Explaining the Left's Resurgence

Matthew R. Cleary

Journal of Democracy, Volume 17, Number 4, October 2006, pp. 35-49 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/jod.2006.0058

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A Left Turn in Latin America?

EXPLAINING THE LEFTS RESURGENCE

Matthew R. Cleary

Matthew R. Cleary is assistant professor of political science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He studies Latin American politics and has recently published Democracy and the Culture of Skepticism: Political Trust in Argentina and Mexico (with Susan C. Stokes, 2006).

The left is back in Latin America. Over the past decade, leftist candidates have won presidential elections in Venezuela (1998), Chile (2000 and 2006), Brazil (2002), Argentina (2003), Uruguay (2005), Bolivia (2006), and Peru (2006).1 Mexicos leftist candidate finished just shy of victory in July 2006, but the leftward trend may still spread later this year: The left will either win or place a strong second in the November 2006 presidential election in Nicaragua, and leftist incumbents are heavy favorites for reelection in Brazil and Venezuela.2 This is a stunning turn of events for a region in which previous leftist victories (such as Salvador Allendes in Chile in 1970, or Alan Garcas in Peru in 1985) occurred so rarely and ended so disastrously. And it comes as a surprise to most observers, who had interpreted the dearth of leftist victories in the 1980s and 1990s as evidence that the left was permanently hamstrung by pacted transitions, which tilted the electoral playing field to the right, and by the hegemony of neoliberal economics, which constrained the possibilities for redistributive policy making and decimated labor and other mass organizations. Leftist electoral victories in such a context seemed impossible.3 As a result, when leftist victories have occurred, scholars have framed them as isolated and singular eventsas exceptions to the rule. For example, we can explain the Brazilian case in terms of President Luiz Incio (Lula) da Silvas personality, charisma, and persistence; we portray the Venezuelan case as a unique reaction against the failures of the mainstream parties in the early 1990s; we view the Chilean case in the singular context of its authoritarian past, which even today looms
Journal of Democracy Volume 17, Number 4 October 2006 2006 National Endowment for Democracy and The Johns Hopkins University Press

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over the countrys gradual and cautious democratization.4 The heterogeneity of the left has also contributed to the common view that each case is unique. Much has been made, for example, of the stark differences in substance and style between the populist left, purportedly dangerous and radical, and the social-democratic left, which is more moderate.5 Distinctions like these make it difficult to see the rise of the left as a regional wave. How, for example, can a single regional process account for the ascendancy of a bombastic populist like Venezuelas President Hugo Chvez, on the one hand, and a moderate fiscal conservative like Chiles President Michelle Bachelet on the other? These differences within the left, while real, are often overemphasized. In contrast to how it is sometimes portrayed in the press, the left in power is predominantly moderate. Chvez is the only sitting president who is unambiguously populist, in the sense that he actively undermines independent sources of institutional authority and draws his political power primarily from a charismatic and paternalistic connection with the masses. Others, including Argentinas President Nstor Kirchner and even Bolivias President Evo Morales, are more moderate, in that they show greater respect for the rule of law and a limited willingness to personalize and concentrate political power.6 Most electorates seem to favor moderation as wellcomparisons to Chvez clearly hurt presidential candidates in Peru (Ollanta Humala) and Mexico (Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador). In sum, the contemporary Latin American left is more homogenous, and more moderate, than many would argue. As leftist victories accumulate, it becomes increasingly clear that they represent a regional trend rather than a series of isolated events. In this essay I offer a general explanation for this trend, without focusing on cross-country differences within the left. Thus, I define the left in broad terms: as a political movement with historical antecedents in communist and socialist political parties, grassroots social movements, populist social organizations, or other political forces that traditionally have had antisystemic, revolutionary, or transformative objectives.7 The mobilizational form and the degree of radicalism may vary across countries. But in all cases the left shares (at least rhetorically, and usually substantively) a concern with redistribution and social justice, and it finds mass support among segments of the population that are severely disadvantaged under the current socioeconomic order. The rise of the left in Latin America cannot be adequately understood without considering the regional and international factors that have helped to shape this wave of electoral victories. Domestic economic and structural factors have generated support for the left, while international political and economic factors have sustained the left in power by producing incentives for moderation on the part of both leftist governments and their traditional antagonists. This leftward shift in electoral competition will endure. The left will not always win, but its

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newfound competitiveness will be a permanent feature of electoral politics in most Latin American countries.

