Pink-Tide Governments: Pragmatic and Populist Responses to Challenges from the Right

The Critique of Models

Detractors of progressive Latin American governments argue that they promote political and economic models or “isms”—specifically populism, socialism, and neodevelopmentalism—that have been historical failures. Some antileftist writers, such as Castañeda, point to the radical left governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador as throwbacks to the classical populism of Juan Domingo Perón and Getúlio Vargas. According to this line of reasoning, Chávez’s nationalist discourse resembled that of Perón. Both “found it convenient to define nationalism as opposition to U.S. imperialism” and in doing so jeopardized one of their nations’ major foreign markets (Castañeda, Morales, and Navia, 2008: 93: Corrales, 2011: 38–41). These writers also argue that the twenty-first-century Latin American leftist governments, like Peronism in the 1940s, were doomed to failure because the success of their defiance of powerful actors was contingent on the indefinite duration of favorable international markets for their nations’ exports. For the same reason, the highly praised social programs of “leftist populist” governments are said to be intrinsically unsustainable because of the cyclical instability of state revenue along with improvisation, inefficiency, and waste (Weyland, 2013b: 128–130, 143). The disastrous effects of left-wing populism are allegedly even more deep-rooted and long-lasting than those of the neoliberal-style populism on the right known as “neopopulism” (Weyland, 2013a; see also Merino, 2008: 86).

With the economic downturn and intensification of political conflict in the second decade of the century, adversaries and critics of the pink tide attached the populist label even to center-leftist governments that refrained from calling themselves socialist (Morais and Saad-Filho, 2011: 38). In his article in this issue Gabriel Oyhantçabal points out that some members of Uruguay’s opposition (which included several former Uruguayan presidents) branded the moderate Frente Amplio government “populist, authoritarian, and demagogic.”

Other nonleftist critics of pink-tide governments hold socialism responsible for the economic difficulties that intensified as a result of declining international commodity prices after 2008. Pundits writing for right-wing publications such as the Media Research Center and National Review criticize the establishment media for failing to identify and condemn the socialist nature of leftist South American countries. According to this narrative, the media refrain from categorizing Venezuela as socialist and instead use the less derogatory label of “populist” or, worse, describe it as a welfare state (Rossell, 2015; Williamson, 2015). This rightist critique passes over the fact that private ownership predominated in the economies of pink-tide countries, which were thus hardly socialist in spite of government commitment and rhetoric. In some cases, the critique of twenty-first-century Latin American socialism masked a critique of the Keynesian model of state intervention in the economy, which characterized the economic policies of all pink-tide governments (Ellner, 2015).

The sweeping assertion that the problems of left-leaning Latin American governments resulted from the inherent contradictions, defects, and inoperativeness of their economic model and that collapse was inevitable is typical of much of the analysis of socialism of the past century. Those who defended this position, for instance, pointed to the Soviet experience and its demise in 1991 as evidence that the socialist system was inherently undemocratic, inefficient, and unsustainable. The essays in this issue rest on diametrically opposite assumptions. Their focus on context, complexity, and specific errors stemming from the application of pragmatic and populist strategies imply that outcomes were anything but inevitable.

The former Ecuadorian presidential candidate Alberto Acosta and others identify pink-tide governments as “neoextractivist” (Acosta and Machado, 2012). The model of neoextractivism is perceived to be historically bankrupt in that it follows in the tradition of the developmentalism of the latter half of the twentieth century, which disregarded concerns of dependency and ecological destruction. Other left proponents of the neoextractivist critique argue that pink-tide governments resemble neoliberal ones of previous years in that they emphasize production of primary commodities for the export economy, as opposed to the import-substitution strategy based on diversification and internal markets. At the same time, in contrast to neoliberalism, neoextractivism strengthened the role of the state, particularly in the promotion of social programs. Social policy in favor of the poor, however, diverted attention from the nefarious economic and ecological effects of resource extraction and appeared to enhance the legitimacy of neoextractivist governments (as discussed by Pickup in her article in this issue; see also Gudynas, 2010; López and Vértiz, 2015: 162–165; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2014: 35–36; Webber, 2017: 287–288).

In their critique of neoextractivist governments, these leftist writers reaffirm the thesis of “development of underdevelopment” put forward by Andre Gunder Frank, namely that when commodity booms terminate, Third World countries have nothing to show for the enormous revenue received (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2014: 27; Webber, 2017: 283–294). This explanation for the defeats suffered by pink-tide governments in the recent past is underpinned by the assumption that twenty-first-century Latin American economies are trapped in the logic of global capitalism and inextricably tied to it. Therefore, reformist programs that stop short of a complete revolutionary break with the system are doomed to failure.

