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The DEP Diplomacy, Strategy & Politics Review is a three–monthly periodical on South American affairs published in Portuguese, Spanish and English. It comprises the Raúl Prebisch Project and is sponsored by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations (MRE/Funag – Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation/Ipri – International Relations Research Institute), Construtora Norberto Odebrecht S. A., Andrade Gutierrez S. A. and Embraer – Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica S. A. Editor Carlos Henrique Cardim Correspondence address: Revista DEP P.O. Box 2431 Brasilia, DF – Brasil CEP 70842-970 [email protected] www.funag.gov.br/dep International Cataloguing in Publication Data DEP: Diplomacy, Strategy & Politics / Raúl Prebisch Project no. 8 (october/december 2007). Brasília : Raúl Prebisch Project, 2007. Three–monthly Published in portuguese, spanish and english. ISSN 1808-0499 1. South America. 2. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela. I. Raúl Prebisch Project. CDU 327(05) D E P DIPLOMACIA ESTRATÉGIA POLÍTICA Number 8 October / December 2007 Summary Argentina and Brazil: structural differences and 5 similarities Torcuato S. Di Tella Bolivia: changes and foreign policy 34 Jean Paul Guevara Avila Culture, diversity and access 47 Gilberto Gil Major turns in Chilean economic policy and their legacy 59 Osvaldo Sunkel Colombia, a country of contrasts 105 Alfredo Rangel Ecuador: fundamental issues 116 León Roldós Guyana: the impact of foreign policy on developmen- 131 tal challenges Robert H. O. Corbin Paraguay: identities, substitutions, and transformations 152 Bartomeu Melià, s.j. Peru: electoral surprises and the pending exclusion agenda 165 Martín Tanaka · Sofía Vera The Suriname Republic and regional integration 181 Robby D. Ramlakhan Uruguay: a brief overview of its economy and politics 197 Alberto Couriel The rule of law and social justice under the Bolivarian 209 Alternative for America and the Caribbean-ALBA Isaías Rodríguez 221 Koki Ruiz Argentina and Brazil: structural differences and similarities Torcuato S. Di Tella* I intend to concentrate especially on three relatively recent phases of our history: first, the popular movements headed by Perón and by Vargas; then, the dictatorial regimes that originated in the sixties; and, lastly, the democratization processes that started twenty years later, with their political party systems. I shall begin with a brief historical overview of a longer span than the one I have just circumscribed, as all of us come into the world bearing the marks of what our antecessors did. But who were our antecessors? What were they doing when our countries entered an independent life? The answer will be different for the two countries: great-great-grand parents of the majority of today’s Brazilians of all social levels were already in Brazil; ours were far away and it is possible that they were even unaware of our two nations’ existence. This contrast is quite sharp and has been the subject of repeated analysis, although not always under a comparative focus. While in some very significant decades for Argentina’s formation (say, between 1880 and 1930) the country’s population was almost 30 percent foreign-born, in * Buenos Aires University [email protected] DIPLOMACY , STRATEGY & POLITICS – OCTOBER /DECEMBER 2007 5 Argentina and Brazil: structural differences and similarities Brazil foreigners accounted for barely over 5 percent of the population. True, in São Paulo and in the southern states this figure was considerably higher, but they are states, not a country, and are like an island surrounded by a vast sea of other ethnic and social characteristics. An obvious consequence is that, at least in the cultivated classes, there must be a much stronger historical memory in Brazil than in Argentina, as such a memory is transmitted largely through family traditions. In this respect, Argentina contrasts not only with Brazil but also with Chile, which received fewer immigrants as well (5 percent of its population at the most) and has a very modern political party system, the one on our continent that most resembles the European system.1 Would this mean that Brazil and Chile are very similar as compared with Argentina? Not necessarily, as the two countries’ social structures are markedly different – diametrically opposed, one might say. As regards basic social structure, Chile rather resembles Argentina, with its already settled, long-standing indexes of urbanization, education, predominance of the middle class, and early labor and trade union organization. As a result of this stronger historical memory in Brazil and Chile, there are in these two countries conservative parties, labeled as such or not, a trait in common with practically all developed and democratic nations.2 By “conservative party” I mean a party with roots in the upper classes, with an ideology very close to an entrepreneur’s view of things. This is how I see Chile’s National Renovation Party-PRN and the Independent Democratic Union-UDI, both with over a century-old