and promote democratic institutions and norms must embrace the necessary vigilance to facilitate democratic progress. After consolidation, the concept of backsliding may not be as appropriate when addressing the flaws of democratic purgatory regimes, however. Stability for democratic purgatory regimes rest on the capabilities of those who uphold the regime to maintain their privileged position; democratic rules and processes exist because they serve the interests of the elites and bolster the governing pact. Backsliding in these regimes reveals that the governing elites are struggling to control the machinery of governance to their continued advantage. For democratic purgatory regimes, commitment to democracy is defined by the terms of the elite agreements and exists as a useful means for social control. The

240

C. M. BROWN

brittleness of these regimes demonstrates the limit of their commitment to democracy. However, it also illuminates the path for developing more meaningful and robust democratization. The viability of consolidated democratic regimes requires adaptability and a fundamental obligation for promoting the representation of the general will of its citizens. A consolidated democratic regime must be dynamically stable; it must retain the quintessential requirement of adaptability. Democracies are regimes that rest on popular sovereignty. In modern democracies, popular sovereignty is expressed through the structure of representation that exists in each political regime. Therefore, the viability of a democratic political regime rests upon the adaptability of the regime’s structure of representation. Venezuela provides an ideal heuristic case for what happens when democratic consolidation is heavily conditioned by a structure of representation that is rendered inflexible during the transition. Democratic Purgatory Regimes are consolidated democracies that have as their core constituency a set of corporatist elements that facilitate consolidation, but of a particular type. Venezuelan democracy was inclusive and yet maintained an appropriate structure of representation only for those forces that existed at the transition to democracy. Having learned from the experience during the Trienio period, the Pact of Punto Fijo established the rules of the democratic regime that were consolidated over the course of the next forty years. Venezuela was clearly a democracy; its political culture reflected its adherence to democratic values in its rejection of coup attempts and nonconstitutional power grabs. Nevertheless, the pattern of rule reinforced by Punto Fijo’s political culture was corporatist at its core. In and of itself, this is far from worrisome. However, the consolidation of a democratic regime that was inflexible to the demands of an electorate altered the raison d’être of democracy: instead of promoting the people’s best interests, it sought to preserve those interests that were vested within the regime. It can be said that any entity once created exists to perform two essential tasks. The first task is to address the problem that it was created to solve. The second task is self-preservation. Punto Fijo democracy consolidated a type of regime that prioritized the latter to govern Venezuela. The transition to democracy is no easy task. Pacts help to establish a basis for being a structure that will facilitate the transition. They are necessary elements to the foundation of any regime that requires compromise, as democracy does. The oil wealth encouraged sweeping the notion of a more truly representative regime “under the rug.” Each successive regime

10

CONCLUSION: REPRESENTING THE GENERAL WILL

241

found it increasingly difficult to correct the “lack of fit” between the will of the people and the existing structure of representation. Instead of reform, each administration gilded its brittle basis for democratic rule by throwing oil money (and later, foreign loans) at any problem. What was needed was for Venezuela’s democratic regime to gain a source of political legitimacy that fell outside of the effectiveness purchased through foreign debt and oil revenues. It was unable to reform because the basis of the regime in Venezuela was not a consolidated democracy but a democratic purgatory regime. In the absence of the capacity for reform, revolution was the only answer. What surprises the scholar of democratization is the method by which revolution came about. The breakdown of democracy in Venezuela came through democratic means. The democratic political culture that had been inculcated in Venezuela political society promoted democratic means for power acquisition; in other words, to be legitimate, leaders had to be elected through “free, open, and broadly participatory elections, held at regular legally mandated intervals with the results of those elections deemed as legitimate by the people and that this process is supported and enforced through established norms that are also seen as legitimate by the stakeholders of that political system.”5 Quite unexpectedly for a consolidated democracy like Venezuela’s, the revolution would have to come by democratic means. Beginning with the Pacts of Punto Fijo, Venezuela continued to consolidate its democratic regime, maintaining elevated levels of civic participation in elections held on a regular basis that were assumed to be free and fair. However, the apparent institutionalization of the Venezuelan democratic structure was undermined by its exclusiveness, limiting a political voice only to those who were incorporated into the political system through the complex party organizations. This system came under fire by groups in society who were not granted access to the privileged patronage system employed by the dominant parties. Initially, denied access, these disenfranchised groups were able to form linkages to other groups in society who felt that the exclusiveness and heavy-handed state patriarchy failed the Venezuelan people through patriarchal government arrangements and corruption. The inability of the Venezuelan state to maintain these networks, because of the decline in oil revenues, led to a lack of effectiveness of the structure, which facilitated a corresponding decline in legitimacy. As a result of structural adjustment measures, conditions worsened to the point of political collapse. Collapse came in the form