Pink-tide critics on the left who defend the neoextractivism thesis raise key economic and ecological issues that point to serious shortcomings and errors. Nevertheless, they overstate their case when they assert—as did Frank in other historical contexts—that the progressive policies implemented by those governments have no long-lasting positive impact. Most important, social programs that promote popular participation in decision making and the incorporation and empowerment of excluded sectors of the population are advances that cannot easily be reversed. A holistic view (basic to Marxist thinking) that posits cultural change of this nature as intricately tied to the transformation process of society (Lebowitz, 2010: 21–25; Lukács, 1971) is at odds with those who value social programs only on ethical grounds—as do some neoextractivism writers (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2014: 38–39)—or, worse, view them as tantamount to doles. Furthermore, neoextractivism writers often fail to differentiate between the approach to mining exploitation of neoliberal governments and that of progressive ones, which often incorporate some of the demands of local communities (López and Vértiz, 2015: 165).

Finally, the refusal of many pink-tide governments to implement austerity measures and other neoliberal policies following the critical economic downturn after 2008 needs to be underscored in any analysis from a leftist perspective. The rejection of the neoliberal option as a response to the economic downturn is overlooked by the neoextractivism writers, who emphasize continuity over change. Thus, for instance, during her second presidential term when economic conditions deteriorated, Cristina Kirchner resisted the demands of the vulture funds, implemented exchange controls, partly renationalized the oil company YPF, renationalized the pension system, and exercised tighter control of the Central Bank. Such decisiveness differentiates these more leftist governments from that of Perón in the 1950s (Castañeda’s comparisons notwithstanding) and Dilma Rousseff, both of whom abandoned progressive positions in the face of pressing economic difficulties.

Pragmatic and Populist Strategies: Implications and Conclusions

Pink-tide governments adopted a contradictory mix of pragmatic and populist strategies in response to the unyielding hostility of opposition groups and (as in the case of Lula at the time of his election in 2003) the possibility of economic collapse. Some of these policies ran counter to the leftist positions defended by the same leaders prior to reaching power. The dynamic that gave way to pragmatic and populist policies has important implications with regard to the existence of a “progressive” bourgeoisie, the multidimensionality of pink-tide social programs, and the importance of timing.

This Issue

The articles in this issue contribute to the above observations about pink-tide governments by providing details, examples, and analysis. The contributors reject the view that minimizes the achievements of progressive governments and emphasizes continuity over change. They highlight the importance of context and specifically the impact of the opposition’s aggressiveness on the strategies adopted by the left in power. The articles by Clark and García (Ecuador), Farthing and Nelson (Bolivia), Cruz Feliciano (Nicaragua), and Angosto-Ferrández and me (Venezuela) go into detail about pragmatic strategies toward the business sector that in the long run had undesirable effects. Nearly all the articles discuss pragmatic strategies with regard to other sectors of the population with equally negative consequences. My article discusses populist social policies along similar lines by arguing that they were politically successful but had mixed socioeconomic results. Several articles raise the issue of timing by attempting to determine the ideal moment when measures to correct deviations from pragmatic and populist policies were politically feasible.

In her article, Megan Pickup addresses the issue of continuity and change as applied to pink-tide governments and concludes that there are important elements of both. Through the lens of political economy, Pickup shows that “New Left” governments cannot be seen as uninfluenced by or isolated from extractive elites. Nevertheless, much has changed since the neoliberal era. One of the most important and in her opinion positive changes is the economic ties with emerging economies, particularly that of China. She points to Chinese investments in infrastructural developments “the absence of which has long been considered a barrier to regional development” and adds that “China’s political significance in the region is that it represents a symbolic counterweight to U.S. hegemony.”

