Latin America's Four Political Models

Kurt Weyland

The democratic wave that has swept Latin America since the mid-1970s poses some important questions: How have thinkers in the region adapted the principles of democracy to the specific problems and needs of their underdeveloped continent? What models of democracy have Latin American theorists developed? What social and political forces have embraced these different models and tried to institute them? And finally, what models have prevailed in the major countries that have recently undergone a transition to democracy?

How these questions are answered will determine both the quality and the long-term prospects of Latin America's new democracies. Drawing on the work of Philippe Schmitter and Terry Karl, this essay analyzes the special challenges that democracies in the region are currently facing, and then elaborates a classification of models of democracy, each of which copes with these challenges in a distinct way. The opportunities and constraints captured in this classification not only inform debates among democratic theorists, but also condition the institutions and practices that actually prevail in different countries.

These important topics have not yet received the scholarly attention they deserve. While political science has analyzed in great depth the variants of democracy prevailing in the First World, most studies of the recent democratic transitions in Latin America have applied a minimalist notion of democracy. ¹ Such a definition, which focuses only on the basic distinction between authoritarian and democratic rule, was appropriate for analyses of regime change. But now, after the basic rules of democracy have been established, the question of the kind and quality of democracy becomes important. Analysts need to look beyond the [End Page 125] minimal distinction between authoritarian and democratic rule to ask which types of democracy are being considered and instituted in Latin America.

Have intellectuals and political actors in the region designed their own variants of democracy by adapting notions developed in the First World to meet the needs of underdeveloped countries? Two special challenges facing democracy in Latin America could prompt such modifications. The first is posed by the region's deep social inequalities and widespread poverty, while the second comes from the inordinate influence wielded by entrenched "powers-that-be," especially private business interests and the military.

Two Challenges to Democracy

In Latin America, the level of income inequality and the extent of exclusion from the mainstream of development ("marginality") have been significantly higher than in the First World in comparable time periods. As a result, demands for social reform tend to arise immediately with the installation of democracy, especially because the prosperity of the First World has raised expectations among the less well-off (the "popular sectors"). Poverty and inequality thus pose more urgent problems for democratic stability. The immediate extension of social protection may also be necessary for ensuring full citizenship. Without social guarantees, many of the poor are virtually forced into clientelist submission to elites, who provide minimal benefits in return for obedience. The quality of democracy and indeed its very survival in the long run may require that poverty be reduced and popular hopes for social improvements be satisfied.

What political mechanisms can bring about such equity-enhancing change? The most important agents--parties, interest associations, social movements, and political leaders--all face a crucial trade-off: The broader the popular support for any given reform effort, the lower its organizational strength tends to be. While large numbers of poor people exist in the informal sector, many of them--both in urban and rural areas--are difficult to organize. Compared to these marginals, formal- sector workers have higher organizational capacity, but are often much fewer in number and "relatively privileged." ² Theorists of reform must therefore choose among three different segments of the less well-to-do strata when seeking support for equity-enhancing efforts: formal-sector workers, who join trade unions; activists among the poor in the informal sector, who participate in social movements; and the great mass of the poor, who remain unorganized.

Given the trade-off between the breadth and the organizational strength of support for social change, friends of democracy in Latin America differ among themselves on the best strategy for reducing [End Page 126] inequality. They disagree, for instance, about whether the social-democratic approach, in which trade unions and labor-based parties forcefully push for redistributive reform, can succeed. ³ European social-democratic parties and unions encompassed large parts of the poorer strata and advanced broad interests; their Latin American counterparts, however, comprise relatively privileged sectors that are tempted to press special interests of their own while neglecting those of the poorest. Similar disagreements mark discussions about the role of social movements. While they can give voice to some sectors of the poor, such movements have limited organizational strength and often focus on local problems, rather than on structural reform at the national level. ⁴ Finally, populist leaders can mobilize even the unorganized sectors of the poor, but typically fail to create strong organizations. ⁵

The question of equity-enhancing reform is complicated further by the second challenge to democracy in Latin America, which stems from the inordinate weight of numerically small but powerful forces like the military and business. How can they be integrated into the democratic framework? These forces command power capabilities, such as organized coercion and concentrated economic resources, greatly in excess of their numerical strength. Close transnational links to foreign firms and governments boost their influence even more. The powers-that-be are therefore reluctant to accept "unimpaired opportunities" for all citizens to "have their preferences weighed equally in the conduct of the government"--a guiding ideal of democracy. ⁶ What concessions to these powers-that-be (or, in other words, what restrictions on the basic rules of democracy) do Latin American thinkers advocate in order to gain their acquiescence to at least some democratic procedures?

