As the left slowly reinvents itself in Latin America–as in the rest of the world–it is rethinking many of its old orthodoxies, among them, the question of state power. The strong centralized state that has played such a key role in both the Leninist and social-democratic varieties of twentieth-century socialism–though not, as William Nylen reminds us, in many of socialism’s more participatory forms–is no longer an unquestioned good. Now decentralization, deconcentration, and the democratization of power are challenging democratic (and bureaucratic) centralism for pride of place in the socialist catechism. This emphasis on participation is not unfamiliar. Participatory politics have been strong on the U.S. and Western European left since the 1960s, and as Steve Ellner points out, flowing from the legacy of Antonio Gramsci, the local imperative has a hallowed history in Italy.
The fundamental task of the left is, of course, the emancipation of the poor. This has always entailed a strong emphasis on econoinic equality and social security, but now even more strongly entails active political participation. In this issue’s survey of the Latin American left’s record in power at the local and regional levels, what stands out is the growing emphasis on the participation of the poor. In one case study after another, we see that popular participation has become a fundamental value–an end in itself–and not simply a step on the road to state power.
One of the global trends that has hastened this socialist rethinking–beyond the collapse of Leninism–is the growing impotence of nation states, especially in underdeveloped countries. The dynamic expansion of global capital has left Latin American national governments with less regulatory and programmatic power. As national governments find it harder and harder to deliver the goods, the centralized state finds much of the basis of its legitimacy at risk. This naturally gives rise to political projects on the left which focus less on guarantees of equality and more on bringing governance closer to the people.
Of course, as Jonathan Fox tells us, there is nothing automatically progressive about devolving power to local governments. Pinochet did it in Chile, and the Republicans are doing it in the United States. Everything depends on the makeup of those local governments, their access to resources, and their relationship to other sources of power and authority. There are many good reasons for the left to have historically turned to the central state in its struggles against local injustice and tyranny. Mexico’s Zapatistas, for example, are currently calling for peace talks in Mexico City not only to dramatize the national context of their rebellion, but to bring national pressure to bear against the brutal Chiapas oligarchy. Likewise, it took the active presence of U.S. federal marstialls to enforce civil rights for many years in the U.S. South. While local government has become much more relevant for the Latin American left, social justice cannot be won on a local level alone. Local struggles must be part of national strategies of transformation.
The Latin American left finds itself fighting an increasingly savage capitalism just as it is attempting to reinvent itself. The local arena has become the locus of this reinvention by default–since it is only at the local level that the left has recently been successful in electoral contests. To a certain degree the left is making a virtue of necessity. Without the pressure-filled spotlight of national politics and with a smaller-scale, more manageable scope of authority, left parties in Latin America have felt freer to experiment with new social initiatives and new models of governance. The left has set itself the not-small task of democratizing the economy while simultaneously democratizing the state. This report chronicles the first steps of the new era.
