Review: The Politics of Latin America

Author(s): Peter Calvert

Reviewed work(s):
Latin American Democracies: Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela by John A. Peeler
Latin American Politics and Development by Howard J. Wiarda ; Harvey F. Kline
New Social Movements and the State in Latin America by David Slater
Politics, Policies and Economic Development in Latin America by Robert Wesson
Source: Third World Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 1438-1442
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3991725
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 THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY

Even this 'gap' does not fundamentally alter the general conclusion that
Imposinig Aid stands out as a landmark in the growing literature on disasters
and disaster relief. It does no less than challenge the very core of the ways that
humanitarian assistance is viewed and provided. Ultimately, it reminds us that
with all our goodwill and good intentions, we too often forget that we are
dealing with human beings. This is the basic message that all who venture into
the increasingly professional world of disaster relief must bear in mind.

The politics of Latin America

Peter Calvert

Latin American Democracies: Colomnbia,Costa Rica, Venezuela

John A Peeler
Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. 1985. 193pp.
?24. 00

Latin American Politics and Development (2nd edn)

Edited by Howard J Wiarda and Harvey F Kline
Boulder, Colorado: Westview (Distributed in the UK by Bowker). 1985.
672pp. ?57.25

New Social Movements and the State in Latin America

Edited by David Slater
Dordrecht, Netherlands: Foris Publications. 1985. 295pp. ?7.95pb

Politics, Policies and Economic Development in Latin America

Edited by Robert Wesson
Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press. 1984. 262pp. n/p

John A Peeler's LatiniAmericaniDemocracies is a genuinely original work that

breaks new ground in the study of democracy in Latin America. Some previous
writers have largely overlooked the strength of the democratic tradition in
Latin America. Others have been inclined to dismiss much of what passes for
democracy in Latin America as mere window-dressing. But those previous
writers who have sought to examine the reasons for the existence of democracy
in the region have made some interesting contributions to the literature.
Among these, which may well be less familiar to specialists in other areas of the
Third World than they are to Latin Americanists, Peeler notes Samuel P

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 BOOK REVIEWS

Huntington, who was influential in rejecting the notion that economic

development would of itself in due course lead to stable, liberal democracy;
Guillermo O'Donnell, who explained the collapse of democracy and the
distinctiveemergence of 'bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes'in the Southern
Cone in the 1960s and 1970s by the exhaustion of import substitution as a
developmentalstrategy;and Goran Therborn,who in an article in New Left
Reviewin 1979used 'a particularlynarrowand formaldefinitionof democracy
which has the puzzlingeffect of excludingboth Chile and Costa Rica as full
democracies,whileincludingColombiain thatcategory'(p 38). Therborn,who
regardsCosta Rica only as an example of what he terms 'stable non-despotic
rule', correctlynotes thatin no countryin LatinAmericadoes a combinationof
internationalcircumstancesand local conditionsappearto have laid what are
generally considered to be the necessary economic conditions for stable
democracy.Why then does it exist?
Peeler'sresearchstrategyhas been to go backto the theoreticalliteratureon
liberaldemocracyandwithit as guide to makea case studyof the three regimes
most widelyheld to exemplifyliberaldemocracyin presentday LatinAmerica:
Colombia, Costa Rica and Venezuela. All three regimes have long since
outlasted the single presidentialterm with which they began; all have now
facilitatedthe transferof politicalpowerby popularelection fromone political
party to another and back again, each on several occasions. He finds, firstly,
that nothingin the nineteenth-centuryhistoryof each of these countriesserves
to distinguishthese countrieseconomicallyfrom other LatinAmericanstates.
In each case the emergenceof liberaldemocracyoccurredafter a transitional
period of 'masked hegemony', after which the elites made a significant
accommodationwith one another to avert chaos and civil war, at a time at
whichthe armedforceswere eitherunableor unwillingto assumethe mantleof
power.
This emphasison the agreementto constituteliberaldemocracyis congruent
with the findingsof suchinvestigatorsas Almond et al. (1973), Linzand Stepan
(1978), and Nordlinger(1981), who insiston the relativeautonomyof actorsin
the politicalprocess in determiningpoliticaloutcomes. There is, in sum, little
evidence that economic and social conditionshave determinedthe emergence
of liberaldemocracyin these cases, and considerableevidence pointingto the
importanceof particularpolitical actions (p 93).
In consideringthe equally importantquestion of the maintenanceof such
regimes, Peeler agrees that legitimacy results in part from the successful
masking of hegemony in 'pluralist, competitive, strongly centrist political
processes'. But it also resultsfrom performance:the liberaldemocracieshave
performedsignificantlybetter than other Latin American regimes. They are
less corrupt, inefficient and violent, they have done better in distributionof
materialbenefits to the population,and they have 'also been characterisedby
considerablymore personalsecurityagainstpoliticalviolence than is the norm