Structural Bases of Support for the Left

The underlying reason for the lefts success in Latin American elections is obvious, and yet it is helpful to state it: Severe economic inequality is endemic throughout Latin America, and this inequality gives the left a natural support base that typically encompasses a majority of the population. Latin Americanists often refer to the region as the most unequal in the world. In fact, inequality is more pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa, but what makes Latin American inequality so remarkable is that it exists in the context of relatively high levels of wealth and development. For example, inequality in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico (as measured by Gini coefficients) is roughly comparable to that in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. But the GDP per capita of the former three countries exceeds that of the latter three by an order of magnitude. 8 Globally, inequality tends to fall as countries become richer, but Latin America does not follow the pattern. All Latin American countries except Jamaica are significantly more unequal than we would predict based on their levels of wealth. Furthermore, the available evidence indicates that Latin Americas relatively good macroeconomic performance in recent years has done little to equalize the distribution of wealth.9 Given this state of affairs, most Latin American countries are ripe for a socioeconomic cleavage in which the median voter supports the radical redistribution of wealth. According to some recent work in political economy, this is precisely the reason that wealthy elites worked so hard, and so successfully, to undermine the combination of democratic institutions and mass political participation that arose across Latin America in the mid-twentieth century.10 For the moment, let us leave aside the theoretical difficulty involved in reconciling extreme inequality with democratization (I will return to this problem below). Taking democratic institutions and free participation as given, the electoral dominance of the left has an obvious explanation: The left succeeds because most Latin Americans are poor and a small minority is quite wealthy. Yet inequality alone cannot account for variation in the lefts resurgence across countries, since inequality is ubiquitous. For every country in which the left has been flexing its electoral muscles in recent years (for example Brazil or Chile), we can point to another in which the left remains weak and ineffectual (for example Colombia or El Salvador). The additional factor that explains why the left has found success in some countries but not others is the nature of mass political mobilization. Inequality has translated into electoral success for the left almost exclusively in countries that historically have had an organizational

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basis for mass mobilization. For example, Brazilian president Lula da Silva has benefited from the close ties between organized labor, leftist social movements, and the Brazilian Workers Party (PT). Mexicos Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) draws mass support from leaders who gained their popular base while serving within the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), from social movements, and from an array of preexisting leftist groups. In Ecuador and Bolivia, the left draws support from indigenous political parties that grew out of unusually strong social movements in the 1990s. In some cases the organizational structure of the left has deep historical roots; in others, it was cobbled together only after redemocratization. What all of these cases have in common is that the development of mass-mobilizing structures preceded leftist electoral victories by at least a decade. These organizational bases of support for the left do not exist in all Latin American countries. One useful way to identify the countries that have them comes from a study by Kenneth Roberts, who divides Latin American party systems into elitist and labor-mobilizing varieties. Elitist party systems have segmented (or vertical) cleavages, in which parties organize across lines of socioeconomic class. Labor-mobilizing party systems have stratified (or horizontal) cleavages, in which parties tend to organize along class lines. Roberts offers evidence to indicate that labor-mobilizing party systems arise in countries with higher union density, larger manufacturing sectors, and greater public investment in economic development. 11 Like many scholars, Roberts doubted the ability of leftist groups to succeed in new Latin American democracies, primarily because the elitist party systems in many countries inhibited the ability of leftist groups to mobilize voters around a socioeconomic cleavage, even in conditions of extreme inequality. A fresh look at his typology shows his prediction to be quite accurate with respect to countries with elitist party systems. But his classification also reveals a striking correspondence between countries with labor-mobilizing party systems and leftist electoral success (see Table). Among the eight countries with labor-mobilizing party systems, six (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela) currently have leftist presidents. In Mexico, the leftist presidential candidate Lpez Obrador fell less than a percentage-point short of winning in July 2006; in Nicaragua, former president Daniel Ortega of the leftist Sandinista Front is a leading candidate for the November 2006 elections. Thus, the left either is in power or is a credible contender for power in all countries with labor-mobilizing party systems. In the countries that Roberts classifies as having elitist party systems, the left has fared much more poorly. The only such country with a true leftist in power is Uruguay, where socialist Tabar Vzquez won the presidential election in 2005. Ecuador may also be an interesting case in this respect. Although Roberts (correctly) classifies Ecuador as

