This interview took place on June 20, 2021 between Nelly Arenas and journalist Hugo Prieto, and was originally published in Prodavinci under the title, “Nelly Arenas: ‘Ya Nadie Habla de la Democracia Participativa’”.
IQLatino has acquired the rights to translate and publish this interview in English.
The term “populism”, in addition to being polysemic, is subject to controversy in the fields of political science and academia. I have asked Nelly Arenas* to conceptualize that word so that, from there and in the context of the Latin American neighborhood, we can develop this interview. Arenas goes further. “I call it a pandemic, because everyone has been infected with the term. But since 1989 it has acquired an academic profile. It is necessary, let’s say, to differentiate the vulgar handling, from that done in the academy, where there is even no agreement as to its meaning”.
We have focused on the political field, to differentiate it from the ideological or economic field. Kurt Weyland, for example, understands populism as a political strategy, through which a personalist leader exercises power without mediation, and not institutionalized, of his followers (direct democracy, which dispenses with republican mechanisms of government: the separation of powers, property rights, respect for the individual, seen as obstacles or mere hindrances). Another element in common, accepted by the academy, is the division of society between good and evil, which can be translated between “revolutionaries and worms” (Cuba), between Chavistas and scrawny (Venezuela). A third element is the permanent invocation of “national sovereignty”, which is actually a shield to oppose open societies, globalization, the universality of Human Rights and even climate change. In short, the reign of authoritarian autarky.
Another thing to take into account – about which there is consensus among researchers – is that populism is not the opposite of democracy. “No, as Margaret Canovan said, ‘Populism is a shadow that haunts democracy.’ So, populism and democracy are intimate enemies, both start from different principles, but within what democracy means”.
Populism is in good health in Latin America. After its heyday in the middle of the 20th century, it now resurfaces with new vigor. Even in Chile, a country that supposedly had done the homework. What reasons explain this political reality?
Let’s not call it resurgence, but persistence, because it has always been there, active or latent, in our leadership, in our political parties and, above all, in our political culture. In reality, populism is everywhere, but as Loris Zanatta said: Latin America is its paradise. It is very important to understand that democracy has paradoxes that give it a floating meaning. And that makes it impossible to solve them. One of those paradoxes, for example is, what are the people? How do the people exercise their sovereignty? Is it possible to exercise it? That discussion has always been present, because it has not been resolved and it will not be resolved. The other is the mistake of representative democracy. Voters are almost never satisfied with their representatives. Populism perceives it as a betrayal and solves it by imagining a single leader who expresses the will of an entire people. The other thing is that the principle of political equality is impossible to fulfill. Why? Because there is division, there is plurality that prevents it. In principle, democracy has those contradictions that are unsolvable and that is where the breeding ground that populism uses to propose a direct democracy, a participatory democracy, as we saw in Venezuela, thrives. Ours is one of the best laboratories we can have in Latin America after Perón’s in Argentina.
In countries with weak institutions, what role have the elites played in the construction, in the making of populism, seen as the shadow of democracy?
We should remember the experience of Argentina and Peronist populism between the 1940s and 1950s. The country was dominated by a liberal oligarchy, but suffrage was not universal. That oligarchy impeded the movement towards mass democracy. What was the role of the elites at that time? A group of soldiers, led by Perón, undertook the task of lashing out at that liberal oligarchy that was weakened by the economic crisis of 1929, they succeeded in implanting the universal vote and the access of the masses to the political scene. From that moment, one can say that populism is a constitutive part of democracy in Latin America. Of course, we must make the exception that Perón, who was an admirer of fascism and an illiberal and authoritarian character, began to formalize a democracy with very marked authoritarian overtones. It may seem like a contradiction, but it is true. Why? Because the masses entered democracy, the political scene, hand in hand with Perón, who was a military man. It was not a movement that arose from below, but an extreme warlordism, in which the rights of the people, of the businessmen, of the students, were confiscated in view of what Perón called an «organized community», in the image and likeness of the justicialista party. There is, let’s say, a revelation of what the role of elites is in shaping populism. The case of Chávez in Venezuela is very important because he replicates the Peronist model, saving some things, distances.
Could you talk about the similarities rather than the distinctive elements?
That one was illiberal, this one too. The model of government, the model of power, which was in the head of Perón, which he implanted in Argentine society, eliminating institutions, intermediate figures and only giving priority to unions that he controlled, is very similar to the Venezuelan case.
Populism often comes from the military sectors. Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico, Velasco Alvarado in Peru, Getulio Vargas in Brazil, established himself in power with the support of the military. Could we say that these soldiers ascribed the political theses of Peronism?
Each of the cases would have to be studied in depth. More than the influence of Perón, I would say that the factor to consider is Latin American political culture. Even beyond, our Spanish origins and roots. Let us remember that they founded a patrimonial state, where the public is mixed with the private, where the sense of community is not individual but holistic and that is precisely why Perón speaks of the «organized community». If populism comes from the barracks, the vision of homogeneity, of unanimity can be more accurate. Why? Because the military understands the country as his army, as his troops. That can make a difference between military populism and civilian populism. In any case, what is relevant, as Zanatta says, is that Latin America has not lived politics but rather as religion. Why? Because he understands that the world is divided between good and bad, between God and the devil, the people do not have a constitutional profile but a moral one (they are virtuous or not). This is very important when it comes to examining what populism has been in Latin America.
The populist caudillos – military or not – disdain the republican mechanisms of government – the separation of powers, the rule of law, constitutionality – and when they can, simply and simply dispense with them. We have seen it in Nicaragua, in Venezuela. It seems that we cannot overcome that political culture, in which populism flourished. Are we condemned to repeat history over and over again?
