Democracy and populism in America
Introduction.
At the end of the 20th century it was said that one of the most important and historical facts was the preminence of democracy he had achieved on authoritarianism. Indeed, an important global process occurred in which its consolidation stood out, even in the territories with little democratic history. This statement came from the political changes of the end of the Cold War in 1989, when the libertarian wave of communist regimes toured Eastern Europe and changed the meaning of the former Soviet republics, allies and some supporters of the West.
The end of the struggle between the two antagonistic blocks catapulted the intellectual optimism of the West that declared the full success of liberal democracy. It is the end of history, ”said Fukuyama -whose state- in which democracy, liberalism and market economy would not have more barriers and constituted the unsurpassed factor of human satisfaction in a democratically globalized world.
The effervescence of the winners – with a Hollywoodan escape – promised democracy and quality of life to those who did not have it, leaving behind the restrictions of socialist regimes. The West Plan seemed perfect, but the predominance of the democratic spirit and excessive optimism did not facilitate the conversion process, it was not a simple, automatic or even magical process to achieve or achieve the promised satisfiers. The announced "Happy End" of human history, finally did not materialize because it simply could not be that way.
Developing.
Democracy, its identity, its values and its representativeness, today they are rarely as rarely in history. While as a form of government it has had an unprecedented expansion in all regions of the world, today it experiences difficulties, disenchantments and dangerous setbacks. There was never a world as democratic before in our day. The Global Report on the State of Democracy, presented a remarkable fact: “3 out of 5 people worldwide and 9 out of 10 at the Latin American level live today in democracy;In other words, 97 countries (representing 62% of globe countries) are currently democracies.
Democracy remains the system of government in which all citizens are represented, have the right to vote (universal suffrage), there are free elections and the regulated human rights are recognized and guaranteed by law. In the 21st century it is the biggest commitment of social justice and government just in the orb and continues to preserve the original promise to represent the will of the people in the complexity of our time.
However, democratic societies seem to be subjected to chronic instability today in which bad news predominates, precipitated actions, errors, scandals and live in a line that alternates moments of economic crises with moments of paralysis derived fromAttention measures of the same crisis. The challenges of democracy are manifested in the form of social dissatisfaction, collective disenchantment and anger towards democratic regimes without results.
I must say in defense of democracy, that its main risks come from two sources of social instability. The first is the capitalist economic system that is shield in democracy as the ideal government model. On the subject, to. Nadal comments: Faced with the principles of equal rights of democracy, capitalism does not distinguish any equality. Capitalism and democracy cannot be seen as twin brothers;They are mortal enemies that live together. That is why Hayek, one of the most important ideologues of neoliberalism, does not hesitate to recommend the abolition of democracy if it is about rescuing capitalism.
The perfect capitalist trinity, free company and world market is a fallacy. Capital accumulation, cyclic crises and macroeconomic equilibrium policies in nations are the cause of financial restrictions that limit development in countries and are the cause of social inequality to which the incompetence of ruling bureaucracies is added, corporate interests and corruption.
On the subject, J. Gray said: Karl Marx could have been wrong with communism, but in regard to capitalism, much of what he said turned out to be correct. I thought capitalism was radically unstable. He had incorporated the tendency to produce increases and collapses increasingly large and deep and, in the long term, he was destined to destroy himself. Today democracy is threatened because the electoral route does not seem enough to achieve changes in determining economic decisions. This inability is a cause of "democratic annoyance" that certainly exists in dimensions that should truly worry us
In 2011, after the International Economic Crisis of 2008, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank, presented the results of the study entitled “Life in countries in transition”. It was the result of a survey that contemplated 39 thousand interviews with the opinion of people from the countries of Eastern Europe, in addition to the samples taken in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The context of the study is explained by The Economist Intelligence Unit that stands out: the crisis hit the transition economies of Eastern Europe rather than any other emerging market region;Real GDP contracted 6% in 2009. The crisis had impact on households for salary cuts, loss of jobs and remittance reduction. 42% of households in the 29 transition countries were very affected by the crisis, while in Germany, for example, only 15% responded in this regard.