242

C. M. BROWN

of a loss of confidence in the democratic regime; however, Venezuelans maintained their political faith in democratic procedures. The disenfranchised coalesced around a political alternative to those associated with the traditional structure, and the “anti-politician” Hugo Chávez was elected to the Presidential Palace. With the adoption of a different constitution in 1999, the Punto Fijo democracy that was formerly assumed in Venezuela had broken down. The so-called “Bolivarian Revolution” was underway.

Situating the Study Within a Larger Context As its defined objective, the heuristic case study method analyzes a particular case in order to generate hypotheses intended to reach beyond the original subject of investigation. Consequently, the concern for a particular case shifts from a question of reliability to one of utility. The next step to expanding the utility of democratic purgatory as a concept can be found through a type of comparative methodology. Employing Eckstein’s “building block” technique offers a greater degree of confidence in the hypotheses gleaned from a limited number of cases.6 George (1979) argues that the “building block” approach of performing a series of heuristic case studies or a comparison of two or more is an excellent means to develop a theory because it allows the researcher to move beyond a single case and to analyze cases using the method of “controlled comparison.”7 As a means to establish a higher degree of confidence in one’s theoretical propositions, multiple cases can be considered, and the theory be built seriatim: One studies a case to arrive at a preliminary theoretical construct. That construct, based on a particular case, is unlikely to constitute more than a slim clue to a valid general model. One therefore confronts it with another case that may suggest ways of amending and improving the construct to achieve better case interpretation: and this process is continued until the construct seems sufficiently refined to require no further major amendment or at least to warrant testing by large-scale comparative study. Each step beyond the first can be considered a kind of disciplined-configurative study.8

In the attempt to understand under which conditions might democracies fail through democratic means”, this work has successfully drawn out the concept of democracy purgatory from the experience of Venezuela. To

10

CONCLUSION: REPRESENTING THE GENERAL WILL

243

build upon the theory, Colombia and Nicaragua’s own democratic purgatory regimes were outlined as well. The widest avenue for future research entails investigations of other political regimes that have similarly brittle and inertly stable democratic regimes. With the inclusion of more cases, democratic purgatory can be better understood.

Democratic Breakdowns Revisited As the final element in the democratization literature, democratic breakdowns represent the nightmare scenario for liberal theorists. Inherent in the notion of modernity and democratic theory (the two mainsprings from which democratization/transitions literature developed), there is a sense of linear progress that guides the human pursuit of selfactualization. Whereas liberalism and democratic theory are hard-pressed to explain the breakdowns of democracy once established, the democratization literature undertakes this line of inquiry to improve the conditions that inform it. Linz and Stepan explain the need for an examination of democratic breakdown by giving “direct systematic attention to the dynamics of the political process of breakdown.”9 They attempt to do this through “middle-level generalizations” based upon the perceived behavior of important participants in the midst of democratic breakdown in the hopes of providing some model outside of the local historical and environmental milieu that might serve as a descriptive and perhaps explanatory tool for better understanding why democracies breakdown.10 They argued that the contemporary literature emphasizes either the “emergence of nondemocratic political forces or the underlying structural strains that lead to the collapse of democratic institutions,” wherein the “impression of such works is that of a virtual inevitability of the breakdown of the democratic regimes under discussion.”11 Starting from the perspective that many past democratic breakdowns may not have been inevitable, they afford themselves the opportunity to investigate whether agents within the particular political system under scrutiny were able to exercise choices to prevent a collapse. The present project has been undertaken in the same spirit as that of Linz and Stepan but for a different reason. This work examines democratic breakdowns to tease out middle-level generalization that might serve as a launching point to deeper investigation (hence the employment of the heuristic as a research method). In addition, this work gives