In order to placate business and the armed forces, democratic theorists in the region have proposed guarantees for their basic interests and autonomy from government intervention. Some have even elaborated schemes for institutionalizing the privileged participation of business and the military in decision making. Councils in which the important political actors with their different power capabilities bargain can serve this purpose. Yet only popular forces with well-honed organizations--"peak associations" of workers, for instance--can participate in such institutions. The welter of social movements and the unorganized poor remain excluded, tilting the balance of influence heavily in favor of sociopolitical elites. Accommodating business and the military thus creates important additional obstacles to redistributive reform. Whereas equity-enhancing change may require mobilizing large numbers of poor people, the powers-that-be oppose mass pressure and demand recognition of their special power capabilities.

Latin American thinkers thus face with particular urgency a basic dilemma in modern democracy: how to reconcile political participation based on numbers with participation based on special weight or [End Page 127] "intensities." ⁷ While the ideals of democracy call for taking every citizen's interests into account equally, prudence dictates the concession of heavier weight to numerically small but potent sectors. Deep social inequality as well as the particular strength of the powers-that-be, which played a crucial role in the overthrow of many earlier democracies in Latin America, greatly exacerbate this quandary. While profound inequity can prompt radical efforts at social change, the power of established interests creates a need for caution and for limits on the reach of basic democratic norms.

Numbers and Weight, Leaders and Citizens

Different models of democracy arise from the ways in which Latin American theorists address this dilemma, privileging either numbers or special weight and intensities. A second dimension crosscuts this distinction: Are political leaders and social elites allowed to predominate in politics, or are common citizens also assigned considerable influence? For instance, are equity-enhancing reforms best enacted through initiatives from the top down, or through pressure from the bottom up? In principle, and in the views of Latin American thinkers, these two dimensions are quite independent. While elites often draw on special weight and common citizens merely on their numbers, political leaders can also base their power on the mobilization of large numbers of citizens, and popular sectors and mass movements can gain influence as a result of highly intense preferences. The combination of these two dimensions yields four distinctive models of democracy, on which current debates in Latin America's new democracies focus: liberalism, populism, basismo, and concertation (see Table 1). ⁸

Liberalism and populism count all citizens equally. Their advocates regard numbers as the main criterion for interest aggregation and decision making. These two models differ, however, in whether political initiative is assigned principally to individual citizens or to a political leader. In the liberal vision, which applies the principle of consumer sovereignty to politics, individual citizens are the central actors. Political leaders are driven to gain support from a majority of voters in order to win power. Since competition keeps these representatives responsive to citizens, the electorate does not need to become heavily involved in politics. Thus liberals do not recognize special weight, and their model requires no highly intense preferences. ⁹

Populism, in contrast to liberalism's focus on individual citizens, attributes great importance to a leader's mobilizing the "masses" in order to make numbers predominant in the political process and to break the stranglehold of heavyweight sociopolitical elites. In this vision, the leader establishes a quasi-personal relationship with a large base of followers, bypassing established intermediary organizations. As advocates of [End Page 128] populism stress, such a charismatic leader may be decisive in Latin America for transforming the poor, who are often subject to strategies of elite domination such as clientelism, from passive subordinates into more active participants; only in this way can "the people," meaning the numerical majority, win out. ¹⁰