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AND IN

TABLEELITIST

LABOR-MOBILIZING PARTY SYSTEMS LATIN AMERICA

LABOR-MOBILIZING P ARTY SYSTEMS COUNTRY PEAK MANUFACTURING TRADE SHARE UNION OF GDP DENSITY (P EAK SCORE (%) 197080) 197095 50.1 28.0 24.8 15.9 24.3 28.7 35.0 25.0 32.1 29.9 37.3 24.3 25.0 25.6 26.4 17.7

ELITIST P ARTY SYSTEMS PEAK MANUFACTURING TRADE SHARE UNION OF GDP DENSITY (P EAK SCORE (%) 197080) 197095 Colombia 19.0 9.2 22.2 Costa Rica 15.4 18.5 Dominican Republic 17.0 20.2 Ecuador 13.5 17.0 8.5 Honduras 17.2 17.0 Panama 17.5 9.9 Paraguay 24.0 20.9 Uruguay COUNTRY

Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Mexico Nicaragua Peru Venezuela

Source: Kenneth Roberts, Social Inequalities Without Class Cleavages in Latin Americas Neoliberal Era, Studies in Comparative International Development 36 (Winter 2002): 1516, especially Tables 1 and 2.

having an elitist party system, the rapid growth of indigenous social movements and their incorporation into the party system give Ecuador the type of mass-mobilizing capacity that is necessary for leftist victories. Unsurprisingly, the left has found a certain level of success in Ecuador, for instance in Lucio Gutirrezs election in 2003. But Gutirrez was forced from office after he lost the support of the leftist groups that had brought him to power, and as of this writing (September 2006), the outlook for the October election remains cloudy. This evidence suggests that the left needs a mass-mobilizing capacity to translate latent and diffuse support into electoral success. In most cases, this capacity has come from a historically mobilized labor sector. Interestingly, voters from the lower and working classes often remain politically active even in countries where the organizations that originally mobilized them have deteriorated, as many have under neoliberalism. In a few cases, leftist parties have also relied on social movements, indigenous organizations, and other popular groups for mass support. While the exact form of mobilization differs from one country to the next, the common theme is that leftist victories in the current wave have been built on preexisting organizational structures that facilitate classbased mobilization.

The Timing of the Resurgence

The left has succeeded in Latin America where it has had the capacity to mobilize large groups of voters along an economic cleavage, yet both the inequality that generates support for the left and the organiza-

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tional structures that help leftist parties to channel that support existed well before the current wave of leftist victories. This raises the question of timing: Why are we witnessing leftist victories only now, some 20 to 25 years after redemocratization in most countries? Two factors combine to explain The left in many Latin the timing of the leftist wave: a gradual tactical shift in the lefts approach to elecAmerican countries has toral politics, and the constraints imposed freely and consciously by the pacted nature of many Latin Amerientered the electoral can transitions. game, abandoning In contrast to earlier eras, the left in revolutionary and many Latin American countries has freely violent ideologies and consciously entered the electoral while reorganizing game, abandoning revolutionary and violent ideologies while reorganizing partipartisan, labor, and san, labor, and civic organizations with a civic organizations view to electoral success. In most counwith a view to electries, this strategic shift happened only toral success. gradually in the decade or so after redemocratization. As Francisco Panizza notes, Historically, the Latin American left has had an uneasy relationship with liberal-democratic institutions, and the embrace of the electoral process has been a significant ideological change.12 In the 1960s and 1970s, most Latin American countries were home to leftist political parties or social groups that advocated Marxism, socialism, or other ideologies of revolutionary social change, including economic nationalization and radical forms of redistribution. These groups commanded majority support only rarely, if at all. But they were important political forces with significant mass support, as indicated by Salvador Allendes electoral performance in 1964 and 1970, and by popular support for insurgent groups such as the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. With few exceptions, adherence to democratic practices like free and fair elections was simply not a priority for these groups; for the most part, the left deliberately avoided electoral competition altogether. In contrast, the contemporary left has embraced the electoral process, and its leading figures (such as Chvez and Lula) have won national elections on multiple occasions, often with majority support. In this sense, the modern Latin American left appears as a genuinely new political force. Yet it would be a mistake to miss the organizational links between the contemporary left and its historical precursors: in fact, there is a high degree of continuity in most cases. As noted above, union organizations and social movements were critical to the formation of Brazils PT (Lula himself first entered political life as a labor leader in the late 1970s). Mexicos PRD began as a coalition between dissident members from the ruling PRI and several smaller leftist groups. In Chile,

