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Populism: Authoritarian and Democratic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Robert H. Dix
Robert H. Dix*
Affiliation:
Rice University
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Populism is one of those terms (democracy is another) that is frequently employed in the study of politics and varies in meaning from context to context and from author to author. Thus the term has been invoked in studies of such agrarian-based movements as nineteenth-century agrarian unrest in the United States and the narodniki of prerevolutionary Russia as well as being applied to the largely urban-based populism of Latin America. Moreover, most of those who have sought to characterize the populist parties in Latin America have done so in broad terms that encompass any party or political movement that has both a mass base and a cross-class composition. Torcuato DiTella's well-known definition characterized populism (in Latin America or elsewhere) as “a political movement which enjoys the support of the mass of the working class and/or the peasantry, but which does not result from the autonomous organizational power of either of these two sectors. It is also supported by non-working class sectors upholding an anti-status quo ideology.” Other Latin American students of populism such as Francisco Weffort and Ernesto Laclau, along with most others who have studied the phenomenon, have similarly broad conceptions of it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , 1985 , pp. 29 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by the University of Texas Press

References

Notes

1. Works on populism embracing examples from various parts of the world include these titles: Margaret Canovan, Populism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981); Latin American Populism in Comparative Perspective, edited by Michael L. Conniff (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982); and Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner, Populism (London: Macmillan, 1969).

2. Torcuato S. DiTella, “Populism and Reform in Latin America,” in Obstacles to Change in Latin America, edited by Claudio Veliz (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 47.

3. See, for example, Franciso Weffort and Aníbal Quijano, Populismo, marginalización y dependencia (San José, Costa Rica: EDUCA, 1973); and Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (London: NLB, 1977).

4. See Thomas H. Greene, Comparative Revolutionary Movements (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974), chaps. 2–3, for a summary analysis of the sociology of revolutionary leadership and followership.

5. DiTella, “Populism and Reform.”

6. I am here telescoping DiTella's distinctions between populism in typically “underdeveloped” and “relatively developed” countries; DiTella in any case has considerable difficulty finding examples for the cells of his “developed” matrix (ibid., 73). This procedure also allows one to leave open the question of the relationship between “stages of development” and the types of populism. For further elaboration of this point, see the conclusion to this article.

7. Again collapsing the “underdeveloped” and “relatively developed” distinction, authoritarian populism would include DiTella's “militaristic reform parties” and Peronism. Parties of the democratic populist variety would be dubbed Aprista by DiTella, although parties such as the Argentine and Chilean Radicals might be included here among democratic parties in “developed” countries (DiTella equivocates here). As will become clear, no set of terms—authoritarian or military, on the one hand, democratic, civilian, or Aprista on the other—are wholly ideal.

8. Both Betancourt and Haya de la Torre began law school but were diverted by political events from finishing their studies.

9. George Blanksten, Perón's Argentina (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 343–56; and José Luis de Imaz, Los que mandan, translated by Carlos A. Astiz (Albany: State University Press of New York, 1970), 13–18.

10. Peter Snow, Political Forces in Argentina, rev. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1979), 32.

11. Daniel Premo, “Alianza Nacional Popular: Populism and the Politics of Social Class in Colombia, 1961–1970,” Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1972, 56.

12. This situation did not preclude occasional alliance with the military for tactical purposes, as will be discussed.

13. Snow, Political Forces, 32.

14. Imaz, Los que mandan, 17.

15. Data calculated by the author, principally from Cámara de Diputados, 150 años, El Congreso de Chile (1811–1961), and from the Diccionario biográfico de Chile, various editions (Santiago: Empresa Periodística de Chile, 1937–). It should be noted that some legislators were coded as having more than one occupation. For the Partido Agrario Laborista (PAL), the core of Ibáñez's support, the percentages were notably higher.

16. See Peter F. Klarén, Modernization, Dislocation, and Aprismo (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973), especially chaps. 5–6.

17. John W. Martz, Acción Democrática (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 195ff.

18. Christopher Mitchell, The Legacy of Populism in Bolivia (New York: Praeger, 1977), 17–19 and 26–28.

19. Snow, Political Forces, 32.

20. See note 15 for sources.

21. Ernesto Würth Rojas, Ibáñez, caudillo enigmático (Santiago: Editorial del Pacífico, 1958), 371.

22. Rodrigo Losada, Perfil socio-político del congresista colombiano (Bogotá: Departmento de Ciencia Política, Universidad de los Andes, 1972), 94–95.

23. Snow, Political Forces, 32.

24. For sources, see note 15.

25. See, for example, Judith Talbot Campos and John F. McCamant, Cleavage Shift in Colombia: Analysis of the 1970 Elections (Beverly Hills: Sage Press, 1972), 60.

26. See table 5 in Lars Schoultz, “Urbanization and Changing Voting Patterns: Colombia, 1946–1970,” Political Science Quarterly 87 (Mar. 1972):39. A municipio is roughly equivalent to a U.S. county.

27. See the table in Campos and McCamant, Cleavage Shift, 53.

28. Communal data are from Armand Mattelart, Atlas social de las comunas de Chile (Santiago: Editorial del Pacífico, 1965); electoral data were supplied by the Dirección del Registro Electoral in Santiago, Chile.

29. Campos and McCamant, Cleavage Shift, 53.

30. James W. Rowe, The Argentine Elections of 1963: An Analysis (Washington: Institute for the Comparative Study of Political Systems, 1964).

31. Martz, Acción Democrática, chap. 12.

32. Ibid.

33. See Klarén, Modernization, Dislocation, and Aprismo for a portrayal of APRA's roots among the sugar workers of northern Peru.