Conversely, concertation and basismo recognize special weight and intensities, each in its own unique way. Theorists of concertation concede the powers-that-be much more influence over policy making than their small numbers justify. State-mediated bargaining, especially among interest organizations, is supposed to produce agreement despite the heterogeneous power capabilities that different actors control. Compromise, rather than the majority predominance favored by liberalism and populism, forms the backbone of the decision-making process. This gives elites virtual veto power and limits social change. Since trade unions of the sort that can participate in these top-level negotiations encompass relatively better-off segments of the popular sectors, advocates of concertation regard the role of the government and of political parties that appeal to the marginal underclass as decisive for representing the poorest segments. ¹¹

Basismo, in contrast, seeks to challenge elites through the autonomous mobilization of people from the underclass and the lower and lower-middle classes who have sufficiently intense preferences to commit considerable energy to their cause. By including the marginal underclass, basismo tries to extend downward in the social pyramid the strategy of collective empowerment and bottom-up pressure that early, "radical" social democracy in Europe used successfully, based on working-class movements. ¹² But this effort faces definite limitations, for those who participate in social movements are mainly city dwellers, and even in cities are a minority. In Latin America, collective empowerment is hardly a feasible course for large numbers of poor people, especially in the countryside. Thus social movements in Latin America are less universalistic than they claim to be. As sympathetic observers warn, they may even run the risk of turning into special-interest groups acting on [End Page 129] behalf of the relatively better-off segments of the lower and middle classes. ¹³

These four models of democracy have different prototypical agents-- individual citizens (liberalism), the leader and his mass following (populism), interest organizations (concertation), and social movements (basismo). All these models also rely heavily on the central organization in modern democracy, the political party, which assumes different characteristics and roles in each scheme. In liberalism, pragmatic parties that lack strong ideological commitments aggregate but do not shape citizen interests. In populism, a personalistic party serves as the leader's vehicle for mobilizing support. In basismo, a popular-sector party (the Latin American substitute for the European class party) integrates the demands of social movements into a call for profound change. In concertation, organized program-oriented parties define the parameters of bargaining and represent the basic needs of the poorest sectors, which lack powerful associations.

The four models suggest different solutions to the dilemma of equity-enhancing reform versus accommodation of the powers-that-be. Liberals, while not according the powers-that-be special weight, protect their basic interests by declaring them outside the sphere of legitimate government action. By reining in politics, advocates of liberalism restrict equity-enhancing change. They also emphasize individual liberty, limiting the development of strong collective organizations that would be crucial instruments for poorer sectors to counterbalance the power and challenge the privileges of elites. Liberalism thus tends to preserve the established socioeconomic order with its inequalities.

Populist leaders seek support by promising to curb elite privileges and to distribute benefits to their mass following. ¹⁴ The interest in extending their own political autonomy induces populist leaders to distance themselves from the powers-that-be and to challenge elite influence. Yet their loosely committed and unorganized support base limits their capacity for improving equity. Further obstacles arise from the tight fiscal constraints that currently prevail across debt-ridden Latin America. These economic difficulties, however, can provide an excuse for postponing equity-enhancing change. If populist leaders focus first on combatting the economic crisis, they seek closer accommodation with the powers-that-be.

Proponents of basismo reject the top-down nature and mass manipulations of populism, and appeal to poorer sectors to bring about social change through their own collective action. In the view of these proponents, political empowerment allows the underprivileged to make society much more egalitarian. But large sectors of the poor are difficult to mobilize and organize for challenging elites. As a result, social movements often leave out the least well-off and may turn into special-interest groups. Where bottom-up pressure is nevertheless strong, it [End Page 130] encounters determined opposition from the powers-that-be. The resulting conflicts pose the danger of dramatic defeats and reversals of equity-enhancing impulses.

Advocates of concertation assign the powers-that-be a direct say in decision making in order to avoid any risks to the survival of demo-cratic mechanisms (i.e., of "polyarchy," to use Robert Dahl's term). Therefore, political equality remains limited, and social change can only be gradual and cautious. Yet in improving equity without antagonizing elites, concertation minimizes the danger of reversals and can effect steady reform. Thus it may be the most promising strategy for redistributive change in the long run. Given the depth of poverty and inequality in many Latin American countries, however, gradual reform may appear painfully slow, and popular sectors may be tempted to defect from concertation.