244

C. M. BROWN

credence to the importance of the historical and environmental setting in which political systems are created and where they change, yet it seeks to draw broader lessons that might also serve as the basis for modeling democratic failure with the ultimate objective being to prevent future restrictions upon human liberty. The biggest difference between the spirit in which Linz and Stepan began their project, and this present effort is that of the scholarly climate to which they belong. In the late 1970s, democratic governance, seen in terms of liberal capitalist governance, was withering under the unrelenting charge of Soviet industrial and military progress. The ideological battleground was stained red with Marxist apologists, and the struggle over the future of the Third World meant everything for the future of the First and Second. A self-aware OPEC had found the ability to exercise its strength to demonstrate a critical need for the United States to reduce its reliance on foreign-controlled commodities. “Stagflation” was the new buzzword as the American economy slowed down and made concessions to a new Europe, Japan, and the other Asian dragons. Indeed, in the recoil felt from so many wasted years in Vietnam, it may have seemed as although democratic capitalism was a fad that was coming to an end. Since scholars are embedded within the societies in which they write, it is little wonder that writing at the end of the 1970s would view past breakdowns as inevitable. Linz and Stepan offer a possible methodological clue to the logic that constrained post-WWII research on regime stability. They argue that an emphasis on quantitative methods and new tools for statistical analysis and data collection have generated research that was inherently “static” and that failed to capture the “dynamic processes of crisis, breakdown and re-equilibrium of existing regimes or the consolidation of new ones.”12 As a result, research on prior democratic breakdowns would be either a still life or a postmortem. Furthermore, the studies of political stability and democratic breakdown conducted in the Cold War context may have been influenced either overtly or subconsciously by the philosophical perspectives of the authors. Nevertheless, the outcome of this scholarship “reflected postwar optimism about the durability of democracies, once established.”13 This is the legacy bequeathed to the scholarship on comparative democratization finds itself today. Despite the pessimism of the late 1970s, liberal democratic capitalism has undergone a renaissance culminating in the apparent liberal triumphalism championed by Fukuyama. The so-called “end of history” frames the present era, and these ideas provide the context for much

10

CONCLUSION: REPRESENTING THE GENERAL WILL

245

of the current thinking on democratization.14 What is different in today’s scholastic climate than the era from which Linz and Stepan wrote of democratic breakdowns is not that scholars have become overly pessimistic about the inevitabilities of democratic breakdowns but that they have become overly optimistic about the inevitability of democratic stability in those regimes where it is established. Optimism has waned to some degree regarding the ideal “liberal” variant of democracy, however. Therefore, any political regime that shows even the least modicum of democracy has too been often assigned a hyphenated description that affords it a share of democratic legitimacy. It is as if by wishful thinking alone, scholars can eliminate authoritarian rule. That is not to say that scholars believe that all political regimes will evolve into liberal democracies, but that democracy is so pervasive an ideal that, even if it is not perfect, it is still thought to be nominally sufficient to be “democratic.” If liberal theorists can be faulted for being idealistically narrow in their designation of liberal democracy, then scholarship on democratization errs by painting with an inappropriately wide democratic brush. Scholars who try to follow a fundamentalist version of liberal democracy are often accused of ignoring diversity or, worse, having an overt cultural bias. Alternatively, they might be dismissed due to the notion that the civics textbook blueprint of liberal democracy is impossible even in the most appropriate settings—marking any research plan that takes it as an end state as naïve and misguided. While all these criticisms have merit, throwing the baby out with the bathwater (i.e., saying that democracy is not practical or that it is based on a particular cultural or historical phenomenon, so that it can never be actualized) is a violation of the spirit of democracy. The belief in democracy as “the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”15 may function as a blinder to those who might work against humanity’s hope for a better world through tolerant politics. Therefore, it goes that as scholars, we must remind each other, if not ourselves, to step back and take account of reason through the eyes of others not so passionate about our project. Successfully carried out, our faith in democracy grows with wisdom and adaptability, and from this so too, does our ability to better study, advise, and assist those who choose to pursue a more truly democratic path. Democratic Purgatory is a paradox that provides for some measure of representation and yet is far from truly representative. The degree of