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the Socialists who have been in power since 2000 are the direct political descendants of the Socialist Party that functioned before the 1973 coup. Where the left has truly broken with its past is in terms of strategy. Most significant leftist groups, including communist and socialist political parties, no longer advocate violence, revolution, or other antisystemic approaches to resolving issues of social justice. Instead, they have made a conscious decision to compete for elected office, and have either reorganized themselves as electorally viable political parties or allied themselves with established left-of-center parties.13 To be sure, many social movements across the region remain committed to contentious forms of protest politics, including strikes, demonstrations, and roadblocks. But increasingly, these methods of protest are seen as a legitimate form of civil disobedience within a democratic system, rather than a direct challenge to the system itself. Furthermore, these strategies are increasingly used in conjunction with electoral contestation rather than as an alternative. Regionwide, the left is now more committed to the electoral process than at any time in the past. The second reason that the left has emerged as an electoral force only gradually is that the return to democracy in many Latin American countries took the form of pacted transitions, which have worked against the left in several ways. In some cases, the political marginalization of leftist groups was an explicit requirement of the outgoing authoritarian regimes. For example, Chiles post-authoritarian electoral system was clearly and intentionally constructed to be biased against the left. In other cases, the left was disadvantaged more implicitly, as the old regimes negotiated peaceful transitions only when they had reasonable certainty about the identity of their civilian successors, who were invariably from centrist or center-right parties. In most cases, the danger of going too far to the left was internalized by voters and even by leftist groups, which seem to have recognized that electoral support for centrist candidates would help to ensure a smooth transition and the reestablishment of democratic institutions. Everyone perceived that authoritarian backsliding was a real possibility and that moderation was the order of the day. In Brazil, for example, the transition in the early 1980s required prodemocracy forces to proceed with caution. The electoral college that was to elect a new president in 1985 originally seemed to favor the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), which had close ties to the military. But a faction of PSDB delegates defected and voted for Tancredo Neves, the candidate of the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement. This was a surprising turn of events, but Neves had long been a member of the political establishment and had assiduously advertised his moderation to the military and other conservative political forces. As it happened, Neves fell ill and died after winning the elec-

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tion, and was replaced by Jos Sarney, the vice-president elect. Sarney was also a member of Brazils political elite, and in fact had previously been a leader in the PSDB. Brazils return to democracy in the 1980s was thus characterized by moderation and continuity, as the leading political figures, including elected presidents, were members of the political establishment who had been active in politics during the period of military rule. A similar dynamic played out in Chile. Although General Augusto Pinochet (who ruled from 1973 to 1990) was obliged to allow a free election after losing the 1988 plebiscite, he still exercised enormous influence over the process of redemocratization. All sides recognized this fact, which is why the center-left coalition (the Concertacin) nominated Patricio Aylwin of the Christian Democratic Party. Aylwin is usually portrayed as an antagonist to Pinochet and a hero of the transition period. To a large extent this is true, but Aylwin was also an establishment politician who had a long history of moderation with respect to the dictatorship. In fact, as a senator in 1973, Aylwin openly agitated for the military to intervene against Allendes government, and he publicly supported the coup after it succeeded.14 After Pinochets defeat in the 1988 plebiscite, Aylwin was a central figure in negotiations with the military that resulted in constitutional changes which limited the impact of redemocratization and preserved many of the militarys prerogatives. Given his posture toward the military regime both in the early 1970s and the late 1980s, Aylwin was clearly a moderate candidate whom the outgoing regime viewed as acceptable. The Chilean Socialist and Communist parties recognized this, and made a strategic decision to support Aylwins candidacy within the Concertacin. They would later also support the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei, who led Chile from 1994 to 2000. Thus the process of Latin Americas democratization in the late twentieth century led to a generation of centrist or conservative leaders, invariably from the political establishment and representing the economic and social elites of their countries. This pattern often lasted for two or three presidential terms, and in several ways it set the stage for the current wave of leftist victories. One reason for this is that elections in presidential systems tend to produce opposition victories sooner or later. In Latin America this dynamic was augmented by the fact that the first generation of center-right administrations generally failed to perform well in office. In some cases they performed quite poorly, not only in terms of economic stewardship, but even to the point of destroying their own party organizations. Additionally, political parties and citizens grew increasingly comfortable with the stability of democratic institutions, and thus were more likely to express support for the left as memories of authoritarian rule began to fade.15 This dynamic process helps to explain the decidedly gradual nature of the lefts electoral

