¿Por qué no funciona la ayuda externa?
por William Easterly
20 de abril de 2006
Cato Institute, neste link.
William Easterly es académico titular del Cato Institute y director de Cato University. Este ensayo se basa en la contribución del autor al taller "Promoviendo el libre comercio", organizado por el Instituto Liberal de la Fundación Friedrich Naumann en noviembre del 2003. También puede leer este documento en formato PDF aquí.
Estoy manejando hacia las afueras de Addis Ababa, Etiopía. Una fila eterna de mujeres y niñas están desfilando en la dirección opuesta hacia la ciudad. El rango de sus edades es de entre 9 y 59 años. Cada una esta agachada hasta casi la mitad de su altura bajo una carga de leña. La carga pesada las propulsa hacia adelante casi a trote. Se me vienen a la mente esclavos guiados por un dueño de esclavos invisible. Están cargando la leña desde kilómetros afuera de Addis Ababa, donde hay bosques de eucaliptos, a través de tierras despojadas alrededor de la ciudad. Traen la leña al mercado central de la ciudad, donde venderán el bulto por un par de dólares. Eso va a ser todo el ingreso del día, ya que toma todo el día llevar la leña a Addis Ababa y caminar de regreso.
Después me enteré que el noticiero BBC había expuesto la historia de una de las recolectoras de leña. Amaretch, de 10 años, se levantó a las 3 de la madrugada para recoger ramas y hojas de eucalipto y luego empezó la larga y dolorosa marcha hacia la ciudad. Amaretch, cual nombre significa “linda,” es la menor de 4 hijos en su familia. Ella dice:
No quiero tener que cargar la leña toda mi vida. Pero en este momento no tengo otra opción porque somos tan pobres. Todos nosotros [los niños] cargamos leña para ayudar a nuestros padres a comprar nuestra comida. Preferiría solo ir al colegio y no tener que preocuparme de conseguir dinero.1
Las dos tragedias
El Ministro de Economía del Reino Unido Gordon Brown recientemente dio un discurso lleno de compasión sobre la tragedia de la pobreza extrema afligiendo a miles de millones de personas, con millones de niños muriendo de enfermedades que podrían ser fácilmente prevenidas. Ofreció esperanza señalando lo fácil que es hacer el bien. La dosis de medicina que prevendría la mitad de las muertes por malaria cuesta solo 12 centavos. Una maya para la cama que le prevendría la muerte a un niño solo cuesta $4. El prevenir la muerte de 5 millones de niños a través de los próximos 10 años costaría $3 por cada nueva madre. Un programa para permitirle a Amaretch asistir a la escuela costaría poco.
Sin embargo, Gordon Brown se quedó callado sobre la otra tragedia de los pobres a nivel mundial. Esta es la tragedia en la cual el Occidente ya gasto $2.3 trillones en ayuda externa durante las últimas 5 décadas y todavía no ha logrado darle medicinas de 12 centavos a los niños para prevenir la mitad de las muertes causadas por malaria. El Occidente ha gastado $2.3 trillones y todavía no ha logrado darle mayas de cama de $4 a familias pobres. El Occidente ha gastado $2.3 trillones y todavía no ha logrado darle $3 a cada nueva madre para prevenir la muerte de 5 millones de niños. El Occidente ha gastado $2.3 trillones y Amaretch todavía está cargando leña. Es una tragedia que tanta compasión con buenas intenciones no haya rendido estos resultados a la gente necesitada.
Los esfuerzos del Occidente para ayudar al resto han sido aun menos exitosos en cuanto a metas como la de promover un crecimiento económico rápido, lograr cambios en las políticas publicas económicas gubernamentales para facilitar el funcionamiento de los mercados, o en promover la honestidad y la democracia en el gobierno. La evidencia es brutal: $568 miles de millones gastados en ayuda externa a África, y aun el país africano típico no es más rico hoy que hace 40 años. Docenas de préstamos para “ajustes estructurales” (préstamos de ayuda con condiciones de reformar las políticas públicas) a África, la antigua Unión Soviética, y América Latina solo para ver el fracaso de tanto las reformas de políticas públicas como del crecimiento económico. La evidencia sugiere que la ayuda resulta en gobiernos más deshonestos y menos democráticos, no lo contrario. Sin embargo, sin ser escarmentados por esta experiencia, seguimos teniendo cosas tan absurdas como los grandiosos planes de Jeffrey Sachs y de las Naciones Unidas para hacer 449 intervenciones individuales para alcanzar 54 metas distintas para el año 2015 (Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio), acompañados de peticiones urgentes para duplicar el financiamiento para la ayuda.
El desarrollo económico ocurre, no mediante la ayuda externa, sino mediante los esfuerzos cultivados por los empresarios, reformadores sociales y políticos del mismo país. Mientras que el Occidente se estaba agonizando por unas cuantas decenas de miles de millones de dólares en ayuda, los ciudadanos de la India y China aumentaron sus propios ingresos por $715 miles de millones con esfuerzo propio en los mercados libres. Apenas las agencias de ayuda externa se den cuenta de que la ayuda NO PUEDE lograr el desarrollo político y económico general, estas podrían empezar a concentrarse en arreglar el sistema que fracasa en darles medicinas de 12 centavos a las víctimas de malaria.
Retroalimentación y rendición de cuentas
Los dos elementos necesarios claves para que la ayuda sirva son la RETROALIMENTACION y la RENDICIÓN DE CUENTAS—que han estado ausentes y por lo tanto han sido mortal para la eficacia de la ayuda en el pasado. Las necesidades de los ricos se llevan acabo mediante la retroalimentación y la rendición de cuentas. Los consumidores le dicen a la empresa “este producto vale este precio” mediante la compra del producto, o deciden que el producto no vale nada y lo devuelven a la tienda. Los votantes les dicen a sus representantes electos que “los servicios son malos” y el político trata de eliminar el problema.
Por supuesto, la retroalimentación solo sirve si alguien escucha. Las empresas que buscan ganancias hacen productos que ellos creen que están en alta demanda, pero también se responsabilizan por el producto—si el producto envenena al consumidor ellos son responsables o por lo menos quiebran. Los representantes electos se responsabilizan por la calidad de los servicios públicos. Si algo va mal, ellos pagan políticamente, quizás perdiendo su cargo. Si son exitosos, reciben recompensas políticas.
Las agencias de ayuda externa podrían tener que rendir cuentas por tareas específicas, en lugar de estar sujetas a incentivos débiles que resultan en una responsabilidad colectiva de todas las agencias de ayuda externa y de los gobiernos receptores para esas metas extensas que dependen en muchas otras cosas además de los esfuerzos de las agencias. Ejemplos de lo mencionado incluyen las metas tan irresponsables como la campaña de moda de alcanzar los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio de las Naciones Unidas, o las metas radicales de desarrollo económico, reforma gubernamental, y democracia para los países pobres mencionados anteriormente.
Si una burocracia comparte responsabilidades con otras agencias para alcanzar varias metas generales diversas que dependen de muchas otras cosas, entonces no es responsable para con los beneficiarios pretendidos—los pobres. Ningún agente independiente es individualmente responsable por alcanzar una tarea de manera exitosa en el sistema de ayuda externa actual. Sin un mecanismo de rendición de cuentas, el incentivo para descubrir lo que funciona es débil. La verdadera rendición de cuentas significaría que una agencia de ayuda externa se responsabilice de una tarea específica para ayudar a los pobres que se pueda monitorear, cuyo resultado dependa casi totalmente de lo que hace la agencia. Luego la evaluación independiente de qué tan bien la agencia elabora la tarea crearía incentivos fuertes para lograr un buen rendimiento.
Aunque la ayuda externa ha sido evaluada por mucho tiempo, muchas veces ha sido una evaluación propia, usando reportes de la misma gente que implementó el proyecto. Mis estudiantes en la Universidad de Nueva York no estudiarían mucho si yo les daría el derecho de asignarse sus calificaciones ellos mismos.
El Banco Mundial se esfuerza por lograr una independencia para su Departamento de Evaluación de Operaciones (DEO), el cual se reporta directamente con la junta directiva del Banco Mundial, no con el presidente. No obstante, el personal se mueve continuamente entre el DEO y el resto del Banco—una evaluación negativa podría perjudicar el futuro de la carrera de una persona. La evaluación del DEO es subjetiva. Los métodos poco claros resultan en desconectes de la evaluación como ese delicadamente descrito en Malí:
Se debe de preguntar como los resultados principalmente positivos de las evaluaciones pueden ser reconciliados con los resultados pobres de desarrollo observados durante el mismo periodo (1985-1995) y la opinión desfavorable de los locales. (pg. 26)
Aun cuando las evaluaciones internas señalan un fracaso, ¿será que las agencias hacen que alguien se responsabilice o cambian las prácticas de la agencia de ayuda? Es difícil descubrir esto estudiando el sitio Web de evaluaciones del Banco Mundial. El DEO en el año 2004 indicó como ocho “evaluaciones influenciales” influyeron las acciones del prestatario en 32 formas diferentes, pero mencionaron solo dos ocasiones en las que afectaron el comportamiento interno del Banco (una de ellas negativamente).
Hacia adelante
El camino hacia adelante es difícil políticamente—una evaluación verdaderamente científicamente independiente de iniciativas específicas de ayuda externa. No evaluaciones generales en conjunto de un programa de desarrollo a nivel nacional, pero evaluaciones específicas y continuas de intervenciones particulares de las cuales las agencias pueden aprender. Solo la presión política externa sobre las agencias de ayuda es probable que pueda crear los incentivos para hacer estas evaluaciones. Un estudio del Banco Mundial en el 2000 empezó con la confesión de que “A pesar de los miles de millones de dólares que se han gastado en ayuda externa para el desarrollo cada año, aun se sabe muy poco del impacto real de los proyectos sobre los pobres.”
La solución es tan obvia como impopular—crear un grupo realmente independiente de evaluadores que no tenga conflictos de interés con el Banco Mundial u otros bancos multilaterales de desarrollo. Por supuesto, tienen que haber incentivos para hacer algo respecto a las evaluaciones—la asignación de dinero a los bancos multilaterales de desarrollo debería de subir o bajar dependiendo del rendimiento promedio calificado por los evaluadores independientes. Los bancos multilaterales de desarrollo también deberían de ser acreditados por descontinuar programas fracasados o por cambiarlos si se pueden reparar, mientras que la falta de acción debería de ser penalizada.
Éxito mediante evaluación
En 1997, al subsecretario de egresos de la Secretaría de Hacienda de México, un economista reconocido llamado Santiago Levy, se le ocurrió un programa innovador para ayudar a los pobres a que se ayuden a si mismos. El programa, llamado PROGRESA (Programa Nacional de Educación, Salud y Alimentación), proporciona subvenciones para madres SI ES QUE mantienen a sus hijos en la escuela, participan en programas educacionales sobre la salud, y si llevan a sus hijos a clínicas de salud por suplementos nutricionales y chequeos regulares. Como el presupuesto federal mexicano no tenía suficientes fondos para ayudar a todos, Levy distribuyó los escasos fondos de manera que el programa podría ser científicamente evaluado.
El programa seleccionó dos cientos cincuenta y tres aldeas al azar para darles beneficios, con otras dos cientos cincuenta y tres aldeas (que todavía no recibían beneficios) seleccionadas para propósitos de comparación. La información fue recolectada en todas las 506 aldeas antes y después del comienzo del programa. El gobierno mexicano le otorgó la tarea de evaluación del programa al Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Políticas Alimentarías (IFPRI, por sus siglas en ingles), quien comisionó la investigación sobre los efectos del programa a académicos.
Las conclusiones académicas confirmaron que el programa funcionó. Los niños que recibieron beneficios de PROGRESA experimentaron una reducción de 23 por ciento en la incidencia de enfermedades, su altura incrementó de 1 a 4 por ciento, y la anemia se redujo por un 18 por ciento. Los adultos redujeron sus días ausentes del trabajo debido a enfermedades por un 19 por ciento. Hubo un incremento de 3.4 por ciento en la matriculación de todos los niños desde la preparatoria hasta primero de básico; el incremento mayor fue un 14.8 por ciento para las niñas que habían completado el sexto año de la primaria.2
Para ilustrar más estos resultados les cuento una anécdota. La gente de una aldea pequeña llamada Buenavista ha notado la diferencia. Una madre dice que ahora le puede dar de comer carne a sus hijos dos veces por semana como suplemento para las tortillas, gracias al dinero que recibe de PROGRESA. El profesor Santiago Días notó que la asistencia ha incrementado en el colegio de Buenavista, cuyo local es una escuela de dos cuartos. Además, Días explica que “porque están mejor alimentados, los niños se pueden concentrar por periodos más largos. Y sabiendo que los beneficios que se les dan a sus madres dependen de su asistencia escolar, los niños están mas entusiasmados de aprender.”3
Porque el programa fue un éxito documentado tan claramente fue continuado a pesar del rechazo por parte de los votantes del partido que gobernó por tantos años hasta la revolución democrática del 2000 en México. Para ese entonces, PROGRESA estaba llegando a 10 por ciento de las familias mexicanas y tenía un presupuesto de $800 millones. El nuevo gobierno lo expandió para que cubriera a los pobres urbanos. Programas similares comenzaron en países vecinos con la ayuda del Banco Mundial.4
La lección para los reformadores de ayuda es: la combinación de la libertad para escoger y la evaluación científica puede construir apoyo para un programa de ayuda externa en donde las cosas que sirven pueden expandirse rápidamente. El dinero para la educación y la salud en si pudiera expandirse con ajustes locales apropiados a más países y a una escala mucho más grande de lo que es ahora. Un programa como este en Etiopía podría eliminar la esclavitud a la leña de Amaretch y de otras niñas de los alrededores de Addis Ababa y las podría ingresar a colegios donde podrían aprender habilidades que las saquen de la pobreza.
¿Ya es hora?
Ya es hora de que se elimine la segunda tragedia de los pobres del mundo, lo cual va a ayudar a progresar con respecto de la primera tragedia. Así, gradualmente se descubrirá cómo los pobres pueden dar más retroalimentación a agentes más responsables sobre sus conocimientos y sobre qué es lo que ELLOS más quieren y necesitan. Los Grandes Sueños Utópicos de acabar con la pobreza mundial, como los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio de las Naciones Unidas no responsabilizan a nadie. ¿Acaso no podemos simplemente responsabilizar a los agentes de la caridad de sus acciones para que en efecto si les den medicinas de 12 centavos a los niños para que no se mueran de malaria, mayas de cama de $4 a los pobres para prevenir la malaria, $3 a cada madre nueva para prevenir muertes infantiles, y para que si ingresen a Amaretch en la escuela?
Notas
*Este artículo es un extracto modificado de mi libro nuevo, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: Penguin Press, 2006).
1. Esta es la foto de Amaretch de la pieza del noticiero BBC.
2. Estoy parafraseando el resumen de Esther Duflo y Michael Kremer, “Use of Randomization in the Evaluation of Development Effectiveness,” [pdf] MIT y Harvard University, 2004.
3. Jon Egan, “Mexico’s Welfare Revolution,” noticiero BBC en línea, Viernes, 15 de Octubre, 1999.
4. Duflo y Kremer 2004.
domingo, abril 30, 2006
sábado, abril 29, 2006
74) Democracy from above?
Dá para implantar a democracia a partir de cima, ou de fora? Esta é a reflexão da nota abaixo, de William Anthony Hay, que cita o importante trabalho de Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), mas deixa completamente de lado o importante trabalho de Barrington Moore Jr, Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship, o que me parece imperdoável. Vale a pena, em todo caso, ler o trabalho.
E-Notes
Democratization, Order, and American Foreign Policy
By William Anthony Hay
April 2006
William Anthony Hay is assistant professor of history at Mississippi State University and author of The Whig Revival, 1808-1830 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005). This E-note and a related article in the Winter 2006 Orbis are based on a presentation he made to FPRI’s Study Group on America and the West on September 12, 2005, in Philadelphia.
Can democracy be imposed on societies from the outside? Current debates tend to focus on immediate aims without clarifying the terms for discussing them. A historically grounded definition provides a starting point for these discussions. Experience indicates that democracy requires a particular combination of institutions and informed public opinion. Outside efforts to impose change typically bring unforeseen consequences that may result in neither stability nor democracy. Indeed, a comparative overview of the history of democracy points towards a reassessment of current U.S. policy, to bring ends and means in line.