Thus the four models possess different strengths and weaknesses in their efforts to combine social reform with democratic stability. Populism and basismo seek fairly drastic change, yet run a considerable risk of failure. In contrast, liberalism is content with limited reforms, and concertation advocates at best gradual, though steady, improvements. Yet liberalism could well be too restrained and concertation too slow in helping poorer sectors and preventing them from embracing one of the other two strategies, which promise more equity-enhancing change in the short run, but also carry greater risks. Given these trade-offs, how have the different models fared in post-transition Latin America?

Practical Options

It is testimony to the perceptiveness and realism of democratic thinkers in contemporary Latin America that the four models they discuss also seem to define the basic options for practical politics in the new democracies. In fact, all of these models have adherents among important sociopolitical forces in the region. The moderate right in Chile's party system (Renovación Nacional) and among business has embraced political liberalism, which has also found increasing support in similar circles in Argentina and Brazil. Many social movements and leftist political parties have espoused basismo, especially the Workers' Party (PT) in Brazil, the Communist Party in Chile, and the (now dis-) United Left in Peru. As for concertation, the parties backing the governments of presidents Patricio Aylwin (1990-94) and Eduardo Frei (1994- ) in Chile have been committed to this strategy. Concertation has also gained adherents among intellectuals and center-left parties in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Populism has attracted the least explicit advocacy, given its reputation for mass manipulation and personalism. Yet it has been practiced widely in Peru, Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador, and has even found a place in the more solidly institutionalized [End Page 131] Chilean political system, as was demonstrated by the sudden rise of Francisco Javier ("Fra-Fra") Errázuriz in the presidential election of December 1989.

If all four models have intellectual and political supporters, which type of democracy has prevailed in the political practices and institutions of different countries? ¹⁵ An analysis of Latin America's new democracies shows that liberalism and basismo have remained in the realm of aspiration rather than that of reality. Profound social inequality and the entrenched position of the powers-that-be have made these two bottom-up models difficult to install. Instead, new democracies have leaned either toward populism, often in a fragmented, mixed version (Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador), ¹⁶ or toward concertation (Chile and, less successfully, Uruguay).

While basismo pursues a strategy of collective empowerment from the bottom up, it has to recognize the strong influence of established socio-economic and political elites. In order to win a majority and assume governmental power (rather than persisting at the fringe, as has the Communist Party in contemporary Chile), basismo tends to moderate its challenge to elites and to seek their acquiescence, which is crucial for the preservation of democracy. For example, in preparation for the presidential election of 1994 in Brazil, PT leader Luís Inácio ("Lula") da Silva assumed a more conciliatory posture toward the country's staunchly conservative business class and armed forces. If such a de-radicalized basista movement comes to power, the main change it is likely to effect is to force established elites to agree to concertation, as labor movements did in social-democratic Europe.

Whereas basismo is moderated in reaction to strong elites and turns into concertation, liberalism is foiled by the weakness of the masses and becomes populism. The hope of building democracy on the informed decisions of autonomous individuals is not very realistic in Latin America's deeply unequal societies. Widespread poverty makes large numbers of people susceptible to benefits guaranteed by clientelism and to populist slogans. Both tactics are widely used in Latin America, and both distort interest articulation from the bottom up while bolstering the position of political leaders and elites. In clientelist relationships, poor people trade away their votes to elites in exchange for protection and favors. As for populism, boundless promises can elicit massive popular support and catapult politicians into power, yet the frequent failure of these leaders to fulfill their promises breeds cynicism and discourages further popular participation.

Furthermore, political liberalism is undermined by the recent move to economic liberalism in Latin America. Since economic liberalization entails the dismantling of state interventionism, which has benefited powerful forces and therefore enjoys much support, it can only be carried out with determination and strength. In the words of Mario [End Page 132] Vargas Llosa, a leading advocate of economic liberalism in Latin America, "to establish a free economy . . . doesn't weaken states. It strengthens them." ¹⁷ The concentration of power required to break resistance to liberal economic reforms erodes liberal political safeguards designed to prevent the abuse of political authority. Therefore, economic liberalism favors a top-down--rather than a bottom-up--model of democracy. In contemporary Latin America, it is associated not with political liberalism, but with political populism, as under presidents Fernando Collor de Mello in Brazil and Carlos Menem in Argentina (or with authoritarianism, as under the Pinochet regime in Chile--or with both, as under President Alberto Fujimori in Peru).

