Civil Society and Democracy in Latin America

199 Pages·2006·1.401 MB·English

by  Richard Feinberg, Carlos H. Waisman, Leon Zamosc (eds.)

ivil ociety and emocracy
C S D
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ivil ociety and
C S
emocracy in
D
atin merica
L A
Edited by
Richard Feinberg, Carlos H. Waisman,
and
Leon Zamosc
CIVILSOCIETYANDDEMOCRACY
© Richard Feinberg,Carlos H.Waisman,and Leon Zamosc,2006.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-1-4039-7228-6
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2006 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-53356-5 ISBN 978-1-4039-8324-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781403983244
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Civil society and democracy in Latin America / edited by Richard
Feinberg,Carlos H.Waisman,and Leon Zamosc.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Civil society—Latin America.2.Democracy—Latin America.3.Latin
America—Politics and government—1980– I.Feinberg,Richard E.
II.Waisman,Carlos H.(Carlos Horacio),1943– III.Zamosc,Leon.
JL966.C58 2006
320.98—dc22 2005056461
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India.
First edition:April 2006
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ontents
C
1 Introduction: Civil Society and Democracy:
The Latin American Case 1
Carlos H. Waisman, Richard Feinberg, and
Leon Zamosc
Part I Theoretical And Comparative
Perspectives
2 Autonomy, Self-Regulation, and Democracy:
Tocquevillean-Gellnerian Perspectives on
Civil Society and the Bifurcated State
in Latin America 17
Carlos H. Waisman
3 Civil Society in Latin America in the Twenty-First
Century: Between Democratic Deepening, Social
Fragmentation, and State Crisis 35
Leonardo Avritzer
4 Conceptualizing Civil Society from the Bottom
Up: A Political Economy Perspective 59
Philip Oxhorn
Part II Country Case Studies
5 Citizenship and Civil Society in Renascent Argentina 87
Isidoro Cheresky
6 Argentina after the Nineties: Changes in Social
Structure and Political Behavior 121
Manuel Mora y Araujo
vi Contents
7 Sem Reforma Agrária, Não Há Democracia:
Deepening Democracy and the Struggle for
Agrarian Reform in Brazil 139
Wendy Wolford
8 Civil Society and Political Decay in Venezuela 169
Daniel H. Levine
Index 193
h a p t e r 1
C
ntroduction: ivil ociety
I C S
and emocracy: he atin
D T L
merican ase
A C
Carlos H. Waisman, Richard
Feinberg, and Leon Zamosc
A
central feature of the revival of democracy in Latin America in the
past two decades has been the awakening, or reawakening, of civil
society in the region. The purpose of this volume is to examine the
relationship between these two processes. More particularly, we will
focus on the extent to which civil society has contributed to the
strengthening of democratic institutions.
This question is of major importance, for both theoretical and
practical reasons. Since the downfall of Communist regimes in Central
and Eastern Europe, the classical concept of civil society has been res-
urrected, and arguments of Tocquevillean inspiration connecting civil
society and democracy have become commonplace. However, this lit-
erature is rather vague: different users have defined the term in diverse
and even divergent ways and the specific processes that presumably
link civil society and politics have not been conceptualized with preci-
sion. However, there is a common thread among different versions of
the civil society argument: regardless of how the term is defined and
of what mechanism is postulated as a link between civil society and
democracy, the core idea is that the existence of a dense web of private
associations based on all the major classes, interest groups, and value
2 Waisman, Feinberg, and Zamosc
communities constitutes a foundation for a strong and durable
democracy.
Conversely, definitions of democracy currently used by social
scientists do not necessarily imply an active or strong civil society.
Nevertheless, there is little doubt that a high-quality democracy
presupposes one. In broad terms, contemporary social scientists have
understood democracy in three different, albeit related, ways. First, in
the Schumpeterian tradition, the term democracy refers to a political
regime characterized by fair elections and toleration of the opposition
(Schumpeter 1987:250–283).1 This definition is unsatisfactory,
because it does not include the extent and range of citizens’ inclusion in
the polity. On its basis, a competitive oligarchy would still qualify as a
democracy. Second, we have Robert Dahl’s (1971) classical definition,
according to which democracy requires high levels of inclusiveness and
competitiveness, and a strong institutionalization of civil and political
rights. The problem with this set of criteria is that it does not take into
account the intensity and functions of citizens’ participation. A polity
whose citizenry is demobilized and disorganized or, on the contrary, is
mobilized against democratic institutions, would still be considered
democratic. Finally, the civic or republican democracy advocated by
Alexis de Tocqueville and other classic theorists (and brought into cur-
rent popular debate by Robert D. Putnam) would involve Dahl’s traits,
plus a highly organized civic community.2 This kind of high-quality
democracy is the one that, according to one of the oldest lines of
argument in social and political theory, presupposes a strong civil soci-
ety. We hope that this volume, beyond its geographic and temporal
focus, will contribute to our general understanding of the ways, positive
and negative, in which processes involving citizens’ collective action and
organizations outside the state affect the quality of democracy.
There are also very practical reasons for undertaking this study at
this time. Civil society mobilization has been an important factor in
the decay and eventual collapse of the authoritarian regimes that ruled
almost all the countries in the region in the decades preceding the
1990s. The centrality of this determinant in relation to others (such as
economic failure or success, delegitimation of coercive policies, external
influences, even defeat in war) varied from country to country. However,
the activation of groups and associations that pursued economic
demands, the protection of human rights, and the establishment of a
democratic order was a salient aspect of the political process in the
final phase of all these regimes.
On the other hand, an examination of the question of the quality
of the democracies being activated across Latin America reveals the
The Latin American Case 3
central role of civil society in this regard. In a region of the world
plagued by extraordinarily high levels of social and economic inequal-
ity, and in which a very large proportion of the population faces
economic, political, or cultural exclusion, it would be hard to establish
and sustain a high-quality democracy. However, there are important
differences among these newly democratic regimes, in relation to
critical matters such as the extent to which the rule of law is upheld;
whether underprivileged classes, women, or indigenous groups can
effectively exercise civil and political rights; and whether a welfare
state, even at a rudimentary level, is in place.
These outcomes are explained, in part, by what happens in the
realm of associations and movements in which citizens come together
to protect and advance their own and shared interests and values.
When these groups operate as vehicles for the exercise of citizenship,
as agencies that make demands, offer contingent supports, and audit
governmental activities, there is a strong civil society, which produces
a republican or civic democracy. This does not imply, of course, that a
civil society would simply acquiesce to the existing distribution of
power and privilege; on the contrary, many of its organizations could
become central agents, together with some of the democratic political
parties, in reform processes oriented toward producing a more
egalitarian and participatory social order. On the other hand, social
organizations could be sparse, weak, and dependent; and operate as
channels for clientelism or state corporatism. In so doing, they would
be passive actors in a process of democratic stagnation or decay.
Further, as Latin American history painfully illustrates, social organi-
zations could also be the carriers of political polarization that, if it
were very intense, might contribute to the breakdown of democracy
itself. This can happen when there are powerful civil society organiza-
tions in societies with strong cleavages and weak adhesion to consti-
tutional and legal norms, where the pursuit of particular interests
weighs more heavily than the preservation of the democratic rules of
the game. In such situations, social organizations could be the
gravediggers of democratic institutions, even if this consequence is
unintended and unwanted. In short, when it comes to the quality of
democracy, social organizations could be either part of the solution or
part of the problem.
Contemporary Latin America comprises a variety of situations in
this regard. In some countries there are large and active organizations
representing all major interests and value communities while in others
the organization is a monopoly of the privileged, or the governments
control organizations representing nonelites. In some cases, a