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 THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY

in Latin America' (p 127). Significantly,however, the elite accommodations

arrivedat in each of these three cases conformto the normslaid down by the
United States. This is but one of a numberof factorsthat lead Peeler to assert
that 'there are no sure and easy pathsto the furtherdemocratisationof liberal
democracy' (p 162). He recognises that the maintenance of liberal
democracy-however advantageousto the majorityof the population-may
well be endangered by radicals who believe that by the intensificationof
contradictionsthey can achieve a full-blooded social revolution. Yet in his
conclusionhe suggeststhatthe goal of eliminatingpossessiveindividualismand
strengtheningparticipatorydemocracy;in short, the way of life advocatedby
C B Macphersonin his The Life atndTimesof LiberalDemocracy(1957) 'is
emphaticallymore democraticthanliberaldemocracy,andcomes muchcloser
than liberal democracyto congruencewith Iberiantraditions'(p 167). What
then can be done to achieve this?
Measures that he recommendsare: in the economic sphere, the breakup
of large corporations, the banning of transnationals, and participatory
management; and in the political, 'popular corporatism based in the
decentralisedandparticipatoryeconomicsystem'(p 169). It is hardto see why,
given his own clear, succinct and compelling argument for the relative
autonomyof the politicalsphere, the authorshould at the last succumbto the
temptation to underpin participatorydemocracy by economic measures.
Worse still, unfortunately,by the experience of both Mexico (which Peeler
does not even recognise as a liberal democracy)and Peru, the cost of such
measuresin economictermsmaybe so highas to rulethem out of courtandthe
political costs incurredso great as to preclude the long-termsurvivalof the
government that implementsthem. But this is none the less an interesting,
readable and provocative book which deserves wide readershipand careful
considerationby all those interestedin the futureof liberaldemocracyin the
Third World.
Those who wish to go furtherin their studyof Latin Americawill no doubt
wish to have at their elbow a substantialtextbookon LatinAmericanpolitics.
The rapidly changing pattern of ideology and conflict, and the historical
instabilityof LatinAmericanregimes,makesit verydifficultindeedto produce
such a text. In the past two main approacheshave been used as alternatives:
comparativestudy of the principalprocesses and structuresacross the whole
range of Latin American states, and a compendiumof country-by-country
studieswrittento a commonformat.In the firsteditionof theirLatinAmerican
Politics an2dDevelopment,publishedby HoughtonMifflinin 1979, HowardJ
Wiardaand HarveyF Klinecombinedthese two formats,and this revisedand
updatededitiondoes the same in a substantialbutquite manageablehardcover
libraryedition. It is a good introductionand useful (but extremelyexpensive)
reference work, and the editors have drawnon many of the most interesting
scholarsin the field for the countrystudies.

