I have an article up at Latin America Goes Global on the Venezuelan opposition, taking lessons from two Chilean experiences with an opposition needing to unite in order to win elections. If you're interested, please just click.
Read more...Humberto Rotondo, a law student in Lima, wrote an op-ed for PanAm Post on libertarianism in Latin America, specifically arguing that libertarians in Latin America have screwed up by siding with conservatism.
In general, I don't think about Latin American libertarians at all precisely for that reason. It's like they barely exist because classical liberalism has been tied so closely to large, oppressive governments.
Instead of fighting one and siding with another, we must break these ideological ties and stop labeling ourselves as either “right” or “left.” It’s time we begin developing our own institutions and reclaim our political identity as liberals.
Louisa Reynolds asks at Foreign Policy if we're seeing a Central American Spring. I feel like this might be the wrong question. From its usage in the Middle East, the use of the term "spring" has come to mean rapid, transformative political change sparked by widespread protests (and sometimes armed rebellion). What I see in Central America is the slow, painstaking process of gradually strengthening domestic political institutions to increase horizontal accountability.
It's also not really accurate to say:
For nine weeks now, Guatemalans have been taking to the streets to demand dramatic change — an unusual sight in Central America, where corruption is the norm.
Brian Winter has a fascinating story in Americas Quarterly about the link (which I did not know about) between Joe Biden and Dilma Rousseff. It's a very personal story, the conclusion of which is that Dilma loves him.
Rousseff marveled to her aides: “That man could sell an icebox in Canada.”
Yesterday marked six years since the illegal overthrow of President Zelaya in Honduras. Here are some examples of outrage at the U.S. role. There is plenty to be said in that regard, and clearly Honduras is far worse off as a result of the coup. But I find the Latin America angle to be missing.
I was very pleased to receive my new book in the mail:
All kinds of bad news for Dilma Rousseff these days. The Brazilian Central Bank increased its inflation forecast to 9% and increased its forecast for economic contraction to 1.1%. Meanwhile, unemployment crept up to its highest level in four years.
After two years of hearing how she was sticking it to the U.S. by not visiting, now her trip to see President Obama at the end of this month seems much more like something she needs to shore up her image at home. With economic problems and major corruption scandals, her approval rating is now at 10% and 65% of Brazilians think her government is a "failure."
Having just been re-elected, there is hope for recovery. Or this could be a long, miserable road.
Cuba makes such strange politics. A group of congressional Republicans is trying very hard to put more restrictions on Americans' liberty and trade. According to the GOP platform:
In a free society, the primary role of government is to protect the God-given, inalienable, inherent rights of its citizens, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
As I've told students many times, if a president is in trouble at home, then there's nothing like a good invasion to distract everyone's attention. The Venezuelan government created new military zones that actually include Colombian territorial waters. As you might guess, the Colombian government has sent a note of protest. This is especially prickly for Colombia, which already was supposed to cede territory to Nicaragua but refused and pulled out of the International Court of Justice.
For Venezuela, this builds on the simultaneous push toward Guyana's maritime borders (though as Boz points out, this could well be the exact same for Guyana's president).
I have never seen a theory of distraction, but it would be interesting to contemplate. Under what circumstances does distraction "work" (which itself would have to be clearly defined). Probably the most famous case where it didn't work was the Argentine junta's invasion of the Falklands/Malvinas. That, of course, was a real military exercise whereas Venezuela's claims are not. It's very hard to pinpoint where it works because so many other factors are at play. At the very least, though, we could look at approval ratings before and after some claim on another country's territory. Other variables would have to include economic indicators, how democratic the government is, etc.
As for Nicolás Maduro, it's hard to see how this will prompt Venezuelans to look beyond crime, inflation, scarcity, and the like.
I've been gone all week serving on a jury in a shooting case--here's the original news story from last July. It took five days, which was draining. It's weird to be immersed in one tragic day of other people's lives. We found Sam Babb Clonts guilty of Assault with a Deadly Weapon with Intent to Kill Inflict Serious Injury (we learned this is referred to as ADWIKISI). He'll now serve 69-90 months with court-ordered mental support.
I won't bother to detail everything, though I've heard this so many times I will probably never forget the narrative. Basically, three gun-obsessed people (two are roommates and close as brothers) get together to hang out and drink beer on the deck of a house. All three feel the need to keep their guns loaded and close to them. In fact, the two roommates both work either making or selling guns. At one point the victim changes into pajama pants, and even switches to a lighter gun as a result. That gun culture is just so alien to me. Why can't you keep your gun locked up, or at least leave it in the house, while you're drinking? Why in the world do you need your gun with your pajamas? What are you so afraid of?
An argument breaks out, some shoving and then hitting, and you end up with one guy shooting his best friend in the back three times with a Glock shooting hollow-point bullets. He would've shot at least one more time but his gun jammed (I now know what a "double feed" is. This was very close to a homicide, but the victim lived and is now paralyzed for life.