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resurgence, even amid longstanding and relatively constant conditions of severe socioeconomic inequality.

International Incentives for Moderation

It would be nave to assume that military coups are a thing of the past, given Latin Americas long history of military interventions in politics. Indeed, we do not need to hearken back to an earlier era to find examples. Hugo Chvez was deposed in a short-lived military coup in April 2002. The military in Ecuador is heavily involved in politics, and has either directly intervened or tacitly supported the removal of three democratically elected presidents in just the past decade (1997, 2000, and 2005). Nevertheless, there is a clear difference between the way in which traditional power structures (including the military) reacted to leftist victories in the past, and the way in which they have reacted to the current wave. There are two reasons for this: The first is that international norms of respect for democracy (or at least for elections) are increasingly powerful in the region, making coups more costly. The second reason is that international economic integration and the dominance of neoliberalism have constrained leftists, once in power, from pursuing the types of radically redistributive or socialist policies that instigated military coups or right-wing destabilization efforts in the past. At least since the end of World War II, the United States, international organizations, and most Latin American governments have consistently voiced respect for democracy within the region, though their actions have not always matched their words. The United States in particular repeatedly saw fit to subvert democratically elected governments in Latin America when it judged those governments to be pro-Soviet, Marxist, or in some other way antagonistic to U.S. economic and security interests. For their part, Latin American governments often acquiesced to U.S. intervention in neighboring countries, and in some cases actively favored it. Thus, concern for democracy often took a backseat to concerns about security and stability in general, and about Soviet expansionism in particular. Since the end of the Cold War, Latin American governments (acting both unilaterally and as members of international organizations) have become increasingly assertive in encouraging respect for the democratic process. In 1991, the Organization of American States (OAS) issued Resolution 1080, which requires the secretary-general to convene a strategy meeting within ten days of any irregular interruption of the democratic political institutional process or of the legitimate exercise of power by the democratically elected government of any member state. The Inter-American Democratic Charter, signed in 2001 by the United States and all Latin American countries except Cuba, contains even stronger language, and allows the OAS to suspend any state in

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which an interruption of the democratic order has occurred.16 Over the past 15 to 20 years, the OAS has become more active in election monitoring and more assertive in dealing with threats to democratic institutions, such as Alberto Fujimoris irregular reelection in Peru in 2000. Freed from the constraints of its Cold War security imperatives, the United States has also placed increased importance on respect for democratic institutions, and has actively discouraged coups or other threats to democratic institutions on several occasions. The United States formally protested Fujimoris autogolpe (self-coup) in 1992, as a result of which Fujimori reluctantly and grudgingly backed away from his effort to install an openly authoritarian regime and started a process of redemocratization.17 In 1993, the United States condemned a militarybacked self-coup by President Jorge Serrano in Guatemala, cutting off almost US$70 million in aid and threatening Guatemalas trade status. Serrano was forced to resign, and constitutional order was soon restored. According to Wendy Hunter, U.S. actions not only contributed to Serranos failure, but also discouraged President Itamar Franco from attempting a similar move in Brazil later that year.18 The U.S. response to the short-lived coup against Hugo Chvez in 2002 shows that U.S. commitment to democratic institutions is still not absolute. But while U.S. actions were less than admirable, the incident also shows just how powerful international democratic norms have become in Latin America. With the possible exception of Cubas Fidel Castro, no leader is more antagonistic to the United States than Chvez. The George W. Bush administration has not looked kindly on Chvezs anti-U.S. rhetoric, his courtship of Cuba and Bolivia, or his oil politics. Furthermore, by dissolving Congress and packing a new constitutional assembly with his own supporters shortly after taking office, the former golpista Chvez revealed his own ambivalence toward democratic principles. It is hard to imagine a case better suited to test U.S. commitment to democratic norms. Yet even in these circumstances, the United States did not actively support the coup, and was quickly forced to renounce it after being embarrassed by its own silence and by accusations (later substantiated) that it had known of the coup plans ahead of time. For its part, the OAS issued a strong statement against the coup. Domestic support within Venezuela waned, the coup-plotters lost their resolve, and Chvez was restored to power within days. One must wonder whether in earlier eras such a coup attempt would have been successful, or even actively supported by the United States and other Latin American governments. It will be a long time before scholars of Latin American politics lower their guard against the possibility of military coups, and with good reason. But clearly, the increased salience of democratic norms, institutionalized in organizations such as the OAS, makes coups less likely today than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Even where traditional power structures might favor the removal of a leftist president, as they

