Category: Latin America

Interview #58 — The Will of the People

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In conversation with Yanina Welp, we discuss some of the topics present in her last book: The will of the people. Populism and citizens participation in Latin America. Latin America is a region where populism is prolific and often appears with characteristics that are different compared to European populism.

POP already devoted several interviews and articles about populism in Latin America and in comparison with Europe, with a focus on the Andes region and Brazil among other things, and if you are interested in Latin American populism you can find much more content in The Populism Interviews, including an amazing interview to Federico Finchelstein.

In today’s interview we discuss the inclusion of the people’s will in populist political projects across Latin America, instances of controlled mobilisation, the importance of trust in institutions and among people, dissatisfaction with democracy, democratic political culture, the role of political parties, and much more.

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Populism and Regime Change: The Andes in Comparative Perspective

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Does populism in power lead inexorably to the end of electoral democracy? And if not, what explains why populism leads to regime change in some cases but not in others? In this article, Julio Carrión answers these question by comparing the evolution of populism in power in five Latin American countries from the Andes region: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Carrión explains that populist leaders are elected when two critical antecedents are both present: deep popular unsatisfaction with existing political choices, and deeply divided or disorganised political elites. At this point, whether democracy survives or it is replaced by authortiarian rule, it depends on the outcome of what Carrión calls “Hobbesian moment”. This is a conflict between populist leaders—who want to expand their power—and socio-institutional elements fighting to preserve the checks and balances crucial for the functioning of liberal democracy.

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A Specter is Haunting Brazil: What to Expect from Him who claims to represent “the people?”

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In this article, Eduardo Tamaki analyzes the last, worrying developments from Brazil. President Bolsonaro does not simply claim to represent “the people” in opposition to the “elites”, as the classic populist textbook prescribes, but went further. He hijacked religion and introduced nationalistic, patriotic elements. This allowed him to start a moral, religious crusade with the goal to defend the “fatherland” against every sort of enemy: the “old politics”, Communism, the Supreme Federal Court. Of this crusade, of course, he is the leader, the Commander, the Messiah.

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Interview #28 – Responsiveness and Populism in Latin America

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In this interview Simon Bornschier explains us why in Latin America people opt for populist outsiders in some countries but for moderate candidates in others. Opposing neoliberalism seems to give credibility to left-wing populist parties, while diluting their brand by supporting neoliberal measures seems to be (on the long term) a very bad strategic move.

Comparing Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, and Venezuela, it emerges that left-wing populism is not necessarily dangerous for horizontal accountability and liberal democracy. In fact, populism can sometimes give voice to voters and represent demands that were neglected. Moreover, while in certain cases voters choose a populist party because of its populism, sometimes they do it because of the party’s concrete policies.

This, and much more, in a dense and articulated interview with one of the major experts of populism in Latin America and Western Europe. Even more relevant after that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was attacked by drones carrying explosives while he was giving a speech in Caracas. (To know more about the Venezuelan case, Maduro, Chavismo and populism, listen to prof. Kirk Hawkins.)

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Interview #19 Nadia Urbinati – The roots of #Charlottesville, techno-populism, and the end of World War II

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The day after #Charlottesville, POP interviewed Nadia Urbinati. After one hour on the phone, it was clear that the quantity and quality of issues discussed, topics explored, and cases mentioned, came to form an extended and vivid portrait of modern populism in the US and its historical roots, the populistization of politics in Easter Europe, the advent of techno-populism, the future of Italian democracy, post-colonial populism in Latin America, and racism all over the world.

nadiaNadia Urbinati teaches Political Theory at the Department of Political Science, Columbia University.  She published extensively on democratic theory, representative government and the interpretations of democracy. Her most recent book is Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth and the People (Harvard University Press 2014).

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Populism in Latin America: a double interview

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POP interviewed two scholars – Saskia Ruth and Bruno Castanho Silva – in order to understand the causes and consequences of populism, especially in Latin America. We discussed also about negative cases (why populism does not always show up when it is supposed to?), use of violence, populist paradoxes, and direct democratic tools.

From this dialogue emerged a (quite long and dense) interview full of relevant examples, concepts and arguments. It therefore constitutes a clear and comprehensive point of access to a broad variety of topics about populism in Latin America.

Enjoy the  interview.

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Interview #14 – The Strange Case of Dr. Populist and Mr. Corruption

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Lisa Zanotti

Lisa Zanotti is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at University Diego Portales in Chile and a Ph.D. researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis, a project that aims at studying the factors influencing the emergence of the populist/anti-populist cleavage in Italy in comparative perspective.

In this interview POP discussed with her about the role of corruption in triggering populism both in Latin America and Europe, both theoretically and empirically, with a focus on Italy, France, the Netherlands, Chile and Brasil.

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Interview #12 – Historia Magistra Vitae and the Absence of Populism in Chile

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Prof. Rovira Kaltwasser

POP came back to Latin America for an interview with Prof. Rovira Kaltwasser, associate professor of political science at Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile. He is the co-editor, with Cas Mudde, of Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge University Press, 2012) as well as the co-editor, with Juan Pablo Luna, of The Resilience of the Latin American Right (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). His new book Populism: A Very Short Introduction, written together with Cas Mudde, will be published by Oxford University Press in February 2017.

The interview is very dense and full of insights about populism in Latin America and beyond, opportunity structures, political actors and parties, similarities with Europe, and peculiarities of the Chilean case. Enjoy the reading. Continue reading →

Interview #9 with Samuele Mazzolini: Trans-Atlantic Left-Wing Populism

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foto mazzoliniIn this interview, Samuele Mazzolini discusses the similarities and differences between Latin American left-wing populism (especially in Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia) and European left-wing populism ( in particular about Syriza, Corbyn and Podemos).

Mazzolini is a PhD candidate in Ideology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Essex. His theoretical research focuses on the notions of populism and hegemony in Laclau, while empirically he works on the experiences of the Italian Communist Party and the Ecuadorian Citizens’ Revolution. He previously worked for the Ecuadorian government and was until little ago a regular columnist of the State-owned daily newspaper El Telégrafo. He is a blogger for the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. Continue reading →