34. See Mitchell, Legacy of Populism, passim, and Richard W. Patch, “Peasantry and National Revolution: Bolivia,” in Expectant Peoples, edited by K. H. Silvert (New York: Random House, 1963), 95–126, on the MNR's relationship to peasants.

35. Rodrigo Losada and Miles Williams, “Análisis de la votación presidencial en Bogotá, 1970,” in Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE), Colombia Política (Bogotá: DANE, 1972), 16–17 and 20–22.

36. For sources, see note 28.

37. See in particular the works of Gino Germani, including La estructura de la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Raigal, 1955), and “El surgimiento del peronismo: el rol de los obreros y de los migrantes internos,” Desarrollo Económico 13 (Oct.-Dec. 1973):435–85.

38. Eldon Kenworthy, “The Function of the Little-Known Case in Theory Formation, or What Peronism Wasn't,” Comparative Politics 6 (Oct. 1973):17–45; and Peter Smith, “The Social Base of Peronism,” Hispanic American Historical Review 52 (Feb. 1972): 55–73.

39. Walter Little, “The Popular Origins of Peronism,” in Argentina in the Twentieth Century, edited by David Rock (London: Duckworth, 1975); for a summary analysis of the question, see Lars Schoultz, The Populist Challenge (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983).

40. See respectively Steve Stein, Populism in Peru (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980); Martz, Acción Democrática; and Mitchell, Legacy of Populism.

41. Robert H. Dix, “Political Oppositions under the National Front,” in Politics of Compromise, edited by R. Albert Berry, Ronald G. Hellman, and Mauricio Solaún (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1980), 148.

42. See, for example, Eldon Kenworthy, “Did the ‘New Industrialist’ Play a Significant Role in the Formation of Perón's Coalition, 1943–46?,” in Alberto Ciria et al., New Perspectives on Modern Argentina (Bloomington: Latin American Studies Program, Indiana University, 1972); see also Blanksten, Perón's Argentina.

43. Arab-Chilean is a loose designation for persons of generally Levantine extraction. See Donald W. Bray, “Chilean Politics during the Second Ibáñez Government, 1952–58,” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1961, chap. 7.

44. On students and intellectuals as a “permanent” revolutionary group in developing societies, see Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), chap. 5.

45. See René Montero Moreno, Confesiones políticas (Santiago: Zig-Zag, 1958), 13.

46. Blanksten, Perón's Argentina, 290.

47. Ibid., 297.

48. Pedro Pablo Morcillo et al., “Estudio sobre abstención electoral en las elecciones de marzo de 1968 en Cali,” in DANE, Colombia Política.

49. Dix, “Political Oppositions,” 157.

50. Examples include an attempt to establish a hemispheric labor confederation and Perón's personal support of Ibáñez's election.

51. Interview published in Revista Javeriana 73 (Apr. 1970):292.

52. Partido Agrario Laborista, Estatutos bases (1954).

53. Dix, “Political Oppositions,” 160.

54. Aprismo, The Ideas and Doctrines of Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, edited and translated by Robert J. Alexander (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1973); and Harry Kantor, The Ideology and Program of the Peruvian Aprista Movement (New York: Octagon, 1966).

55. See, for example, Martz, Acción Democrática, chap. 8; and Robert J. Alexander, The Venezuelan Democratic Revolution (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1964), pt. 3.

56. See Herbert S. Klein, Parties and Political Change in Bolivia, 1880–1952 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

57. James Malloy notes the MNR's virulent attacks on all groups alleged to have an internationalist orientation, including imperialists, Masons, Jews, Communists, the tin barons, and others. The MNR stressed the need to draw together all elements of society against the oppression of the nation. See Malloy's “Revolutionary Politics” in Beyond the Revolution: Bolivia since 1952, edited by Malloy and Richard S. Thorn (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971), 114–15.

58. Stein, Populism, 166–67; and Kantor, Ideology and Program, 93–97.

59. Daniel H. Levine, Conflict and Political Change in Venezuela (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).

60. This generalization must be qualified with regard to the MNR in its earlier years, although its conspiratorial efforts prior to attaining power in 1952 increasingly looked to civilian allies. See Klein, Parties and Political Change, 383 and passim.

61. Dix, “Political Opposition,” 148.

62. See especially Martz, Acción Democrática; and Grant Hilliker, The Politics of Reform in Peru (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).

63. Concerning the MNR, see Mitchell, Legacy of Populism; and James M. Malloy, Bolivia: The Uncomplete Revolution (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1970).

64. G. Hilliker, Politics of Reform, chap. 7.

65. See Hilliker, Politics of Reform, chap. 8, concerning the “mass reform party” in modern Latin America.

66. Qualifications concerning the MNR have already been noted. Another exception might be the movement created by Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Colombia in the 1940s, although it shared some of the characteristics of each type. See Robert H. Dix, “The Varieties of Populism: The Case of Colombia,” Western Political Quarterly 31 (Sept. 1978):334–51.

67. Daniel Premo points specifically to this circumstance in his Alianza Nacional Popular, 88n.

68. DiTella, “Populism and Reform.”

69. Guillermo O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1973); and Octavio Ianni, “Populismo y relaciones de clase,” in Populismo y contradicciones de clase en Latinoamérica, edited by Gino Germani, Torcuato DiTella, and Octavio Ianni (Mexico: Ediciones Era, 1973), 83–150.

70. Laclau, Politics and Ideology.

71. Smith, “The Social Base of Peronism.”

72. This was the case, for example, with Aprismo and Sánchezcerrismo in Peru in the early 1930s; see Stein, Populism.