Democracy in Peru and Venezuela
The readings concentrated on the political developments in Latin American countries, which are considered to be the most non-democratic states. The long-lasting authoritarian regimes of Alberto Fujimori and Hugo Chavez, who could not conduct their policies in a spirit of balanced cooperation with the oppositional forces, are the remarkable cases in the global political history. A surprisingly high popular support of overtly anti-democratic candidates has been a mystery for decades. As the region of South America is known for the lack of liberalism, it is important to contrast the leadership styles of the heads of those states because the overall regional political instability and authoritarianism has been a trend for a long period of time.
In both Peru and Venezuela the opposition, often prevailing in number, was left frustrated and powerless against the president. It seemed absurd that no means existed for such mass of political parties and coalitions to really oppose the ruling party, and possess weight and power to participate in the decision-making process. However, the situation in two countries was rather different. Peruvian opposition could not offer a more credible and structured plan of action than the governing forces, being in fact a mere mix of hybrid hastily created “parties” with no clear aim and political ideology. All politicians tended to show their independence from any flank, and this only increased the level of disunity within the political system in Peru. The opposition to Chavez’s government in Venezuela was more consolidated, but lacked political freedom and was deprived of any instruments and leverage to set up the agenda. Thus, the reasons for the existing authoritarian regimes were different in both countries; however, the result was quite similar.
Building democracy in South America often turns out into a failure. The region historically developed under totalitarian rule and it cannot abandon the shaped forms of government so easily. The high rate of poverty also contributes to the status quo. Strict control of authoritarian presidents seems to them to provide at least sufficient living standards. However, the situation is just the opposite. “The worst situation for the poor is low political competition” (Corrales & Penfold-Becerra, 2007), as the political forces do not have to pay much attention to the problems of the poor to get votes. The electorate will just opt for the lesser evil, or the candidate they already know not to make things worse. This is what happened when the coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002 miserably failed and brought the dictator back to power.
Without a stable party system, like in Peru, “societies are less well equipped either to resist authoritarian encroachments or to remove autocratic governments” (Levitsky & Cameron, 2008). People do not feel that there are powers, which can represent and protect their interests. Thus, the nation becomes a hostage of imperfections of its “democratic” government. Being not interest-centered but person-centered groups, political parties are doomed to the low level of support and little power in the political arena. Parties created for the illusion of democratic representations and tailored to the particular electoral campaign cannot function on a long-term basis, or gather a strong class of supporters. Thus, the articles about the regimes of Alberto Fujimori and Hugo Chavez concentrate not only on the horrors of their authoritative ruling, but on the drawbacks of the political system in Latin America as a whole.
References
Corrales, J. & Penfold-Becerra, M. (2007). Venezuela: Crowding Out the Opposition. Journal Of Democracy, 18(2), 99-113.
Levitsky, S. & Cameron, M. (2008). Democracy Without Parties? Political Parties and Regime Change in Fujimori’s Peru. Latin American Politics And Society, 45(3), 1-33.