The article by Marcel Nelson on Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, along with other pieces in the issue, views the populist and pragmatic approaches of progressive governments as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they were necessary and justifiable responses to “disloyal oppositions that have sought to remove them, often through violent extraconstitutional means.” On the other hand, they “wedded each regime to an extractivist structure . . . that has limited the scope for transformation and maintained political dynamics such as clientelism.” Nelson attempts to explain the dilemma facing these governments by applying the writings of the Marxist theoretician Nicos Poulantzas, who argued that even socialist governments contend with the influence, if not the imprints (or “condensation”), of the bourgeoisie within state spheres. As a result, progressives in power find themselves “‘walking the tightrope,’” avoiding an overly radical course with destabilizing effects and an overly conservative course that would undermine “not only the transformative scope of a left government but also its political viability by alienating its base of support.” Poulantzas’s key to resolving the dilemma was the democratization of the state and the activation of autonomous social movements. All three governments, according to Nelson, fell short on these counts. The Correa government failed to undertake state transformation and instead concentrated on the “redistribution of rent largely via . . . ‘compensatory’ mechanisms.” The Bolivian government did make efforts to restructure the state through the new constitution, but the changes generated harsh and violent reaction to which Morales responded by accommodating business elites. Venezuela went the farthest in carrying out “substantive change and democratization,” but in the end “persistent ‘rentierist’ capitalist forms . . . placed important limits on the process” (see Ellner, 2017b: 26–28).

In their article, Pedro Mendes Loureiro and Alfredo Saad-Filho point to the implementation of the pragmatic strategy in Brazil. Most important, the Workers’ Party governments made major concessions to the private sector. From the outset, Lula devised a broad coalition that included “important fractions of capital” including capitalists like the Odebrecht Group that became heavily involved in acts of corruption. After being reelected president in 2014, Rousseff “reverted to pragmatism” in the face of “the most right-wing Congress in decades” by naming a top banker as economic czar and opting for more conservative economic policies. In another example of pragmatism, the Workers’ Party governments forged pacts with and granted key positions to nonleftist parties such as the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, which received the presidency of the Central Bank under Lula, and subsequently the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party. The authors blame this “continuing attachment to its pragmatic strategy” for the Workers’ Party’s failure to promote mobilization “even as Rousseff was being impeached.”

In their article, Ricardo Antunes, Marco Aurelio Santana, and Luci Praun expand on Loureiro and Saad-Filho’s observations concerning the tenuousness of the government-business alliances in Brazil (similar to the pattern in Argentina, Venezuela, and Bolivia, noted by Féliz, Farthing, Pickup, and me). They point out that as the economic and political crisis set in during the Rousseff presidency, “various fractions began fighting to determine who would lose less as profits were reduced.” At the same time, business groups “that had previously supported the PT [Workers’ Party] administrations began abandoning the project.” The government’s pragmatic strategy to buy economic stability through concessions to the business class and its promotion of “vertical unionism,” contrary to the PT’s traditional support for worker participation, conditioned the party’s response to the campaign to remove Rousseff from office. On the heels of her reelection in 2014, “Dilma and the PT invited the opposition to work side by side with them” rather than invigorating and mobilizing the party’s electoral base. The political opposition and its allies responded by rallying against the president, although “they did not exclusively target the PT [since] the target was and still is the left as a whole.”

In his article on Argentina, Mariano Féliz also employs a political economy approach that emphasizes Latin America’s incorporation into the global economy. In analyzing the post-neoliberal stage, which he calls “neodevelopmentalism,” Féliz relies heavily on the writings of Brazilian social scientist Ruy Mauro Marini, who died on the eve of the rise of the pink tide. In contrast to neoliberalism, neodevelopmentalism under the Kirchner governments was state-based and prioritized industrial production for export. In spite of sharp internal contradictions, neodevelopmentalism benefited from China’s emergence as an economic powerhouse and was able to achieve “high levels of (albeit precarious) employment” thanks to the commodities boom. The capitalist economic crisis of 2008, however, undercut industrial production and set off capitalist intensification that was especially detrimental to the living standards of Argentina’s popular sectors.

All three articles on Uruguay underline the participation of nonelite groups in political decision making. This feature of the pink tide and the sense of empowerment that it has engendered is generally ignored by writers who emphasize the crass populism of leftist governments and by those who apply the neoextractivism thesis to Latin America. Nicolás Bentancur and José Busquets examine popular input in the areas of education, wage increases, social security, and health. Not only did the actions described in their article incorporate large numbers and involve autonomous organizations but they were conducted with transparency and resulted in legislation of a “universal nature.” Bentancur and Busquets conclude that multiple forms of participation distinguish the Uruguayan case from both corporatist and pacted democracy models. They also reject the assertion by some scholars that the Frente Amplio governments are examples of “liberal democracy,” but at the same time argue against the applicability of the “radical democracy” label. Along similar lines, Florencia Antía compares Uruguay’s redistributive reforms favorably with those of Chile. She attributes the Frente Amplio’s relative success to the influence of organizations representing the popular sectors and the lack of political influence of the private sector. In contrast, redistributive reforms in Chile had a negligible impact during the period 2000 to 2010 while improving to a certain extent under the administration of Michelle Bachelet. In his essay, Gabriel Oyhantçabal makes a similar comparison between the Frente Amplio governments beginning in 2004 and the neoliberal ones that preceded them. The Frente Amplio reconvened the wage councils, a system dating back to 1943 that established union participation but had been suspended in the 1990s. The political economy lens used by Oyhantçabal leads him to play down the importance of the relative capacity of political actors as opposed to “the conditions that led to this period of capital accumulation” and a “combination of populist and pragmatic initiatives that was socially expressed in a new distributive pact between classes.” He notes that the crisis of global capitalism beginning in 2008 undermined the pact along with the economic well-being of the popular sectors.

