Wiarda, Howard J. y Kline, Harvey F.
Latin American Politics and Development
Ed. Westview Press. 3ra edición
EE.UU, 1990; pp 15-19

The Political Culture

Political culture is a term used to describe the basic values, ideas, and behavioral patterns that govern a society. It covers a large spectrum and is fraught with dangers of misuse. One must avoid stereotyping cultures, as the old "national character" studies did in the past, and one must also recognize that any society may have several cultural currents existing simultaneously. Additionally, one must realize that political culture presents a general and composite picture and that individual persons and behavior within a society may sometimes fit the ideal type at best imperfectly and sometimes not at all. Nevertheless, when employed carefully, the concept of political culture is useful and helps one understand the differing assumptions on which distinct political societies are based.

It is probably safe to say that although North American political culture is strongly Lockean and liberal, that of Latin America, historically at least, is strongly elitist, hierarchical, authoritarian, corporatist, and patrimonialist. The elitism of Latin American society stems from the Iberian tradition of nobility, a medieval tradition that had reached its fruition in Spain and Portugal precisely at the time the discovery of the Americas provided new lands and slaves so that any aspiring Spanish conquistador could live like an aristocrat. Elitism stemmed also from the long history of Spanish political theory, which argued that society should be governed by its "natural elites" and which was skeptical of the capacity of the masses to govern wisely and well.

Elitism, hierarchy, and authoritarianism all had a powerful base in traditional Spanish Catholicism, particularly as articulated in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas and his disciples. This was not the only tradition in Spanish thought, but for a long time it remained the dominant one. Political authority emanated directly from God or from the "natural order" of the universe. Both power and society were organized hierarchically from the top down: God, archangels, angels, cherubim, seraphim, and so on down to humansbut only certain types of humans. First came kings, who received their power directly from God, and then nobles, whose authority over land and people was similarly assumed to be God given. Occupying positions progressively further down the hierarchy were the lesser nobility; then soldiers, artisans, craftspeople; then workers, day laborers, and peasants. In the New World, Indians and African slaves were still lower in the hierarchy.

Although Latin society was thus structured hierarchically by rank, it was also structured vertically in terms of society's major corporate groups: army, church, nobility and landowners, bureaucracy, university, and so on. In the twentieth century, corporatism as a manifest ideology has earned a bad reputation because of its association with fascism, but in Latin America, corporatism is not necessarily fascistic but has to do with the historical Latin tendency to divide society vertically and functionally into its component groups. Latin American society is hence a society of place, of position, and external appearance and manners are essential in signaling to others what rank or status one holds and therefore how one should be treated. It is a system organized along both class and corporate lines.

All of these features, grounded in medieval Catholic political philosophy and natural law, served to reinforce each other. Corporatism, elitism, hierarchy, and authoritarianism helped foster a rigidly stratified system in which mobility was difficult at best. If one was born into a certain position in society, one generally stayed in that position. At each level in the hierarchy one was expected to accept one's station in life as God given and conforming to the natural ordering of the universe. There could be no questioning of the system. Society was thought of as fixed and immutable; for over 300 years it remained locked in this pattern.

But even though Latin American society was authoritarian and hierarchical, it was also patrimonialist and paternal. Thus, although elitism and authoritarianism were considered to be natural and God given, the elites had a Christian obligation to take care of those less fortunate than themselves. The people who owned land and labor might run their estates in an absolute fashion, but in theory, they also had to be just and fair. Although the peasant or worker owed an obligation of labor to the patron, he in turn was obligated to look after the welfare of his workers. And even though the political authorities could rule autocratically and expect loyalty from their subjects, they had an obligation not to overstep the bounds of "right" behavior. Patron-client relations were thus a two-way process, whether at the level of the local hacienda or in the national political system. Patrimonialism as it applied to the state system emphasized the features of centralization, authoritarianism, and modernization under elite hegemony but within some quite carefully defined bounds. In many ways, these traditions of hierarchy, authoritarianism, elitism, corporatism, and patrimonialism are still strongly present in Latin American political society.

