For Latin America, Culture Matters As Well

It is indeed curious that despite the introduction of democratization programs and market reforms in Latin America, tyranny and populism seem to be on the rise there. Tyrants with socialist leanings seem to win elections handily, on populist platforms. One wonders why many in the region support the likes of Chavez and tolerate a class structure that sustains a system of political patronage and unequal wealth distribution.

Policy prescriptions in the past have revolved around notions of destabilizing tyrannical regimes and implementing a free-market economy for the region. These are sound and reasonable policies to pursue. But one crucial area that seems amiss in current policy discourse is culture. I will submit that one of the reasons why Latin America is unable to counter tyranny and populism is because it lacks a liberal culture, the kind that can empower its citizenry against weak institutions and power-hungry leaders and can habituate them in the ways of self-rule.

Latin America’s illiberal culture could be attributed to traditions left behind by imperial Spain who was the dominant imperial power in the region from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Specifically, the hispanization of church and politics created a political tradition of caudillismo, of rule by strongmen. To maintain a highly centralized control over her colonies, Spain sent governor-generals – military figures -- to rule the colonized and to rule with fear, commanding strict obedience from the people and utmost loyalty to Spanish kings.

Spain also used Catholicism to maintain its hold on her colonies. By giving political power to its missionaries and religious power to its rulers, Spain hispanized the Catholic Church, reducing it to a colonial tool with which to subjugate the colonized (although Spanish Scholastics invoking the teachings of natural rights, as embodied in the Ostiensian doctrine, sought initially to offer moral justifications for Spain’s colonial ventures), preaching other-worldliness, resignation, and passivity as the virtues that would get them to heaven. The rich for their part could buy salvation.

Given that Latin America’s politics had been shaped and dominated by military figures, on one hand, and, a religion that preached passivity and resignation, on the other, the proper ingredients for liberalism were never in place. This was compounded by a social tradition that was steeped in a “class system,” where power and privileges were bestowed in the upper-class at the expense of the lower-class.

All this is antithetical to the nurturing of an egalitarian ethos and the forming of a liberal character.

If Latin America is to succeed in countering tyranny and populism, parties concerned ought to look into the mindset and illiberal thinking behind its political traditions and focus on agencies that can help build a genuine foundation and appreciation for liberalism.