history, as they originated in the old Conservative and Liberal parties. In Brazil I would mention the Progressive Party-PP (formerly Brazilian Progressive Party-PPB) and the Liberal Front Party-PFL3, first or second generation offshoots of the National Renovation 1 I have addressed this issue in much greater detail in “El impacto de la inmigración en el sistema político argentino”, Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos 4:12, August 1989, pp. 211-230. See also Oscar Cornblit, “Inmigrantes y empresarios en la política argentina”, Desarrollo Económico 6 nº. 24, January-March 1967, pp. 641-691; Fernando Devoto and Gianfausto Rosoli, comps., La inmigración italiana en la Argentina, Buenos Aires, Biblos, 1985; Carl Solberg, Immigration and Nationalism: Argentina and Chile, 1890-1914, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1970; Herbert Klein, “La integración de italianos en la Argentina y los Estados Unidos: un análisis comparativo”, Desarrollo Económico 21, nº. 81, April-June, 1981, pp. 3-27. 2 Spain and Italy, until a few decades ago the two major exceptions regarding the absence of a clear Right on the spectrum of parties, have “normalized” this situation since the gradual strengthening of José María Aznar’s Popular Party in Spain and of Silvio Berlusconi’s Italia Force movement and its ally, the revamped National Alliance. 3 Recently changed its name to “Democratic Party” (DEM). 6 DIPLOMACY , STRATEGY & POLITICS – OCTOBER /DECEMBER 2007 Torcuato S. Di Tella Alliance-Arena and the National Democratic Union-UDN, incorporating also sectors of the old Vargas Right, the Social Democratic Party-PSD (which had nothing of Social Democracy). In Chile, the two conservative parties can easily win almost half of the electorate. In Brazil, the PP and the PFL together have a third of the electorate; and although they are not usually allied, they constitute a clearly conservative bastion, regardless of their electoral discourse, regionalist banners, or the alliances into which the PFL has been induced on occasion with the Center and the Center-Left personified by Fernando Henrique Cardoso. It should be added that the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party-PMDB, a problem-ridden heir to moderate Varguismo, has strong rightist leanings, which bode ill for its continuing unity, already eroded by many schisms since it ceased to play the agglutinating, anti-dictatorship role it played for many years.4 The electoral strength of a rightist party rests on two pillars. One, which weakens over time, is the traditional peasantry that vote for their bosses or for notable relatives of their bosses. The other, which gains solidity over time, is the modern, urban middle class: without it no elections could be won. Some allege that there is a third pillar: the working class Tories or rednecks or bureaucratized labor unions. This third pillar is somewhat shaky, i.e., it is not really conservative – at least not the trade unionists. They may be “socially conservative” (against hippies, gays, and immigrants and unconcerned with human rights), but there is practically no instance of their belonging to a country’s main conservative party, i.e., the party that holds the heart and the pocketbook of the upper classes. Leaving an analysis of trade unionism’s role for later, let us now look at the middle classes’ position. It is usual for members of the middle class to envy and at the same time admire members of the aristocracy or of the jet set and thus accept the leadership of these hierarchic superiors. This is what occurs in most countries, where, in their majority, they vote for conservatives, particularly after having been through phases when their preference went mostly to centrist parties, such 4 Oscar Cornblit, “La opción conservadora en la política argentina”, Desarrollo Económico 14, no. 56, January- March 1975, pp. 599-639; Douglas Chalmers, Atilio Borón and Maria do Carmo Campelo de Souza, comps., The Right and democracy in Latin America, New York, Praeger, 1991; Edward Gibson, Class and conservative parties: Argentina in comparative perspective, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. On comparative elections data see Torcuato S. Di Tella et al., Estructuras sindicales en la Argentina y Brasil: algunas tendencias recientes, Buenos Aires, Biblos, 1995. DIPLOMACY , STRATEGY & POLITICS – OCTOBER /DECEMBER 2007 7 Argentina and Brazil: structural differences and similarities as the Radicals, the Christian Democrats, or the advanced Liberals.5 But what happens in a country such as Argentina, heavily marked by the impact of immigration? This impact was much greater in our country than in any other.6 This made for a great participation void, as the mass of the urban bourgeoisie and of the urban working classes was overwhelmingly made up of foreigners that were not entitled to vote, as they had not acquired Argentine citizenship. This was a serious issue, as those are the two most strategic social segments for the consolidation of a modern political system. The result was a weak bourgeois liberal party and a weak social-democratic or labor party.