Thursday, December 24, 2009

Elections in Latin America

Abraham Lowenthal makes a great point about Latin American elections in an op-ed:

Elections are worthwhile as a means of popular consultation and participation. They can and should also be important as a means of helping to achieve accountability, by comparing incumbents and their parties with the promises on which they were elected.

Elections are important, and their regular occurrence in Latin America, rarely interrupted now by military intervention, is just cause for regional celebration.

It is nonetheless important to recognize that elections alone -- however free, clean and fair -- are never enough to solve the hard questions that face most countries, questions often ignored or papered over during political campaigns.

I try to hammer these very points home in my classes. U.S. policy, of course, focuses squarely on elections as if they are an end rather than a means. Honduras is just the latest of countless examples.

3 comments:

Justin Delacour 4:48 PM  

I try to hammer these very points home in my classes. U.S. policy, of course, focuses squarely on elections as if they are an end rather than a means. Honduras is just the latest of countless examples.

But that's a double-edged sword. More often than not, the type of argument that Lowenthal offers is used to try to delegitimize the democratically-elected leaders that the Washington establishment doesn't like.

Anonymous,  11:20 AM  

Well despite their shortcomings democratic elections are not optional either. They are an indispensable aspect of a modern political system that respects human rights. The ideas that US foreign policy focuses on elections too much or the US uses the lack of democratic procedures to bash leftist governments lead to a slippery slope. It is true that non-democratic governments can establish important social and economic reforms. Often it is easier to do without the messy part of democracy-- an organized opposition. Nevertheless, the ends rarely justify the means and without a democratic source of legitimacy, reforms won't take root.

I think the issue is better put not as an ends vs. means but that there is much more to democratic practice than simply holding an election. When the major contenders view the opponents as enemies-Honduras or Venezuela for example, it isn't a very democratic process. Likewise the rule of law, protection of minorities, a free press, transparency, and a heightened sense of civic efficacy are all in short supply compared to elections in much of Latin America.

Justin Delacour 3:38 PM  

The ideas that US foreign policy focuses on elections too much or the US uses the lack of democratic procedures to bash leftist governments lead to a slippery slope.

Actually, my point is that American political culture often uses the discourse of democracy promotion to pursue ulterior objectives. I think that is the real "slippery slope."

Political elites --and major U.S. media-- constantly use the discourse of democracy promotion for the purpose of furthering certain strategic and commercial interests. Elites exaggerate the ostensibly undemocratic characteristics of external forces that threaten their own interests so as to build public opposition to said forces. Elites will also downplay the undemocratic traits of strategic allies so as to lessen public criticism of them. In sum, the strategic and commercial interests of elites influence the culture's discourses in ways that distort the state of democracy abroad and thus reduce citizens' capacity to rationally assess the politics of distant lands in a manner consistent with their own values.

In an analysis of U.S. media discourse that I'm finishing up at the moment, I use the most conventional of measures to show that our culture's media discourses systematically distort the state of democracy abroad.

The "slippery slope" is that, if we operate under the a priori assumption that our culture's discourses are free of such distorting influences, we not only discourage our culture from scrutinizing its own discourses but also encourage the culture to assess the politics of the world on the basis of information that is systematically biased in favor of certain concealed interests.

  © Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP