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Deepening Democracy?: The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru

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Over the past two decades democratic governments have spread over the world. The Turkish coup in 1980 appears in retrospect to have been the last of its kind in Europe. While the seventies had marked some important victories for democracy (in Spain, Portugal and Greece) it also faced some major setbacks (in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay). In 1982 and 1983 with the return of consitutional government in Brazil and Argentina, democracy increasingly gained momentum. One victory followed another: the Phillipines in 1986, South Korea in 1987, Pakistan in 1988, the liberation of Eastern Europe in 1989, peace in Central America and the victory of Patricio Aylwin in Chile in 1990, the return to multiparty government in much of Africa, the recognition of the PLO in 1993, the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994. Even Iran has a quasi-parliamentary government, even China has multicandidate local elections.

But something is missing. Why is it that the old cliches about voting ("If voting could things it would be abolished") and choice ("In New Hampshire your house can be any colour you want, as long as it is white") have such resonance? Why does it appear that as the number of democracies increase, the actual options they have decrease? This is the subject of Roberts' important book on the fate of the Chilean and Peruvian left. Although somewhat repetitive and poorly written Roberts presents an important account of the problems facing democracy today.

Roberts' title refers to the idea of "deepening democracy." Instead of imposing the autocratic and ultimately inefficient state socialisms of the past, many Latin American leftists looked to more grassroots and localized decision-making. Such decision making would be healthier than the clientist approach of many previous Latin American populists. At the same time they sought to create a strategy that would not concentrate in classic Marxist fashion on the industrial working-class, historically a relatively small portion of the Latin American population. Instead they would concentrate on new popular movements (women, environmental, leftist Christians, local, etc) to supplement their base. In turn they would also remove their utopian and Leninist illusions of the past which encouraged them to undervalue Liberal Democracy and which encouraged a polarization that led to their defeat.

So far, so good, but the results, as Roberts shows, is very depressing. The savagery of the Pinochet years shattered the traditional trade union movements, industrial base, and what peasant base the left had. The result was a powerful atomization that limited the capacity of the left to get popular support. Of course, Pinochet ensured that the new constitutional order would leave the army's privileges intact and give the Right special bonuses. Moderate Socialist intellectuals theorized about how "deepening democracy" might serve as a substitute for attempts to abolish capitalism outright. In practice, however, they favored a policy of compromise with moderate centrists. Fearing that an aggressive, or even moderately principled position, would encourage the right to support a return to dictatorship, the moderate Left did nothing to encourage or mobilize the grassroots for a more radical democracy. It could provide little help to a shattered trade union movement. Instead political life has been demobilized, with political life confined to elections and the rather atomistic and limited viewpoint it fosters. At the same time the once strong Chilean Communist Party has not moved beyond the limits of a Vanguard Leninist strategy which hampers mobilizing the Chilean population.

Even more distressing is the situation in Peru, where the United Left got a third of the vote in the mid-eighties and at one point seemed to be about to win the presidency. But in a brilliant chapter Roberts shows how it all fell apart. The union movement and much of the hard work the Left had put into organizing the shantytowns of Lima collapsed in the late 1980s when the economy collapsed. At the same time the terrorist Sendero Luminiso encouraged popular fear and panic while brutally attacking the Democratic Left's institutions. Meanwhile the United Left became divided between its moderate and leftist forces. "Indeed, the moderate and radical agendas were mutually negating: the electoralism of Barrantes marginalized and diffused the grass-roots organs of popular power that were integral to the PUM's strategy, while its radical demands polarized the political arena in ways that made it impossible for Barrantes to perform an integrative role." Economic disaster shattered the grassroots groups and it also put the political institutions of the country into contempt, so both radical and moderate approaches failed. Instead into the vacuum appeared Alberto Fujimori who established an authoritarian regime occasionally vindicated by elections. Roberts concludes that "democracy is not served by self-containment, it thrives on deep social roots, a broad base of support, and a capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and newly emerging social pressures, all of which require a participatory civil society." Instead of a vibrant democracy we get an emasculated one, with consequences to be felt far into the future. Maybe forever.

Kenneth Roberts

Deepening Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru (Stanford, 1998)

Dr. Roberts is a professor of Political Science at Cornell University and has spent the last 15 years studying and lecturing about leftist politics in Latin America. This book is essentially an outgrowth of his dissertation from 1992, "In Search of a New Identity: Dictatorship, Democracy, and the Evolution of the Left in Chile and Peru." In this book, Dr. Kenneth Roberts chronicles the path of the socialist and communist movements in Chile and Peru over the last century. He pays particular attention to the transformation of the Socialist and Communist parties in Chile immediately from 1970 until the early 1990s. While the title purports to investigate both Chile and Peru, the bulk of the book revolved around the Chilean experience; a mere 67 of 300 pages was dedicated to Peruvian politics. Thus, a reader looking for Peruvian insights may be disappointed. However, he juxtaposes both Chile and Peru because of the relative success of leftist parties in Chile and Peru; Chile has one of the more successful experiences while Peru ranks as one of the least successful.