Luis Angosto-Ferrández’s article and mine shed light on the pragmatic strategies pursued by the Venezuelan government on a number of fronts. Angosto-Ferrández characterizes the Arco Minero del Orinoco (AMO) project, which was launched in 2016 to attract foreign capital to exploit gold, copper, diamonds, coltan, and other minerals, as a trade-off. On the one hand, the Maduro government initiated the “flexibilization of conditions for international capital” and granted privileges to military personnel in the region that helped shore up the institution’s loyalty in the face of political instability. On the other hand, AMO-generated revenue was earmarked for social programs and promised to contribute to the reactivation of “national government-led redistribution in the medium term.” Angosto-Ferrández questions the applicability of the concepts of populism (in the pejorative sense) and “passive revolution” (Modonesi, 2012), both of which posit the demobilization and passivity of the popular sectors of the population. His balanced analysis recognizes the negative aspects of the AMO including “corruption and extortion of (illegal) mineral rent” as well as “advantageous conditions for investing corporations,” but the latter factor is partly offset by the state’s retention of 55 percent of both shares and profits. He also rejects the view of some neoextractivism writers that the project represents an all-encompassing blow to the indigenous population, which is hardly homogeneous, since there is “a division between individuals and groups in favor of and against mining.”

My article’s discussion of pragmatic strategies focuses largely on the Chavista government’s tactical alliance with emerging businesspeople that was designed to counter the overt hostility of the traditional leadership of the private sector. The article attempts to demonstrate that the more friendly businesspeople (pejoratively referred to as the “boliburguesía”) hardly proved reliable allies, and it thus questions the accuracy of the opposition’s claim that they represented a new governing “caste.” The article also examines the expedient nature of populist social policies but cautions against exaggerations that fail to separate practices tantamount to crass populism from more viable and positive ones. The latter include policies that contributed to a sense of empowerment and may have been justified on other grounds as well. The implementation of populist policies toward the popular sectors and pragmatic ones toward the private sector (as well as the AMO, as demonstrated by Angosto-Ferrández) has to be placed in the context of the challenges posed by an aggressive “disloyal” opposition. Indeed, flagship populist social programs such as worker cooperatives, the “missions” in the area of health and education, and the system of highly subsidized prices, as well as the pragmatic alliance with the so-called boliburguesía, were all initiated in response to the two-month employer lockout of 2002–2003.

In her article, Linda Farthing observes that the pink-tide government in Bolivia (as in Venezuela and Ecuador) faced disloyal oppositions nearly from the outset. She points to the pluses and minuses of the Morales government and calls “participatory governance” in the nation a “contradictory process.” The deterioration of “institutional controls,” for instance, has to be weighed against the improvement of “integration and substantive equality.” Also on the positive side, the MAS saw through the ratification of “one of the world’s most radical constitutions,” implemented a land reform that was ambitious despite shortcomings, and promoted the incorporation of indigenous people. Nevertheless, she points to the MAS’s “shift toward the political center” after 2009 as a result of pacts with the Eastern elite in favor of resource extraction as well as a move toward caudillismo at the expense of its original commitment to “social control and participation by social movements.” Ironically, it was after the 2009 elections that the MAS had a golden opportunity to move in a more radical direction as a result of the absence of any “effective right-wing opposition.”