Studies focusing on the historical development of democracy typically compare Great Britain and Germany. The German Sonderweg, or special path, toward authoritarianism thus offers a cautionary tale of how modernization can go wrong, but two world wars and the Nazi era make this an emotionally charged analogy. Its focus on the emergence of German liberalism in the mid nineteenth century, followed by its suppression under Otto von Bismarck and later revival during Konrad Adenauer’s post-1945 ascendancy, imposes a relatively narrow frame of reference. Looking instead to Britain and France, two countries identified as democratic, highlights the impact of public opinion and representative government on democracy while taking a much longer view of how the system emerged. The Anglo-French comparison also engages the way in which institutions stabilize or destabilize countries where the political order must expand to accommodate a larger portion of society. Samuel Huntington set out the problem with reference to the developing world in Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), and recent academic literature on the “institutional deficit” plaguing failed states reflects its ongoing importance. The fundamental question connecting these issues to the wider debate is whether and how democracy can provide a stable framework for governing.
Current debate over democratization as a foreign policy objective reflects two conflicting views of democracy with deep roots in American thinking on international relations. Advocates of spreading democracy connect their agenda with a global order favorable to American interests. September 11 shifted the Bush administration toward a more aggressive policy that invoked the memory of Woodrow Wilson. Containment and deterrence had failed to block terrorism, and Bush’s second inaugural speech cast spreading democracy as a moral obligation that would secure domestic peace against tyranny overseas. His rhetoric paralleled Wilson’s request to Congress for a declaration of war against Germany in April 1917, which argued that only regime change could end the threat Germany’s government posed. Despite the different context for the speeches, both describe tyranny as an aggressive threat to the United States to be countered by spreading democracy.
Defining Democracy?
Liberal, representative democracy, where political parties mobilize and focus public opinion and alternate in power to provide regular accountability, provides the only example of a stable democratic order. It combines institutions with a reinforcing political culture that guarantees the rule of law and ensures that policy follows the considered opinion of the people expressed over time. Other models either mimic some attributes of democracy or simply lapse into anarchy or authoritarianism. Truly democratic institutions and political cultures engage public opinion within a framework of checks and balances that limits both majority rule and government power. Representative bodies oversee executive government, with control over taxation and budgets as leverage. Transparency in public business and debate characterizes liberal regimes. Stable, periodic transfers of power ensure accountability while limiting the costs to those who lose the political contest at any given point. Representative democracy allows people to rule themselves in polities beyond the smallest communities by enabling leaders to mobilize opinion, facilitate consensus, and develop policies they can implement. Democracy works as both a political culture for regulating behavior and governing institution
Democracy grew organically within societies in response to challenges, and parliamentary liberalism as it emerged in nineteenth-century Britain embodies the liberal, representative order that brought stability during a painful transition. It created a system within which potentially incompatible interests—whether classes, nationalities or sects—accepted an overarching code of law that guaranteed each a wide variety of liberties. The combination of representative government and public opinion that formed parliamentary liberalism in Britain provides the archetype for true democracy, but other countries took different paths toward modernization. A comparative historical view sharpens definitions while engaging problems connected with imposing democracy from the outside.
Absolutist France and the Ancien Régime
France’s history from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries demonstrates how institutions fail when they prove unable to manage conflicts or adapt to pressures. Religious disputes from the Reformation, social and economic changes, and external military pressures challenged regimes across Europe. France under Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV responded by developing a centralized royal bureaucracy to mobilize resources and concentrate authority. War had already expanded the responsibilities of royal officials France at the expense of both local institutions and the old military classes, while failure of the Fronde revolt in the 1750s left no alternate authority. Absolutism met challenges that had undermined the older partnership between rulers and social estates, and it worked well enough to provide an appealing model of rational, efficient royal governance that other European rulers copied. Representative government seemed backward and an impediment to progress when measured against the modernizing efforts to absolutist regimes. The fragility of the absolutist state only became apparent as financial crises and forceful popular resistance to state policy emerged during the 1780s.
Financial crisis undermined absolutism in France, but the relationship between public opinion and the state played a crucial role in the government capacity to mobilize resources. French rulers declined to call an Estates General between 1614 and 1789 because such assemblies inevitably led to trouble. While some provincial estates and judicial parlements advised the crown and occasionally acted as a venue for expressing public opinion, these bodies’ narrow focus limited their impact. Public opinion thus emerged as a political category in France from the gap created when representative institutions failed to provide an outlet of criticism and discontent. It acted as an abstract category of authority invoked to give positions the legitimacy that an absolutist political order could not provide. Because only the king could legitimately decide questions on behalf of the community, absolutism precluded a public politics beyond the court. The notion of government as private royal business made unauthorized discussion illegal, but the French crown failed to stop debate, and political contestation forced the government to argue its own case. If French rulers minded public opinion for lack of an alternative, they failed to give it a stabilizing institutional role. Political culture in eighteenth-century France and other absolutist states therefore tended towards polarization. Disengaged from practical concerns and lacking a political role, public opinion under absolutism fostered a culture of critique that turned on society itself.
British Institutions and Parliamentary Liberalism
Britain offered a very different model from France and other ancien régime states in continental Europe. Representative government in England withstood the challenges that marginalized it elsewhere, and an effective partnership between elites and the Crown through parliament defined eighteenth-century British political culture. Britain became a fiscal military state after 1688 as a parliamentary regime able to secure resources through consensual taxation and long-term loans guaranteed by parliament. National politics focused on parliament and the capital, with a parallel local politics operating at the level of parliamentary constituencies that gave politicians at Westminster prestige to bolster their national standing. Constituency politics largely emphasized local concerns before 1812 as rival interests competed for popular support. Elaborate rituals connected with mediated relations between elites and population in a way that shows the limits of authority, and elections tested the standing of candidates or their patrons. The whole process tied local constituencies with the political contest at Westminster, but provincial and national politics remained separate outside those rare occasions when general elections focused on a single issue. Public opinion also played a very different role in Britain’s political culture than under French-style absolutism. Newspapers covered parliamentary debates closely from the mid-eighteenth century, and printing the proceedings tied parliament into a broader discourse that extended beyond the elite or educated classes. Public discussion of affairs in Britain had an accepted place that emphasized specific issues over abstract speculation.
Britain entered the general European crisis of the late eighteenth century with a stronger, more flexible system than most of its counterparts. Representation followed older patterns that did not account for industrialization and demographic change, and the provincial groups demanded a greater voice in policy from the 1780s. Political reforms that recast the constitutional order between 1828 and 1832 followed from confrontations that set the Tory government against a Whig opposition that revived itself through an alliance with provincial interest groups. Where Edmund Burke had constructed a justification for party activity in the 1770s, Henry Brougham applied the concept and extended it beyond Westminster to create an expanded political nation. Brougham, a Whig barrister and politician, mobilized opinion beyond the capital to give his party leverage in parliamentary debates, and his efforts transformed the Whigs into a viable governing party that dominated British politics through 1886. They also expanded the political nation to encompass a wider range of provincial interests and integrate constituency politics with the party contest. Parliamentary liberalism in Britain marked an institution that more effectively linked government with the governed.
Challenges to Parliamentary Liberalism
The need to reconcile competing groups defined Victorian parliamentary liberalism. Where appropriate, the political nation could expand to accommodate new interests. Lord John Russell had equated “the people” with the middle classes in 1831, but by 1861 he expanded its scope to include the respectable working classes. Benjamin Disraeli realized that a wider suffrage would add ballast to the political order by enfranchising working men with conservative sentiments. The writer William Lecky described extended suffrage as reaching “below the regions where crotchets and experiments and crude utopias prevail” to an industrious working class of settled habits and “the deep conservative instincts of the nation.” Broadening the basis of consent could improve stability.
If extending the political nation built a sustainable democratic order, at least in nineteenth-century Britain, failure to accommodate groups threatened it. Parliamentary liberalism broke down when it could not reconcile difference within a framework of law. When the Irish Nationalist party led by Charles Stuart Parnell forced its agenda by obstructing parliamentary business, the political system lacked recourse beyond changing its rules to prevent them being used against it. Irish home rule split William Gladstone’s government in 1886 and ended the Liberal ascendancy, but it also showed that parliamentary government required acceptance of rules, written or otherwise. Stretching the system beyond its breaking point curtailed minority rights and stifled debate. George Dangerfield described the turbulent years in Britain from 1910 to 1914 when suffragettes, trade unions, and Ulster Protestants forced their demands with extra-constitutional as the “death” of liberal England. The period shows how democracy could falter, but in Britain it marked a departure from general patterns of stability.
Illiberal Democracy
Historical challenges to parliamentary liberalism highlight a contrast between liberal and illiberal democracy that is very relevant today. Liberal democracy allows for the expression of public opinion and reconciling competing interests with the rule of law; illiberal democracy preserves institutional forms while hollowing out the substance of representation and accountability. Parliamentary liberalism’s democratic order did not offer the only solution to political transformation. Louis Napoleon established the French Second Empire in 1852 through a plebiscite, a different path toward establishing a national politics with institutional legitimacy. He carefully appealed to the French peasantry over elites that might check his power. Representation meant embodying the nation rather than providing voice to its citizens. Decades later, Henry Cabot Lodge would remark that “[Woodrow] Wilson’s comprehension of government is that of the third Napoleon, an autocrat to be elected by the people through a plebiscite and no representative bodies of any consequence in between.” Lecky concluded from the French case that plebiscitary despotism was “just as natural a form of democracy as a republic”, and he warned that “some of the strongest democratic tendencies are distinctly adverse to liberty.”
Populism and the managerial state provide two sides to the authoritarianism that reacted to parliamentary liberalism’s perceived inadequacy. They have a symbiotic relationship. Populist challenges prompt elites to restrict public opinion’s impact, and the consequent lack of accountability may spark a backlash. Populism covers a range of movements that challenged the existing representative order as corrupt and oligarchic while demanding a more direct voice for the people. Far from empowering people, populism typically strengthens leaders claiming to embody the people in their struggle against elites. While challenging some elites, it also helps others manipulate politics in their favor.
Managerialism solves political deadlock by redefining major decisions as problems for experts rather than the political process. Business administration in large corporations provided a model, and, like populism, the managerial state grew from the perceived failure of representative government. Crises brought by World War I and the Great Depression raised its appeal. Karl Lowenstein argued that democracy must become “the application of disciplined authority by liberal minded men, for the ultimate end of liberal government: human dignity and freedom.” Planning defined the new liberalism after World War II and the view that benevolent elites with expertise and vision would give the people what the elites thought best for them shaped policy in the United States and Europe. Resistance grew, however, with the failure of grand projects that cost institutions and elites their legitimacy. A populist backlash where voters use radical parties as a vehicle for protest has marked European politics since 2001, and it reflects the political establishment’s failure to address key issues. A system intended to defuse conflict now promotes it, raising the specter of populism and the managerial state working in a fundamentally anti-democratic cycle.
Promoting Democracy? Civil Society and Group Competition
Democracy cannot be transferred as a package because it developed organically and requires a supportive political culture to operate effectively. Institutions must run along the grain of societies rather than cutting across or against them. A long view suggests that few countries will create sustainable liberal democratic regimes. Copying superficial aspects of democracy typically brings either illiberal or simply unsustainable outcomes. Some countries, like Singapore, sustain a relative liberal order without complete democracy. Other authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan restrict their population’s opportunity for political activity while limiting the scope of state intervention in personal or economic life. Rather than an absolute polarity between democracy and despotism, politics operates at different levels with a variety of systems adapted to particular contexts.
No easy path exists to national cohesion and democratic institutions in developing nations. Forcing democratization’s pace risks unrest, particularly where deep fault lines exist within societies. Sectarian differences and opposing economic interests can both work against the basic level of consensus that democracy requires, and ethnic conflict introduces another volatile factor that often combines with religion and economic disparities. Rapid change and competition for power within a society exacerbate preexisting ethnic tensions, as seen in post-1989 conflicts from Yugoslavia to Rwanda. Populists from the late Slobodan Milosovic to Robert Mugabe and Hugo Chavez seize upon ethnic resentment as a populist tool for maintaining their power as leaders of populist movements operating behind a quasi-democratic façade. Whether conflict derives fundamentally from ethnic differences or economic conflict matters less than its impact on stability. Civic patriotism cannot establish a demos without social cohesion and a general agreement on rules for public behavior. Public opinion driven by demagogues or ideology exerts a destructive force. Forced democratization that unleashes such forces defeats its own aims, and fosters a backlash that can make the United States less secure.
Current efforts to promote democracy uncannily echo the global meliorism that brought profound disillusionment when it failed during the Vietnam era. Indeed, the Bush administration has backtracked as questions arose regarding the specific policies that would follow from the president’s rhetoric. While the United States prefers democracy over authoritarianism, it also values gradual change over stasis and, above all, friends over adversaries. The present debate offers a reprise of earlier tensions between realist and idealist perspectives. Such cycles typically end with frustrated idealism giving way to a cautious realist focus on stability and protecting American interests. Not only does attempting to export democracy usually fail, but the endeavor distracts resources and attention from other pressing challenges. A more reasonable guide to managing political change involves adapting existing structures in target societies and securing a rough balance among competing groups to provide the order necessary for promoting the growth of civil society. Such an approach fits the means and objectives of American foreign policy more realistically than the grand strategy of promoting democracy in countries where it has no roots.
You may forward this email as you like provided that you send it in its entirety, attribute it to the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and include our web address (www.fpri.org). If you post it on a mailing list, please contact FPRI with the name, location, purpose, and number of recipients of the mailing list.
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E-Notes
Democratization, Order, and American Foreign Policy
By William Anthony Hay
April 2006
William Anthony Hay is assistant professor of history at Mississippi State University and author of The Whig Revival, 1808-1830 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005). This E-note and a related article in the Winter 2006 Orbis are based on a presentation he made to FPRI’s Study Group on America and the West on September 12, 2005, in Philadelphia.
Can democracy be imposed on societies from the outside? Current debates tend to focus on immediate aims without clarifying the terms for discussing them. A historically grounded definition provides a starting point for these discussions. Experience indicates that democracy requires a particular combination of institutions and informed public opinion. Outside efforts to impose change typically bring unforeseen consequences that may result in neither stability nor democracy. Indeed, a comparative overview of the history of democracy points towards a reassessment of current U.S. policy, to bring ends and means in line.
Studies focusing on the historical development of democracy typically compare Great Britain and Germany. The German Sonderweg, or special path, toward authoritarianism thus offers a cautionary tale of how modernization can go wrong, but two world wars and the Nazi era make this an emotionally charged analogy. Its focus on the emergence of German liberalism in the mid nineteenth century, followed by its suppression under Otto von Bismarck and later revival during Konrad Adenauer’s post-1945 ascendancy, imposes a relatively narrow frame of reference. Looking instead to Britain and France, two countries identified as democratic, highlights the impact of public opinion and representative government on democracy while taking a much longer view of how the system emerged. The Anglo-French comparison also engages the way in which institutions stabilize or destabilize countries where the political order must expand to accommodate a larger portion of society. Samuel Huntington set out the problem with reference to the developing world in Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), and recent academic literature on the “institutional deficit” plaguing failed states reflects its ongoing importance. The fundamental question connecting these issues to the wider debate is whether and how democracy can provide a stable framework for governing.
Current debate over democratization as a foreign policy objective reflects two conflicting views of democracy with deep roots in American thinking on international relations. Advocates of spreading democracy connect their agenda with a global order favorable to American interests. September 11 shifted the Bush administration toward a more aggressive policy that invoked the memory of Woodrow Wilson. Containment and deterrence had failed to block terrorism, and Bush’s second inaugural speech cast spreading democracy as a moral obligation that would secure domestic peace against tyranny overseas. His rhetoric paralleled Wilson’s request to Congress for a declaration of war against Germany in April 1917, which argued that only regime change could end the threat Germany’s government posed. Despite the different context for the speeches, both describe tyranny as an aggressive threat to the United States to be countered by spreading democracy.
Defining Democracy?
Liberal, representative democracy, where political parties mobilize and focus public opinion and alternate in power to provide regular accountability, provides the only example of a stable democratic order. It combines institutions with a reinforcing political culture that guarantees the rule of law and ensures that policy follows the considered opinion of the people expressed over time. Other models either mimic some attributes of democracy or simply lapse into anarchy or authoritarianism. Truly democratic institutions and political cultures engage public opinion within a framework of checks and balances that limits both majority rule and government power. Representative bodies oversee executive government, with control over taxation and budgets as leverage. Transparency in public business and debate characterizes liberal regimes. Stable, periodic transfers of power ensure accountability while limiting the costs to those who lose the political contest at any given point. Representative democracy allows people to rule themselves in polities beyond the smallest communities by enabling leaders to mobilize opinion, facilitate consensus, and develop policies they can implement. Democracy works as both a political culture for regulating behavior and governing institution
Democracy grew organically within societies in response to challenges, and parliamentary liberalism as it emerged in nineteenth-century Britain embodies the liberal, representative order that brought stability during a painful transition. It created a system within which potentially incompatible interests—whether classes, nationalities or sects—accepted an overarching code of law that guaranteed each a wide variety of liberties. The combination of representative government and public opinion that formed parliamentary liberalism in Britain provides the archetype for true democracy, but other countries took different paths toward modernization. A comparative historical view sharpens definitions while engaging problems connected with imposing democracy from the outside.