Given the stringency of macroeconomic constraints, the depth of social inequality, and the concentrated power of elites, only populism and concertation currently seem to be viable models for Latin America's new democracies. Populism pervades democratic politics in contemporary Brazil, Peru, and Argentina, although its alleged socioeconomic preconditions, especially "easy" import-substitution industrialization, are now just memories. The exclusionary military regimes that preceded democracy weakened intermediary organizations, such as trade unions and political parties, and left large numbers of unorganized poor people available for mobilization by populist leaders. Charismatic politicians have rapidly gained enormous power by instilling hope in the masses that they could overcome the unprecedented economic and social crisis triggered by the debt problem.

The external-debt crisis, however, is enough to ensure that campaign pledges to resume the redistributive policies associated with classical populism à la Juan Perón will remain mere promises. Therefore, several charismatic leaders who made such promises, most notably Peru's President Alan García (1985-90), had only temporary success in concentrating power. As they failed to deliver on the high expectations they engendered, they lost support and faced an ever-broader gamut of opposition. Political decision making became more and more paralyzed by a welter of veto groups. Ironically, the resulting crisis often cleared the way for another populist savior to arise.

Thus new democracies leaning toward populism oscillated in the late 1980s between a pure form, in which a populist leader predominated, and a decayed version, in which power was dispersed and political fragmentation was pronounced. In the latter variant, which is close to the center of the aforementioned classification scheme, a variety of sociopolitical forces had sufficient power to block each other, yet not [End Page 133] enough influence to impose consistent policies. Several contenders with variegated power capabilities vied for control, including populist leaders with a shrinking mass following, the powers-that-be with their special weight, and organized parts of the popular sectors. Out of such an impasse, no institutionalized pattern of decision making could emerge. This mixed version, which combined elements of different models, was therefore--contrary to Aristotelian hopes--an unstable and ineffectual type of democracy which easily succumbed anew to the temptations of populism as soon as another charismatic leader appeared.

This cycle between pure populism and the decayed mixed version occurred in Peru, Brazil, and, less clearly, Argentina. President García's full-fledged embrace of populism between 1985 and 1987, like his efforts to promote high growth and greater equity, had disastrous economic and political results, triggering the dramatic ascendance of Alberto Fujimori in 1990. Also in the mid-1980s, Brazilian president José Sarney's flirtation with classical populism under his country's Cruzado Plan (1986), like that of his Argentine counterpart Raúl Alfonsín under the Austral Plan, soon gave way to economic crisis and political stalemate. The path had been made straight for rising populist standardbearers Fernando Collor and Carlos Menem.

Interestingly, the severe problems left behind by their predecessors have allowed presidents Fujimori and Menem to become saviors of their countries. Grave economic crises have turned stabilization into an overriding concern and lowered popular expectations for equity-enhancing reform (which Menem and Fujimori had promised in their own presidential campaigns). By stopping hyperinflation, which hurts poorer sectors the most, these populist leaders have gained strong backing from the popular sectors and from the powers-that-be and made painful economic reform politically acceptable. They have used neoliberal adjustment to undermine some of the veto groups that weakened their predecessors, such as trade unions. Also, economic stabilization has eventually provided them with resources to distribute to their followers-- for instance, through politically targeted antipoverty programs. This neo-liberal version of populism has thus acquired considerable political sustenance in Peru and Argentina. ¹⁸ Yet the resulting concentration of power in a personal leader has weakened democratic checks and balances, especially in Fujimori's case.

