Latin America's Populist Temptation

February 4, 2004 Topic: Domestic PoliticsPolitics

Latin America's Populist Temptation

This past October, Bolivian president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was forced to resign as violent protests rocked the capital city of La Paz.

Since they have assumed office, there have been indicators that suggest that presidents Lula and Kirchner are attempting a kind of "pragmatic populism", a type of "third way" that attempts to balance the pragmatism and efficiencies of economic liberalization with the populism's greater concern with the social question.  And they are attempting this without resorting to illegal practices such as we saw with Alberto Fujimori in Peru in the 1990s.  It is too soon to judge the ultimate efficacy of this middle road, but just the fact that they are trying is a testament to the current power of both populism and the international economic system.  What is even clearer, however, is that these presidents need to avoid the orthodox populist temptation that over the years has done so much damage to those that it claims its very existence is intended to support.  For the sake of all Bolivians, let us hope that, in the future, Evo Morales will take his cues from Brasilia and Buenos Aires and not Caracas.

 

Russell Crandall is an assistant professor at Davidson College in North Carolina. He is the author of Driven by Drugs: U.S. Policy Toward Colombia (Lynne Rienner, 2002).