Absolutist France and the Ancien Régime
France’s history from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries demonstrates how institutions fail when they prove unable to manage conflicts or adapt to pressures. Religious disputes from the Reformation, social and economic changes, and external military pressures challenged regimes across Europe. France under Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV responded by developing a centralized royal bureaucracy to mobilize resources and concentrate authority. War had already expanded the responsibilities of royal officials France at the expense of both local institutions and the old military classes, while failure of the Fronde revolt in the 1750s left no alternate authority. Absolutism met challenges that had undermined the older partnership between rulers and social estates, and it worked well enough to provide an appealing model of rational, efficient royal governance that other European rulers copied. Representative government seemed backward and an impediment to progress when measured against the modernizing efforts to absolutist regimes. The fragility of the absolutist state only became apparent as financial crises and forceful popular resistance to state policy emerged during the 1780s.
Financial crisis undermined absolutism in France, but the relationship between public opinion and the state played a crucial role in the government capacity to mobilize resources. French rulers declined to call an Estates General between 1614 and 1789 because such assemblies inevitably led to trouble. While some provincial estates and judicial parlements advised the crown and occasionally acted as a venue for expressing public opinion, these bodies’ narrow focus limited their impact. Public opinion thus emerged as a political category in France from the gap created when representative institutions failed to provide an outlet of criticism and discontent. It acted as an abstract category of authority invoked to give positions the legitimacy that an absolutist political order could not provide. Because only the king could legitimately decide questions on behalf of the community, absolutism precluded a public politics beyond the court. The notion of government as private royal business made unauthorized discussion illegal, but the French crown failed to stop debate, and political contestation forced the government to argue its own case. If French rulers minded public opinion for lack of an alternative, they failed to give it a stabilizing institutional role. Political culture in eighteenth-century France and other absolutist states therefore tended towards polarization. Disengaged from practical concerns and lacking a political role, public opinion under absolutism fostered a culture of critique that turned on society itself.
British Institutions and Parliamentary Liberalism
Britain offered a very different model from France and other ancien régime states in continental Europe. Representative government in England withstood the challenges that marginalized it elsewhere, and an effective partnership between elites and the Crown through parliament defined eighteenth-century British political culture. Britain became a fiscal military state after 1688 as a parliamentary regime able to secure resources through consensual taxation and long-term loans guaranteed by parliament. National politics focused on parliament and the capital, with a parallel local politics operating at the level of parliamentary constituencies that gave politicians at Westminster prestige to bolster their national standing. Constituency politics largely emphasized local concerns before 1812 as rival interests competed for popular support. Elaborate rituals connected with mediated relations between elites and population in a way that shows the limits of authority, and elections tested the standing of candidates or their patrons. The whole process tied local constituencies with the political contest at Westminster, but provincial and national politics remained separate outside those rare occasions when general elections focused on a single issue. Public opinion also played a very different role in Britain’s political culture than under French-style absolutism. Newspapers covered parliamentary debates closely from the mid-eighteenth century, and printing the proceedings tied parliament into a broader discourse that extended beyond the elite or educated classes. Public discussion of affairs in Britain had an accepted place that emphasized specific issues over abstract speculation.
Britain entered the general European crisis of the late eighteenth century with a stronger, more flexible system than most of its counterparts. Representation followed older patterns that did not account for industrialization and demographic change, and the provincial groups demanded a greater voice in policy from the 1780s. Political reforms that recast the constitutional order between 1828 and 1832 followed from confrontations that set the Tory government against a Whig opposition that revived itself through an alliance with provincial interest groups. Where Edmund Burke had constructed a justification for party activity in the 1770s, Henry Brougham applied the concept and extended it beyond Westminster to create an expanded political nation. Brougham, a Whig barrister and politician, mobilized opinion beyond the capital to give his party leverage in parliamentary debates, and his efforts transformed the Whigs into a viable governing party that dominated British politics through 1886. They also expanded the political nation to encompass a wider range of provincial interests and integrate constituency politics with the party contest. Parliamentary liberalism in Britain marked an institution that more effectively linked government with the governed.
Challenges to Parliamentary Liberalism
The need to reconcile competing groups defined Victorian parliamentary liberalism. Where appropriate, the political nation could expand to accommodate new interests. Lord John Russell had equated “the people” with the middle classes in 1831, but by 1861 he expanded its scope to include the respectable working classes. Benjamin Disraeli realized that a wider suffrage would add ballast to the political order by enfranchising working men with conservative sentiments. The writer William Lecky described extended suffrage as reaching “below the regions where crotchets and experiments and crude utopias prevail” to an industrious working class of settled habits and “the deep conservative instincts of the nation.” Broadening the basis of consent could improve stability.
If extending the political nation built a sustainable democratic order, at least in nineteenth-century Britain, failure to accommodate groups threatened it. Parliamentary liberalism broke down when it could not reconcile difference within a framework of law. When the Irish Nationalist party led by Charles Stuart Parnell forced its agenda by obstructing parliamentary business, the political system lacked recourse beyond changing its rules to prevent them being used against it. Irish home rule split William Gladstone’s government in 1886 and ended the Liberal ascendancy, but it also showed that parliamentary government required acceptance of rules, written or otherwise. Stretching the system beyond its breaking point curtailed minority rights and stifled debate. George Dangerfield described the turbulent years in Britain from 1910 to 1914 when suffragettes, trade unions, and Ulster Protestants forced their demands with extra-constitutional as the “death” of liberal England. The period shows how democracy could falter, but in Britain it marked a departure from general patterns of stability.
Illiberal Democracy
Historical challenges to parliamentary liberalism highlight a contrast between liberal and illiberal democracy that is very relevant today. Liberal democracy allows for the expression of public opinion and reconciling competing interests with the rule of law; illiberal democracy preserves institutional forms while hollowing out the substance of representation and accountability. Parliamentary liberalism’s democratic order did not offer the only solution to political transformation. Louis Napoleon established the French Second Empire in 1852 through a plebiscite, a different path toward establishing a national politics with institutional legitimacy. He carefully appealed to the French peasantry over elites that might check his power. Representation meant embodying the nation rather than providing voice to its citizens. Decades later, Henry Cabot Lodge would remark that “[Woodrow] Wilson’s comprehension of government is that of the third Napoleon, an autocrat to be elected by the people through a plebiscite and no representative bodies of any consequence in between.” Lecky concluded from the French case that plebiscitary despotism was “just as natural a form of democracy as a republic”, and he warned that “some of the strongest democratic tendencies are distinctly adverse to liberty.”
Populism and the managerial state provide two sides to the authoritarianism that reacted to parliamentary liberalism’s perceived inadequacy. They have a symbiotic relationship. Populist challenges prompt elites to restrict public opinion’s impact, and the consequent lack of accountability may spark a backlash. Populism covers a range of movements that challenged the existing representative order as corrupt and oligarchic while demanding a more direct voice for the people. Far from empowering people, populism typically strengthens leaders claiming to embody the people in their struggle against elites. While challenging some elites, it also helps others manipulate politics in their favor.
Managerialism solves political deadlock by redefining major decisions as problems for experts rather than the political process. Business administration in large corporations provided a model, and, like populism, the managerial state grew from the perceived failure of representative government. Crises brought by World War I and the Great Depression raised its appeal. Karl Lowenstein argued that democracy must become “the application of disciplined authority by liberal minded men, for the ultimate end of liberal government: human dignity and freedom.” Planning defined the new liberalism after World War II and the view that benevolent elites with expertise and vision would give the people what the elites thought best for them shaped policy in the United States and Europe. Resistance grew, however, with the failure of grand projects that cost institutions and elites their legitimacy. A populist backlash where voters use radical parties as a vehicle for protest has marked European politics since 2001, and it reflects the political establishment’s failure to address key issues. A system intended to defuse conflict now promotes it, raising the specter of populism and the managerial state working in a fundamentally anti-democratic cycle.
Promoting Democracy? Civil Society and Group Competition
Democracy cannot be transferred as a package because it developed organically and requires a supportive political culture to operate effectively. Institutions must run along the grain of societies rather than cutting across or against them. A long view suggests that few countries will create sustainable liberal democratic regimes. Copying superficial aspects of democracy typically brings either illiberal or simply unsustainable outcomes. Some countries, like Singapore, sustain a relative liberal order without complete democracy. Other authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan restrict their population’s opportunity for political activity while limiting the scope of state intervention in personal or economic life. Rather than an absolute polarity between democracy and despotism, politics operates at different levels with a variety of systems adapted to particular contexts.
No easy path exists to national cohesion and democratic institutions in developing nations. Forcing democratization’s pace risks unrest, particularly where deep fault lines exist within societies. Sectarian differences and opposing economic interests can both work against the basic level of consensus that democracy requires, and ethnic conflict introduces another volatile factor that often combines with religion and economic disparities. Rapid change and competition for power within a society exacerbate preexisting ethnic tensions, as seen in post-1989 conflicts from Yugoslavia to Rwanda. Populists from the late Slobodan Milosovic to Robert Mugabe and Hugo Chavez seize upon ethnic resentment as a populist tool for maintaining their power as leaders of populist movements operating behind a quasi-democratic façade. Whether conflict derives fundamentally from ethnic differences or economic conflict matters less than its impact on stability. Civic patriotism cannot establish a demos without social cohesion and a general agreement on rules for public behavior. Public opinion driven by demagogues or ideology exerts a destructive force. Forced democratization that unleashes such forces defeats its own aims, and fosters a backlash that can make the United States less secure.
Current efforts to promote democracy uncannily echo the global meliorism that brought profound disillusionment when it failed during the Vietnam era. Indeed, the Bush administration has backtracked as questions arose regarding the specific policies that would follow from the president’s rhetoric. While the United States prefers democracy over authoritarianism, it also values gradual change over stasis and, above all, friends over adversaries. The present debate offers a reprise of earlier tensions between realist and idealist perspectives. Such cycles typically end with frustrated idealism giving way to a cautious realist focus on stability and protecting American interests. Not only does attempting to export democracy usually fail, but the endeavor distracts resources and attention from other pressing challenges. A more reasonable guide to managing political change involves adapting existing structures in target societies and securing a rough balance among competing groups to provide the order necessary for promoting the growth of civil society. Such an approach fits the means and objectives of American foreign policy more realistically than the grand strategy of promoting democracy in countries where it has no roots.
You may forward this email as you like provided that you send it in its entirety, attribute it to the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and include our web address (www.fpri.org). If you post it on a mailing list, please contact FPRI with the name, location, purpose, and number of recipients of the mailing list.
If you receive this as a forward and would like to be placed directly on our mailing lists, send email to FPRI@fpri.org. Include your name, address, and affiliation. For further information, contact Alan Luxenberg at (215) 732-3774 x105.
73) Pequena aula de protocolo em tempos de maneiras pouco educadas...
Los intelectuales y el país de hoy
"Kirchner no debería ignorar el protocolo", dice Enrique Quintana
Para el embajador, causa un grave daño
“No hay nada peor que ser male-ducado y no guardar las formas”, dice el embajador Enrique Quintana, que, como director nacional de Ceremonial, estuvo a cargo de los detalles de las asunciones de los presidentes Alfonsín, Menem y De la Rúa. Quintana ocupó dieciséis puestos diplomáticos en sus cincuenta años de brillante carrera.
“El señor Kirchner no puede jugar con la dignidad y la posición del país, porque arriesga el destino de la Nación”, dice Quintana, en alusión al reciente desaire del Presidente a la reina de Holanda. “Fue una grosería sin igual, algo nunca visto”, agrega, sin poder contener su enojo. Y explica: “Lo que el Presidente considera una frivolidad tiene un valor muy importante en los países que poseen otros conceptos y otra seriedad en el protocolo. Y lo peor es que este tipo de barbaridades se ha cometido prácticamente con todos los países, desde Estados Unidos para abajo...”
El embajador Quintana recibió a LA NACION en su departamento de Palermo, modesto y elegante. En mesas, paredes y vitrinas hay recuerdos de sus misiones diplomáticas por todo el mundo y regalos de reyes y presidentes: cajas de plata con escudos reales, dagas de Arabia y puñales de Indonesia. En una pared luce un icono ruso, negro y dorado. En otra, hay fotografías en las que se lo ve con el rey de España, conversando en un avión con el presidente Alfonsín, con Juan Pablo II y presentando credenciales en Moscú y en Suiza.
A los 89 años, lúcido y sin bastón, formal pero afectuoso, Enrique Quintana, cuyo padre y hermano también fueron embajadores, como él, es descendiente del presidente argentino Manuel Quintana. Es el máximo conocedor de protocolo del país. Habla varios idiomas a la perfección, y durante años tuvo a su cargo la cátedra de Introducción a la Diplomacia y Práctica Diplomática en el Instituto del Servicio Exterior de la Nación.
Nació en Washington, cuando su padre, Federico Quintana, era embajador con residencia en esa ciudad. Hizo la primaria en Suiza, la secundaria en Alemania, y realizó su formación profesional en la Universidad Católica de Chile y en la Academia Naval del mismo país. Fue embajador en Austria, Indonesia, Líbano, Rusia, Costa de Marfil, Suiza (dos veces) y Marruecos. Cuando estuvo en el Líbano, fue embajador concurrente en Kuwait, Jordania y Arabia Saudita. Además, ocupó puestos en embajadas, consulados y organismos internacionales en La Paz, Londres, Liverpool, Bogotá, Roma, Ottawa, Oslo, Bruselas y Luxemburgo.
-¿Qué importancia tienen las formas en la diplomacia?
-El protocolo es una ciencia política muy importante. No obstante la democratización y modernización de las maneras y de los países, el protocolo sigue siendo esencial, porque su fin es favorecer las negociaciones entre los países con el uso de buenos modales, simpatía y seriedad formal. Está muy lejos de ser algo frívolo. Es más: si un gobierno ignora el protocolo, se genera una atmósfera de antipatía muy perniciosa para los intereses de una nación. Es lo mismo que ocurre con la relación entre las personas: si alguien es maleducado, prepotente, sin gentileza, es difícil que pueda hacer buenos amigos. Un país necesita de países amigos, es decir, de aliados, para prosperar. Este es el secreto del progreso de países como Chile, que nosotros tanto menospreciábamos, y de Indonesia, país que debe su impresionante avance a su gran capacidad para negociar con otras naciones.
-¿Cuál es su opinión sobre la ausencia del presidente Kirchner en la cena que la reina de Holanda hizo en su honor?
-Mire: es la primera vez que voy a manifestarme públicamente al respecto. No soy amigo de la crítica y siempre he sido cultor de un perfil bajo. No forma parte de mi manera de ser el atacar a nadie. Pero ante tantas cosas que acontecen y siendo, como soy, uno de los diplomáticos argentinos que han tenido una carrera más larga y que ha acompañado a distintos presidentes por todo el mundo, tengo la obligación de decirle que lo que hizo nuestro presidente es la máxima grosería que puede cometerse con la autoridad de otro país. ¿Usted se da cuenta? Nuestro presidente, que representa a todos los argentinos, dejó de ir nada menos que a la comida que la reina de Holanda hizo en su honor como retribución y despedida. ¿Y todo por qué? Porque no se le dio la gana de ir. Pero ¡él no puede hacer algo así! Y ya ve usted que la prensa de Holanda y la misma reina de ese país consideraron el desaire un insulto, que es exactamente lo que fue. Ese país fue insultado por la Argentina, y es algo que estamos haciendo continuamente. Otro ejemplo es lo que le hicimos al presidente Bush durante la conferencia en Mar del Plata, que también es inadmisible. Yo creo que Bush no se tomó el avión y se fue porque es mejor educado que nuestro presidente. Con el presidente de Francia, Jacques Chirac, hicimos lo mismo...
-¿A qué atribuye esta conducta del presidente de la Nación?
-Yo imagino que tendrá un propósito político. El sabe que ese tipo de actitudes groseras es bien recibido por cierto sector de la Argentina que, al verlo obrar como un compadrito, debe pensar: "¡Qué presidente macho que tenemos!", cuando en realidad es algo lamentable y que le hace un enorme daño al país. Yo siento la obligación de decir esto en defensa de la carrera diplomática, del país y de mis colegas, que están siendo humillados como nunca lo habían sido antes.
-¿Por qué dice que sus colegas son humillados?
