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- Convenor:
-
Laura Tedesco
(Saint Louis University)
- Location:
- Malet 252
- Start time:
- 4 April, 2014 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
Latin American caudillos have inspired many memorable literary characters. However, political studies have relegated the analysis of leadership issues to a secondary theme. This panel aims to debate the democratic quality of our leaders and their impact on how well democracy works.
Long Abstract:
Latin American caudillos have inspired many memorable literary characters. However, political studies have relegated the analysis of leadership issues to a secondary theme. Indeed, since the return of democracy to the region, very little has been written regarding the impact of political leaders. Paradoxically, despite the fact that Latin America´s history is full of strongmen, strongwomen and caudillos, little attention has been paid to their impact on how well democracy works.
Despite the prominent role that leaders play in the region, the subject has not been systematically addressed. Political scientists have preferred to focus on formal institutions. Many of the arguments about delegative democracy or populism that have shaped political debates are predicated upon the centrality of executive leadership. Similarly, many of the models of populism, such as radical democracy, presuppose a prominent presidential leadership.
Following the conclusions of mainstream debates on political institutions and parties (Coppedge, 1998; Dix, 1992; Mainwairing and Scully, 2010; Ollier, 2008; Navia and Walker, 2010; and Fukuyama, 2008), we argue that in a context of low institutionalisation, the democratic quality demonstrated by political leaders becomes crucial.
Thus, we would like to invite papers from academics and post graduate students to debate the impact that leaders can have on the quality of democracy. Likewise, papers that expand this issue, adding an analysis of political parties or citizens and their impact on the quality of democracy are welcomed.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
From a theoretical perspective this paper´s contribution is to propose an integrated approach to the agent-structure debate. It also advances the study of political leadership as an independent variable.
Paper long abstract:
This paper suggests that leadership styles in Latin America are better explained if contextualised within the different political party systems of each country. Thus, the paper seeks to advance an integrated approach that links agency and structure. It has three main aims. First, it argues that, after the crises of political representation during the 1990s and 2000s, Latin American leaders faced almost no structural constraints; yet only some leaders have been able to take advantage of this situation. Secondly, the paper proposes that political leadership is considered as an independent variable that explains differences in political outcomes. Thirdly, it shows that political leaders´ autonomy is key to understanding the impact that leaders have in how well or badly formal democracy works. The study is based on 350 interviews with politicians in Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Uruguay, and it presents a comparative analysis of political leadership in these countries.
Paper short abstract:
En este trabajo se analizará la relación entre líderes y partidos entre Brasil, Chile y Argentina, detallando acuerdos partidarios y relaciones entre presidentes. La pregunta guía es: ¿Son los presidentes los articuladores de las relaciones regionales?
Paper long abstract:
En los últimos 15 años se acentuó el papel de los líderes en América del Sur. Esta situación vino acompañada de una creceinte fragmentación de los partidos políticos y una relativa pérdida de los fundamentos programáticos de los partidos. Simultáneamente, las relaciones entre los países de la región crecieron y se dinamizaron, tanto por los mecanismos de cooperación regional (MERCOSUR, UNASUR y ALBA), como por identificaciones ideológicas entre algunos presidentes.
No obstante, el afianzamiento de esas relaciones sudamericanas parece depender más de empatías personales que de colaboraciones sistemáticas y de mediana y larga duración. En efecto, muchos de los acuerdos en las organizaciones regionales y en las cumbres presidenciales no se trasladan a las políticas nacionales.
En este trabajo se analizará la relación entre líderes y partidos entre Brasil, Chile y Argentina, detallando tanto los acuerdos entre partidos como las concordancias y las disidencias entre presidentes. La pregunta que guía este objetivo es: ¿Son los presidentes los articuladores de las relaciones regionales? La finalidad de este trabajo es explorar si detrás del discurso que habla de una región integrada, se perciben alianzas políticas perdurables. Asimismo, teniendo en cuenta que el Parlamento de Mercosur tiene como una de sus metas conformar bloques interpartidarios supranacionales, se busca entender si el personalismo de los presidentes obstaculiza o no la conformación de esas alianzas.
Paper short abstract:
When political leaders adopt political party finance laws, this arguably means that they seek to regulate their own financial behavior. Given that in a context of weak institutions such laws need not necessarily matter, however, this paper investigates why and when leaders adopt (in)effective laws.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates how political leaders contribute to the quality of party democracy in Latin America through a focus on the political party finance reforms that occurred over the last two decades in Argentina, Colombia, and Costa Rica. The effectiveness of laws that regulate political party finance stands or falls with the willingness of political leaders to regulate their own financial behavior. It is therefore very likely that these reforms reflect tensions between strong elites and weak institutions. Secondly, political parties are one of the least appreciated institutions in the eyes of Latin American citizens. A focus on party law reform therefore allows insights into the effect that social demands for institutional change have on political leaders' willingness to regulate their own and their parties' financial management.