Neoliberal populism is not guaranteed political success, however, as was revealed by the impeachment of President Collor in Brazil. Where a populist leader fails to stabilize the economy and at the same time through his obsessive striving for personal power and autonomy antagonizes the powers-that-be, popular-sector organizations, and the public at large, opposition may become ever more widespread and seize on an opportunity--such as accusations of corruption--to weaken and undermine the leader. ¹⁹ Thus while surprisingly viable in its neoliberal [End Page 134] incarnation, populism has not left behind the risk of decay that plagued it in the late 1980s.

Concertation in Chile

In order to avoid populism and its problems, the center-left party coalition supporting the Aylwin and Frei governments in Chile has installed concertation. Under the new democracy, a wide range of partisan forces united in two blocs--the governing alliance and the center-right opposition--plus "peak associations" of business and labor that can credibly speak for their whole classes (the Confederación de la Producción y del Comercio [CPC] and the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores [CUT]) have engaged in constant negotiation and compromise. All of these actors have agreed to some sacrifices in order to alleviate the poverty and inequality left behind by the Pinochet regime, which could create pressures for irresponsible populism, produce political turmoil, and perhaps even endanger democracy. Poorer sectors and left-leaning parties have moderated their demands for change, and business and conservative politicians have made equity-enhancing concessions. The extraordinary strength of Chile's parties, which command a considerable mass following, has counterbalanced the tendency of concertation in Latin America's highly unequal societies to deteriorate into a self-serving elite cartel that excludes poorer sectors and makes them bear the cost of tripartite agreements among business, organized labor, and the state. While the new democracy has not brought about any drastic transformation of the socioeconomic order, it has effected significant equity-enhancing reform, which is widely accepted and thus protected from reversals.

There are some problems, however. Institutional restrictions imposed by the outgoing Pinochet dictatorship, such as the appointment of almost 20 percent of the Senate, have continued to hem in the new democracy. Efforts to eliminate these fetters could lead to considerable conflict. Also, as memories of the authoritarian regime recede into the past and democracy appears consolidated, poorer sectors may regard continued patience as unnecessary and demand greater redistribution. The risk of fiercer conflicts would increase if Chile's economic prosperity were undermined by external shocks. Recession could create a zero-sum situation and eliminate the possibility of mutual gain, which facilitates concertation.

The model of concertation is not easy to transfer to other new democracies in Latin America. Prosperity has helped it in Chile; by the same token, the precarious economic situation of many countries in the region hinders its adoption. Compromise is easier to reach in a positive-sum situation of growth, when negotiators can accept relative sacrifices without incurring absolute losses. The austerity demanded by neoliberal [End Page 135] restructuring, which is completed in Chile, yet currently under way or on the agenda in other countries, poses additional obstacles. Whereas concertation guarantees the basic interests of all participating forces, neo-liberal reforms threaten the very survival of some sectors, such as import-substituting firms. The ensuing divergences and conflicts make compromise difficult to attain and hinder concertation.

Concertation also has organizational preconditions that are unlikely to emerge on their own and are difficult to bring about through political engineering. It requires encompassing organizations that comprise broad societal categories, such as classes, and span a large variety of specific sectors. Since such organizations capture a large share of collective goods and since they would be hurt considerably by the collective cost of their own egotism, they find it in their interest to contribute to the provision of collective goods, such as democratic stability, and to accept short-term sacrifices for this purpose. ²⁰ Also, the presence of encompassing organizations reduces the number of important actors and thus makes it much easier to reach binding agreements and to ensure compliance through mutual monitoring. Transaction costs are lower among a few encompassing organizations than among a plethora of narrowly based groupings. For these reasons, concertation can succeed only where encompassing organizations prevail, as in contemporary Chile with its peak associations of business and labor (CPC and CUT) and the firm, broad-based party alliance sustaining the government.

Other Latin American countries, however, especially Peru and Brazil, lack encompassing organizations. Political parties are numerous and weak, most interest associations are confined to specific sectors or separated by ideology and partisan loyalty, and peak associations are missing. In this fragmented organizational setting, concertation is unlikely to emerge. Competing organizations (such as trade unions) are tempted to outbid one another by refusing to enter into compromises with their adversaries (such as business associations). Negotiators cannot offer concessions for fear of being condemned as "traitors."