-Porque los cargos diplomáticos más importantes no los ocupan diplomáticos de carrera. Hay algunos diplomáticos que son brillantes; otros que son menos brillantes y otros con inteligencia normal, pero no tenemos ningún diplomático malo como para que prácticamente ninguno sea convocado a cumplir con su deber. Hoy esos cargos son todos puestos políticos, y es una triste realidad para el país. Fíjese que el director nacional de Ceremonial es hoy una persona demasiado joven como para aconsejar al Presidente. Y ésta es otra cosa gravísima para la diplomacia argentina: que el Presidente se rodee de gente obsecuente que le da la razón en todo y jamás lo cuestiona. No hay un tonto peor que el testarudo que no quiere aprender...
-¿Tienen buena formación los diplomáticos argentinos de carrera?
-Excelente. Nosotros tenemos el Instituto del Servicio Exterior de la Nación, que es una alhaja. Todos nuestros diplomáticos surgen de ahí. Pero hoy el Presidente nombra a quienes están favorecidos por sus cuñas políticas. Los embajadores políticos están llenando todas las embajadas, y le puedo asegurar que la mayoría no tiene formación. Ni siquiera hablan dos idiomas, que es una de las condiciones mínimas indispensables para que un embajador represente a nuestro país en el exterior. Nuestros diplomáticos de carrera, en cambio, hablan obligadamente dos idiomas, y muchos dominan hasta cuatro idiomas, como quien le habla, lo que facilita muchísimo la labor diplomática.
-"Ser diplomático" tiene a veces la connotación negativa de que no se es frontal o directo en el trato. ¿Cuál es su opinión?
-La amabilidad es un código de buenas maneras. Nosotros no somos hipócritas. Se necesita cultura, inteligencia y afecto para entenderse con el prójimo de un modo conveniente. Las buenas formas en el trato son un don, pero también son armas que el diplomático sabe utilizar en provecho de su país. Es como cuando se enamora a una mujer. Se utiliza la seducción para la conquista del otro, y la seducción es parte de la inteligencia humana. Se seduce a las personas igual que a los países. Pero con antipatía no se logra nada. Le voy a dar un dato clave: cuando fui embajador en Rusia, que entonces era la Unión Soviética, sus diplomáticos y gobernantes, que eran ciento por ciento comunistas, guardaban las formas de los zares. Se comportaban como zares. Con otra filosofía, por supuesto, pero eran unos perfectos zares. Nadie comía con desarreglo. No se permitían las palmadas ni los abrazos. Los embajadores se ponían uniforme en todas las recepciones importantes. ¿Y por qué era así? Porque esos hombres conocían la importancia de la educación y la simpatía en el trato con las otras naciones. Jamás consideraron el protocolo una frivolidad. Nunca pensaron que ser comunista era incompatible con ser bien educado.
-¿Cuál es la situación de las embajadas argentinas en el mundo?
-Muchísimas embajadas han sido cerradas, como si el país fuera a ahorrar dinero con eso. Es algo inconcebible. Si se cortan las buenas relaciones con los países, se pierden oportunidades de generar buenos negocios. Además, piense usted que el deber de una embajada, entre muchos otros deberes, es cuidar la imagen del propio país en el exterior. No se extrañe, entonces, de que hoy tengamos una muy mala imagen, que día a día empeora aceleradamente. Nos falta presencia en el mundo y representantes idóneos. Insisto: un gobierno serio no puede prescindir de sus embajadores, porque los embajadores son los que defienden los intereses del propio país en el exterior.
-¿Ha estado usted en alguna situación, como embajador, en la que se vio obligado a ser violento o grosero para ser eficaz?
-No. En cincuenta años de profesión, no he tenido que ser grosero jamás.
-¿Cuál fue el presidente argentino más diplomático que usted haya conocido?
-Arturo Frondizi, que me llamó en su momento para que fuera director nacional de Ceremonial de su gobierno. El fue el único estadista argentino que yo haya conocido, y el más talentoso. A pesar de que era introvertido y de una comunicación difícil, entablaba una excelente relación con sus colaboradores. Una vez lo llamé para consultarle algo y me dijo: "Embajador, yo no lo he nombrado para que me consulte, sino para que me diga". El quería que yo tomara decisiones, que fuera libre en mis pensamientos y que lo aconsejara, porque me había ganado su confianza. Así obra un estadista con los que lo rodean. También debo decir que Alfonsín es un hombre inteligente y amable, de maneras señoriales, y afectuoso, además de muy buen político. Estuve dos veces con él, a pesar de que no soy radical ni de ningún otro partido, porque así me lo exige mi profesión, lo que no significa que no tenga mis preferencias. Pero, como le decía, a Alfonsín nunca lo vi fastidiado ni soberbio. Y lo mismo puedo decir de Menem, al que le renuncié. El también tenía muy buenas maneras.
-¿Puede suceder que las buenas maneras tengan un trasfondo de cinismo y que una suavidad extehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifrior oculte una aspereza interior o una mala intención?
-Claro que es posible, pero la amabilidad es siempre algo bueno. El protocolo, como dije al principio, es una ciencia política importantísima, que no puede despreciarse desde ningún aspecto. Y le diré más: quien desprecia el protocolo no sólo lo hace por mala educación, sino por algo más grave: el resentimiento y la envidia. Cuando el Presidente desaira a la reina, lo hace para conformar a quienes están enredados en el odio hacia lo que es mejor que lo nuestro. Estamos siendo envidiosos por nuestra propia incapacidad. Nos sentimos incómodos con nosotros mismos.
-¿Encuentra alguna relación entre las malas maneras de algunos gobernantes y la embriaguez de poder?
-Mire: nadie puede estar tan embriagado de poder o de alcohol que no sepa lo que hace. En todo caso, el ebrio se escuda en su estado para hacer y decir lo que le plazca. Mi padre me dijo una vez: "Tené mucho cuidado, porque cuando un ebrio o un tonto te insulta, sabe muy bien que te está insultando, así que lo tenés que tratar igual que si estuviera sobrio".
Por Sebastián Dozo Moreno
Para LA NACION
LA NACION | 29.04.2006 | Página 1 | Política
"Kirchner no debería ignorar el protocolo", dice Enrique Quintana
Para el embajador, causa un grave daño
“No hay nada peor que ser male-ducado y no guardar las formas”, dice el embajador Enrique Quintana, que, como director nacional de Ceremonial, estuvo a cargo de los detalles de las asunciones de los presidentes Alfonsín, Menem y De la Rúa. Quintana ocupó dieciséis puestos diplomáticos en sus cincuenta años de brillante carrera.
“El señor Kirchner no puede jugar con la dignidad y la posición del país, porque arriesga el destino de la Nación”, dice Quintana, en alusión al reciente desaire del Presidente a la reina de Holanda. “Fue una grosería sin igual, algo nunca visto”, agrega, sin poder contener su enojo. Y explica: “Lo que el Presidente considera una frivolidad tiene un valor muy importante en los países que poseen otros conceptos y otra seriedad en el protocolo. Y lo peor es que este tipo de barbaridades se ha cometido prácticamente con todos los países, desde Estados Unidos para abajo...”
El embajador Quintana recibió a LA NACION en su departamento de Palermo, modesto y elegante. En mesas, paredes y vitrinas hay recuerdos de sus misiones diplomáticas por todo el mundo y regalos de reyes y presidentes: cajas de plata con escudos reales, dagas de Arabia y puñales de Indonesia. En una pared luce un icono ruso, negro y dorado. En otra, hay fotografías en las que se lo ve con el rey de España, conversando en un avión con el presidente Alfonsín, con Juan Pablo II y presentando credenciales en Moscú y en Suiza.
A los 89 años, lúcido y sin bastón, formal pero afectuoso, Enrique Quintana, cuyo padre y hermano también fueron embajadores, como él, es descendiente del presidente argentino Manuel Quintana. Es el máximo conocedor de protocolo del país. Habla varios idiomas a la perfección, y durante años tuvo a su cargo la cátedra de Introducción a la Diplomacia y Práctica Diplomática en el Instituto del Servicio Exterior de la Nación.
Nació en Washington, cuando su padre, Federico Quintana, era embajador con residencia en esa ciudad. Hizo la primaria en Suiza, la secundaria en Alemania, y realizó su formación profesional en la Universidad Católica de Chile y en la Academia Naval del mismo país. Fue embajador en Austria, Indonesia, Líbano, Rusia, Costa de Marfil, Suiza (dos veces) y Marruecos. Cuando estuvo en el Líbano, fue embajador concurrente en Kuwait, Jordania y Arabia Saudita. Además, ocupó puestos en embajadas, consulados y organismos internacionales en La Paz, Londres, Liverpool, Bogotá, Roma, Ottawa, Oslo, Bruselas y Luxemburgo.
-¿Qué importancia tienen las formas en la diplomacia?
-El protocolo es una ciencia política muy importante. No obstante la democratización y modernización de las maneras y de los países, el protocolo sigue siendo esencial, porque su fin es favorecer las negociaciones entre los países con el uso de buenos modales, simpatía y seriedad formal. Está muy lejos de ser algo frívolo. Es más: si un gobierno ignora el protocolo, se genera una atmósfera de antipatía muy perniciosa para los intereses de una nación. Es lo mismo que ocurre con la relación entre las personas: si alguien es maleducado, prepotente, sin gentileza, es difícil que pueda hacer buenos amigos. Un país necesita de países amigos, es decir, de aliados, para prosperar. Este es el secreto del progreso de países como Chile, que nosotros tanto menospreciábamos, y de Indonesia, país que debe su impresionante avance a su gran capacidad para negociar con otras naciones.
-¿Cuál es su opinión sobre la ausencia del presidente Kirchner en la cena que la reina de Holanda hizo en su honor?
-Mire: es la primera vez que voy a manifestarme públicamente al respecto. No soy amigo de la crítica y siempre he sido cultor de un perfil bajo. No forma parte de mi manera de ser el atacar a nadie. Pero ante tantas cosas que acontecen y siendo, como soy, uno de los diplomáticos argentinos que han tenido una carrera más larga y que ha acompañado a distintos presidentes por todo el mundo, tengo la obligación de decirle que lo que hizo nuestro presidente es la máxima grosería que puede cometerse con la autoridad de otro país. ¿Usted se da cuenta? Nuestro presidente, que representa a todos los argentinos, dejó de ir nada menos que a la comida que la reina de Holanda hizo en su honor como retribución y despedida. ¿Y todo por qué? Porque no se le dio la gana de ir. Pero ¡él no puede hacer algo así! Y ya ve usted que la prensa de Holanda y la misma reina de ese país consideraron el desaire un insulto, que es exactamente lo que fue. Ese país fue insultado por la Argentina, y es algo que estamos haciendo continuamente. Otro ejemplo es lo que le hicimos al presidente Bush durante la conferencia en Mar del Plata, que también es inadmisible. Yo creo que Bush no se tomó el avión y se fue porque es mejor educado que nuestro presidente. Con el presidente de Francia, Jacques Chirac, hicimos lo mismo...
-¿A qué atribuye esta conducta del presidente de la Nación?
-Yo imagino que tendrá un propósito político. El sabe que ese tipo de actitudes groseras es bien recibido por cierto sector de la Argentina que, al verlo obrar como un compadrito, debe pensar: "¡Qué presidente macho que tenemos!", cuando en realidad es algo lamentable y que le hace un enorme daño al país. Yo siento la obligación de decir esto en defensa de la carrera diplomática, del país y de mis colegas, que están siendo humillados como nunca lo habían sido antes.
-¿Por qué dice que sus colegas son humillados?
-Porque los cargos diplomáticos más importantes no los ocupan diplomáticos de carrera. Hay algunos diplomáticos que son brillantes; otros que son menos brillantes y otros con inteligencia normal, pero no tenemos ningún diplomático malo como para que prácticamente ninguno sea convocado a cumplir con su deber. Hoy esos cargos son todos puestos políticos, y es una triste realidad para el país. Fíjese que el director nacional de Ceremonial es hoy una persona demasiado joven como para aconsejar al Presidente. Y ésta es otra cosa gravísima para la diplomacia argentina: que el Presidente se rodee de gente obsecuente que le da la razón en todo y jamás lo cuestiona. No hay un tonto peor que el testarudo que no quiere aprender...
-¿Tienen buena formación los diplomáticos argentinos de carrera?
-Excelente. Nosotros tenemos el Instituto del Servicio Exterior de la Nación, que es una alhaja. Todos nuestros diplomáticos surgen de ahí. Pero hoy el Presidente nombra a quienes están favorecidos por sus cuñas políticas. Los embajadores políticos están llenando todas las embajadas, y le puedo asegurar que la mayoría no tiene formación. Ni siquiera hablan dos idiomas, que es una de las condiciones mínimas indispensables para que un embajador represente a nuestro país en el exterior. Nuestros diplomáticos de carrera, en cambio, hablan obligadamente dos idiomas, y muchos dominan hasta cuatro idiomas, como quien le habla, lo que facilita muchísimo la labor diplomática.
-"Ser diplomático" tiene a veces la connotación negativa de que no se es frontal o directo en el trato. ¿Cuál es su opinión?
-La amabilidad es un código de buenas maneras. Nosotros no somos hipócritas. Se necesita cultura, inteligencia y afecto para entenderse con el prójimo de un modo conveniente. Las buenas formas en el trato son un don, pero también son armas que el diplomático sabe utilizar en provecho de su país. Es como cuando se enamora a una mujer. Se utiliza la seducción para la conquista del otro, y la seducción es parte de la inteligencia humana. Se seduce a las personas igual que a los países. Pero con antipatía no se logra nada. Le voy a dar un dato clave: cuando fui embajador en Rusia, que entonces era la Unión Soviética, sus diplomáticos y gobernantes, que eran ciento por ciento comunistas, guardaban las formas de los zares. Se comportaban como zares. Con otra filosofía, por supuesto, pero eran unos perfectos zares. Nadie comía con desarreglo. No se permitían las palmadas ni los abrazos. Los embajadores se ponían uniforme en todas las recepciones importantes. ¿Y por qué era así? Porque esos hombres conocían la importancia de la educación y la simpatía en el trato con las otras naciones. Jamás consideraron el protocolo una frivolidad. Nunca pensaron que ser comunista era incompatible con ser bien educado.
-¿Cuál es la situación de las embajadas argentinas en el mundo?
-Muchísimas embajadas han sido cerradas, como si el país fuera a ahorrar dinero con eso. Es algo inconcebible. Si se cortan las buenas relaciones con los países, se pierden oportunidades de generar buenos negocios. Además, piense usted que el deber de una embajada, entre muchos otros deberes, es cuidar la imagen del propio país en el exterior. No se extrañe, entonces, de que hoy tengamos una muy mala imagen, que día a día empeora aceleradamente. Nos falta presencia en el mundo y representantes idóneos. Insisto: un gobierno serio no puede prescindir de sus embajadores, porque los embajadores son los que defienden los intereses del propio país en el exterior.
-¿Ha estado usted en alguna situación, como embajador, en la que se vio obligado a ser violento o grosero para ser eficaz?
-No. En cincuenta años de profesión, no he tenido que ser grosero jamás.
-¿Cuál fue el presidente argentino más diplomático que usted haya conocido?
-Arturo Frondizi, que me llamó en su momento para que fuera director nacional de Ceremonial de su gobierno. El fue el único estadista argentino que yo haya conocido, y el más talentoso. A pesar de que era introvertido y de una comunicación difícil, entablaba una excelente relación con sus colaboradores. Una vez lo llamé para consultarle algo y me dijo: "Embajador, yo no lo he nombrado para que me consulte, sino para que me diga". El quería que yo tomara decisiones, que fuera libre en mis pensamientos y que lo aconsejara, porque me había ganado su confianza. Así obra un estadista con los que lo rodean. También debo decir que Alfonsín es un hombre inteligente y amable, de maneras señoriales, y afectuoso, además de muy buen político. Estuve dos veces con él, a pesar de que no soy radical ni de ningún otro partido, porque así me lo exige mi profesión, lo que no significa que no tenga mis preferencias. Pero, como le decía, a Alfonsín nunca lo vi fastidiado ni soberbio. Y lo mismo puedo decir de Menem, al que le renuncié. El también tenía muy buenas maneras.
-¿Puede suceder que las buenas maneras tengan un trasfondo de cinismo y que una suavidad extehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifrior oculte una aspereza interior o una mala intención?
-Claro que es posible, pero la amabilidad es siempre algo bueno. El protocolo, como dije al principio, es una ciencia política importantísima, que no puede despreciarse desde ningún aspecto. Y le diré más: quien desprecia el protocolo no sólo lo hace por mala educación, sino por algo más grave: el resentimiento y la envidia. Cuando el Presidente desaira a la reina, lo hace para conformar a quienes están enredados en el odio hacia lo que es mejor que lo nuestro. Estamos siendo envidiosos por nuestra propia incapacidad. Nos sentimos incómodos con nosotros mismos.
-¿Encuentra alguna relación entre las malas maneras de algunos gobernantes y la embriaguez de poder?
-Mire: nadie puede estar tan embriagado de poder o de alcohol que no sepa lo que hace. En todo caso, el ebrio se escuda en su estado para hacer y decir lo que le plazca. Mi padre me dijo una vez: "Tené mucho cuidado, porque cuando un ebrio o un tonto te insulta, sabe muy bien que te está insultando, así que lo tenés que tratar igual que si estuviera sobrio".
Por Sebastián Dozo Moreno
Para LA NACION
LA NACION | 29.04.2006 | Página 1 | Política
quinta-feira, abril 27, 2006
72) As muitas esquerdas da América Latina (e que Castañeda acha que sao apenas duas...)
Latin America's Left Turn
By Jorge G. Castañeda
From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006
Link: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060501faessay85302/jorge-g-castaneda/latin-america-s-left-turn.htm
Summary: With all the talk of Latin America's turn to the left, few have noticed that there are really two lefts in the region. One has radical roots but is now open-minded and modern; the other is close-minded and stridently populist. Rather than fretting over the left's rise in general, the rest of the world should focus on fostering the former rather than the latter -- because it is exactly what Latin America needs.
JORGE G. CASTAÑEDA is the author of Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War and Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara. Having resigned as Mexico's Foreign Minister in 2003, he is currently Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.
A TALE OF TWO LEFTS
Just over a decade ago, Latin America seemed poised to begin a virtuous cycle of economic progress and improved democratic governance, overseen by a growing number of centrist technocratic governments. In Mexico, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, buttressed by the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, was ready for his handpicked successor to win the next presidential election. Former Finance Minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso was about to beat out the radical labor leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the presidency of Brazil. Argentine President Carlos Menem had pegged the peso to the dollar and put his populist Peronist legacy behind him. And at the invitation of President Bill Clinton, Latin American leaders were preparing to gather in Miami for the Summit of the Americas, signaling an almost unprecedented convergence between the southern and northern halves of the Western Hemisphere.
What a difference ten years can make. Although the region has just enjoyed its best two years of economic growth in a long time and real threats to democratic rule are few and far between, the landscape today is transformed. Latin America is swerving left, and distinct backlashes are under way against the predominant trends of the last 15 years: free-market reforms, agreement with the United States on a number of issues, and the consolidation of representative democracy. This reaction is more politics than policy, and more nuanced than it may appear. But it is real.
Starting with Hugo Chávez's victory in Venezuela eight years ago and poised to culminate in the possible election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico's July 2 presidential contest, a wave of leaders, parties, and movements generically labeled "leftist" have swept into power in one Latin American country after another. After Chávez, it was Lula and the Workers' Party in Brazil, then Néstor Kirchner in Argentina and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay, and then, earlier this year, Evo Morales in Bolivia. If the long shot Ollanta Humala wins the April presidential election in Peru and López Obrador wins in Mexico, it will seem as if a veritable left-wing tsunami has hit the region. Colombia and Central America are the only exceptions, but even in Nicaragua, the possibility of a win by Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega cannot be dismissed.
The rest of the world has begun to take note of this left-wing resurgence, with concern and often more than a little hysteria. But understanding the reasons behind these developments requires recognizing that there is not one Latin American left today; there are two. One is modern, open-minded, reformist, and internationalist, and it springs, paradoxically, from the hard-core left of the past. The other, born of the great tradition of Latin American populism, is nationalist, strident, and close-minded. The first is well aware of its past mistakes (as well as those of its erstwhile role models in Cuba and the Soviet Union) and has changed accordingly. The second, unfortunately, has not.
UTOPIA REDEFINED
The reasons for Latin America's turn to the left are not hard to discern. Along with many other commentators and public intellectuals, I started detecting those reasons nearly fifteen years ago, and I recorded them in my book Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War, which made several points. The first was that the fall of the Soviet Union would help the Latin American left by removing its geopolitical stigma. Washington would no longer be able to accuse any left-of-center regime in the region of being a "Soviet beachhead" (as it had every such government since it fomented the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz's administration in Guatemala in 1954); left-wing governments would no longer have to choose between the United States and the Soviet Union, because the latter had simply disappeared.
The second point was that regardless of the success or failure of economic reforms in the 1990s and the discrediting of traditional Latin American economic policies, Latin America's extreme inequality (Latin America is the world's most unequal region), poverty, and concentration of wealth, income, power, and opportunity meant that it would have to be governed from the left of center. The combination of inequality and democracy tends to cause a movement to the left everywhere. This was true in western Europe from the end of the nineteenth century until after World War II; it is true today in Latin America. The impoverished masses vote for the type of policies that, they hope, will make them less poor.
Third, the advent of widespread democratization and the consolidation of democratic elections as the only road to power would, sooner or later, lead to victories for the left -- precisely because of the social, demographic, and ethnic configuration of the region. In other words, even without the other proximate causes, Latin America would almost certainly have tilted left.
This forecast became all the more certain once it became evident that the economic, social, and political reforms implemented in Latin America starting in the mid-1980s had not delivered on their promises. With the exception of Chile, which has been governed by a left-of-center coalition since 1989, the region has had singularly unimpressive economic growth rates. They remain well below those of the glory days of the region's development (1940-80) and also well below those of other developing nations -- China, of course, but also India, Malaysia, Poland, and many others. Between 1940 and 1980, Brazil and Mexico, for example, averaged six percent growth per year; from 1980 to 2000, their growth rates were less than half that. Low growth rates have meant the persistence of dismal poverty, inequality, high unemployment, a lack of competitiveness, and poor infrastructure. Democracy, although welcomed and supported by broad swaths of Latin American societies, did little to eradicate the region's secular plagues: corruption, a weak or nonexistent rule of law, ineffective governance, and the concentration of power in the hands of a few. And despite hopes that relations with the United States would improve, they are worse today than at any other time in recent memory, including the 1960s (an era defined by conflicts over Cuba) and the 1980s (defined by the Central American wars and Ronald Reagan's "contras").
But many of us who rightly foretold the return of the left were at least partly wrong about the kind of left that would emerge. We thought -- perhaps naively -- that the aggiornamento of the left in Latin America would rapidly and neatly follow that of socialist parties in France and Spain and of New Labour in the United Kingdom. In a few cases, this occurred -- Chile certainly, Brazil tenuously. But in many others, it did not.
One reason for our mistake was that the collapse of the Soviet Union did not bring about the collapse of its Latin American equivalent, Cuba, as many expected it would. Although the links and subordination of many left-wing parties to Havana have had few domestic electoral implications (and Washington has largely stopped caring anyway), the left's close ties to and emotional dependency on Fidel Castro became an almost insurmountable obstacle to its reconstruction on many issues. But the more fundamental explanation has to do with the roots of many of the movements that are now in power. Knowing where left-wing leaders and parties come from -- in particular, which of the two strands of the left in Latin American history they are a part of -- is critical to understanding who they are and where they are going.
ORIGINS OF THE SPECIES
The left -- defined as that current of thought, politics, and policy that stresses social improvements over macroeconomic orthodoxy, egalitarian distribution of wealth over its creation, sovereignty over international cooperation, democracy (at least when in opposition, if not necessarily once in power) over governmental effectiveness -- has followed two different paths in Latin America. One left sprang up out of the Communist International and the Bolshevik Revolution and has followed a path similar to that of the left in the rest of the world. The Chilean, Uruguayan, Brazilian, Salvadoran, and, before Castro's revolution, Cuban Communist Parties, for example, obtained significant shares of the popular vote at one point or another, participated in "popular front" or "national unity" governments in the 1930s and 1940s, established a solid presence in organized labor, and exercised significant influence in academic and intellectual circles.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, these parties had lost most of their prestige and combativeness. Their corruption, submission to Moscow, accommodation with sitting governments, and assimilation by local power elites had largely discredited them in the eyes of the young and the radical. But the Cuban Revolution brought new life to this strain of the left. In time, groups descended from the old communist left fused with Havana-inspired guerrilla bands. There were certainly some tensions. Castro accused the leader of the Bolivian Communist Party of betraying Che Guevara and leading him to his death in Bolivia in 1967; the Uruguayan and Chilean Communist Parties (the region's strongest) never supported the local Castroist armed groups. Yet thanks to the passage of time, to Soviet and Cuban understanding, and to the sheer weight of repression generated by military coups across the hemisphere, the Castroists and Communists all came together -- and they remain together today.
The origin of the other Latin American left is peculiarly Latin American. It arose out of the region's strange contribution to political science: good old-fashioned populism. Such populism has almost always been present almost everywhere in Latin America. It is frequently in power, or close to it. It claims as its founders historical icons of great mythical stature, from Peru's Vìctor Raúl Haya de la Torre and Colombia's Jorge Gaitán (neither made it to office) to Mexico's Lázaro Cárdenas and Brazil's Getúlio Vargas, both foundational figures in their countries' twentieth-century history, and to Argentina's Juan Perón and Ecuador's José Velasco Ibarra. The list is not exhaustive, but it is illustrative: many of these nations' founding-father equivalents were seen in their time and are still seen now as noble benefactors of the working class. They made their mark on their nations, and their followers continue to pay tribute to them. Among many of these countries' poor and dispossessed, they inspire respect, even adulation, to this day.
These populists are representative of a very different left -- often virulently anticommunist, always authoritarian in one fashion or another, and much more interested in policy as an instrument for attaining and conserving power than in power as a tool for making policy. They did do things for the poor -- Perón and Vargas mainly for the urban proletariat, Cárdenas for the Mexican peasantry -- but they also created the corporatist structures that have since plagued the political systems, as well as the labor and peasant movements, in their countries. They nationalized large sectors of their countries' economies, extending well beyond the so-called commanding heights, by targeting everything in sight: oil (Cárdenas in Mexico), railroads (Perón in Argentina), steel (Vargas in Brazil), tin (Victor Paz Estenssoro in Bolivia), copper (Juan Velasco Alvarado in Peru). They tended to cut sweetheart deals with the budding local business sector, creating the proverbial crony capitalism that was decried much later. Their justifications for such steps were always superficially ideological (nationalism, economic development) but at bottom pragmatic: they needed money to give away but did not like taxes. They squared that circle by capturing natural-resource or monopoly rents, which allowed them to spend money on the descamisados, the "shirtless," without raising taxes on the middle class. When everything else fails, the thinking went, spend money.
The ideological corollary to this bizarre blend of inclusion of the excluded, macroeconomic folly, and political staying power (Perón was the dominant figure in Argentine politics from 1943 through his death in 1974, the Cárdenas dynasty is more present than ever in Mexican politics) was virulent, strident nationalism. Perón was elected president in 1946 with the slogan "Braden or Perón" (Spruille Braden was then the U.S. ambassador to Buenos Aires). When Vargas committed suicide in 1954, he darkly insinuated that he was a victim of American imperialism. Such nationalism was more than rhetorical. In regimes whose domestic policy platform was strictly power-driven and pragmatic, it was the agenda.
These two subspecies of the Latin American left have always had an uneasy relationship. On occasion they have worked together, but at other times they have been at war, as when Perón returned from exile in June 1973 and promptly massacred a fair share of the Argentine radical left. In some countries, the populist left simply devoured the other one, although peacefully and rather graciously: in Mexico in the late 1980s, the tiny Communist Party disappeared, and former PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) members, such as Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, and the current presidential front-runner, López Obrador, took over everything from its buildings and finances to its congressional representation and relations with Cuba to form the left-wing PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution).
More recently, something funny has happened to both kinds of leftist movements on their way back to power. The communist, socialist, and Castroist left, with a few exceptions, has been able to reconstruct itself, thanks largely to an acknowledgment of its failures and those of its erstwhile models. Meanwhile, the populist left -- with an approach to power that depends on giving away money, a deep attachment to the nationalist fervor of another era, and no real domestic agenda -- has remained true to itself. The latter perseveres in its cult of the past: it waxes nostalgic about the glory days of Peronism, the Mexican Revolution, and, needless to say, Castro. The former, familiar with its own mistakes, defeats, and tragedies, and keenly aware of the failures of the Soviet Union and Cuba, has changed its colors.
CASTRO'S UNLIKELY HEIRS
When the reformed communist left has reached office in recent years, its economic policies have been remarkably similar to those of its immediate predecessors, and its respect for democracy has proved full-fledged and sincere. Old-school anti-Americanism has been tempered by years of exile, realism, and resignation.
The best examples of the reconstructed, formerly radical left are to be found in Chile, Uruguay, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Brazil. This left emphasizes social policy -- education, antipoverty programs, health care, housing -- but within a more or less orthodox market framework. It usually attempts to deepen and broaden democratic institutions. On occasion, Latin America's age-old vices -- corruption, a penchant for authoritarian rule -- have led it astray. It disagrees with the United States frequently but rarely takes matters to the brink.
In Chile, former President Ricardo Lagos and his successor, Michelle Bachelet, both come from the old Socialist Party (Lagos from its moderate wing, Bachelet from the less temperate faction). Their left-wing party has governed for 16 consecutive years, in a fruitful alliance with the Christian Democrats. This alliance has made Chile a true model for the region. Under its stewardship, the country has enjoyed high rates of economic growth; significant reductions in poverty; equally significant improvements in education, housing, and infrastructure; a slight drop in inequality; a deepening of democracy and the dismantling of Augusto Pinochet's political legacy; a settling of accounts (although not of scores) regarding human rights violations of the past; and, last but not at all least, a strong, mature relationship with the United States, including a free-trade agreement signed by George W. Bush and ratified by the U.S. Congress and Washington's support for the Chilean candidate to head the Organization of American States. U.S.-Chilean ties have continued to prosper despite Chile's unambiguous opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the UN Security Council in 2003.
In Uruguay, Vázquez ran for president twice before finally winning a little more than a year ago. His coalition has always been the same: the old Uruguayan Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and many former Marxist Tupamaro guerrillas, who made history in the 1960s and 1970s by, among other things, kidnapping and executing CIA station chief Dan Mitrione in Montevideo in 1970 and being featured in Costa-Gavras' 1973 film State of Siege. There was reason to expect Vázquez to follow a radical line once elected -- but history once again trumped ideology. Although Vázquez has restored Uruguay's relations with Cuba and every now and then rails against neoliberalism and Bush, he has also negotiated an investment-protection agreement with the United States, sent his finance minister to Washington to explore the possibility of forging a free-trade agreement, and stood up to the "antiglobalization, politically correct" groups in neighboring Argentina on the construction of two enormous wood-pulp mills in the Uruguay River estuary. He refused to attend Morales' inauguration as president of Bolivia and has threatened to veto a bill legalizing abortion if it gets to his desk. His government is, on substance if not on rhetoric, as economically orthodox as any other. And with good reason: a country of 3.5 million inhabitants with the lowest poverty rate and the least inequality in Latin America should not mess with its relative success.
Brazil is a different story, but not a diametrically opposed one. Even before his inauguration in 2003, Lula had indicated that he would follow most of his predecessor's macroeconomic policies and comply with the fiscal and monetary targets agreed on with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He has done so, achieving impressive results in economic stability (Brazil continues to generate a hefty fiscal surplus every year), but GDP growth has been disappointing, as have employment levels and social indicators. Lula has tried to compensate for his macroeconomic orthodoxy with innovative social initiatives (particularly his "Zero Hunger" drive and land reform). At the end of the day, however, perhaps his most important achievement on this front will be the generalization of the Bolsa Familia (Family Fund) initiative, which was copied directly from the antipoverty program of Mexican Presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox. This is a successful, innovative welfare program, but as neoliberal and scantly revolutionary as one can get.
On foreign policy, Brazil, like just about every Latin American country, has had its run-ins with the Bush administration, over issues including trade, UN reform, and how to deal with Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela. But perhaps the best metaphor for the current state of U.S.-Brazilian relations today was the scene in Brasilia last November, when Lula welcomed Bush at his home, while across the street demonstrators from his own party burned the U.S. president in effigy.
