Illiberal Democracy
This week’s readings deal mainly on the proliferation of illiberal democracy throughout Latin America. This topic is very, I daresay, topical. In Latin America, and indeed many parts of the world, democracy is facing extreme challenges in adapting to a changing status quo. As discussed nearly endlessly, the election of Donald Trump has called into question the effectiveness and equity of American democracy. Typically, with a few exceptions, American democracy is the yardstick to which other democracies are measured. American democracy has lasted nearly 250 years without crumbling or otherwise being categorized as undemocratic. This cannot be said for the political system in Mexico. As discussed in the Holzner reading (and in class more generally) Mexico has been under the rule of the PRI consistently from the 20’s up until 2000. While there were elections being held, they had little if no effect upon policy outcomes. Under this system, policy change could not be enacted through traditional means (making politicians liable at the ballot, etc) but through clientelism. Many hoped that the change in regime would be an end to clientelism, but with the PRI winning back executive power under President Nieto these hopes have dimmed. In the United States currently, we are seeing a strange growth in clientelism in the choices of the Trump administration. Many prominent picks for the administration are wealthy people who have given large sums to either Trump’s campaign or the RNC. This is not entirely unusual, as newly elected Presidents give plum ambassadorships to important donors routinely. Giving away cabinet appointments to these donors (who are wholly inexperienced in running a certain department. E.g Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, etc etc etc) is a bit strange and wholly alarming, however. We often see this behavior in other countries whose records for substantive democracy are shaky at best. (See: Russia, oligarchic Latin American nations, etc) While Illiberal democracy is typically associated with developing nations, it is certainly sad to see that electoral competition in Mexico has further empowered the public. It is also sad to see more developed nations, such as our own, fall under the spell of clientelism and lessen the quality of democracy.
What other evidence supports your claim of illiberal democracy in the U.S. today?
It is interesting how you compared the US democratic system to the systems in Latin America. This is interesting because many times throughout the history of Latin America we hear that they are trying to follow in the US and other well developed nations path’s but with your posting it suggests that the opposite is occurring and the US is developing or following the path of Latin America instead. As far as the elections in Mexico go, there is not a drastic change when it comes to regime changes in todays current situation, as compared to the US where President Trump is seen basically undoing majority of what President Obama had put into place.
While I agree with your idea that the United States has developed some tendencies in clientelism I think we differ a bit as to how this is happening. I understand clientelism as the idea of promising resources in return for votes. So Donald Trump’s nomination of certain people would not really fit that description. As you stated, routinely presidents give positions to donors. I think this is more of his mentality of trying to “drain the swamp” and hire people outside of the regular nominees spectrum. Now if this is a good idea or not is a point up for debate. I see clientelism in the idea that candidates promise to add components or not take away components from those who he or she can get votes from come election time.
I’ve also noticed the same thing within the United States. Clientelism has really surged since the inauguration as our President heavily relies on it. It seems as if it has been steadily growing in American politics, but it has only come up recently because of the individual that uses it. In part, clientelism has led to many of the political issues that Mexico has faced and is currently facing today. The reason I think that is because it seems that corruption and clientelism essentially feed off of each other.
I do think the US has had more clientelism however I think that is where our agreement ends with regards to this. Clientelism is the exchange of goods for votes so if your arguement is that Betsy DeVos, and Rick Perry (who when was the governor of Texas who is the 10th largest energy producer in the world) is clientlism then it is a very peculiar idea to chose two individuals who do not fit in this description. Clientlism would be better to be compared to campaigning because in a campaigning politicians make promises that they cannot keep. You can see this now with President Trump backing off on his NATO and China trade talk.