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 BOOK REVIEWS

Modern publishing techniques certainly make it possible to produce

worthwhile books at reasonable prices. New Social Movements and the State in
Latin America is a collection of articles from a workshop held in October 1983
by the Centrum voor Studie en Documentatie van Latijns Amerika, bringing
together the expertise of Western European social scientists in this area.
The papers are broadly grouped under four headings: 'Theoretical
departures and delineations', 'Social movements and the city', 'Regions, social
conflict and the state' and 'Revolutionary change, popular hegemony and the
role of the women's movement'. As will be seen, it interprets the term 'new'
somewhat broadly to form a 'highly diverse and multi-faceted list of social
movements' reaching beyond the feminist movement, the ecology movement,
the peace movement and the anti-nuclear movement, to include a range of
cultural phenomena which many might not normally think of as political. As
the editor makes clear, this is not accidental. In the post-Marxist context what
is being called for is nothing less than a redefinition of the political.
What David Slater sees as different about the new movements can be
expressed in three sentences. They constitute, he argues, 'new forms of
struggle in relation to new forms of subordination and oppression in late
capitalist society'. They reject the 'representation of interests model' and break
with the notion of the primacy of the economic. And they stress high levels of
participation in decision-making. These theoretical premises are amplified and
extended by Ernesto Laclau in a characteristically challenging article on 'New
social movements and the plurality of the social', in which he rejects both the
position of the social agent in relation to a definable group (i.e. class analysis)
and the notion of stages as being relevant to the concept of 'unequal and
combined development'.
In the Alice in Wonderland world of developmental theory the flamingoes of
the Right are curling up and the hedgehogs of the Left uncurling-and both
seem to be changing places. The Left is now urging the primacy of the political;
the Right, the primacy of the economic. But the collection of essays edited by
Robert Wesson shows how the attempt to keep track of what is going on can
lead to unaccountable oddities. The intention is good: to investigate the 'gap
between a few rich nations and the many poor to very poor ones' by
commissioning a series of essays linking politics, policies, and economic
development in several selected Western Hemisphere countries. The authors
are distinguished, and a list that comprises Paul E Sigmund on Chile, Gary W
Wynia on Argentina, Martin Weinstein on Uruguay, Werner Baer on Brazil,
David Scott Palmer on Peru, William Glade on Mexico, Bruce Bagley on
Colombia, John D Martz on Venezuela, W Raymond Duncan on Jamaica and
the editor himself on Costa Rica is bound to produce much that is interesting
and worthwhile. Some of the individual studies are very good indeed.
But where is Cuba? Where indeed? '. . . Cuba, although unequivocally
Latin American, has been omitted because it is too variant to offer useful

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comparisons with the other countries.' In what respects? 'It is not a member,
for all practical purposes, of the hemispheric trading community; 70 per cent of
its foreign trade being with the Soviet Union.' Seventy per cent of Mexico's
trade in 1980 was with the United States and that country is included; might the
comparison not be instructive? 'The Cuban economy is as politicised as the
leadership can make it'-what Latin American economy is not?-'and it is
constrained not only by internal planning but by the requirements of the
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the Soviet bloc economic agency',
i.e. they get a stabilised commodity price for their sugar crop. 'The chief pillar
of the Cuban economy is the Soviet subsidy equivalent to $4-5 billion per
year'-would this not be an interesting dimension to explore, given the
widespread belief in the virtues of economic aid? But no-'The Cuban
experience consequently seemed irrelevant for the purposes of this volume.'
Back, then, to the purposes of this volume. The editor takes a moderate
position: he believes in democracy, both for its own sake and as the most
efficient way of responding to wants and needs. He follows Dumont in
disillusion with state-led development in the Third World, but accepts that the
arguments for state-led development are 'strong, or at least very persuasive'
(Introduction, p xv). So he seeks to investigate alternative models of economic
development. But why leave out the one system that is different from all the
others? As it is, he has to conclude, rather disappointingly:
The most obviousconclusionto be drawnfromthe precedingstudiesis thatit is difficult
to drawanyfirmconclusion.The interrelationships of politicsandeconomicseven in the
relativelylimited ambitof LatinAmericaare enormouslycomplexand dependenton
numerous factors, internal and external, many of them poorly knowable or
unpredictable.
As he rightly says, if the book had been written in 1978 the judgements would
have been very different. But there is another moral. Comparison with David
Slater's book reveals it: in the field of developmental studies there is a
compelling need not simply for country-by-country analysis, nor simply for
broad theoretical overview, but for a combination of both. This book is, like
the others, a serious and well-founded academic enterprise, and it undoubtedly
will be of interest to others concerned with and about the economic
development of the Third World. But it could have been more interesting. A
Cuba which has voluntarily submitted to an economic regime more severe than
anything the IMF has ever dreamt of, which has come to hold up dependence
on monoculture as a model to be admired rather than rejected, which has
recently urged Nicaragua not to provoke the United States by excessive
radicalism and which has, while urging other Latin American states not to do
so, quickly come to an accommodation with its own creditors, seems to have
something to teach others, even if it is not precisely the lesson that either Left
or Right might have thought likely a decade ago.

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