The Workers' Party, which Lula founded in 1980 after a long metalworkers' strike in the industrial outskirts of São Paulo, has largely followed him on the road toward social democracy. Many of the more radical cadres of the party, or at least those with the most radical histories (such as José Genoino and José Dirceu), have become moderate reformist leaders, despite their pasts and their lingering emotional devotion to Cuba. (Lula shares this devotion, and yet it has not led him to subservience to Castro: when Lula visited Havana in 2004, Castro wanted to hold a mass rally at the Plaza de la Revolución; instead, Castro got a 24-hour in-and-out visit from the Brazilian president, with almost no public exposure.) Lula and many of his comrades are emblematic of the transformation of the old, radical, guerrilla-based, Castroist or communist left. Granted, the conversion is not complete: the corruption scandals that have rocked Brazil's government have more to do with a certain neglect of democratic practices than with any personal attempt at enrichment. Still, the direction in which Lula and his allies are moving is clear.
Overall, this makeover of the radical left is good for Latin America. Given the region's inequality, poverty, still-weak democratic tradition, and unfinished nation building, this left offers precisely what is needed for good governance in the region. If Chile is any example, this left's path is the way out of poverty, authoritarian rule, and, eventually, inequality. This left is also a viable, sensitive, and sensible alternative to the other left -- the one that speaks loudly but carries a very small social stick.
POPULISM REDUX
The leftist leaders who have arisen from a populist, nationalist past with few ideological underpinnings -- Chávez with his military background, Kirchner with his Peronist roots, Morales with his coca-leaf growers' militancy and agitprop, López Obrador with his origins in the PRI -- have proved much less responsive to modernizing influences. For them, rhetoric is more important than substance, and the fact of power is more important than its responsible exercise. The despair of poor constituencies is a tool rather than a challenge, and taunting the United States trumps promoting their countries' real interests in the world. The difference is obvious: Chávez is not Castro; he is Perón with oil. Morales is not an indigenous Che; he is a skillful and irresponsible populist. López Obrador is neither Lula nor Chávez; he comes straight from the PRI of Luis Echeverrìa, Mexico's president from 1970 to 1976, from which he learned how to be a cash-dispensing, authoritarian-inclined populist. Kirchner is a true-blue Peronist, and proud of it.
For all of these leaders, economic performance, democratic values, programmatic achievements, and good relations with the United States are not imperatives but bothersome constraints that miss the real point. They are more intent on maintaining popularity at any cost, picking as many fights as possible with Washington, and getting as much control as they can over sources of revenue, including oil, gas, and suspended foreign-debt payments.
Argentina's Kirchner is a classic (although somewhat ambiguous) case. Formerly the governor of a small province at the end of the world, he was elected in the midst of a monumental economic crisis and has managed to bring his country out of it quite effectively. Inflation has been relatively controlled, growth is back, and interest rates have fallen. Kirchner also renegotiated Argentina's huge foreign debt skillfully, if perhaps a bit too boldly. He has gone further than his predecessors in settling past grievances, particularly regarding the "dirty war" that the military and his Peronist colleagues waged in the 1970s. He has become a darling of the left and seems to be on a roll, with approval ratings of over 70 percent.
But despite the left-wing company he keeps, Kirchner is at his core a die-hard Peronist, much more interested in bashing his creditors and the IMF than in devising social policy, in combating the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) than in strengthening Mercosur, in cuddling up to Morales, Castro, and Chávez than in lowering the cost of importing gas from Bolivia. No one knows exactly what will happen when Argentina's commodity boom busts or when the country is forced to return to capital markets for fresh funds. Nor does anyone really know what Kirchner intends to do when his economic recovery runs out of steam. But it seems certain that the Peronist chromosomes in the country's DNA will remain dominant: Kirchner will hand out money, expropriate whatever is needed and available, and lash out at the United States and the IMF on every possible occasion. At the same time, he will worry little about the number of Argentines living under the poverty line and be as chummy with Chávez as he can.
Chávez is doing much the same in Venezuela. He is leading the fight against the FTAA, which is going nowhere anyway. He is making life increasingly miserable for foreign -- above all American -- companies. He is supporting, one way or the other, left-wing groups and leaders in many neighboring countries. He has established a strategic alliance with Havana that includes the presence of nearly 20,000 Cuban teachers, doctors, and cadres in Venezuela. He is flirting with Iran and Argentina on nuclear-technology issues. Most of all, he is attempting, with some success, to split the hemisphere into two camps: one pro-Chávez, one pro-American.
At the same time, Chávez is driving his country into the ground. A tragicomic symbol of this was the collapse of the highway from Caracas to the Maiquetía airport a few months ago because of lack of maintenance. Venezuela's poverty figures and human development indices have deteriorated since 1999, when Chávez took office. A simple comparison with Mexico -- which has not exactly thrived in recent years -- shows how badly Venezuela is faring. Over the past seven years, Mexico's economy grew by 17.5 percent, while Venezuela's failed to grow at all. From 1997 to 2003, Mexico's per capita GDP rose by 9.5 percent, while Venezuela's shrank by 45 percent. From 1998 to 2005, the Mexican peso lost 16 percent of its value, while the value of the Venezuelan bolivar dropped by 292 percent. Between 1998 and 2004, the number of Mexican households living in extreme poverty decreased by 49 percent, while the number of Venezuelan households in extreme poverty rose by 4.5 percent. In 2005, Mexico's inflation rate was estimated at 3.3 percent, the lowest in years, while Venezuela's was 16 percent.
Although Chávez does very little for the poor of his own country (among whom he remains popular), he is doing much more for other countries: giving oil away to Cuba and other Caribbean states, buying Argentina's debt, allegedly financing political campaigns in Bolivia and Peru and perhaps Mexico. He also frequently picks fights with Fox and Bush and is buying arms from Spain and Russia. This is about as close to traditional Latin American populism as one can get -- and as far from a modern and socially minded left as one can be.
The populist left leaders who are waiting in the wings look likely to deliver much the same. Morales in Bolivia has already made it to power. López Obrador in Mexico is close. Although Humala in Peru is still a long shot, he certainly cannot be dismissed. Such leaders will follow the footsteps of Chávez and Kirchner, because they have the same roots and share the same creed. They will all, of course, be constrained by their national realities -- Morales by the fact that Bolivia is South America's poorest nation, López Obrador by a 2,000-mile border with the United States, Humala by a fragmented country and the lack of an established political party to work with.
Still, they will tread the same path. Morales and Humala have both said that they will attempt either to renationalize their countries' natural resources (gas, oil, copper, water) or renegotiate the terms under which foreign companies extract them. López Obrador has stated that he will not allow private investment in PEMEX, Mexico's state-owned oil company, or in the national electric power company. He has given away money right and left in Mexico City, financing his magnanimity with debt and federal tax revenues. Morales has deftly played on his indigenous origins to ingratiate himself with the majority of his country's population, to whom he is promising everything but giving very little. Morales and Humala have received at least rhetorical support from Chávez, and Morales' first trip abroad was to Havana, his second to Caracas. Humala, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Peruvian army, has confessed to being an admirer of the Venezuelan president. Like Chávez, he started his political career with a failed coup, in his case against Alberto Fujimori in 2000. López Obrador's deputy, certain to be the next mayor of Mexico City, has openly declared his admiration for Chávez and Castro, despite having been a high-level official under Salinas.
What will prove most damaging is that the populist left loves power more than democracy, and it will fight to keep it at great cost. Its disregard for democracy and the rule of law is legendary. Often using democratic means, it has often sought to concentrate its power through new constitutions, take control of the media and the legislative and judicial branches of government, and perpetuate its rule by using electoral reforms, nepotism, and the suspension of constitutional guarantees. Chávez is the best example of this left, but certainly not the only one: López Obrador has already committed himself to "cleaning up" Mexico's Supreme Court and central bank and opposes any autonomy for the country's infant regulatory agencies.
This populist left has traditionally been disastrous for Latin America, and there is no reason to suppose it will stop being so in the future. As in the past, its rule will lead to inflation, greater poverty and inequality, and confrontation with Washington. It also threatens to roll back the region's most important achievement of recent years: the establishment of democratic rule and respect for human rights.
RIGHT LEFT, WRONG LEFT
Distinguishing between these two broad left-wing currents is the best basis for serious policy, from Washington, Brussels, Mexico City, or anywhere else. There is not a tremendous amount Washington or any other government can actually do to alter the current course of events in Latin America. The Bush administration could make some difference by delivering on its promises to incumbents in the region (on matters such as immigration and trade), thereby supporting continuity without interfering in the electoral process; in South American nations where there is a strong European presence, countries such as France and Spain could help by pointing out that certain policies and attitudes have certain consequences.
But there is a much bolder course, a more statesmanlike approach, that would foster a "right left" instead of working to subvert any left's resurgence. This strategy would involve actively and substantively supporting the right left when it is in power: signing free-trade agreements with Chile, taking Brazil seriously as a trade interlocutor, engaging these nations' governments on issues involving third countries (such as Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela), and bringing their leaders and public intellectuals into the fold. The right left should be able to show not only that there are no penalties for being what it is, but also that it can deliver concrete benefits.
The international community should also clarify what it expects from the "wrong left," given that it exists and that attempts to displace it would be not only morally unacceptable but also pragmatically ineffective. The first point to emphasize is that Latin American governments of any persuasion must abide by their countries' commitments regarding human rights and democracy. The region has built up an incipient scaffolding on these matters over recent years, and any backsliding, for whatever reason or purpose, should be met by a rebuke from the international community. The second point to stress is that all governments must continue to comply with the multilateral effort to build a new international legal order, one that addresses, among other things, the environment, indigenous people's rights, international criminal jurisdiction (despite Washington's continued rejection of the International Criminal Court and its pressure on several Latin American governments to do the same), nuclear nonproliferation, World Trade Organization rules and norms, regional agreements, and the fight against corruption, drug trafficking, and terrorism, consensually defined. Europe and the United States have enormous leverage in many of these countries. They should use it.
Finally, Washington and other governments should avoid the mistakes of the past. Some fights are simply not worth fighting: If Morales wants to squabble with Chile over access to the sea, with Argentina over the price of gas, with Peru over border issues and indigenous ancestry, stand aside. If, for whatever reason, López Obrador wants to build a bullet train from Mexico City to the U.S. border, live and let live. If Chávez really wants to acquire nuclear technology from Argentina, let him, as long as he does it under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision and safeguards. Under no circumstances should anyone accept the division of the hemisphere into two camps -- for the United States, against the United States -- because under such a split, the Americas themselves always lose out. Such a division happened over Cuba in the 1960s and over Central America in the 1980s. Now that the Cold War is over, it should never happen again. So instead of arguing over whether to welcome or bemoan the advent of the left in Latin America, it would be wiser to separate the sensible from the irresponsible and to support the former and contain the latter. If done right, this would go a long way toward helping the region finally find its bearings and, as Gabriel García Márquez might put it, end its hundreds of years of solitude.
By Jorge G. Castañeda
From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006
Link: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060501faessay85302/jorge-g-castaneda/latin-america-s-left-turn.htm
Summary: With all the talk of Latin America's turn to the left, few have noticed that there are really two lefts in the region. One has radical roots but is now open-minded and modern; the other is close-minded and stridently populist. Rather than fretting over the left's rise in general, the rest of the world should focus on fostering the former rather than the latter -- because it is exactly what Latin America needs.
JORGE G. CASTAÑEDA is the author of Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War and Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara. Having resigned as Mexico's Foreign Minister in 2003, he is currently Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.
A TALE OF TWO LEFTS
Just over a decade ago, Latin America seemed poised to begin a virtuous cycle of economic progress and improved democratic governance, overseen by a growing number of centrist technocratic governments. In Mexico, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, buttressed by the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, was ready for his handpicked successor to win the next presidential election. Former Finance Minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso was about to beat out the radical labor leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the presidency of Brazil. Argentine President Carlos Menem had pegged the peso to the dollar and put his populist Peronist legacy behind him. And at the invitation of President Bill Clinton, Latin American leaders were preparing to gather in Miami for the Summit of the Americas, signaling an almost unprecedented convergence between the southern and northern halves of the Western Hemisphere.
What a difference ten years can make. Although the region has just enjoyed its best two years of economic growth in a long time and real threats to democratic rule are few and far between, the landscape today is transformed. Latin America is swerving left, and distinct backlashes are under way against the predominant trends of the last 15 years: free-market reforms, agreement with the United States on a number of issues, and the consolidation of representative democracy. This reaction is more politics than policy, and more nuanced than it may appear. But it is real.
Starting with Hugo Chávez's victory in Venezuela eight years ago and poised to culminate in the possible election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico's July 2 presidential contest, a wave of leaders, parties, and movements generically labeled "leftist" have swept into power in one Latin American country after another. After Chávez, it was Lula and the Workers' Party in Brazil, then Néstor Kirchner in Argentina and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay, and then, earlier this year, Evo Morales in Bolivia. If the long shot Ollanta Humala wins the April presidential election in Peru and López Obrador wins in Mexico, it will seem as if a veritable left-wing tsunami has hit the region. Colombia and Central America are the only exceptions, but even in Nicaragua, the possibility of a win by Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega cannot be dismissed.
The rest of the world has begun to take note of this left-wing resurgence, with concern and often more than a little hysteria. But understanding the reasons behind these developments requires recognizing that there is not one Latin American left today; there are two. One is modern, open-minded, reformist, and internationalist, and it springs, paradoxically, from the hard-core left of the past. The other, born of the great tradition of Latin American populism, is nationalist, strident, and close-minded. The first is well aware of its past mistakes (as well as those of its erstwhile role models in Cuba and the Soviet Union) and has changed accordingly. The second, unfortunately, has not.
UTOPIA REDEFINED
The reasons for Latin America's turn to the left are not hard to discern. Along with many other commentators and public intellectuals, I started detecting those reasons nearly fifteen years ago, and I recorded them in my book Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War, which made several points. The first was that the fall of the Soviet Union would help the Latin American left by removing its geopolitical stigma. Washington would no longer be able to accuse any left-of-center regime in the region of being a "Soviet beachhead" (as it had every such government since it fomented the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz's administration in Guatemala in 1954); left-wing governments would no longer have to choose between the United States and the Soviet Union, because the latter had simply disappeared.
The second point was that regardless of the success or failure of economic reforms in the 1990s and the discrediting of traditional Latin American economic policies, Latin America's extreme inequality (Latin America is the world's most unequal region), poverty, and concentration of wealth, income, power, and opportunity meant that it would have to be governed from the left of center. The combination of inequality and democracy tends to cause a movement to the left everywhere. This was true in western Europe from the end of the nineteenth century until after World War II; it is true today in Latin America. The impoverished masses vote for the type of policies that, they hope, will make them less poor.
Third, the advent of widespread democratization and the consolidation of democratic elections as the only road to power would, sooner or later, lead to victories for the left -- precisely because of the social, demographic, and ethnic configuration of the region. In other words, even without the other proximate causes, Latin America would almost certainly have tilted left.
This forecast became all the more certain once it became evident that the economic, social, and political reforms implemented in Latin America starting in the mid-1980s had not delivered on their promises. With the exception of Chile, which has been governed by a left-of-center coalition since 1989, the region has had singularly unimpressive economic growth rates. They remain well below those of the glory days of the region's development (1940-80) and also well below those of other developing nations -- China, of course, but also India, Malaysia, Poland, and many others. Between 1940 and 1980, Brazil and Mexico, for example, averaged six percent growth per year; from 1980 to 2000, their growth rates were less than half that. Low growth rates have meant the persistence of dismal poverty, inequality, high unemployment, a lack of competitiveness, and poor infrastructure. Democracy, although welcomed and supported by broad swaths of Latin American societies, did little to eradicate the region's secular plagues: corruption, a weak or nonexistent rule of law, ineffective governance, and the concentration of power in the hands of a few. And despite hopes that relations with the United States would improve, they are worse today than at any other time in recent memory, including the 1960s (an era defined by conflicts over Cuba) and the 1980s (defined by the Central American wars and Ronald Reagan's "contras").
But many of us who rightly foretold the return of the left were at least partly wrong about the kind of left that would emerge. We thought -- perhaps naively -- that the aggiornamento of the left in Latin America would rapidly and neatly follow that of socialist parties in France and Spain and of New Labour in the United Kingdom. In a few cases, this occurred -- Chile certainly, Brazil tenuously. But in many others, it did not.
One reason for our mistake was that the collapse of the Soviet Union did not bring about the collapse of its Latin American equivalent, Cuba, as many expected it would. Although the links and subordination of many left-wing parties to Havana have had few domestic electoral implications (and Washington has largely stopped caring anyway), the left's close ties to and emotional dependency on Fidel Castro became an almost insurmountable obstacle to its reconstruction on many issues. But the more fundamental explanation has to do with the roots of many of the movements that are now in power. Knowing where left-wing leaders and parties come from -- in particular, which of the two strands of the left in Latin American history they are a part of -- is critical to understanding who they are and where they are going.
