Populist Seduction in Latin America. Carlos de la Torre

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СКАЧАТЬ As in other Latin American countries, citizenship in Ecuador has tended to be restricted and to place priority on political and social rights over civil rights; hence populism has become the principal link between state and civil society.

      The continuing inability of liberal democratic institutions to provide a sense of participation and belonging to the political community have contrasted with political participation through populist, non-parliamentary politics. The main legacy of populism then has been to create a style of political mobilization and a rhetoric that link the state and civil society through mechanisms that do not correspond to the rule of law or respect for liberal democratic procedures.

       Populist Seduction

      Analytically, it is important to differentiate populism as regimes in power (where the analysis of state policies is central) from populism as wider social and political movements seeking power.¹ To understand the appeal of populist leaders and the expectations of their followers, the following variables must be studied: personalistic charismatic leadership, Manichaean discourse, political clientelism and patronage, and the social history of populism.

      POPULIST LEADERSHIP

      This section discusses those elements of the concept of charismatic leadership that describe populist experiences. Following Weber (1968), charisma is understood as a double-sided interactive social process that allows us to understand how populist leaders are created by their followers and how they have constructed themselves into leaders. The populist leader is identified with the people—el pueblo—understood as the plebs in its struggle against the oligarchy (Taguieff 1995, 38–39). The leader, due to his or her “honesty and strength of will guarantees the fulfillment of popular aspirations and wishes” (Torres Ballesteros 1987, 171). Such leaders represent “the symbolic projection of an ideal.… Through social rites of veneration, qualities they do not possess are often attributed to them” (Martín Arranz 1987, 84). In the process, the leader and followers are mystically linked.

      Performing what is perceived as an extraordinary deed is one of the elements of charismatic leadership (Willner 1984). Examples of such deeds are Haya de la Torre’s championing of Peruvian workers in the struggle for an eight-hour workday in 1919, his efforts for the creation of the Popular University, and his leadership in the fight against the dictatorship of Leguía in 1923 (Stein 1980). Obstacles to success, a leader’s personal sacrifice and disinterest, risk taking, and the importance of the leader’s actions for the followers are all elements underlying the emergence of such a relationship. Other examples are the role of Sánchez Cerro in putting an end to Leguía’s rule and Gaitán’s defense of the United Fruit banana workers massacred in 1929.

      According to Willner, perceptions of the personal attributes of the leader are the second element of charismatic leadership. In racist societies in which elites treasured their whiteness, the dark complexions—and mestizo origins—of Gaitán and Sánchez Cerro in themselves represented a challenge to traditional social caste relations. Thus APRA’s insults about Sánchez Cerro’s mestizo features in the electoral campaign of 1930–31 backfired because the triumph of someone who physically resembled them was very important for common people. Herbert Braun (1985) argues that Gaitán presented his physical appearance as a challenge to the political norms of the Convivencia. His teeth were symbols of animal aggression, his dark skin represented the feared malicia indígena (Indian wickedness). In sum, the image of “el negro Gaitán” as a threat to “decent society” pervaded the press, electoral posters, and caricatures. In addition, in contrast to the cleanliness and serenity of his opponents, during his speeches Gaitán sweated, shouted, and growled, promoting an atmosphere of intimacy with his followers.

      Charismatic leaders invoke myths. Through metaphors they are assimilated into icons of their cultures (Willner 1984). The examples of Evita as the Mater Dolorosa and Velasco Ibarra and Haya de la Torre as Christ figures show the preeminence of religion in Latin America. Marysa Navarro characterizes the myth of Eva Perón in the following terms:

      Blond, pale, and beautiful, Evita was the incarnation of the Mediator, a Virgin-like figure who despite her origins, shared the perfection of the Father because of her closeness to him. Her mission was to love infinitely, give herself to others and ‘burn her life’ for others, a point made painfully literal when she fell sick with cancer and refused to interrupt her activities. She was the Blessed Mother, chosen by God to be near ‘the leader of the new world: Perón.’ She was the childless mother who became the Mother of all the descamisados, the Mater Dolorosa who ‘sacrificed’ her life so that the poor, the old, and the downtrodden could find some happiness. (1982, 62)

      What Navarro does not analyze is how such myths were generated. To understand the process of mythic construction of figures like Evita, it is essential to examine popular perceptions of them. Such images, interpretations, and meanings are contradictory—on the one hand liberating, on the other based on an uncritical acceptance of the leaders. Moreover, the visions and interpretations of subaltern groups are influenced by official discourses. For this reason, when studying populist myths one must take into account the fact that their meanings are multiple, and that official memory constitutes a reference point from which popular sectors interpret their experiences (Popular Memory Group 1982).

      MANICHAEAN DISCOURSE: EL PUEBLO VERSUS LA OLIGARQUÍA

      The publication of Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (Laclau 1977) constituted a breakthrough in the study of Latin American populism. Discourse analysis was presented as an alternative to objectivist interpretations and a tool to understand the ambiguity of populism for the actors involved. Through an analysis of speeches and other written documents by political leaders, Ernesto Laclau examines the crisis of liberal discourse in Argentina and Perón’s ability to transform a series of criticisms of liberalism into a discourse in which the people confront the oligarchy. To explain the rhetorical appeal to the people, Laclau demonstrates how this category is linked to the discursive elaboration of a fundamental contradiction in the social formation: “the people versus the power bloc.” The particularity of populism is to be a discourse that articulates popular-democratic interpellations as antagonistic to the dominant ideology. These contradictions that cannot be processed within the system imply the possibility of a populist break. That is why Peronism, Maoism, and fascism are examples of populist ruptures.

      Laclau’s innovative work on populist discourse was partial. Although he shows the importance of studying the shared semantic field within which people struggle to impose their interpretations of a given moment, the analysis remains incomplete. The most common criticism of Laclau has been that he examines the conditions of only the production of discourses. One cannot assume that a politician’s discourse easily or automatically generates political identities. Given that not all discourses are accepted and that there are always competing discourses, it is necessary to take into account the conditions of production, circulation, and reception of political discourses (De Ípola 1979, 1983).

      Moreover, Laclau does not differentiate the analysis of political discourse from more general discourse analysis. Emilio De Ípola (1979, 949) suggests the following characteristics of political discourse: (1) its thematic is focused explicitly on the problem of the control of state power; (2) its objective is to refute and disqualify the opposing discourse; and (3) it includes a certain calculation or evaluation of its immediate political and ideological results. There are various kinds of political discourses: electoral speeches, government reports, speeches of representatives in congress, resolutions of party assemblies, and so on. To be successful, these discourses must be received as conforming to reality. Thus it is necessary to take into account the context within which such discourses are given. To understand the success or failure of political discourses, they must therefore be analyzed as events in which the expectations and actions of the audience are as important as the oration, gestures, and rituals of the speaker. Through a discussion of the discourses of Luis Sánchez Cerro, Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, Evita Perón, and Juan Domingo Perón, I shall СКАЧАТЬ