The political tides? Some of them, not all.
By: Luis Beltrán Guerra G. - 28/09/2023
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In an interesting investigation, the professor at the University of Barcelona, María Trinidad Bretones, writes that “a wave of democratization” is the time during which various transitions from a dictatorship to a democracy take root consecutively, with the determining factor being that the validity of the first surpasses, at least, in the same amount of time, the last.” The academic reiterates the opinion of Samuel Huntington, distinguished Harvard academic.
For the professor, the “Contraola 1922-1942” was initiated by Mussolini, scrapping the otherwise corrupt Italian democracy. It also notes those of Portugal (1926), Brazil and Argentina (1930), the German one by Hitler (1933) and the Spanish one in 1936. The wind of “The Allied Occupation” blows the democratic wave. in West Germany, Austria, Japan and Korea and with regard to Latin America in Uruguay, Brazil, Costa Rica (1940). He also refers to what he describes as “Contraola # 2” that begins with “the authoritarianism of Lima” (1962), the military coups in Brazil and Bolivia (1964), Argentina in 1966, Ecuador in 1972 and the military governments in Santiago and Uruguay. The 1960s/1970s typified by: 1) 13 coups d'état (1962) and 2) 38 in 75. “Anti-emocracy”, then, is the “Queen”. It is conceived as a kind of “panacea”. Militarism is sold as the “remedy” to alleviate the counterproductive effects of “collective decisions of the people, through their representatives. That is, in “democracy”. Reason for the validity of “the necessary gendarmerie”
It is therefore useful to take into account, with regard to the development and consolidation of the democratic process, the reason for its variability. In more common words, what has affected democracy for so many “lurches” like a sailboat in an unnavigable sea. It is not unwise to point out that prominent analysts qualify the “formal definition” to which reference has been made, stating that democracy demands and goes well beyond literal appreciations. During a visit by the Italian jurist Luigi Ferrajoli to the University of Chile, he put it this way: “democracy must be seen, not only, as an axiom.” He admitted, of course, that fundamental rights constitute a determining, beneficial and urgent limitation and control of political power, but emphasizing that the formal definition is not enough,
Constitutionalism, for the academic, cannot be interpreted solely as a legal legacy of the past. It is, particularly, a program for the future, because the rights established in the Constitutional Text should not be limited to being guaranteed. It is crucial that they are satisfied. In other words, let them come true. We believe that Ferrajoli agrees, at least partially, with the assessment according to which “the political regime” includes: 1. The solution of problems between the people and the state and 2. The way in which society is governed. Consequently, a true democracy would encompass both aspects through its varied procedures and mechanisms. This is, as we understand, the formal and the substantial. This is also reaffirmed by José Morande Lavin, in Chile (From transition to consolidation).
This assessment also seems to be shared by María Trinidad Bretones, when she defines the transition as the spectrum for “public debate, political processes and the attenuation of censorship, but with the warning that they do not necessarily ensure the real establishment of “democracy.” . And according to the philosopher Roberth Dahl to “the form of government in which political power falls to several people, “polyarchy”, an alternative for this American political theorist from Yale University.
In the complex scenario to build a sincere democracy, the hypotheses, therefore, of great diversity: 1) Authoritarian leaders with the intention of exercising power should not have called elections vs. the groups demanding democracy who are questioned having boycotted those called, 2) The electoral dynamics were a carrier of authoritarianism to democracy; 3) The “revolutionary” induced one form of authoritarianism to another, 4) The moderate political elites of both sides agree on the terms of how a dictatorship would end, but excluding other participants, despite its legitimacy. It is stated as essential that whatever the way to put an end to the dictatorship, it is essential: 1) A real transformation of the dictatorial political and social structure and 2. The structures of the democratic movement deactivated by the force government must be rebuilt, which is a commendable but difficult task during transitions. It is also noted that the recomposition of a “civil society” and “democratic culture” will be slow and complex.
An analysis of “the democratic waves”, perhaps the least, since it seems that the majority have been the opposite, would be incomplete if reference is not made to “the most recent wave”, unfortunately, that of our days. In light of the considerations made by Carlos Sánchez Berzain, Executive Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy, a private non-profit think tank whose objective is the promotion and dissemination of the values of freedom, democracy, human rights and institutionality in the Americas, who insists on the so-called “Narco-States”, to refer to the penetration, control and leadership of governments, political parties and their militants, parliamentarians and judges by the industry and the commercialization of drugs and a range of of illegal activities. The Bolivian politician suggests that this is the cancer that in “today's wave” is corroding democracy and in a dramatic way. Adding that the political conflict in Latin America has its main source in the aforementioned activity, since it produces a monstrous amount of drugs, with whose proceeds the political regimes and their producers are fed.
We ask ourselves, Will we be able to overcome the tragedy? If not, what will we do with “the pink wave”, with respect to which we copy: “In 2005, the BBC reported that of the 350 million South Americans, three quarters lived in countries with "presidents who lean towards the left, elected during the previous six years. And that "another common element of the “pink tide” is the clear break with the Washington Consensus of the early 1990s, the mix of open markets and privatizations promoted by the US. The Ibero-American countries belonging to this ideological trend have been referred to as “The Pink Tide nations” (Wikipedia).
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