Elsa Cardozo de Da Silva
Neoliberalism with populism
colleague's generosity brought me a very interesting
work with the main thesis that neoliberalism and populism are not opposing
phenomena, and that accordingly þquoting as sensitive evidence the cases of Fujimori's
government in Peru, Salinas de Gortari's in Mexico and Menem's in Argentinaþ a new
manifestation of populism is being seen: liberal populism.
Kenneth M. Roberts ("Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism in Latin
America. The Peruvian Case". World Politics 48, October 1995: 82-16) begins
by objecting the definition under which neoliberalism and populism represent opposing
economic practices. To do that, he divides his general argument into three fundamental
components: a revision of conceptions and a redefinition of populism, together with a
characterization of liberal populism as opposed to the "classical" one. I believe that
these ideas are worth being considered from Latin America's standpoint, and specially
as it affects us in Venezuela, because, in my opinion, with are still being dominated by
political, economic and social turbulence and we are still in the presence of traditional
elements of the populist way that we built when traveling towards modernity, in the
midst of the fall of oligarchic systems and the adoption of substituting industrialization
strategies.
Four conceptions. Roberts starts by reviewing the four great conceptions on
populism. He recalls how, from a historic and sociological point of view there is an
emphasis on the features of multiclassist social-political coalitions (populist coalitions)
that characterized, as from the start, the Latin American industrialization process.
There is then the economic point of view, tending to look at the fiscal lack of discipline's
components, State intervention in the economy by means of redistributing policies as
a response to demands made by the masses. The ideological perspective follows then,
where the phenomenon is associated to an ideological discourse proposing the
contradiction between "the people" and "the block in power". Finally he mentions the
political conception, centered on the mobilization of masses by leaders who subordinate
--or simply jump over-- institutional forms of aggregation and mediation.
Regarding these perspectives, Robert offers that if populism may not be reduced to a
phenomenon being linked to an articular stage of history; it may not be understood
either as necessarily linked to statist, expansive and redistributing policies and
heterogeneous masses of followers. It is not a matter of eliminating the concept, nor
of ignoring recurring practices of populism; on the contrary, it is a question of revising
and enriching it in order to interpret the Latin American reality following the
application of economic adjustment programs.
A redefinition. From all the reviewed perspectives there arises a definition
of populism, that is to say of its five nuclear elements: a. A pattern of
personalist and paternalist political leadership; b. a multiclassist and
heterogeneous political coalition, concentrated on society's most subordinate sectors;
c. a process of political mobilization "from the top to the bottom" that either
goes over the top of institutionalized mediation mechanisms, or subordinates them to
the direct relationship between the leader and the masses; d. an amorphous
or eclectic ideology, characterized by a discourse that exalts subordinate sectors and that
has anti-elite and "antiestablishment" contents; d. an economic project that
uses redistributing or client-seeking methods in order to create grounds to support
popular sectors.
Thus described, these perspectives lead to a widened concept and to identify
occurrences of the phenomenon in an environment that is different from that featuring
"classic populism".
Liberal populism. With the economic reforms advanced since the middle
eighties, many of the elements that sustained the populist model that Robert calls
"classic": downsizing of the State and the implications on fiscal discipline and control of
restructuring policies; redistribution "from the bottom to the top" that these implied as
a result of the reduction of salaries and increase of unemployment; the central role
attributed to technocrat decision makers to isolate the State from pressures and
tensions that were supposed to be solved by market logic and dynamics; the weakening
of classical organization forms such as traditional political parties and union
organizations.
This new context notwithstanding, populism has caused a mutation in the shape
of "liberal populism" in the midst of the political, social and economic turbulence
created by the overture programs. There has been a clear manifestation thereof in
Peru, Mexico and Argentina, under the following conditions:
a. The circumstances preceding the adjustments and those brought in by
their application weakened the classic institutional channels of aggregation and
articulation of interests and they left the road open to a direct leader / masses
relationship.
b. In effect, there is no doubt on the weight that specific leaders have had in
the implementation of programs with a neoliberal shape, nor on the need that they have
of setting sustaining grounds on public opinion and popular sectors. To do that,
economic opening allows to develop more effective policies aimed at specific sectors,
so that --in Robert's words--"a neoliberal project at the macrolevel may be compatible
not only with a populist leadership style, but also with populist economic measures at
the microlevel."
Sound and safe. Robert's arguments let us pinpoint two things of particular
theoretical and practical interest: that neoliberalism and populism both have amazing
compatibilities --perhaps we are in the presence of transformation, not the end, of
populism --and of neoliberalism-- and that populism is a "perpetual trend" wherever it
wants them to be weak. These are important things to think about with so much road
left to define strategies and policies to let us adapt as healthy as possible to global
transformations.
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