The survey highlighted a remarkable decline regarding the positive feeling for democracy. The study says that, in the nations in transition, the support for democracy ranged between 50% and 30% of respondents. The lowest support was observed in Serbia, Latvia, Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which perhaps was not surprising because they have been populations with a predominantly authoritative political culture. An attitude of apathy and indifference was detected among the consulted, which is not a solid basis for the progress of society, nor for an easy consolidation of democracy.
Latin America is another reference where the feeling of democratic fatigue has also grown up. The 2018 Latino Barometer survey also gave clues regarding the democratic crisis that the region is going through: democratic dissatisfaction grew from 51 to 71%;While satisfaction went from 44 to 24%. In this report, Mexico presents itself as one of the Latin American countries with the greatest dissatisfaction with democracy. It is mentioned that 16% of Mexicans are very satisfied with the way democracy works in the country, while 84% said they were little or nothing satisfied.
The countries of the region that expressed greater satisfaction with their democracy are Uruguay, Costa Rica and Chile, with numbers between 44 and 49%. On the contrary, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela and El Salvador had levels of satisfaction of around 10%. In 2019, the Barometer of the Americas stood out that only 57% of the citizens of the region supported democracy as the best form of government, which presents a decrease against 66% of the support reported in 2014.
The document explains that “for the first time since the beginning of the third wave of democratization, democracy suffers an erosion process throughout the line. Consequence of this, although we are not facing a democratic wave (that is, a significant and sustained decrease in the number of democracies), the situation is very worrying since never before, in the last four decades, the future was less democraticthat in our day.
The reduction of space for civic action, attempts to weaken democratic brakes and counterweights, high levels of inequality and human rights attacks are the main risks facing democracy globally. Government results are added in the region in issues of insecurity, corruption and vulnerability that increase such erosion.
The present populism
Insistence it is said that populism again travels the world and occupies preponderant places in national political systems. It occurs in democracies that are devalued by disenchantment and social anger for breach of the rulers to collective demands. And it is also present in the electoral stages, where longing and fear are treated by leaders who carry their actions and say the adjective "populist".
The word has always represented an analysis challenge for the academy, because its daily use has a derogatory intention, of improper hole without any defined ideological load. The use of populist expression is deeply ambiguous and its objective is fundamentally denostative. However, its alleged existence based on the identification of similarities between the various populist experiences and the effects they generate on democracies are valid arguments to deepen a political aspect in which many warn their quality of serious risk for democracy for democracy.
Conclusions.
In a basic sense, populism is a political, partisan and electoral strategy of a leader who focuses on building a close identity with broad sectors of the population. From an opposition position assumes a rupturist image that contrasts with the attitude and behavior of traditional political actors. Its strategy implies the construction of a redemptive and justice political leadership that assumes as their own the causes of the people. He is an opposite character of the "status quo" and builds a story of struggle and confrontation that replicated day by day, finds affinity and collective sympathy.
The rupturist story that builds is linked as the continuity of historical episodes of the country. Extol national fighting values (independence, sovereignty, freedoms and aspirations of the great nation or the noble people). The mention and remembrance of the national heroes and the national love that are combined with an important dose of religious fervor is added to his speech. Every populist project begins as an opposition force to the government and begins with the accusations for the lack of results and their demand, pointing out responsible.
The leader is located in the vision of citizen anger and the tiredness of the town. He expresses when in his speech he denounces and claims with certainty, that the rights to education, health, housing, employment and security become privileges of a few;For those who can buy them or for those who receive social programs in exchange for their vote. How part of its political strategy, strives to implement its narrative as the predominant vision of the electoral scenario, which ties with the aspirations of the greatest social conglomerate dissatisfied with the same causes as the populist lists.
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