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clearly did in Venezuela in 2002, military coups are increasingly costly in the modern era of respect for democratic institutions.

Neoliberal Economics and the Left

One of the most notable, and in some circles disheartening, characteristics of the current wave of leftist administrations is the high degree of continuity with their predecessors neoliberal economic policies. Historically, of course, the Latin American left had promoted policies for poverty alleviation and redistribution that included high levels of social spending and state involvement in the economy. Today, with few exceptions, the lefts commitment to such policies is tepid. The main reason for this moderation is that leftist administrations (and in fact, all administrations) are constrained by the regionwide commitment to economic neoliberalism and by increased levels of international economic integration. Constraints are most obvious in the areas of monetary and fiscal policy. Governments can no longer easily subsidize social spending by printing money or assuming large amounts of debt. In other policy areas, leftist governments have more room to maneuver and experiment with policy, but they have still exercised great caution in departing from neoliberal orthodoxy. In all cases, governments are more constrained where capital is mobile. Almost by definition, neoliberal economic policies are anathema to leftist governments. The left is surely correct to argue that Latin Americas existing neoliberal systems do not sufficiently prioritize poverty alleviation, redistribution, and human development. Important segments of most Latin American countries do, however, credit neoliberal policies with ending the specter of hyperinflation, and with achieving what moderate economic growth the region has experienced in the past decade. Thus, leftist governments that might be inclined to challenge neoliberal policies more aggressively must consider whether such a course would either curtail their ability to construct broad political coalitions, or worse, provoke serious macroeconomic problems like a new bout of inflation. Similarly, international economic integration has constrained governments that are dependent on liberalized trade and international capital from pursuing policies that might threaten capital inflows. In addition, neoliberal policies have often been institutionalized and insulated, making change difficult even for leftists who are willing to accept the risks involved.19 Economic elites and other traditional power structures in Latin America recognize the constraints that these regional economic factors place on leftist administrations, and this makes the rise of the left seem less threatening. These elites also tend to have a vested interest in stability, and so they have reason to support democracy even when the left is in power. Neoliberalism and economic integration have thus pro-

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duced incentives for moderation on the right as well. Put another way, the same factors that prevent the left from pursuing more radical economic policies are also responsible for the ability of the left to remain in power without provoking antisystemic behavior on the part of opposing political forces. The Venezuelan case is instructive on this point, because it illustrates how difficult it is for Latin Americas leftist governments to escape the dictates of the international economic order. Venezuelas oil reserves (and current high prices) make it the only country in the region with a truly independent source of wealth, and this gives Chvez increased maneuverability. Other leftist leaders lack the freedom that resource wealth can bring, which makes it much more difficult for them to mount a fundamental challenge to the regional economic system. For example, even with the limited bargaining power provided by Bolivias natural-gas reserves, Evo Morales has been forced to moderate his antineoliberal aspirations, and so it is difficult to see how a truly radical break with the regions neoliberal system could succeed there. This dynamic helps to explain why Latin Americas socioeconomic inequality has not been more damaging to democratic stability. A recent study by Carles Boix suggests that highly unequal and asset-specific societies are infertile grounds for democracy because the wealthy fear the severe redistribution that majority rule would entail.20 But in Latin America democracy does coexist with inequality, at least partly because the constraints placed on democratic governments by capital mobility and regional economic integration discourage the type of radical redistribution that would otherwise lead the wealthy to undermine the democratic process.