246

C. M. BROWN

representativeness of any democratic system must be adaptable enough to adjust to the appearance of new widespread demands. To improve the quality of democracy writ large, it is imperative to return to the notion of representation, with the goal being to eliminate as much as possible the gap between social demands and democratic representation.16 The issue of democratic stability rests primarily on the degree of representation that a political regime manifests as a function of the requisite dynamic stability inherent in consolidated democracies. Democratic purgatory means that democracies that lack this “dynamic stability” will eventually break down. If a democracy is to be recognized as a vehicle for popular sovereignty, then the key requirement that allows the political regime to regard itself as democratic rests upon the degree to which popular sovereignty is respected. The concept of popular sovereignty begins with the core liberal assumptions of the unalienable rights of humanity based on reason and the elevation of individual choice as the prime expression of this individualism. Living in society requires a preliminary obligation that restricts the freedom of choice, if only to prevent one individual’s freedoms from infringing upon another. Ideally, popular sovereignty is capped by the expansion of the liberal franchise of human rights and freedoms to all people within a political system. To make these conceptions tangible in modern political societies, the practical structure of representation is added to channel individual choices into societal demands that can be instituted in the form of the policy preferences of a civil government. This study is about reconceptualizing the necessary requirement of representation in democratic theory. Representation is, or should be, the basis for interpreting the meaning of “social justice” as well as how it is diffused in a democratic system. Alas, this is a subject for another book. It is a result of the socialization of earlier postwar generations who passed down their faith in the stability of established democracies that we have become forgetful of the adage attributed to President Thomas Jefferson that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Notes 1. No political system will have 100% compliance and legitimacy afforded to any political regime. Nevertheless, the vast majority of those who are politically active usually will provide a basis of legitimacy broad enough to maintain a political regime. This is the goal of consolidation.

10

CONCLUSION: REPRESENTING THE GENERAL WILL

247

2. This has happened elsewhere in unconsolidated democracies. Most recently, for example, the victory of Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in elections in the Palestinian Territories sent forces hostile to democracy to serve as the democratic governors. In addition, the events that immediately precipitated the Algerian Civil War of the early 1990s saw the anti-democratic forces of the FIS (Islamic Salvation Army) win free and fair elections. They were prevented from taking power by the military and the present democratic opportunity in Algeria was lost. Prima facie evidence would seem to imply that nondemocratic forces would not participate in democratic processes, and yet, they have. The "problem" with this scenario is that the electoral victory of nondemocratic forces does not bode well for the future of democracy. Furthermore, democrats are willing to encourage popular participation if their man wins. See Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004). What makes this phenomenon different from the Venezuelan breakdown, or from other Democratic Purgatory Regimes, is that neither Algeria nor the Palestinian Territories were truly democratic before these elections. 3. What comes to mind here is Russia under Putin. While there is an issue of how “democratic” Russia is beyond electoralism, it seems clear that much of Putin’s support can be found in his efforts to revitalize Russia, both economically and psychologically in the aftermath of their Soviet collapse and subsequent post-communist difficulties. He has been able to provide a measure of effectiveness, especially in relation to the previous economic turmoil. However, scholars must ask whether the Russian citizenry support democracy because it is intrinsically good (therefore legitimate) or because of some instrumental rationale. 4. Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), 93. 5. This was my definition from Chapter 2. 6. Harry Eckstein, Regarding Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), 143– 144. 7. Alexander L. George, “Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison,” in Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy, ed. Paul Lauren (New York, NY: Free Press, 1979), 52. 8. Eckstein further reminds the researcher, “It is important not to confuse the whole process with comparative study. The latter seeks regularities through the simultaneous inspection of numerous cases, not the gradual unfolding of increasingly better theoretical constructs through the study of individuals.” Eckstein, Regarding Politics, 143–144.