The paper shows that political leaders commonly adopt political finance laws to address challenges to their rule. Such a challenge may manifest itself in the form of popular demands for change, in which case political leaders use reforms as a formal means to address challenges to their legitimacy. When the challenge at hand consists of changes in intra- or inter-party competition, party law reform is instead applied as an instrumental tool to redress the political balance of power. Based on elite-interviews with politicians involved in these reform processes, this paper shows that laws that address a legitimacy crisis are less likely to be implemented in practice than the more instrumental type of laws that address changes in the political balance of power.
Paper short abstract:
Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores the relationship between cultural conceptions of leadership practiced in Bolivian civil society organizations and the particular style of populism enacted by Evo Morales.
Paper long abstract:
As one of the most charismatic Latin American politicians to have emerged in recent years, the Bolivian president Evo Morales spends much of his time traveling the country and inaugurating public works financed by a program whose name translates as "Bolivia Changes, Evo Delivers On His Promise." The program points to the highly personalized conception of leadership enacted by Morales. What is the appeal that this conception has for the Bolivian population?
As pivotal elements of the political imaginary, cultural conceptions of leadership frame relations between societies and their politicians. Populist leaders are enabled by the cultural acceptance of personalized authority, and they are less likely to rise where societies favor process over persons. At the same time, conceptions of leadership are rooted in the economic, religious, recreational and associational life of a society as much as they emerge in the political sphere.
This paper is based on the premise that forms of leadership rehearsed in civil society organizations reveal something about the types of political leaders a given society selects and supports. Based on extended ethnographic fieldwork with an association of folkloric groups that participate in Bolivia's large and symbolically laden patron saint festivals, it provides an exploration of the relationship between, on the one hand, conceptions of leadership as they are lived in civil society organizations and, on the other hand, the structure of Bolivian populism as enacted by Evo Morales.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores leadership and democracy by looking at (a) the role of Subcomandante Marcos’ anticaudillista style for indigenous democracy in the Zapatistas communities of Chiapas; (b) the impact of ‘command while obeying’ for a reconceptualisation of democracy in Latin America.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I explore the relationship between leadership and democracy by looking at (a) the role of Subcomandante Marcos' anticaudillista leadership style for the development of indigenous democracy in the Zapatistas communities of Chiapas; (b) the impact of the principle of 'command while obeying' for a reconceptualisation of democracy in Latin America. My questions are: How does Marcos anti-caudillista leadership style -structured within traditional Mayan forms of governance based on 'command while obeying', facilitates the democratisation of the comunidades rebeldes in Chiapas? In what ways has this kind of leadership posed qualitative challenges to existing ideas of democracy and democratic politics in Latin America? I suggest that in order to answer these questions we are required to equipped ourselves with non Eurocentric and non Western understandings of democracy and indigenous resistance which are inevitably associated to the concept of buen vivir, to which 'democracy' is an essential component
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the participation of black Colombians in national politics since reforms in the 1990s, and will argue that the State must urgently seek to redress centuries of inequality to make Colombia's democracy stronger and more representative.
Paper long abstract:
'I am a representative of la comunidad afrodescendiente. I represent my community and feel very proud'.
Paula Moreno Zapata, following her appointment as Minister of Culture in 2007
In this paper I will analyse the participation of black Colombians in national politics, and argue that the State must urgently seek to redress centuries of inequality. Despite Afro-Colombians making up over 10% of the population, they have only had one cabinet-level minister and remain politically under-represented and disenfranchised.
I will analyse the significant steps taken in the 1990s to enhance the role of blacks in public life, but argue that further action is necessary to make Colombia's democracy representative and equal. Moreover, for public policy progression to surpass mere tokenism requires the acquiescence and collaboration of the hegemonic white/mestizo elite.
Although they would profit from greater organisation and structure, for black politicians to enact change by themselves would be near impossible. On the one hand, to get their message across, Afro-Colombians need to be vocal and undercut structural discrimination. On the other, overplaying black issues leads to them being typecast as politicians concerned exclusively with race, and subsequently to an augmentation of the frictions they seek to overcome.
The paper will highlight the urgent necessity and the potential successes that root-and-branch affirmative action policies in favour of the black population could bring to Colombia, and argue that their implementation is long overdue in a democracy that often claims to be the oldest and strongest in South America.