As it turned out, the victim was an entirely unlikable person, in my mind a bully and misogynist (as he explained in testimony, at one point he told his friend, "Tell your bitch to shut up"). But we do not have license to shoot unlikable jerks in the back.
One thing that struck me but which was never introduced was the fact that the two roommates were combat veterans (they served in Afghanistan) and the experience could've had an impact. We know how often there are wounds that we cannot see. Both men snapped, and one used his gun (to his credit, when the victim got mad he consciously took out his gun, removed the magazine, and set it aside). I hope Clonts gets the help he needs.
The defense didn't have much of a case, but needed only one juror (given the requirement of unanimity) so the attorney took us down a variety of useless paths, primarily aimed at showing how the police might've made errors in their investigation. Our deliberation never even touched on that. So we spent hour after hour listening to what ultimately was unimportant testimony (as in, why do we need details on who exactly put up the crime tape? Why spend 20 minutes asking about the mechanics of a gun firing? Did you really need to force us to listen twice to a 45ish minute audio interview with the victim?). We focused only on what the shooter did.
It was an unusual experience to hang out with strangers for so long hearing the exact same story again and again, and it became frustrating that we couldn't talk. By day 3 I wanted at least to chat, but you can't. In large part because we always had in stay in order, we referred to each other by our numbers (#8 was a really nice guy but famously often late so would get ragged for it). I was #5. It was a very diverse group of people, and we got along quite well--I don't even really know their names, but will not forget their faces. For five days of my life, I will receive a check for $92.
So now two men's lives are screwed up forever--one is free but will never walk, while the other will spend years of his life in prison. And there is no doubt in my mind that their need to have loaded guns close to them at all times is the primary reason they find themselves in this sad situation.
Paul M. Barrett's Law of the Jungle is an unsatisfying book. Barrett is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek, and wrote about the Chevron case in Ecuador. Given the tone of the book, he also took what seems to be an intense dislike to Steven Donziger, the lawyer who was leading the anti-Chevron side. I lost count of the snide remarks. That colors the entire book.
The case itself is treated superficially since the focus is generally on Donziger. The basic thrust is that what Donziger says/does is suspect, and that Chevron's actions often (though to be fair, not always) can be taken at face value or considered to be logical. Barrett clearly views Chevron with sympathy, believing that at a minimum they are not responsible for cleanup since Petroecuador also spilled oil. The story is framed as a corrupt shakedown orchestrated by an unlikable ego-maniac. Yes, people may be suffering, but that's not Chevron (or Texaco's before it was bought) problem.
It's instructive, though, to see this fairly cold, pro-Chevron side of things. From Barrett's perspective, this is really a problem for Ecuador. After all, past governments made money from the oil and could've spent some it on cleanup. But they're too corrupt. Chevron can blithely walk away without a care, and without a shred of guilt. With all its investments, it actually was a positive force.
I was called for jury duty yesterday and this will likely take several more days. So I have to take an unexpected (and unwanted) break.
Victor Figueroa Clark, "The Forgotten History of the Chilean Transition: Armed Resistance Against Pinochet and US Policy toward Chile in the 1980s." Journal of Latin American Studies (June 2015): 1-30.
Abstract: The history of the transition to civilian rule in Chile largely overlooks or marginalizes the role of the armed and confrontational forms of resistance to the dictatorship. This article traces the pre and post-coup history of the Left’s engagement with armed forms of struggle and evaluates the effects their incorporation into the struggle against the dictatorship had upon the regime and the Reagan administration. It concludes that armed resistance was a major factor in determining US policy to Chile during the 1980s, and therefore played an important role in the transition as a whole.
In a speech to EU leaders, Dilma Rousseff spoke specifically about U.S. sanctions against Venezuela.
"We Latin American and Caribbean nations will not permit unilateral measures aimed at promoting a coup, nor policies aimed at isolation. We know that such measures are counterproductive, ineffective and unjust. As such, we reject the adoption of any kind of sanction against Venezuela," Rousseff said.
A Bloomberg story notes how protests are everywhere in Latin America, attributing it to the end of the commodity boom. However, I am left unconvinced about the causal link between economies and protests.
For example:
--Chile's student protests started in 2011 while copper was still high
--When Venezuelan protests broke out in March 2014, oil was still over $100 a barrel
--there are protests in Guatemala, yet the IMF predicts pretty strong economic growth there
--the article cites corruption in Panama, yet there is even stronger growth there
The problem lies in lumping all these things together:
From Mexico to Chile, Latin Americans frustrated with scandals, stagnant economies and government incompetence are taking to the streets. Often they are protesting the very populist leaders they rallied around over the past decade, when rising wealth from a commodities boom fueled a surge in government spending and helped mask corruption.In some cases economies are not stagnant; in other cases governments are not incompetent. There are scandals all over, but they are also not all new--if anything scandals and corruption are a constant. So the causation is not so clear.
The Russian Foreign Minister says paying attention to Latin America isn't a jab at the United States.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovsaid Russia's ties with Latin American countries have long historic roots and are based on common economic interests.