248

C. M. BROWN

9. Juan J. Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Re-Equilibrium (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), ix. 10. Linz, Breakdown, ix–4. 11. Ibid. 12. Linz, Breakdown, 3. 13. Ibid. 14. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History, and the Last Man (New York: Avon Books, 1992). 15. Winston Churchill, from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947. 16. Samuel P. Huntington discovered a similar phenomenon that he referred to as the “Ideals-Institutions” gap (Or, “IvI Gap”). He found that where a gap exists between people’s political ideals and their political reality, a variety of responses to correct this dissonance are available. In the American case, where the perception of the gap was clear and accompanied by high beliefs in those ideals, people sought to eliminate the gap through moralism, i.e., reforms to bring practice in line with ideals. Where perception was clear and idealism was low, people became cynical of the gap. Where perception was unclear and idealism was high, the result was hypocrisy, i.e., people denied the gap through a perceptual altered reality. Last, where idealism was low and perception of the gap was clear, people became complacent and ignored the gap and/or minimized the significance of it for their lives. See Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1981).

Bibliography Almond, Gabriel A., and G. Bingham Powell, Jr. Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1966. Bermeo, Nancy. Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times: The Citizenry and the Breakdown of Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2003. Dahl, Robert A. How Democratic Is the American Constitution? 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2003. Diamond, Larry. “The Democratic Rollback: The Resurgence of the Predatory State,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 2 (March/April 2008): 36–48. Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History, and the Last Man. New York: Avon Books, 1992. George, Alexander L. “Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison.” In Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy, edited by Paul Lauren. New York, NY: Free Press, 1979. Harry Eckstein. Regarding Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability, and Change. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992.

10

CONCLUSION: REPRESENTING THE GENERAL WILL

249

Huntington, Samuel P. American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1981. Jorge I. Dominguez. Democratic Politics in Latin America, and the Caribbean. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998. Karl, Terry Lynn. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997. Kolb, Erberhard, and P.S. Falla. The Weimar Republic. New York: Routledge, 2004. Lepsuis, M. Rainer. “From Fragmented Party Democracy to Government by Emergency Decree and National Socialist Takeover: Germany.” In The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Europe, edited by Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1978. Linz, Juan J. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and ReEquilibrium. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. Palmer, Monte. Dilemmas of Political Development: An Introduction to the Politics of the Developing Areas, 4th ed. Itasca, IL: Peacock Publishers, 1989. Sakwa, Richard. Soviet Politics in Perspective, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1998. Stone, Carl. Democracy and Clientelism in Jamaica. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1983. Zakaria, Fareed. The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.

Index

A Almond/Verba Hypothesis, 33 authoritarian, 1, 12, 19, 20, 27, 29, 32, 36–38, 43, 45–51, 53–55, 62, 66, 67, 70, 76, 81, 114, 195, 210, 232, 233 authoritarian breakdowns, 43

B background condition, 56 backsliding , 62 Bolivarian Republic, 8 Bolivarian Revolution, 130

C Caracazo, 100 Chavismo, 18–20, 22, 23, 103 collapse/transaction through replacement, 55 consolidated democracy, 221 consolidation, 4, 5, 9–11, 19, 29, 35, 37, 43, 44, 54, 59–61, 69, 70,

93, 94, 97, 126, 159, 196, 205, 220, 227, 246 Consolidation of Regime Types, 228 Contra, 187 conversion/transition through transaction, 55 Convivencia, 160 cooperative/transaction through extrication, 55 cooptation, 32, 47, 50, 81, 195, 218, 226 Cooptation of Interests, 214 Criollos , 143 D Debayle, Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza, 179 Decision Phase, 57 deepening democracy, 1, 12, 36, 220 democracy, 3, 28 democratic breakdowns, 3, 5, 7, 22, 29, 43, 44, 61, 63–65, 99, 113, 114, 116, 130, 194, 198, 221, 230

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. M. Brown, Failed Democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38481-3