In his forward, Dr. Roberts states, "I offer no magical solutions or bold prescriptions to resolve the dilemmas of the partisan Left and social movements in Latin America. My more modest hope is that his book might contribute to a clearer understanding of the nature of these dilemmas so that they may one day be tackled more effectively." Thus, he lays out his observation of existing leftist parties in Latin America and his prescriptions for them to improve their political lot in Latin American nations.

First Dr. Roberts lays out his political theory of `deepening democracy' and `extending democracy.' Simply put, the deepening process is a solely political process where more people participate in government, and the extending process is one where democratic processes continue in social or economic spheres. Both of these processes are necessary because these nations do not have long histories as democratic entities. However, he focuses on the deepening as especially important throughout the book.

He bemoans the fact that this deepening process also dilutes the fervor that some political organizations can wield. For example, the Socialist Party in Chile has changed its tactics from an outside revolutionary party to one that has agreed to live within the rules laid down by the exiting Chilean autocracy. In contrast, the Communist party in Chile has evolved into a more revolutionary stance and is unwilling to compromise its core beliefs. As a result, the Socialist Party has deepened itself while also diluting its former power base. This phenomenon is essentially the `big tent' theory of American political parties; parties need to branch out from their core constituencies to reach the center. While branching out, they risk alienating the same core constituencies that form their foundation of support.

Roberts left out some key explanations regarding the Communist Party's challenges in Chile. He implies that the Communists have been denied participation in the last ten years solely because the centrist Christian Democrats will not allow the communists to participate in their coalition. A more probable reality is that the Christian Democrats will not willingly include a revolutionary party in their governing cabinet, especially one that has continued to campaign for a revolutionary overthrow of the existing government. For this reason and many others, the Communist Party has been unable to capitalize on the removal of Pinochet.

In his description of Chile's success since Pinochet's departure, Dr. Roberts never intimates that the dictator's legacy could be partially responsible for the continued success of the Chilean democracy, only that these conservative institutions impede the progress that the left desires for Chile. In other words, it is anathema to him that the socialists and Christina Democrats might actually be less successful without the neo-liberalism in Chile and without the constitutional impediments to the left's social agenda.

Dr. Roberts also leaves out some key economic information in his book, which leads to suspicion. For example, all of his economic data, such as "Evolution of Employment and Unemployment in Chile" and "Main Economic Indicators for Chile," start in 1973. A better economic analysis would have shown at least 5 years prior to Allende's government, which started in 1970. Roberts simply does not show the reader the economic depths to which Allende plunged the Chilean economy during his presidency. Thus the reader is forced to either ignore this economic reality or perform research outside the book. We are left with the following description regarding Allende's economic performance on page 93: "...the economy stagnated and inflationary pressures accumulated as consumption surged, investment and productivity plummeted, international credits dried up..." In contrast, he carefully notes each economic setback suffered under Pinochet such as this statement on page 121: "...when a financial crisis plunged Chile into the worst recession in its modern history, causing the economy to shrink by nearly 13 percent in 1982-1983." The reader is left to ponder whether or not the economic crisis of 1973 was better or worse than the crisis of 1983, and also must ponder what year marks the start of Roberts's `modern history' of Chile. While these omissions may seem trivial, examples abound throughout the book and weaken his argument. A more analytical analysis might have provided weaker support for Roberts's arguments, but it would have been more intellectually honest.

With this and several other omissions, it is obvious that Dr. Roberts is more concerned with advancing the political fortunes of leftist political parties in Latin America than he is with actual progress in these nations. On page 1 he states, "The shallowness of these regimes (new democracies) can be seen in democratic procedures...and the accentuation of socioeconomic inequalities that mock the formal political equality of democratic citizenship." Thus he shows his disappointment that these nations have not more quickly evolved into social paradises with more equal representative governments and a more socialized distribution of wealth. He obvious holds the military dictatorships of Cuba and Nicaragua in high esteem while disparaging all other military dictatorship in the region.

In other words, Roberts is characteristic of several Latin American scholars and Latin American studies programs in the USA. All in all he cites more than 464 works and nearly 600 footnotes. Not one of these footnotes or published works apparently has a good thing to say about neo-liberal economics in Latin America over the last 50 years. At the same time, not one of these footnotes seems to be critical of the military dictatorships in either Nicaragua or Cuba. This book is hardly a balanced account of how nations can grow using at least some principles from either the classical or even modern day neo-liberal economic models. This disparity is even more surprising when noted in the light of the Soviet Union's Perestroika and the fall of Eastern European communism that occurred in 1989. In short, if you want a one-dimensional perspective of a United States academician regarding the leftist parties in Latin America, then this is the book for you.

Post script: I had to smile and copy this passage from the book when I read it,

"The enduring irony of the Chilean Left is that those who most persuasively articulated a theoretical vision for the deepening of democracy through the political protagonism of collective popular subjects have been the least connected to such subjects in practice." (p. 121)

This real irony of this statement is that the entire book was a persuasively articulated vision for deepening democracy, written by a tenured professor in the United States, whose primary connection to the Chilean left appears to be his writings and occasional visits!