The Left in Government: Deepening or Constraining Democracy in Latin America?

Abstract

In the late 1990s, after the transition from dictatorship to electoral democracy in Latin America, the left began to win elections, or became the major challenger against right-wing governments—setting off a massive and relatively long-term wave of democratically-elected left leaders. This article, in focusing on the left of this political continuum, aims to explore the nature of democracy in the context of its resur-gence in Latin America, specifically attempting to understand whether and how the new left as a political actor can move beyond an electoral democracy, toward a deepening of democratic institutions. After dis-cussing the societal and political transformations that led to the left’s resurgence in Latin America, the article moves into an elaboration of its conceptualization of the left, addressing both the radical participa-tory and the social democratic left in relation to their fundamental views on democracy and the economy. Subsequently, the article turns toward a historical discussion of past leftist governments—both radical and more social-democratic cases—which in turn points to structural constraints that, at least historically, have hindered the accomplishment of radical participatory democracy in Latin America. The question that this article conclusively attempts to address is what implications this might have for democratic stability, when Latin America is once more facing the reality of democratically-elected, but radical left leaders. One conclusion is that the new tendencies of the left in Latin America can be said to have followed two distinct paths in the democratic consolidation era. One is the reformist, social-democratic left, which sup-ports the development of liberal democracy and neoliberal economy therewith complies with the political, social, and economic order of the day. In contrast, the radical left would like to develop a participatory democracy with socio-economic reforms that may potentially challenge societies’ major actors. Like simi-lar cases before them, the development of democracy in today’s Latin America is inevitably influenced by these paths, and is simultaneously constrained and deepened. Another conclusion is that democracy is deepended in both these routes. It is deepened in a liberal democracy, because it means more civil and political right for the people and a more well-functioning democracy, in relation too just free and fair elec-tions as in an elite democratic system, in which the competion to win elections is the main thing. It is deepened in a participatory democracy, because it means more possibility for people to actively participate in political decions-making on a local grassroots-level and on issues related to daily-life socio-economic issues. But it is also constrained because radical left reforms is challenging the elite actors - radical left governments might eventually bring about a downfall of democracy. Furthermore, it is constrained through the reformist, social democratic platform, because social reforms that the people may want are not instilled because they do not comply with the elite’s interests (as in the case of Chile in the 1990s). In this case, it means to maintain elite democracy and neoliberal policies democracy, without challenging the interest of the elite. A final conclusion is that changes in democratic models within transitioning countries potentially necessi-tate support from the dominant elite actors. Radical political and economic changes that took place in historical Chile and Guatemala were challenged by the same kind of actors as in today’s Venezuela, Bo-livia, Ecuador and Nicaragua—namely, the economic elite, the military, external (mainly U.S.) forces and the parliamentary right. With the historical record countries such as Chile and Guatemala, the main ques-tion might not be if radical cases such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador will meet the same destiny; rather it could just to be a matter of time when it will happen in, at least, one of these cases.