Such a fragmented pattern of organization, which poses virtually insurmountable obstacles to concertation, tends to perpetuate itself. It creates powerful forces with an interest in its persistence, especially the leaders of narrow sectoral organizations, who try hard to preserve their own autonomy and influence. By multiplying the number of independent actors, organizational fragmentation reinforces collective-action problems and impedes the formation of encompassing organizations.

Countries like Peru and Brazil are therefore unlikely to escape from populism and its possible oscillations. In a fragmented society, politicians can win an electoral majority only by circumventing established intermediary organizations and aiming populist appeals directly at the masses. As the existing narrow organizations pursue "special interests," a leader who appears to be above group egotism and to focus on [End Page 136] overarching national goals may gain substantial backing, as did Fujimori when he secured his stunning reelection victory in April 1995. Brazil's Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who is not a populist by personality or background, had to use similar tactics to win his country's presidential election in October 1994. A well-timed reduction of inflation allowed him, as the benefactor of "the people," to appeal directly to a heterogeneous mass of voters and defeat the basista left. Thus populism is likely to retain a strong foothold in the Latin American countries where concertation cannot emerge.

Dilemmas of Reform

This article has analyzed how democratic thinkers and practitioners in Latin America have adapted democracy to the needs of their underdeveloped countries. Widespread poverty and deep inequality have led to many calls for equity-enhancing reform, but the powers-that-be have used their special weight to protect their privileges. The resulting cross-pressures have posed particular challenges to democratic theory and practice in the region. They have greatly exacerbated a general dilemma for democracy: how to reconcile political equality, a basic principle of democracy, with the disproportionate power of elites, which insist on special treatment as a condition for accepting democracy.

The four models of democracy analyzed above propose differing solutions to this dilemma. Populism and basismo both advocate fairly drastic change (through different mechanisms), but the resulting conflicts may cause turmoil and, in the extreme, endanger democracy. In contrast, liberalism and concertation promote only limited or gradual reform and do not challenge the established order. Yet the delay in fulfilling popular expectations for improvements in social equity may cause discontent and undermine democracy in the long run. None of the four approaches reliably resolves the basic dilemma of democracy in Latin America.

Only concertation and populism have actually been realized in present-day Latin America, because the entrenched influence of the powers-that-be blocks basismo and transforms it into concertation, while the weakness of the poverty-stricken masses undermines liberalism and allows for the rise of populist leaders. Populism has emerged in several new democracies, drawing on the social dislocations and institutional disruptions the preceding military regimes brought about. Yet the fragile support that populist leaders enjoy, as well as the economic constraints under which they must labor, have often prevented them from fulfilling their equity-enhancing promises. In these cases, economic crises and political turmoil have resulted. By contrast, where populist leaders have concentrated first and foremost on economic stabilization and have successfully imposed neoliberal "shock" programs, they have accumu-lated a degree of power that has threatened democratic safeguards. [End Page 137]

In order to avoid the problems associated with populism, the new democratic governments in Chile have deliberately adopted the model of concertation, which has so far succeeded in combining democratic consolidation, greater social equity, and economic growth. Concertation also faces risks, however, which arise especially from popular expectations for more rapid change. Also, this model is only feasible where encompassing organizations prevail. At the present moment, this organizational precondition is fulfilled only in Chile.

The dilemmas that beset Latin America's new democracies may already be taking their toll. While the transition of many countries in the region from authoritarian to democratic rule inspired considerable optimism, this wave of regime changes may already have crested, as suggested by President Fujimori's suspension of democracy in Peru, the coup attempts in Venezuela, and the frequent troubles and travails of Brazilian democracy. The conflicting pressures that arise from poverty and inequality, on the one side, and the entrenched power of elites, on the other, pose risks for new democracies. This article has therefore sounded a skeptical note--in the hope of being refuted by future developments.

Kurt Weyland is assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of Democracy Without Equity: Failures of Reform in Brazil (forthcoming), and is currently researching the politics of neoliberal reform in Latin America.