What Future for the Left?

The underlying structural conditions (inequality and mass mobilization) that have facilitated the recent wave of leftist victories are longstanding, if not permanent, features of Latin Americas political and economic reality. The international factors (democratic norms and economic integration) that have contributed to this process also seem to be with us for the long term. Thus the current leftward shift in electoral politics most likely represents a fundamental and enduring transformation in the nature of political competition in Latin America. The left will not always winbut in a region where it was largely absent from the electoral arena for some thirty years, the left is back, and it will remain competitive in much of Latin America well into the future. Still, the left faces some challenges, and its success will be contingent both on its own chosen strategies and on future structural conditions in Latin America. On a short-term basis, the success of the left might depend on any number of local or idiosyncratic conditions. For example, leftist candidates have clearly benefited from being perceived as

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outsiders in countries where political insiders are widely assumed to be corrupt. If the left becomes tainted by corruption scandals, it could easily lose this advantage. The basic socioeconomic cleavage that motivates most political competition in Latin America might also be trumped on occasion by other considerations, such as security. This may help to explain the strong electoral performance of right-of-center parties (widely perceived to be law and order parties) in Mexico, Colombia, and some Central American countries where crimes related to drugs and gangs are serious problems and looming political issues. Thinking longer-term, one remaining question is how broadly the current wave might spread in Latin America. To this point, the lefts resurgence has largely been confined to countries with a history of massmobilizing party systems. It remains to be seen whether the left will also become more competitive in countries lacking such structures. The Ecuadorian case may prove to be a bellwether in this respect. Ecuador does not have a strong history of labor mobilization, but the recent incorporation of indigenous groups into the electoral system shows that other forms of mobilization are possible. And after some near misses, the left may finally succeed in winning the presidency and establishing a stable administration when elections are held in October 2006. This suggests that the leftist wave may expand into other countries, but only if the left can identify and exploit methods of mass mobilization. One final threat to the lefts future in Latin America, and in some cases even to the future of democratic institutions, would be a break with the current commitment to policy moderation. It would be a mistake to assume that traditional power structures will remain conciliatory if the left pursues more radical policies of poverty alleviation and redistribution. Again, the Venezuelan case illustrates the point. Even if we accept that Chvezs extreme rhetoric is not always matched by his actions and by government policies, the attempted coup in 2002, the general strike in 2002 and 2003, and recurring violent protests clearly demonstrate that a lack of moderation can threaten the stability of democratic institutions. Bolivia may yet head down a similar path. To this point Moraless rhetorical extremism has been accompanied by moderation on the ground. But any truly radical move, such as confiscation of privately (and legally) held lands, could precipitate political violence and destabilize his regime. Paradoxically, the increasing international salience of democratic norms might have a destabilizing effect in such cases, by making democratically elected leftist governments bolder than they would otherwise be. The threat of an authoritarian reaction should never be discounted in such cases. It is also important to note that antidemocratic interventions, including interventions by the military, are not the exclusive domain of the right. In fact, the classic right-wing military coup is increasingly rare in Latin America. Of fifteen Latin American presidencies identified by