I necessarily have to go beyond Latin America. The third democratizing wave that occurs in the world – between the mid-1970s and 1990s, whose beginning is the transition of Spain and Portugal towards democracy and whose culminating point is the fall of the Berlin Wall – effectively, liberal democracy triumphs in the world (from 46 countries to 114). Not by chance, says Enrique Peruzzutti, both in Europe and in Latin America, where the transition from military regimes to democracy occurred in the 1980s, is where populism has expressed itself (Poland, Hungary, France’s Le Pen, the Spain of Podemos and on this side of the Atlantic the neighboring countries) with more force, with more virulence, if the term fits. What I mean by this is that as long as democracy exists, populism will also exist as a critique of the shortcomings of liberal democracies, among other things, because populisms present themselves as radicalizers of democracies, but not in the sense liberal, because the institutionality – the parliament, the judiciary, the constitutionality – are perceived as hindrances. No. It is the direct relationship between the leader and the masses. The leader is the one who expresses the will of the masses. This is how populism understands democracy.
We have Gaitán’s phrase: “I am not me, I am a people,” later versioned by Mr. Hugo Chávez. Direct and participatory democracy – that is, political populism – relies on welfare in the social and economic fields. A vision that strips the individual of his status as a citizen. The question is: what does that have to do with democracy?
For populism, democracy is something else, which is not what you or I have in mind. Because liberal democracy – and here we always have to make a difference – is based on respect for individuality, the separation of powers, the parliamentary mechanisms of representation, the validation of citizenship, etc. For populism, the meaning of democracy is different: that the will of the people be expressed through the leader. Sure, that is fiction because it is simply impossible. And from the mechanisms he proposes -participatory democracy- authentic participation is invalidated, as in the Venezuelan case, where the participatory structures -the communes- depended directly on Miraflores. That is, the Executive and President Chávez. We could not speak of participation, because participation implies individual and autonomous initiatives. And this is not the case. The ideal of participatory democracy, as it was sold to us since 1998 and during all these years, has been diluted. They don’t even talk about it anymore or they name it less and less. How is it that everyone participates effectively in the decisions that the government makes? How do you measure that? No. That doesn’t work here or anywhere.
I am interested in emphasizing the fact that populism, when it comes from the barracks, accentuates the concept of unanimity, of homogeneity. The Venezuelan case is a clear example. What reflection would you make around that point?
The first thing I would say is that I have no data to prove (that claim) empirically. But given the logic of thought of the barracks and of the leaders who come from the military sphere, it is possible to think of a vision of the world that understands society as something compact, as a single body that does not have divisions, but that, in addition -and this occurs in populism in general- it needs a boss to guide it, to direct it. Venezuela, at the moment when Chávez arrives, is precisely anxious for order, wants the promise of equality of democracy to be produced, etc. And the voice of the military, the voice of command, was the one that prevailed at that moment. But it is also a time when partisan institutions are on the ground and there is a very strong representation crisis. We are seeing something of that in Peru. Pedro Castillo is not a coincidence. Castillo wins the elections because there is a very large breakdown of parties. There is a great malaise with democracy and representative leaderships. That is why Chávez yesterday. And that’s why Pedro Castillo today. One was a military man, the other was not. However, both come to power at a time of total fracture of the political system. Of course, authoritarianism in Venezuela became radicalized and ended up destroying the institutionality. In Peru, at least they have an electoral process body that works.
In Venezuela it is no longer disdain for the separation of powers and institutions. I would say that that does not exist. We could not characterize the political model as populist. Would you dare to characterize what we are experiencing?
At this time, Venezuela does not have a populist regime. Populism occurs when it has the support of the masses. Peronism was that. Perón had broad support from the masses. Chavismo was that. Chávez had broad support from the masses. But since Chávez’s death, the leadership of his successor has declined dramatically. So the massive support that a populist system requires does not exist in Venezuela. Given the weakness of the Government of Nicolás Maduro, that is why the Chavista leadership decides to go other ways. Radicalize the government, become more and more authoritarian, to the point that there is neither democracy nor populism. What there is is an increasingly closed authoritarianism, more and more radical.
However, we can say that there is a populist trait, at least in the economic field. Welfare-the bonds, the Clap-. What would explain why this feature of populism is still on the government’s agenda?
The need to stay in power, the need to keep his clientele in a fist. It is not only the clientelist mechanisms that you mention, there is a populist rhetoric. Maduro and the government leadership speak as Chávez did. But the problem is that the supports are not the same. And returning to the question, clientelistic structures exist and will continue to exist, because it is the only way, the only mechanism, to keep some of their support alive, despite the disappointment and disenchantment of the majority of the population. The poverty is such, the helplessness is such, the inequality that Venezuelan society is experiencing is so great that people need that help, no matter how precarious it may be.
If memory serves me correctly, I think it was in 2006, in the middle of the campaign for the failed constitutional reform and in the midst of an acute shortage, that the slogan was shouted: “With hunger and unemployment, with Chavez I am resisting.” What would you say about that get to the present moment? How would you contrast it with what we are experiencing?
I would say that this slogan almost borders on the religious. At that time, Chávez does not see himself as a leader of flesh and blood but as a god, who in spite of everything is still a god, and with whom he must identify. Above all. Here, another feature of populism emerges, of which we have not spoken. Populism puts identification before representation. That is, the fundamental link of identifying with the leader, regardless of the characteristics of the leader.
Hence the need, the urgency to establish loyalty. If you are logged in, you have to be loyal.
Absolutely. That is very familiar with totalitarian systems, because loyalty must be guaranteed at all costs. A loyalty, sometimes imposed by terror and fear, or by worship of the leader. It is part of the reality of populism and totalitarian systems.
*Professor at UCV. CENDES Researcher. Sociologist. Doctor in Political Science.