In the nineteenth century, however, a new framework of ideas and valuesliberal, republican, and egalitarian, sometimes secular and rationalistwas superimposed upon the earlier tradition. Scholars continue to argue about the degree to which these values took hold and the variations among the countries of Latin America. Liberal and democratic ideas were often incorporated in laws and constitutions, but the underlying structures of landownership and authority often remained elitist. By now, however, in most Latin American societies two basic conceptions, two political cultures, exist side by side: one elitist, hierarchical, and authoritarian; the other liberal and democratic. Although frequently these two traditions are so far apart that they do not touch and provide little basis for social and political compromise, most Latin American nations now represent complex fusions of both (as in the growth of Christian democracy or authoritarian socialism). These two fundamentally opposed conceptions of society and the role and functions of the people in it lie at the heart of much nineteenth- and twentieth-century political conflict. They help account for the concepts of "the two Brazils" or "the two Venezuelas" that are frequently found in the literature, and they also help explain the deep divisions found in Latin American political society. In addition, they explain why at times (as through the mid-1950s and in the late 1960s and 1970s) most Latin American countries have had authoritarian, dictatorial governments and at others (the late 1950s and since the mid-1980s) the majority of the governments have been elected.

Although a liberal-democratic tradition was superimposed on the authoritarian tradition in the nineteenth century, in the twentieth century a third, socialist, tradition has appeared. In most of Latin America, socialism is still a minority strain. But socialism has come to power in Cuba and Nicaragua; in Chile, political opinion is about equally divided electorally among conservative, liberal, and socialist conceptions; social democratic governments have come to power in several countries; and clearly, among young people generally, socialist sentiment is sometimes popular. Hence, the real question may be, not whether socialism is coming to Latin America, for it has, but rather whether it will be fused with the older traditions or whether, as in Cuba, it will seize power by itself and eventually eliminate the other, older traditions.

What was once a fairly unified, stable, monolithic Latin American political culture (conservative, traditional, authoritarian) has now become a deeply divided and unstable one. The old values are no longer universally held, yet the newer ones are sometimes only incompletely established. Moreover, the distances between such wholly different societal conceptionsfeudalism, liberalism, socialismare so vast as to be virtually uncompromisable. The overlaps among and fusions of quite distinct and often wholly opposed ideas and views of society tend to make Latin America even more of a conflict society than was the case earlier.

Of course, not all of the Latin American countries exhibit all of these traits and patterns, at least not to the same degree. The pattern of elitism, authoritarianism, hierarchy, corporatism, and patrimonialism here ascribed to traditional Latin American culture is an "ideal type" that does not always mirror existing reality. It fits only some countries, or if all, then to varying degrees. In some countries (such as Peru and Mexico), traditional Spanish institutions were strong; in others, weak. Some countries that lacked strong Hispanic institutions endeavored later to create them; in others (such as Chile), the liberal and republican tradition was strong right from the beginning; in still others (Paraguay, several of the Central American countries), both the traditional Hispanic and the liberal institutions were historically so weak that chaos, clan politics, and caudilloism became endemic. These variations stand out clearly in the country chapters.

Conclusions And Implications

Latin American society has long been riven by geographic, economic, social, and political-cultural divisions that have retarded both national integration and development. But the great forces of twentieth-century change are now overcoming those barriers and altering the foundations on which Latin American society has rested. These are no longer the sleepy "banana republics" they once were; rather, Latin American society has become vibrantly alive, and far-reaching social changes are sweeping the area.

Although the changes have been immense, the problems remain at least equally large. Poverty, malnutrition, and malnutrition-related diseases are endemic; illiteracy rates remain high; the majority of the population is ill housed, ill clothed, and ill fed; health care is poor; wages are low; inflation is rampant; and the standards of living of peasants and slum dwellers are woefully inadequate. In addition, the existing social and political institutions are often unable to cope with the immense changes. The fabric of Latin American society is deeply divided; and, although changes are occurring, the institutional structure to manage these changes has not developed at the same pace.

And yet Latin America is not failing altogether in dealing with its developmental dilemmas. New formulas are being tried, and new institutions are being experimented with. A single-party system in the context of an institutionalized, now somewhat tired, revolution proved for a long time to be more or less functional in Mexico. Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela have developed into more or less institutionalized and consolidated democratic systems. Peru, Panama, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Honduras have had military regimes come to power that, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success, have stressed nationalist and developmentalist themes; more recently, a form of democracy has again been tried in all these countries. In Paraguay, an old-time caudillo regime remained in control for a long time, but it too instituted changes. Conservative, authoritarian, state-capitalist military regimes were established in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay in the 1970s; but in all of these countries, the military was eventually replaced with elected presidents. Cuba continues to be ruled by a socialist regime that has not been as successful in encouraging economic growth as other Latin American regimes, but for a time it carried out some of the most successful social programsin housing, health care, education, and social servicesin all of Latin America. Nicaragua also embarked on a socialist course, but the March 1990 election seemed to indicate a change in direction.

Hence the variety of alternatives being weighed and experimented with in the effort to deal with the new pressures and social forces of modernization makes Latin America exciting to study, and an exploration and assessment of these various alternatives and their degrees of success or failure form the basis of the analyses presented in this book.