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Journal of Democracy

Arturo Valenzuela as ending prematurely in the past two decades, only one (Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristides ouster in 1991) could plausibly be described as a military coup against a leftist president. It has been far more common for the military to intervene against (or support the removal of) centrist or center-right presidents, as in Ecuador on several occasions, in Bolivia in 1985, or even in Peru in 2000.21 Both the credibility of the left and the stability of democracy itself will be seriously endangered if the left politicizes the military, as it seems tempted to do in Venezuela, Bolivia, and perhaps Ecuador. These are serious concerns. Yet the potential pitfalls identified here seem either improbable or unlikely to precipitate a durable shift away from the left in the regions electoral politics. Thus the most likely course of events for the foreseeable future in Latin America is the continuation, and possible expansion, of an active electoral left. Proponents of traditional leftist politics may lament the relative moderation of current Latin American leftist administrations, and may prefer to place their hopes in such nonelectoral forms of politics as protests, social movements, and nongovernmental organizations. Yet it remains true that problems of inequality and social justice are probably better served by a moderate left in power than by a more radical left that intentionally camps on the fringe of politics and stands in opposition to liberaldemocratic institutions. The future of the left in Latin America will in large part depend on its ability to strike a balance between the pragmatic need for moderation and the moral imperative to pursue strategies for poverty reduction, redistribution, and development. NOTES
I would like to thank Pablo Beramendi, Carles Boix, Mark Hibben, Marcelo Nazareno, Kenneth Roberts, and Susan Stokes for useful comments and suggestions. 1. Some observers would add Ecuador under Lucio Gutirrez to this list, since he was elected on a leftist platform. Gutirrezs actions in office did not match his campaign rhetoric, however, and leftist groups withdrew support from his administration within a year, contributing to his ouster. I discuss this case further throughout the essay. See Ronald Chilcote, The Left in Latin America: Theory and Practice, Latin American Perspectives 30 (July 2003): 1015. 2. Left-of-center, if not truly leftist presidents are also in power in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, and Ecuador. 3. See for example Kenneth Roberts, Social Inequalities Without Class Cleavages in Latin Americas Neoliberal Era, Studies in Comparative International Development 36 (Winter 2002): 333; and Kurt Weyland, Neoliberalism and Democracy in Latin America: A Mixed Record, Latin American Politics and Society 46 (Spring 2004): 13557. 4. See Wendy Hunter, Brazils New Direction, Journal of Democracy 14 (April 2003): 15162 (especially p. 153); or Steve Ellner, Introduction: The Search for Explanations, in Steve Ellner and Daniel Hellinger, eds., Venezuelan

Matthew R. Cleary

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Politics in the Chvez Era: Class, Polarization, and Conflict (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003), 726. 5. See Jorge Casta~ n eda, Latin Americas Left Turn, Foreign Affairs 85 (May June 2006): 2843. 6. Evo Morales has certainly been provocative, but his actions to this point have not been as radical as his rhetoric. His seizure of natural-gas fields, for example, was actually a ploy to renegotiate contracts with foreign companies, and he later moderated his position. 7. For a similar definition and discussion, see Francisco Panizza, Unarmed Utopia Revisited: The Resurgence of Left-of-Centre Politics in Latin America, Political Studies 53 (December 2005): 71634. 8. According to a recent UNDP report, GDP per capita in Brazil, Mexico, and Chile is US$12,000, $10,000, and $9,000, respectively. The figures for Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Malawi are $1,050, $2,400, and $600. All six countries have similar Gini coefficients, ranging from 50.3 to 57.1. See Kevin Watkins, Human Development Report 2005 (New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2005). 9. See Kenneth Roberts, Social Inequalities Without Class Cleavages, 7. 10. For the general argument see Carles Boix, Democracy and Redistribution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 11. Kenneth Roberts, Social Inequalities Without Class Cleavages. 12. Francisco Panizza, Unarmed Utopia Revisited, 72021. 13. Ronald Chilcote, The Left in Latin America: Theory and Practice; and Jeffrey W. Rubin, From Che to Marcos: the Changing Grassroots Left in Latin America, Dissent 49 (Summer 2002): 3947. 14. Arturo Valenzuela, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Chile (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). 15. For example, Susan Stokes finds that security-oriented candidates, as opposed to efficiency-oriented candidates, are significantly more likely to win elections as the number of years since the democratic transition increases. See Susan Stokes, Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 9495. 16. Peter Hakim, Dispirited Politics, Journal of Democracy 14 (April 2003): 108. 17. Kurt Weyland, Neoliberalism and Democracy in Latin America: A Mixed Record, Latin American Politics and Society 46 (Spring 2004): 139. 18. Wendy Hunter, Brazils New Direction, 157. 19. In a recent interview, Evo Morales complained that he was unable to take measures to help the poor because the presidential palace is full of padlocks. . . . I feel like a prisoner of the neo-liberal laws. See Paul Mason, Evo Morales Padlocked in Palace, BBC News, 5 April 2006. 20. Carles Boix, Democracy and Redistribution. 21. Arturo Valenzuela, Latin American Presidencies Interrupted, Journal of Democracy 15 (October 2004): 89.