ORIGINS OF THE SPECIES
The left -- defined as that current of thought, politics, and policy that stresses social improvements over macroeconomic orthodoxy, egalitarian distribution of wealth over its creation, sovereignty over international cooperation, democracy (at least when in opposition, if not necessarily once in power) over governmental effectiveness -- has followed two different paths in Latin America. One left sprang up out of the Communist International and the Bolshevik Revolution and has followed a path similar to that of the left in the rest of the world. The Chilean, Uruguayan, Brazilian, Salvadoran, and, before Castro's revolution, Cuban Communist Parties, for example, obtained significant shares of the popular vote at one point or another, participated in "popular front" or "national unity" governments in the 1930s and 1940s, established a solid presence in organized labor, and exercised significant influence in academic and intellectual circles.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, these parties had lost most of their prestige and combativeness. Their corruption, submission to Moscow, accommodation with sitting governments, and assimilation by local power elites had largely discredited them in the eyes of the young and the radical. But the Cuban Revolution brought new life to this strain of the left. In time, groups descended from the old communist left fused with Havana-inspired guerrilla bands. There were certainly some tensions. Castro accused the leader of the Bolivian Communist Party of betraying Che Guevara and leading him to his death in Bolivia in 1967; the Uruguayan and Chilean Communist Parties (the region's strongest) never supported the local Castroist armed groups. Yet thanks to the passage of time, to Soviet and Cuban understanding, and to the sheer weight of repression generated by military coups across the hemisphere, the Castroists and Communists all came together -- and they remain together today.
The origin of the other Latin American left is peculiarly Latin American. It arose out of the region's strange contribution to political science: good old-fashioned populism. Such populism has almost always been present almost everywhere in Latin America. It is frequently in power, or close to it. It claims as its founders historical icons of great mythical stature, from Peru's Vìctor Raúl Haya de la Torre and Colombia's Jorge Gaitán (neither made it to office) to Mexico's Lázaro Cárdenas and Brazil's Getúlio Vargas, both foundational figures in their countries' twentieth-century history, and to Argentina's Juan Perón and Ecuador's José Velasco Ibarra. The list is not exhaustive, but it is illustrative: many of these nations' founding-father equivalents were seen in their time and are still seen now as noble benefactors of the working class. They made their mark on their nations, and their followers continue to pay tribute to them. Among many of these countries' poor and dispossessed, they inspire respect, even adulation, to this day.
These populists are representative of a very different left -- often virulently anticommunist, always authoritarian in one fashion or another, and much more interested in policy as an instrument for attaining and conserving power than in power as a tool for making policy. They did do things for the poor -- Perón and Vargas mainly for the urban proletariat, Cárdenas for the Mexican peasantry -- but they also created the corporatist structures that have since plagued the political systems, as well as the labor and peasant movements, in their countries. They nationalized large sectors of their countries' economies, extending well beyond the so-called commanding heights, by targeting everything in sight: oil (Cárdenas in Mexico), railroads (Perón in Argentina), steel (Vargas in Brazil), tin (Victor Paz Estenssoro in Bolivia), copper (Juan Velasco Alvarado in Peru). They tended to cut sweetheart deals with the budding local business sector, creating the proverbial crony capitalism that was decried much later. Their justifications for such steps were always superficially ideological (nationalism, economic development) but at bottom pragmatic: they needed money to give away but did not like taxes. They squared that circle by capturing natural-resource or monopoly rents, which allowed them to spend money on the descamisados, the "shirtless," without raising taxes on the middle class. When everything else fails, the thinking went, spend money.
The ideological corollary to this bizarre blend of inclusion of the excluded, macroeconomic folly, and political staying power (Perón was the dominant figure in Argentine politics from 1943 through his death in 1974, the Cárdenas dynasty is more present than ever in Mexican politics) was virulent, strident nationalism. Perón was elected president in 1946 with the slogan "Braden or Perón" (Spruille Braden was then the U.S. ambassador to Buenos Aires). When Vargas committed suicide in 1954, he darkly insinuated that he was a victim of American imperialism. Such nationalism was more than rhetorical. In regimes whose domestic policy platform was strictly power-driven and pragmatic, it was the agenda.
These two subspecies of the Latin American left have always had an uneasy relationship. On occasion they have worked together, but at other times they have been at war, as when Perón returned from exile in June 1973 and promptly massacred a fair share of the Argentine radical left. In some countries, the populist left simply devoured the other one, although peacefully and rather graciously: in Mexico in the late 1980s, the tiny Communist Party disappeared, and former PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) members, such as Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, and the current presidential front-runner, López Obrador, took over everything from its buildings and finances to its congressional representation and relations with Cuba to form the left-wing PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution).
More recently, something funny has happened to both kinds of leftist movements on their way back to power. The communist, socialist, and Castroist left, with a few exceptions, has been able to reconstruct itself, thanks largely to an acknowledgment of its failures and those of its erstwhile models. Meanwhile, the populist left -- with an approach to power that depends on giving away money, a deep attachment to the nationalist fervor of another era, and no real domestic agenda -- has remained true to itself. The latter perseveres in its cult of the past: it waxes nostalgic about the glory days of Peronism, the Mexican Revolution, and, needless to say, Castro. The former, familiar with its own mistakes, defeats, and tragedies, and keenly aware of the failures of the Soviet Union and Cuba, has changed its colors.
CASTRO'S UNLIKELY HEIRS
When the reformed communist left has reached office in recent years, its economic policies have been remarkably similar to those of its immediate predecessors, and its respect for democracy has proved full-fledged and sincere. Old-school anti-Americanism has been tempered by years of exile, realism, and resignation.
The best examples of the reconstructed, formerly radical left are to be found in Chile, Uruguay, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Brazil. This left emphasizes social policy -- education, antipoverty programs, health care, housing -- but within a more or less orthodox market framework. It usually attempts to deepen and broaden democratic institutions. On occasion, Latin America's age-old vices -- corruption, a penchant for authoritarian rule -- have led it astray. It disagrees with the United States frequently but rarely takes matters to the brink.
In Chile, former President Ricardo Lagos and his successor, Michelle Bachelet, both come from the old Socialist Party (Lagos from its moderate wing, Bachelet from the less temperate faction). Their left-wing party has governed for 16 consecutive years, in a fruitful alliance with the Christian Democrats. This alliance has made Chile a true model for the region. Under its stewardship, the country has enjoyed high rates of economic growth; significant reductions in poverty; equally significant improvements in education, housing, and infrastructure; a slight drop in inequality; a deepening of democracy and the dismantling of Augusto Pinochet's political legacy; a settling of accounts (although not of scores) regarding human rights violations of the past; and, last but not at all least, a strong, mature relationship with the United States, including a free-trade agreement signed by George W. Bush and ratified by the U.S. Congress and Washington's support for the Chilean candidate to head the Organization of American States. U.S.-Chilean ties have continued to prosper despite Chile's unambiguous opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the UN Security Council in 2003.
In Uruguay, Vázquez ran for president twice before finally winning a little more than a year ago. His coalition has always been the same: the old Uruguayan Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and many former Marxist Tupamaro guerrillas, who made history in the 1960s and 1970s by, among other things, kidnapping and executing CIA station chief Dan Mitrione in Montevideo in 1970 and being featured in Costa-Gavras' 1973 film State of Siege. There was reason to expect Vázquez to follow a radical line once elected -- but history once again trumped ideology. Although Vázquez has restored Uruguay's relations with Cuba and every now and then rails against neoliberalism and Bush, he has also negotiated an investment-protection agreement with the United States, sent his finance minister to Washington to explore the possibility of forging a free-trade agreement, and stood up to the "antiglobalization, politically correct" groups in neighboring Argentina on the construction of two enormous wood-pulp mills in the Uruguay River estuary. He refused to attend Morales' inauguration as president of Bolivia and has threatened to veto a bill legalizing abortion if it gets to his desk. His government is, on substance if not on rhetoric, as economically orthodox as any other. And with good reason: a country of 3.5 million inhabitants with the lowest poverty rate and the least inequality in Latin America should not mess with its relative success.
Brazil is a different story, but not a diametrically opposed one. Even before his inauguration in 2003, Lula had indicated that he would follow most of his predecessor's macroeconomic policies and comply with the fiscal and monetary targets agreed on with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He has done so, achieving impressive results in economic stability (Brazil continues to generate a hefty fiscal surplus every year), but GDP growth has been disappointing, as have employment levels and social indicators. Lula has tried to compensate for his macroeconomic orthodoxy with innovative social initiatives (particularly his "Zero Hunger" drive and land reform). At the end of the day, however, perhaps his most important achievement on this front will be the generalization of the Bolsa Familia (Family Fund) initiative, which was copied directly from the antipoverty program of Mexican Presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox. This is a successful, innovative welfare program, but as neoliberal and scantly revolutionary as one can get.
On foreign policy, Brazil, like just about every Latin American country, has had its run-ins with the Bush administration, over issues including trade, UN reform, and how to deal with Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela. But perhaps the best metaphor for the current state of U.S.-Brazilian relations today was the scene in Brasilia last November, when Lula welcomed Bush at his home, while across the street demonstrators from his own party burned the U.S. president in effigy.
The Workers' Party, which Lula founded in 1980 after a long metalworkers' strike in the industrial outskirts of São Paulo, has largely followed him on the road toward social democracy. Many of the more radical cadres of the party, or at least those with the most radical histories (such as José Genoino and José Dirceu), have become moderate reformist leaders, despite their pasts and their lingering emotional devotion to Cuba. (Lula shares this devotion, and yet it has not led him to subservience to Castro: when Lula visited Havana in 2004, Castro wanted to hold a mass rally at the Plaza de la Revolución; instead, Castro got a 24-hour in-and-out visit from the Brazilian president, with almost no public exposure.) Lula and many of his comrades are emblematic of the transformation of the old, radical, guerrilla-based, Castroist or communist left. Granted, the conversion is not complete: the corruption scandals that have rocked Brazil's government have more to do with a certain neglect of democratic practices than with any personal attempt at enrichment. Still, the direction in which Lula and his allies are moving is clear.
Overall, this makeover of the radical left is good for Latin America. Given the region's inequality, poverty, still-weak democratic tradition, and unfinished nation building, this left offers precisely what is needed for good governance in the region. If Chile is any example, this left's path is the way out of poverty, authoritarian rule, and, eventually, inequality. This left is also a viable, sensitive, and sensible alternative to the other left -- the one that speaks loudly but carries a very small social stick.
POPULISM REDUX
The leftist leaders who have arisen from a populist, nationalist past with few ideological underpinnings -- Chávez with his military background, Kirchner with his Peronist roots, Morales with his coca-leaf growers' militancy and agitprop, López Obrador with his origins in the PRI -- have proved much less responsive to modernizing influences. For them, rhetoric is more important than substance, and the fact of power is more important than its responsible exercise. The despair of poor constituencies is a tool rather than a challenge, and taunting the United States trumps promoting their countries' real interests in the world. The difference is obvious: Chávez is not Castro; he is Perón with oil. Morales is not an indigenous Che; he is a skillful and irresponsible populist. López Obrador is neither Lula nor Chávez; he comes straight from the PRI of Luis Echeverrìa, Mexico's president from 1970 to 1976, from which he learned how to be a cash-dispensing, authoritarian-inclined populist. Kirchner is a true-blue Peronist, and proud of it.
For all of these leaders, economic performance, democratic values, programmatic achievements, and good relations with the United States are not imperatives but bothersome constraints that miss the real point. They are more intent on maintaining popularity at any cost, picking as many fights as possible with Washington, and getting as much control as they can over sources of revenue, including oil, gas, and suspended foreign-debt payments.
Argentina's Kirchner is a classic (although somewhat ambiguous) case. Formerly the governor of a small province at the end of the world, he was elected in the midst of a monumental economic crisis and has managed to bring his country out of it quite effectively. Inflation has been relatively controlled, growth is back, and interest rates have fallen. Kirchner also renegotiated Argentina's huge foreign debt skillfully, if perhaps a bit too boldly. He has gone further than his predecessors in settling past grievances, particularly regarding the "dirty war" that the military and his Peronist colleagues waged in the 1970s. He has become a darling of the left and seems to be on a roll, with approval ratings of over 70 percent.
But despite the left-wing company he keeps, Kirchner is at his core a die-hard Peronist, much more interested in bashing his creditors and the IMF than in devising social policy, in combating the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) than in strengthening Mercosur, in cuddling up to Morales, Castro, and Chávez than in lowering the cost of importing gas from Bolivia. No one knows exactly what will happen when Argentina's commodity boom busts or when the country is forced to return to capital markets for fresh funds. Nor does anyone really know what Kirchner intends to do when his economic recovery runs out of steam. But it seems certain that the Peronist chromosomes in the country's DNA will remain dominant: Kirchner will hand out money, expropriate whatever is needed and available, and lash out at the United States and the IMF on every possible occasion. At the same time, he will worry little about the number of Argentines living under the poverty line and be as chummy with Chávez as he can.
Chávez is doing much the same in Venezuela. He is leading the fight against the FTAA, which is going nowhere anyway. He is making life increasingly miserable for foreign -- above all American -- companies. He is supporting, one way or the other, left-wing groups and leaders in many neighboring countries. He has established a strategic alliance with Havana that includes the presence of nearly 20,000 Cuban teachers, doctors, and cadres in Venezuela. He is flirting with Iran and Argentina on nuclear-technology issues. Most of all, he is attempting, with some success, to split the hemisphere into two camps: one pro-Chávez, one pro-American.
At the same time, Chávez is driving his country into the ground. A tragicomic symbol of this was the collapse of the highway from Caracas to the Maiquetía airport a few months ago because of lack of maintenance. Venezuela's poverty figures and human development indices have deteriorated since 1999, when Chávez took office. A simple comparison with Mexico -- which has not exactly thrived in recent years -- shows how badly Venezuela is faring. Over the past seven years, Mexico's economy grew by 17.5 percent, while Venezuela's failed to grow at all. From 1997 to 2003, Mexico's per capita GDP rose by 9.5 percent, while Venezuela's shrank by 45 percent. From 1998 to 2005, the Mexican peso lost 16 percent of its value, while the value of the Venezuelan bolivar dropped by 292 percent. Between 1998 and 2004, the number of Mexican households living in extreme poverty decreased by 49 percent, while the number of Venezuelan households in extreme poverty rose by 4.5 percent. In 2005, Mexico's inflation rate was estimated at 3.3 percent, the lowest in years, while Venezuela's was 16 percent.
Although Chávez does very little for the poor of his own country (among whom he remains popular), he is doing much more for other countries: giving oil away to Cuba and other Caribbean states, buying Argentina's debt, allegedly financing political campaigns in Bolivia and Peru and perhaps Mexico. He also frequently picks fights with Fox and Bush and is buying arms from Spain and Russia. This is about as close to traditional Latin American populism as one can get -- and as far from a modern and socially minded left as one can be.
The populist left leaders who are waiting in the wings look likely to deliver much the same. Morales in Bolivia has already made it to power. López Obrador in Mexico is close. Although Humala in Peru is still a long shot, he certainly cannot be dismissed. Such leaders will follow the footsteps of Chávez and Kirchner, because they have the same roots and share the same creed. They will all, of course, be constrained by their national realities -- Morales by the fact that Bolivia is South America's poorest nation, López Obrador by a 2,000-mile border with the United States, Humala by a fragmented country and the lack of an established political party to work with.
Still, they will tread the same path. Morales and Humala have both said that they will attempt either to renationalize their countries' natural resources (gas, oil, copper, water) or renegotiate the terms under which foreign companies extract them. López Obrador has stated that he will not allow private investment in PEMEX, Mexico's state-owned oil company, or in the national electric power company. He has given away money right and left in Mexico City, financing his magnanimity with debt and federal tax revenues. Morales has deftly played on his indigenous origins to ingratiate himself with the majority of his country's population, to whom he is promising everything but giving very little. Morales and Humala have received at least rhetorical support from Chávez, and Morales' first trip abroad was to Havana, his second to Caracas. Humala, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Peruvian army, has confessed to being an admirer of the Venezuelan president. Like Chávez, he started his political career with a failed coup, in his case against Alberto Fujimori in 2000. López Obrador's deputy, certain to be the next mayor of Mexico City, has openly declared his admiration for Chávez and Castro, despite having been a high-level official under Salinas.
What will prove most damaging is that the populist left loves power more than democracy, and it will fight to keep it at great cost. Its disregard for democracy and the rule of law is legendary. Often using democratic means, it has often sought to concentrate its power through new constitutions, take control of the media and the legislative and judicial branches of government, and perpetuate its rule by using electoral reforms, nepotism, and the suspension of constitutional guarantees. Chávez is the best example of this left, but certainly not the only one: López Obrador has already committed himself to "cleaning up" Mexico's Supreme Court and central bank and opposes any autonomy for the country's infant regulatory agencies.
