[Click here for high resolution photo of Mitchell A. Seligson]
The results of the latest and most comprehensive study of public opinion in the Americas concludes that Latin America is drifting toward the political left and experiencing a rise in populism.
The power shift away from government institutions and toward charismatic leaders who claim to know “the will of the people” could weaken democracy in the region, according to the study. To counter the trend, the director of the study suggests an increase in foreign assistance programs aimed at consolidating democracy in Latin America, especially those designed to teach tolerance of minority rights.
Mitchell A. Seligson, Vanderbilt University Centennial Professor of Political Science and director of the Latin American Public Opinion Project, and a panel of other scholars will discuss this conclusion and other findings from the AmericasBaromoter 2006 during a symposium April 10 at the Vanderbilt Law School, sponsored by Vanderbilt’s Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies. The symposium will focus on the impact of a variety of factors on democracy, including economic performance, national identity and ethnic minorities, corruption and violent crime.
Seligson founded LAPOP in the 1970s to conduct scientific surveys of Latin American citizens about their opinions and behaviors related to building and strengthening democracies.
The AmericasBarometer survey, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, with support from the United Nations Development Program and the Center for the Americas, has expanded to nations in Central America, the Caribbean, South America and North America. For the first time, the United States and Canada are included in the survey.
Dr. Diego Abente-Brun, professor of sociology and politics at Catholic University of Paraguay and a former Paraguayan senator and cabinet minister, will participate in the symposium, which is free and open to the public. It will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Renaissance Room of Vanderbilt Law School.
In a paper prepared in advance of the symposium, Seligson explained that Latin America “is a region in flux” and its future difficult to predict. The latest polling results indicate “the ideological center of gravity in Latin America is, by world standards, slightly to the right, yet its attitudes are moving to the left.”
He noted the gap between the political right and left in a country like Costa Rica is very narrow. However, in such countries as Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile the gap is “strikingly wide.”
“While leftists certainly have held power in the past, never before in Latin America have so many countries been governed by presidents of the left, even though the variation of leftist ideology is great, running from Presidents Lula in Brazil and Bachellet in Chile, both of whom support free trade and close ties with the U.S., to Chávez in Venezuela, who openly espouses socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-U.S. doctrines,” Seligson said.
At the same time, populist governments are on the rise. What unifies these governments is “not their left-right orientation. Rather it is a core belief that the institutions of classical liberal democracy, especially the legislature and the courts, are anachronistic, inefficient and inconsistent with their own interpretation of the ‘will of the people.'”
The result, Seligson said, is “populist leaders propose instead to listen to ‘the people’ and to personally carry out their will, while isolating the ‘rejectionists,’ usually running roughshod over fundamental democratic guarantees of civil liberties, especially free expression and the right to due process.”
Seligson concludes that it is too early to determine if U.S. diplomatic initiatives in the region can turn the tide on the leftist/populism movement. But he believes visits like the one made by President Bush last month are unlikely to produce positive results.
“Since the forces that have created the current environment are complex and long term, it is probably Pollyannaish to think that high-profile visits will have any impact. Indeed, it could be argued that they could have the reverse effect, with many citizens reasonably asking ‘what have you done for me lately?,’ given the enormous sums being expended by the U.S. on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq make it unrealistic to expect that the visits will be accompanied by important increases in foreign assistance to the region,” he said.
Contrast the lack of funding to these countries with the efforts of Venezuela to focus its aid on countries “willing to follow the sharply leftist and strongly populist lead of Hugo Chávez,” and the U.S. might “create a focus of attention that merely inflames differences, forcing otherwise smoldering conflicts to ignite.”
A better approach, Seligson suggests, might be to “focus on less visible, but perhaps more meaningful diplomatic efforts, along with long-term investments in democracy promotion, that may lay the foundation for subsequent, more high-profile, inter-American dialogues.” These slower, less dramatic efforts have been shown to have greater impact in the long term, Seligson said.
Media Contact: Ann Marie Owens, (615) 322-NEWS
annmarie.owens@vanderiblt.edu