Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America Susan C

Cambridge University Press 0521801184 - Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America Susan C. Stokes Frontmatter More information

Mandates and Democracy

Sometimes politicians run for ofﬁce promising one set of policies and then, if they win, they switch to very different ones. Latin American presidents in recent years have frequently run promising to avoid pro-market reforms and harsh economic adjustment, then win and transform immediately into enthu- siastic market reformers. Does it matter when politicians ignore the promises they made and the preferences of their constituents? If politicians want to be reelected or see their party reelected at the end of their term, why would they impose unpopular policies? Susan Stokes explores questions of mandates, promises, and democratic theory in light of the Latin American experience. She develops a model of policy switches and tests it with statistical and qual- itative data from Latin American elections over the last two decades. She con- cludes that politicians may change course because they believe that unpopular policies are best for constituents and hence also will best serve their own political ambitions. Nevertheless, even though good representatives will sometimes switch policies, abrupt changes of course tend to erode the quality of democracy.

Susan C. Stokes is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy. Professor Stokes is co- editor of Democracy, Accountability, and Representation (1999) and editor of Public Support for Market Reforms in New Democracies (2001). She is the author of Cul- tures in Conﬂict: Social Movements and the State in Peru (1995) and of many arti- cles on democratic theory, political economy, and Latin American politics.

Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics

General Editor Margaret Levi University of Washington, Seattle

Associate Editors Robert H. Bates Harvard University Peter Hall Harvard University Stephen Hanson University of Washington, Seattle Peter Lange Duke University Helen Milner Columbia University Frances Rosenbluth Yale University Susan Stokes University of Chicago Sidney Tarrow Cornell University

Other Books in the Series Stefano Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 1860–1980: The Class Cleavage Carles Boix, Political Parties, Growth and Equality: Conservative and Social Democratic Economic Strategies in the World Economy Catherine Boone, Merchant Capital and the Roots of State Power in Senegal, 1930–1985 Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective Valerie Bunce, Leaving Socialism and Leaving the State: The End of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia Ruth Berins Collier, Paths Toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America Donatella della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State Gerald Easter, Reconstructing the State: Personal Networks and Elite Identity Roberto Franzosi, The Puzzle of Strikes: Class and State Strategies in Postwar Italy Geoffrey Garrett, Partisan Politics in the Global Economy Miriam Golden, Heroic Defeats: The Politics of Job Loss Frances Hagopian, Traditional Politics and Regime Change in Brazil J. Rogers Hollingsworth and Robert Boyer, eds., Contemporary Capitalism: The Embeddedness of Institutions Ellen Immergut, Health Politics: Interests and Institutions in Western Europe Torben Iversen, Contested Economic Institutions

List continues on page following the Index.

Mandates and Democracy

NEOLIBERALISM BY SURPRISE IN LATIN AMERICA

SUSAN C. STOKES University of Chicago

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, VIC 3166, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2001

Printed in the United States of America

Typeface Janson Text 10/13 pt. System QuarkXPress [BTS]

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stokes, Susan Carol. Mandates and democracy : neoliberalism by surprise in Latin America / Susan C. Stokes. p. cm. – (Cambridge studies in comparative politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-80118-4 – ISBN 0-521-80511-2 (pb.) 1. Democracy – Latin America. 2. Latin America – Politics and government – 1980– 3. Latin America – Economic conditions – 1982– 4. Latin America – Economic policy. I. Title. II. Series. JL966 .S76 2001 320¢.6¢098 – dc21 00-065153

ISBN 0 521 80118 4 hardback ISBN 0 521 80511 2 paperback

This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Donald E. Stokes, who opened many paths in the study of democracy, and to the memory of Luis Castro Leyva, who struggled to defend it.

Contents

Preface page xi

1 ELECTIONS, MANDATES, AND REPRESENTATION 1 2 ELECTIONS AND ECONOMIC POLICY IN LATIN AMERICA 25 3 EXPLAINING POLICY SWITCHES 60 4 ARE PARTIES WHAT’S WRONG WITH DEMOCRACY IN LATIN AMERICA? 102 5 NEOLIBERALISM WITHOUT MANDATES: CITIZENS RESPOND 122 6 MANDATES AND DEMOCRATIC THEORY 154 7 SUMMARY, PREDICTIONS, UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 185