Notes

The author would like to thank Robert Birkby, William Canak, Philippe Schmitter, David Steiner, Michelle Taylor, and Wendy Hunter for their comments, and the National Endowment for the Humanities for its financial support.

1. David Held, Models of Democracy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987).

2. Alejandro Portes, "Latin American Class Structures," Latin American Research Review 20 (1985): 12, 22-23.

3. José Goñi, ed., Democracia, desarrollo y equidad (Caracas: Nueva Sociedad, 1990).

4. Carlos Nelson Coutinho, "Democracia e socialismo no Brasil de hoje," in Francisco Weffort et al., A democracia como proposta (Rio de Janeiro: IBASE, 1991), 100-101.

5. Roberto Mangabeira Unger, A alternativa transformadora (Rio de Janeiro: Guanabara Koogan, 1990), 57-58.

6. Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 2.

7. Robert Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), ch. 4; Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-one Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), chs. 1-2; Philippe Schmitter and Terry Karl, "The Types of Democracy Emerging in Southern and Eastern Europe and South and Central America," in Peter Volten, ed., Bound to Change (New York: Institute for East-West Studies, 1992), 55-68.

8. This classification draws heavily on Schmitter and Karl, "Types of Democracy," 54-68, yet adapts their scheme to Latin America. The four models are ideal types, which are seldom fully embraced by theorists and never completely realized in practice.

9. José G. Merquior, Algumas reflexões sobre os liberalismos contemporâneos (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Liberal, 1991); Hernando de Soto, The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World (New York: Harper and Row, 1989); José Piñera, Camino nuevo (Santiago de Chile: Economía y Sociedad, 1993); Celso Lafer, Ensaios liberais (São Paulo: Siciliano, 1991), 79-90.

10. Unger, A alternativa transformadora, 57-58; see also Sergio Zermeño, "Crisis, Neoliberalism, and Disorder," in Joe Foweraker and Ann Craig, eds., Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1990), 172-78.

11. Edgardo Boeninger, La concertación política y social (Santiago de Chile: CED, 1984), 37-38; see also Mario dos Santos, ed., Concertación política-social y democratización (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 1987); Angel Flisfisch, La política como compromiso democrático (Santiago de Chile: FLACSO, 1989).

12. See in general Coutinho, "Democracia e socialismo"; and Walter Alarcón, Carlos Franco, and Manuel Montoya, ¿De qué democracia hablamos? (Lima: CEDEP, 1992). While basismo deepens the strategy of early social democracy in Europe, concertation modifies its neocorporatist approach after 1945. Since Latin American labor movements are relatively weak and have a limited social base and since business is particularly powerful, the role of the government and the parties sustaining it is crucial for establishing a balance between these contending forces and for representing the interests of the unorganized mass of the poor. Thus concertation in Latin America is more "top-heavy" than in Europe.

13. Unger, A alternativa transformadora, 381-82; Francisco Weffort, "Brasil: Condenado à modernização," in Roberto Da Matta et al., Brasileiro: Cidadão? (São Paulo: Cultura, 1992), 196.

14. Even populist leaders who ended up enacting harsh neoliberal stabilization programs, such as Carlos Menem, Fernando Collor de Mello, and Alberto Fujimori, made such promises in their election campaigns, and Menem and Fujimori repeated them recently to win reelection.

15. While these models constitute ideal types and are never fully realized, a democratic system can be classified according to the main tendency that prevails.

16. See Guillermo O'Donnell, "Delegative Democracy," Journal of Democracy 5 (January 1994): 55-69. O'Donnell does not apply the label of "populism," however.

17. Mario Vargas Llosa, "The Country to Come," Partisan Review 58 (1991): 26.

18. Kurt Weyland, "Neo-Populism and Neo-Liberalism in Latin America: Unexpected Affinities" (paper presented at the Ninetieth Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, New York, 1-4 September 1994).

19. Kurt Weyland, "The Rise and Fall of President Collor and Its Impact on Brazilian Democracy," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 35 (Spring 1993): 1-37.

20. Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 47-53.

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