Asked whether Russia was trying to boost ties with Latin American countries in response to the U.S. building up ties with Ukraine and other ex-Soviet republics, Lavrov said "we aren't supporting the concept of backyards and aren't following that logic."If you believe that, I have some Siberian beachfront property to sell you. Whatever "long historic roots" Russia (really meaning the Soviet Union) has, they've been based on ideology, not economic interests. And Vladimir Putin is absolutely obsessed with the backyard principle, just as the United States is. Five years ago when Putin came to Latin America, Pravda proudly asserted that Russia was displacing the United States and creating a new geopolitical order. Read more...
Boz has a nice rundown on the Mexican midterm elections. What immediately struck me was how the Mexican left has fallen apart. AMLO left the PRD and formed Morena, which now means that neither gains many seats. The nine years since AMLO's occupation of central Mexico City have not been good for the party. Further, you would normally think a green party would lean left, but in Mexico the Green Party is quite conservative.
This is particularly unfortunate in a country that faces major human rights problems that conservative parties/governments aren't doing a good of handling, and in some cases are directly causing. In comparative perspective, the Colombian left is weak because it gets too much association with the FARC. In Brazil the right is weak in large part because of its association with the dictatorship. It's tempting to say a similar dynamic is at work in Mexico because of how AMLO went off the rails, but it's hard to say.
Regardless, I think the health of Mexican democracy depends on a strong left that can counterbalance the PAN and PRI. Unfortunately it's currently going in the opposite direction.
There's a short discussion about Rafael Correa at The Nation. The upshot is that he's not Hugo Chávez, he's not a typical populist, and he's one of the most popular presidents around. He is, however, extremely (and now famously) thin skinned.
We need to see more of this sort of realization in the mainstream media, which has drummed populism and "bad left" characterizations into the public for many years. We're seeing Venezuela implode, but that's not the case elsewhere. There is no leftist bloc. Instead, we're seeing presidents juggle capitalism and social democracy in ways that don't resemble Venezuela at all.
Via Caracas Chronicles: what a great story. The Venezuelan government invented a White House spokesman named Jim Luers, who denied the allegations against Diosdado Cabello. But no such person exists.
Until now on Twitter! I saw that @RealJimLuers started following me, which then made me wonder who this was, given his title is listed as "White House Spokesman and FBI Agent for the Western Hemisphere." Nice! He is "deeply offended by allegations that I do not exist." His photo also looks exactly like the Secretary of the Treasury.
Telesur's Facebook page triumphantly talks about him (with lots of triumphant comments) but interestingly the link to their own website no longer works. I don't know how made him up and I don't know who's tweeting, but thanks for the entertainment.
Update: he has a blog too!
At World Politics Review, Chris Sabatini writes about the threat to democracy of intelligence services in Latin America.
Since transitioning from authoritarianism to democracy, civilian governments in Argentina, Chile, Peru and Colombia have made great strides in curtailing the autonomy of the armed forces in terms of accountability for past abuses, budgeting, promotion and operations. But in all these countries, the military and intelligence services have retained a degree of autonomy over specific missions and their operations, referred to as “reserved domains” in the Latin American democracy transition literature of the 1990s. Recent events have demonstrated how far the region still has to go in improving transparency and civilian control over the intelligence services.
I happened upon this cartoon (by Miguel Morales) in Granma and it caught my attention for several reasons.
Multiple polls show Michelle Bachelet's popularity as incredibly low, with the latest putting her at 26%. We know the news about her son's corruption scandal and her response of firing her cabinet. But what doesn't get noted is the broader question of returning to the presidency after a break. She was very popular her first time around, but she couldn't hold onto the magic. A similar situation played out for Oscar Arias and Alan García.
Let's call it the Grover Cleveland Syndrome. In his first term, Cleveland rode prosperity and received accolades as he fought corruption. He still lost to Benjamin Harrison, then came back four years later and got hammered by economic crisis, which led to his own party deserting him because of how unpopular his policy responses were.
Are there successful examples? If not, or if there are very few, it leaves the question of why the second term is problematic. Is there such a thing as momentum, which you lose once you leave office? Are people less forgiving the second time around for some reason?
The New York Times has an article about how professors want to get their research results reported by the media. Unfortunately, it confuses or conflates disparate issues.
First, it notes the danger of people getting research results reported before they are peer-reviewed. They give one example but I don't think this is very common.
Second, it focuses exclusively on a tiny handful of universities.
Still, the benefits to academics of generating media attention may be subtly skewing their research. “The pressure is tremendous,” said James Heckman, an economist at the University of Chicago and the winner of aNobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. “Many young economists realize that they win a MacArthur or the Clark prize, or both, by being featured in The Times.”
But popular media attention increasingly works in a candidate’s favor as well. For tenure decisions, “I’ve gotten letters,” Dr. Heckman said, “that ask me to assess the impact and visibility of a person’s work.”
After the financial crisis, however, the public and the news media became more interested in serious research, and scholars responded by seeking more coverage.
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