251

252

INDEX

democratic consolidations, 43 democratic effectiveness, 10 Democratic Purgatory, vii, 6, 10–12, 128, 139, 159, 167, 199, 205, 207, 210, 221, 224, 230, 237, 240, 247 Democratic Regime Types, 221 democratic rollback, 1 democratic transitions, 33, 36, 43, 53, 56, 58, 66, 211, 239 democratization, 1–5, 8, 12, 27–29, 31, 32, 34–38, 43, 45, 46, 49, 52, 54, 56–62, 65, 66, 74, 89, 113, 162, 186, 188, 232, 233, 238 dynamically stable, 2, 12

E EDSN, 176 effectiveness, 2, 4, 9, 10, 12, 32, 37, 61, 71, 87, 93, 97–99, 104, 126, 128, 130, 132, 152, 199, 205–207, 226, 231, 238, 247 El Bogotazo, 154 elites, 3, 9, 11, 17, 18, 30–32, 49, 50, 53, 55, 57–61, 71, 74, 80, 84, 87, 88, 93, 111, 123, 125, 144, 147, 149, 150, 152, 157, 160, 170, 179, 186, 187, 211, 217 El Pacto, 81, 193, 195, 199

govern from below, 191

H Habituation Phase, 58 hard-liners, 53 Honeymoon/Learning Phase, 215

I incomplete transitions, 5 institutionalization, 219

L lack of fit, 9 La Rebelión, 150 La Violencia, 154 legitimacy, 2, 4, 9, 10, 12, 19, 32, 37, 48–51, 53, 56, 60, 61, 64, 65, 67, 71, 73, 75, 77, 81, 93, 98, 100, 104, 115, 120, 125, 126, 128, 130, 143, 152, 198, 205–207, 213, 227, 231, 233, 237, 246 liberalization, 52, 53, 74 Lipset Hypothesis, 33 Los Doce, 182, 184 loyal opposition, 56

F failed democratic experiments , 5, 62 five patterns of democratic breakdown, 114 foreign intervention, 54

M Miskito, 169 modernization, 2, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 43, 47, 74, 76, 97, 98, 119, 120, 122, 149, 154, 157, 159, 160, 173, 233 modes of transition, 54

G Garcia, Somoza, 177–179 governability, 3, 31, 32

N The National Front, viii, 12, 157 Nicaraguan National Guard, 176

INDEX

O Orteguismo, 196

P pacts, 58, 59, 80, 211 partyarchy, 93, 121, 128 Peninsulares , 143 phase democratic breakdown, 5 pluralism, 45, 47, 49, 52, 80, 180 political culture, 2, 3, 8, 33, 38, 71, 104, 105, 116, 123, 149, 155, 218 politics of regeneration, 149 Preparatory Phase, 56 prior regime type, 44, 45 Proto-Democracy or Twilight Democracy, 227 Punto Fijo, 8, 17, 18, 22, 58, 69–72, 80, 81, 84, 86, 89, 92, 97, 100, 103, 105, 111, 130, 135, 211 Punto Fijo democracy, 8 puntofijoismo, 84

R regime disunity, 49, 51, 53, 57 regime solidarity, 48 representation, 1, 2, 7, 9–12, 29, 50, 51, 61, 70, 71, 82, 84, 86, 90, 91, 93, 97–99, 120, 125, 128, 152, 157, 194, 199, 206–208, 212, 226, 231, 233

253

S Sandinista National Liberation Front, 179 sembrar el petróleo, 74, 76, 89 soft-liners, 53, 211, 215 structure of representation, 2, 10, 12 T The Third Force, 156 transition, 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 23, 29, 31–38, 40, 44, 46, 49, 53–55, 59, 60, 62, 67, 69–71, 77, 80, 82, 88, 91, 93, 114, 119, 188, 198, 205, 207, 210–212, 217–219, 221, 225, 226, 232, 239, 240 transitional democracy, 223 Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, 210 Transitions Project, 36 transitologists, 34, 35 Trienio, 76–78, 80, 81, 88, 89, 104, 115 True Representation of Interests, 214 V Venezuela, 8 Venezuelan Exceptional Thesis, 112, 113 W The War of the Thousand Days, 149