References 197 Author Index 211 Subject Index 215

Preface

In a conversation with a friend in a South American city, I mentioned my interest in the phenomenon of politicians sometimes promising things in campaigns and then, in office, changing course, as did the president of her country when he first took office. Anger flashed across her face, as she blurted out, “It was completely authoritarian what he did, changing like that. It was antidemocratic.” A month later, in the same city, I presented some preliminary research findings at a scholarly seminar. The audience was social scientists and his- torians of varying political leanings. In their writings, some present had excoriated the government’s economic liberalization program and others extolled it. As I read quotes from their president’s speeches in the previ- ous presidential campaign, their reaction was not anger of the sort my friend had expressed but irony. Laughter broke out as I read the then- candidate’s pronouncements, his promises not to raise prices – as he later did – and privatize industry – as he later would do – and to protect local business against foreign competition – which he later failed to do. Why was ironic laughter, not anger, the response of this sophisticated audience, who seemed almost to have forgotten the discarded statist identity of the candidate-cum-president? To be sure, many had condemned the change of policies at the time they were announced. But as time passed and the election receded, the political debate was not over consistency and candidates who mislead but over the policies themselves. Were they in the public’s interest? Would they promote growth? Price stability? A fair share for the poor? These varying reactions suggest distinct perspectives on the importance to democracy of consistency between what politicians say when they seek office and what they do once they have attained it. Is democracy tarnished

Preface

– perhaps even destroyed – when candidates hide their true policy intentions in campaigns, in effect depriving citizens of a choice over which policies the future government will carry out? If so, my friend’s lingering anger seems justiﬁed. Or do politicians sometimes have good reasons to hide their intentions? And do citizens’ chances to cast judgment on policies at the end of the term compensate for their limited ability to make future- oriented choices? If so, the ironic laughter of my colleagues, caught up as they were in the current actions of the government rather than with what was said in the past, seems appropriate. This book is an effort to think through the import for democracy of mandates and their violation. I study this question through the lens of economic policy in Latin America. Like Eastern Europe and parts of Asia and Africa, Latin America in the last decades of the twentieth century faced two major challenges: to strengthen and deepen democracy and to stabi- lize and reorient economic life. Both challenges will persist well into the new century. They are profoundly related. Economic reorientation must be carried out by elected governments, which have to worry about whether the economic changes occurring on their watch will help them or hurt them in the next election. And the manner of economic reorientation may enhance or undermine democratic governance.

My debt to friends, colleagues, and family is large. Adam Przeworski was deeply inﬂuential in my formulation of the problem. I proﬁted greatly from conversations with him and with Bernard Manin. The Chicago Center on Democracy was an exciting place to share ideas, and I am grateful to colleagues there for their criticisms and encouragement, in particu- lar (in addition to Przeworski and Manin) to Bob Barros, José Antonio Cheibub, Jon Elster, James Fearon, and Steven Holmes. In Peru, the Insti- tuto de Estudios Peruanos provided a hospitable and stimulating environ- ment; I thank Julio Cotler, Carlos Iván Degregori, and Lucía Romero, among others. In Argentina, Carlos Acuña welcomed me to Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad and kindly offered guidance. In Venezuela, Luis Castro Leyva was the kindest and most empathetic of hosts; he is missed. Matthew Cleary, Marta Fraile, Pieter Van Houten, José María Maravall, and Andrew Rehfeld commented on chapters, for which I thank them. Several kind souls read and commented on the whole manuscript: Delia Boylan, James Fearon, Mark Hansen, Gretchen Helmke, David Laitin, Steve Pincus, Sybil Stokes, Lisa Wedeen, and Pete Wolfe. I am grateful to

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Preface

John Carey and an anonymous reviewer for Cambridge University Press for excellent comments and suggestions. Many thanks also to Lewis Bateman, Helen Greenberg, and Helen Wheeler at Cambridge Univer- sity Press. This project could not have been carried out without research assis- tance from a talented set of young scholars. They are John Baughman, Eduardo Guerrero, Alejandro López, María Elena Martínez, Leonardo Pérez Esquivel, Guillermo Trejo, Carlos Vargas, and Patricio Navia. I gratefully acknowledge ﬁnancial support from the Social Science Research Council–MacArthur Foundation Program in International Peace and Security, the National Science Foundation (Grant SBR-9617796), and the Social Science Division of the University of Chicago. The love of my husband, Steve Pincus, and of my son, Sam, are always deeply sustaining.

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