Populist Seduction in Latin America. Carlos de la Torre
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of the crowd as they left the event: “En el Circo de Santamaría, murió la oligarquía” (in the Circo de Santamaría, the oligarchy has died) and “Guste o no le guste, cuadre o no le cuadre, Gaitán será su padre” (like it or not, agree or not, Gaitán shall be your father).
MECHANISMS OF CLIENTELISM AND PATRONAGE
Approaches that privilege the concept of charisma tend to ignore the concrete mechanisms of electoral articulation, assigning all expla natory weight to the figure and discourse of the leader. As several authors point out (Menéndez-Carrión 1986; Quintero 1980), this interpretation is only possible if the popular bases are understood as anomic and irrational masses. Studies that employ the concept of political clientelism have discarded the presuppositions of the irrationality of marginal sectors, demonstrating on the contrary their instrumental rationality and the importance of political organizations in the conquest of the vote (Menéndez-Carrión 1986). The usefulness of this perspective is illustrated for the Ecuadorian case in the debate between Martz (1989) and Menéndez-Carrión (1986) about the first phase of Concentración de Fuerzas Populares (CFP) in Guayaquil between 1948 and 1960.
John Martz privileges the concept of charismatic leadership, showing Carlos Guevara Moreno’s success in building the CFP. But what Martz cannot explain is why Guevara Moreno lost the leadership of his party. However, Menéndez-Carrión is able to explain both the success and failure of Guevara Moreno, using the concept of political clientelism. According to Menéndez-Carrión, the exchange of votes for goods and services accounts for electoral success. Leadership within the party and therefore control over the political machinery also depend on what particular politicians can deliver. Thus the political actions of popular sectors are in fact rational responses to the precarious conditions—poverty and an unreceptive political system—in which they live.
Although the concept of political clientelism is more useful than charisma in explaining the conquest of votes, it should not become the only frame of reference within which populist appeal is explained, as in Menéndez-Carrión’s work (1986). In its emphasis on formal rationality, political clientelism cannot help us to understand the generation of collective identities in populist movements. As many case studies have shown, participation in a political machine does more than merely assure the delivery of goods and services. In addition, the sense of belonging to a movement is instilled. That is why it is important to study not only the material features of the clientelist exchanges (what is given), but also the symbolic dimensions of exchanges (how it is given) (Auyero 1998).
Populist leaders such as Gaitán, Haya de la Torre, and Velasco Ibarra appealed to both voters and people excluded from the franchise. Through their meetings, slogans, and posters their message transcended the restricted electorate. Thus rather than having to choose between political clientelism and charisma as the central explanatory variable in populism, this suggests that both phenomena must be studied, in particular through an analysis of the concrete political processes in which they are joined. The leader articulates values and challenges and creates new political idioms. Political organizations, in turn, articulate strategies for electoral success, as well as creating mechanisms through which solidarities and collective identities are generated. The ways that these processes complement each other in specific cases must be examined.
SOCIAL HISTORY OF POPULISM
A major preoccupation of students of populism has been to understand the actions of the followers of populist leaders. Some authors, like Germani (1971, 1978), have based their arguments on theories of mass society; others have challenged this interpretation with structural arguments that highlight the instrumental rationality of followers (Spalding 1977; Murmis and Portantiero 1971; Weffort 1998; Ianni 1973, 1975). Recent analyses have gone further by also taking into account the values, ideologies, culture, and actions of subaltern groups (French 1989; James 1988a, 1988b; Wolfe 1994).
Gino Germani’s studies of populism (1971, 1978) reflect the impressions made on him by “mass” movements such as Italian fascism, Nazism, and Peronism. Through the lenses of mass-society theories, he interpreted the collective action of Peronist followers as irrational and anomic. Rapid socioeconomic changes such as urbanization and industrialization produced anomic and available masses—mostly recent immigrants—who were easy prey for the demagogic and manipulative powers of Perón, becoming the social base for his movement. This perspective arbitrarily divides collective action and political behavior into normal and abnormal, such that whatever deviates from the theoretically prescribed path of development is denigrated. Hence, populist followers are considered irrational masses deceived by demagogic, overpowerful, charismatic leaders. This conservative understanding of crowds as “masses” does not permit the study of the specific meaning of their politics.
An alternative explanation of working-class support for Perón stresses the formal rationality of the actions of the subaltern (Murmis and Portantiero 1971; Spalding 1977). Unlike previous governments, which had not addressed workers’ demands for social security and labor legislation, Perón, as the head of the National Labor Department (1943–45), met labor demands. Moreover, due to his power in the military government, Perón was able to co-opt and repress the labor movement in accordance with his interests. In the 1946 elections and through his first two presidential periods, Perón counted on the support of most of the working class, which acted rationally in supporting a leader favorable to their short-term interests.
In spite of the efforts of writers influenced by dependency theory to understand the rationality of the working class and other subaltern groups in populism, their interpretations remain trapped in the same paradoxes of their modernization colleagues. Although dependency studies tried to break with false normative assumptions of what constitutes true and autonomous working-class actions, they are still influenced by orthodox Marxist models of class formation. Because an arbitrary rationalism and transparency is imputed to the actions of the supposedly mature and fully formed working class, these authors can not take into account the values, ideologies, and rituals of working classes or other popular sectors in populism. And even when the thrust of the argument is to understand the specificity of working classes in dependent societies, they can not break with a normative prescriptive model of a what a mature working class should be. It is precisely in the study of who the popular sectors are, what they think, how they feel, and how they interpret their actions that the tools of social history are useful (French 1989; James 1988a, 1988b; Wolfe 1994). As an example, consider Daniel James’s work on Peronism.
James studies the social history of the Argentine working class between 1946 and 1976, showing how Peronism arose and how the workers contributed its development. Although James recognizes the explanatory power of approaches emphasizing the instrumental rationality of workers, he questions the validity of the economistic vision of history common to such perspectives. Peronism may have responded to the material needs of the working class previously ignored, but that does not explain why this response occurred within Peronism rather than in other political movements that also addressed the workers. “What we need to understand is Peronism’s success, its distinctiveness, why its political appeal was more credible for workers—which areas it touched that others did not. To do this we need to take Perón’s political and ideological appeal seriously and examine the nature of Peronism’s rhetoric and compare it with that of its rivals for working-class allegiance” (James 1988b, 14).
Although working-class militancy was still present, the década infame (1930–43) “was experienced by many workers as a time of profound collective and individual frustration and humiliation” (James 1988b, 25). This was a time of severe discipline in the factory, where workers were haunted by the threat of unemployment. Tango lyrics from this period express the humiliation and cynicism of the workers. James points out that although traditional tango themes—romantic betrayal, nostalgia for the past, and the glorification of male courage—persisted, they were expressed in a new social context. Lyrics recommended the adoption of the dominant values of the time: egotism and immorality. They go so far as to propose that instead of being resigned to the injustice of the social order, the alternative is la mala vida—prostitution and crime. James also analyzes how workers’ degradation was expressed through silence. He explains Perón’s political success in his ability to give public expression to workers’ private experiences, in his capacity to affirm the value of workers’