In their article on Ecuador, Patrick Clark and Jacobo García reach conclusions regarding Rafael Correa’s Alianza PAIS that are similar to those of Farthing on Bolivia’s MAS. In both cases, a party headed by leftists incorporated and reached agreements with politicians and business leaders to its right in order to achieve national reconciliation, but the end result of the process was the modification of original ideals. Alianza PAIS as a “big-tent party” allied itself with and incorporated “floating politicians” in the traditionally conservative stronghold of the coastal region. The strategy did, however, allow it to become a truly national party, somewhat unique for Ecuador. The phenomenon facilitated national development and state building along the lines of the populist parties of the past century and in contrast to neoliberalism. Anti-neoliberalism included improvements of state capacity and the “extension of social citizenship,” which were accompanied by the building up of the “public infrastructure, strengthening of the tax collection system, and regulation of the financial sector.” These advances help refute the argument of some leftist analysts that the Correa government, like other pink-tide governments in Latin America, has represented a form of “‘reconstituted neoliberalism’ . . . or a simple continuation of extractive neoliberal capitalism.”

Héctor Cruz Feliciano attributes the political success of the Sandinistas in returning to power in 2006 and then retaining it for over a decade to their pragmatic strategy of alliance formation. Daniel Ortega’s choice of the banker and former member of the Contra movement Jaime Morales Carazo as his running mate in the 2006 presidential elections served two purposes. In the first place, his presence on the ticket “sought to put at ease those who feared controversies [with the private sector] reminiscent of those of the 1980s.” In the second place, the incorporation of Morales Carazo and other former Contras “spoke to Nicaraguan fears about a Sandinista comeback,” specifically a recurrence of the violence of the 1980s. The pragmatism described by Cruz Feliciano reinforces the central thesis of the issue: pragmatic and populist strategies were logical responses to the aggressiveness of the opposition aided by foreign powers but in the long run created distortions on both economic and political fronts. In accord with the other contributors, Cruz Feliciano presents a mixed picture of the Sandinista performance prior to the outbreak of violence in 2018. He is critical of the movement’s lack of internal democracy, noting that its efforts “at politically empowering the citizenry have been limited at best.” At the same time, he claims that “Ortega’s sustained popularity over such a long period of time speaks highly of his ability to decipher and cater to the public’s needs.”

The article by Paul Dosh and Julia Smith Coyoli examines the phenomenon in which the leftist mayor of Lima Susana Villarán managed to defeat a recall effort in 2013 but just a year and a half later received only 10.7 percent of the vote in her bid for reelection. They argue that in the face of “scant support” from the Peruvian state and a “disloyal opposition bent not on opposing particular policies but on eradicating any trace of a left comeback,” it was indispensable for Villarán to have relied on a well-organized base, “be it a big tent [such as that of Alfonso Barrantes in the 1980s] or a narrower ideological appeal.” In this sense, her case contrasted with those of leftist mayors with greater organizational support in Porto Alegre, Montevideo, and Mexico City. They conclude by saying, “To some idealistic progressives, the goal of creating effective party machinery may evoke suspicions of exclusivity, clientelism, or even corruption, but the Villarán case illustrates the peril of operating without partisan support.”

By way of summary, two major lessons regarding the political strategy of progressive democratic governments emerge from these studies. First, progressives in power cannot afford to refrain from making bold moves when they have the upper hand vis-à-vis their adversaries to the right. Second, in connection with Nelson’s analysis of the state according to Nicos Poulantzas, if capitalist interests are represented in different state spheres (“centers of power”), then only fairly autonomous blocs such as social and political movements and organizations can ensure the democratization of the state, a process that is essential for achieving genuine change.

The contributors underline the crucial role of social movements, particularly at critical moments. In Brazil, the PT’s failure to promote social movement mobilizations facilitated the success of the impeachment proceedings against Rousseff. According to Loureiro and Saad-Filho this blunder occurred because “most social movements had been captured by the PT administrations or demobilized as part of the PT’s effort to win elections.” A similar process occurred in the case of the piqueteros in Argentina, as described by Féliz in his article. Clark and García, Farthing, and Nelson concur in emphasizing the significance of the distancing of Morales and Correa from social movements in their respective countries. One may conclude that political analysts who opt for state-centered analysis as a corrective to neoliberal-influenced thinking cannot ignore the essential role of autonomous and semiautonomous movements and organizations in the process of change.

These observations lead to a final set of conclusions. Verticalist approaches by the left in power in a democratic setting that preclude articulation between the grassroots and the party rank and file (the nonelite), on the one hand, and political and governing leaderships, on the other, will be unsuccessful in the long run. Leftists who minimize the importance of such articulation tend to embrace electoralist strategies while underestimating social classes as independent forces particularly at the grassroots level. Similarly, the point of departure for understanding the pink-tide phenomenon is class-based analysis that centers on the clash between nonhegemonic social groups and old elites. The caution against statist analyses that pass over the importance of class is particularly relevant given the concentration of executive power that has characterized pink-tide nations.