This populist left has traditionally been disastrous for Latin America, and there is no reason to suppose it will stop being so in the future. As in the past, its rule will lead to inflation, greater poverty and inequality, and confrontation with Washington. It also threatens to roll back the region's most important achievement of recent years: the establishment of democratic rule and respect for human rights.
RIGHT LEFT, WRONG LEFT
Distinguishing between these two broad left-wing currents is the best basis for serious policy, from Washington, Brussels, Mexico City, or anywhere else. There is not a tremendous amount Washington or any other government can actually do to alter the current course of events in Latin America. The Bush administration could make some difference by delivering on its promises to incumbents in the region (on matters such as immigration and trade), thereby supporting continuity without interfering in the electoral process; in South American nations where there is a strong European presence, countries such as France and Spain could help by pointing out that certain policies and attitudes have certain consequences.
But there is a much bolder course, a more statesmanlike approach, that would foster a "right left" instead of working to subvert any left's resurgence. This strategy would involve actively and substantively supporting the right left when it is in power: signing free-trade agreements with Chile, taking Brazil seriously as a trade interlocutor, engaging these nations' governments on issues involving third countries (such as Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela), and bringing their leaders and public intellectuals into the fold. The right left should be able to show not only that there are no penalties for being what it is, but also that it can deliver concrete benefits.
The international community should also clarify what it expects from the "wrong left," given that it exists and that attempts to displace it would be not only morally unacceptable but also pragmatically ineffective. The first point to emphasize is that Latin American governments of any persuasion must abide by their countries' commitments regarding human rights and democracy. The region has built up an incipient scaffolding on these matters over recent years, and any backsliding, for whatever reason or purpose, should be met by a rebuke from the international community. The second point to stress is that all governments must continue to comply with the multilateral effort to build a new international legal order, one that addresses, among other things, the environment, indigenous people's rights, international criminal jurisdiction (despite Washington's continued rejection of the International Criminal Court and its pressure on several Latin American governments to do the same), nuclear nonproliferation, World Trade Organization rules and norms, regional agreements, and the fight against corruption, drug trafficking, and terrorism, consensually defined. Europe and the United States have enormous leverage in many of these countries. They should use it.
Finally, Washington and other governments should avoid the mistakes of the past. Some fights are simply not worth fighting: If Morales wants to squabble with Chile over access to the sea, with Argentina over the price of gas, with Peru over border issues and indigenous ancestry, stand aside. If, for whatever reason, López Obrador wants to build a bullet train from Mexico City to the U.S. border, live and let live. If Chávez really wants to acquire nuclear technology from Argentina, let him, as long as he does it under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision and safeguards. Under no circumstances should anyone accept the division of the hemisphere into two camps -- for the United States, against the United States -- because under such a split, the Americas themselves always lose out. Such a division happened over Cuba in the 1960s and over Central America in the 1980s. Now that the Cold War is over, it should never happen again. So instead of arguing over whether to welcome or bemoan the advent of the left in Latin America, it would be wiser to separate the sensible from the irresponsible and to support the former and contain the latter. If done right, this would go a long way toward helping the region finally find its bearings and, as Gabriel García Márquez might put it, end its hundreds of years of solitude.
quarta-feira, abril 26, 2006
71) Emb. Marcos de Azambuja: conferência sobre política externa
CONFERÊNCIA INSTITUTO TANCREDO NEVES / abril de 06
Embaixador Marcos Castríoto de Azambuja
1) Minhas premissas – e elas servirão como fio condutor deste papel - são as de que a política externa brasileira tem uma longa trajetória marcada pela racionalidade e pela prudência e o Itamaraty - instrumento principal de sua execução - uma reputação consolidada de eficácia e profissionalismo.
2) Admitidas essas premissas pareceria evidente que a continuidade e atualização das grandes linhas da política externa do Brasil e o fortalecimento de seu braço executor devam ser objetivos que interessam ao país em seu conjunto e às diferentes correntes políticas através das quais se organiza a vida política nacional.
3) Farei assim – e em primeiro lugar - a defesa de que o tratamento das grandes questões de política externa continue a se fazer – para alem de interesses setoriais ou partidários - pela identificação segura e serena de objetivos nacionais - permanentes e circunstanciais - em torno dos quais seja possível criar, sempre que possível, um amplo consenso reunindo as grandes tendências culturais, econômicas, políticas e sociais do nosso país.
4) Apesar de estar falando hoje no Instituto Tancredo Neves, não seria defensor de uma política externa para o Brasil que pudesse ser rotulada como uma “política do PFL”. Isso se aplica, naturalmente, ao PSDB, ao PT ou a qualquer outra grande corrente que pretendesse se substituir ao que me parece ser o nosso vetor central e indispensável: o de que a política externa do Brasil seja rigorosa e profundamente do Brasil no seu todo e não – exclusiva ou dominantemente - de uma das correntes ou tendências em que o país, democraticamente, se expressa.
5) O Brasil soube - e não de hoje - fazer com que sua política externa fosse uma força de aglutinação e convergência de interesses e legítimas ambições nacionais e não o terreno em que, por razões diversas, tendências e objetivos apenas sectários se manifestassem.
6) Temos sabido evitar, como regra, que a política externa seja contagiada por personalismos, voluntarismos, amadorismos, emocionalismos e vários outros “ismos” que, se tolerados, costumam fazer com que a política exterior de um país seja errática, ziguezagueante e contraditória ou, contrario sensu, rígida e inflexível e que, em decorrência, gere incertezas e desconfianças desnecessárias e contraproducentes entre vizinhos, parceiros e na comunidade internacional como um todo.
7) É preciso continuar atentos para poder reagir de forma apropriada cada vez que a política externa pareça estar sendo utilizada como instrumento através do qual se busquem essencialmente ganhos de política interna. Não sugiro – é evidente – que a política interna e a política externa sejam compartimentos estanques. Isto não é possível nem, a rigor, desejável. Há muitos terrenos em que ambas interagem com naturalidade. O que acho que se deve evitar é dissipar crédito e prestigio externos para a obtenção de pequenas vantagens políticas ou eleitorais internas com efêmeros e enganosos resultados.
8) Evito exagerar. A nossa trajetória em política externa tem tido – e não é de agora - seus equívocos e tropeços. Apoiamos muito alem do que devíamos o então colonialismo de Portugal; nosso voto na resolução sobre o “sionismo” nas Nações Unidas foi, simplesmente, um erro. Encontraria sem dificuldade não poucos outros exemplos no passado próximo ou distante.
9) Estou consciente de que uma política externa definida pela busca da consensualidade, com rigorosa execução profissional acima dos embates naturais dos jogos político-partidários apresenta, também, alguns problemas que é preciso desde logo apontar.
10) Em primeiro lugar, uma política externa, assim formulada e executada tende a ser lenta na sua resposta a novas circunstâncias e oportunidades. Embora se erre pouco, muitas vezes se demora muito a acertar. Uso, como exemplo, o fato de que o Brasil, durante muitos anos, resistiu às novas tendências internacionais para a defesa do meio-ambiente e dos direitos humanos, em parte porque continuávamos casados com idéias de repudio a quaisquer ingerências externas, mesmo depois que essas atitudes foram superadas pelo fato de que certos temas passaram a ser objeto legítimo da ação e da preocupação internacionais.
11) Vivemos anos – porque não dizer décadas – em que a política externa do Brasil sofria os constrangimentos e os engessamentos da Guerra Fria no plano internacional e os limites que impunha o autoritarismo doméstico. Hoje não poderíamos invocar - para desculpar nossos desacertos – nem essas circunstâncias nem essas atenuantes.
12) Em segundo lugar, existe sempre o risco de que um profissionalismo rigoroso possa levar a um corporativismo estéril. O Itamaraty tem que estar permanentemente atento para não transformar-se em um sistema fechado de ação e reflexão e permanecer, pelo contrário, aberto e sensível às tendências que vão sendo desenhadas, de forma irresistível pela opinião pública nacional e internacional.
13) O problema sempre residirá em conciliar tradição com inovação; estabilidade com criatividade; ortodoxia com a rápida adequação a novas circunstâncias.
14) Antonio Francisco Azevedo da Silveira, que foi Chanceler do Brasil – e nada conservador por temperamento e convicção – disse de forma memorável: “A melhor tradição do Itamaraty é saber renovar-se”. Esta indispensável conciliação entre o respeito pelas boas regras e pelos bons procedimentos e a necessidade imperiosa de ajustar o país a um mundo em acelerada mutação, faz com que a política externa do Brasil deva ser objeto de uma permanente reflexão da qual devem participar, naturalmente, governo, a oposição e todos os segmentos da sociedade civil.
15) A concepção e execução da política externa brasileira tem sido um exercício relativamente fácil. Tivemos ao longo da nossa historia sorte e juízo. Vivemos atrás de fronteiras bem desenhadas e bem definidas em relação cooperativa com vizinhos não belicosos e a nossa massa crítica desestimula veleidades agressivas e garante que tenhamos um peso extraordinário nas tomadas de decisão regionais.
16) Não estamos nem nos sentimos ameaçados pelos que nos rodeiam. Nossos gastos com defesa são muito pequenos em termos absolutos e em proporção ao nosso PIB. Espero e desejo que assim continuem a ser.
17) A América do Sul é um remanso estratégico e estamos distantes das grandes zonas de conflito e turbulências internacionais. Somos paises com uma longa história de instabilidade interna embora de bom e previsível comportamento no cenário internacional. As raras exceções apenas confirmam a regra.
18) Não precisamos falar, no nosso entorno, de uma real ou suposta liderança brasileira que, a rigor, não estamos desejosos nem a exercer nem a custear. Uma suposta liderança brasileira gera não pequeno ressentimento e desconfiança e basta deixar que os fatos da nossa geografia, demografia e poder agro-industrial, científico e tecnológico falem por si mesmos,
19) Não temos dívidas históricas a resgatar com os vizinhos. Não temos ameaças ou cobranças a fazer. É no nosso interesse coibir o comércio ilícito de bens, o tráfico de drogas e o terrorismo em todas as suas formas. Estamos, com naturalidade, do lado das boas causas.
20) O momento, contudo, requer muita sensibilidade, já que assistimos ao inicio de um novo ciclo populista na América do Sul que traz consigo uma carga de exaltação felizmente mais retórica e verbal do que real, mas que reclama de nossa parte administração cautelosa e algum distanciamento,
21) Será preciso sempre perseguir os nossos interesses estáveis e de longo prazo com paises como a Venezuela, Bolívia, Peru – onde o fenômeno populista se manifesta - sem nos identificarmos com desmandos ou excessos das lideranças atuais ou futuras desses países.
22) Sobretudo com o atual governo da Venezuela, uma prudente e cordial distancia é a melhor opção: desconfio do “bolivarianismo” de Hugo Chávez e da capacidade que o governante venezuelano tem, de promover controvérsias e polêmicas e de causar mal-estar e desconforto a seus vizinhos continentais ou hemisféricos.
23) Fizemos bem em defender a legitimidade democrática na Venezuela quando esta se viu ameaçada. Faremos melhor ao nos dissociar da retórica cada vez mais estridente de Chávez cuja administração, essencialmente incompetente, é camuflada pelo “boom” dos preços do petróleo.
24) Por seu lado nossos interesses com a Bolívia - cada vez maiores em conseqüência da presença da Petrobras a de outras empresas brasileiras naquele país e da operação do gasoduto - requerem a construção de uma relação eficaz e pragmática marcada, também, pelo necessário distanciamento de algumas posições e causas de Evo Morales.
25) Dito em outras e simples palavras, o Brasil é sócio natural e permanente de seus vizinhos, mas não é interlocutor solidário de eventuais governantes cujas agendas não nos dizem respeito e nos causam, em alguns casos, evidente embaraço e constrangimento.
26) É importante destacar o que está dito acima: um Brasil crescentemente maduro e racional terá que conviver com lideranças de rumo incerto em alguns paises próximos e terá que separar a legitimidade desses governos – democraticamente eleitos – de bandeiras e sentimentos que não são os nossos e que muitas vezes sequer nos convêm.
27) Embora prefira o conceito de América do Sul tão claro em sua definição geográfica ao de América Latina, que contém um número não-pequeno de ambigüidades, acho que não devemos repudiar essa latinidade (inclusive em sua projeção ibérica) e que devemos construir, sobretudo com o México, uma relação privilegiada.
28) Não encontramos ainda com o México o terreno comum para um diálogo construtivo. Há mal-entendidos de lado a lado e é pena que as duas maiores economias ao sul dos Estados Unidos não tenham identificado os grandes temas de aproximação. Coloco a revalorização da relação com o México no alto da agenda daquilo a que deveríamos conceder atenção especial nos próximos anos.
29) Hoje as prioridades declaradas da política externa brasileira são a América do Sul e a África. Não tenho nenhuma dúvida de que a América do Sul (ou Latina) deva ser o objetivo central das nossas preocupações já que o Brasil é essencialmente uma potência regional, embora com significativas projeções e interesses em escala mundial. A América do Sul é o nosso entorno e a nossa circunstância.
30) A escolha da África como segunda área prioritária me parece essencialmente discutível. Não porque pretenda reduzir a importância da África – sobretudo a parte ao sul do Saara para nós – mas porque não consigo atribuir àquele continente um peso maior do que a outros com pelo menos igual densidade e relevância para o Brasil em todos os sentidos.
31) A escolha da África é arbitrária e poderíamos, talvez e com tão boas razões apontar a Europa, a Ásia ou a América do Norte como áreas prioritárias de ação de nossa política externa.
32) O volume de nossas transações, interesses e intercâmbio com essas outras áreas é significativamente maior do que as que temos com o continente africano e não vejo na linha do horizonte, uma alteração importante desses fluxos que deverão manter – senão ampliar – a sua importância para nós.
33) A conclusão, portanto, é de que o Brasil deveria evitar – como regra geral - a identificação de áreas prioritárias, exceção feita àquela em que geograficamente nos inscrevemos. Será útil recordar sempre que o Brasil, como ator global não deve e não pode estabelecer hierarquias entre as diferentes regiões com as quais mantêm um relacionamento cada vez mais intenso e diversificado.
34) Ao procurar defender para a ação diplomática brasileira um sentido de inovação dentro da continuidade busco corrigir uma tendência um pouco ingênua e não menos irritante da atual administração; a de pretender-se iniciadora ou criadora de processos que já têm longa trajetória.
35) É natural que cada governo busque aparecer como inventor de algumas senão de todas as rodas. Isso é da natureza mesma do jogo e não há talvez como corrigir. Registro, entretanto, minha impaciência com um comportamento que sugere que a nossa história não conta ou não houve e que o Brasil com trajetória de mais de cinco séculos teria sido inventado ontem.
36) A política externa como expressão mesma da identidade profunda da Nação e do Estado se fortalece quando apresentada não como invenção do momento e sim como formulação atualizada de interesses e objetivos que vem de longe e vão longe e que foram amadurecidos por uma longa experiência e reflexão.
37) O fortalecimento econômico do Brasil e a sua consolidação democrática, além da prática de políticas essencialmente racionais macroeconômicas é somatório de conquistas de longo curso e que devem muito aos últimos governos brasileiros. Concentro-me neles embora muitos de nossos acertos antecedam mesmo a nossa existência como nação independente no começo do século XIX.
38) Ao Presidente Sarney se deve a aproximação com a Argentina, o desmonte dos suspeitos programas nucleares paralelos e o esboço da arquitetura essencial do Mercosul.
39) Ao Governo Itamar Franco o reforço dessas tendências e, com o Plano Real, o ingresso do Brasil no círculo dos países com conduta macroeconômica racional.
40) Coube ao Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso, em dois mandatos, através de uma vigorosa e esclarecida política presidencial dar ao Brasil uma nova fisionomia como país com aspirações legítimas e razoáveis para ascender aos mais exclusivos círculos de tomada de decisão internacionais e apresentar-nos como parceiro essencialmente confiável.
41) O Presidente Luís Inácio Lula da Silva e sua equipe puderam levar adiante essas políticas e teve ele a vantagem não-insignificante de que a oposição a seu governo nunca pretendeu retirar legitimidade de seu ativismo como ator internacional à maneira do que fizera com tanto zelo o Partido dos Trabalhadores sobre a política presidencial externa de seus antecessores.
42) O Brasil mais forte, mais estável, mais racional e mais maduro que herdou deu ao atual Presidente da República atual os meios para que, aproveitando seu temperamento expansivo, continuássemos com toda uma linha de projetos que buscam, em seu conjunto, elevar a hierarquia do Brasil na vida internacional.
43) Defendo, sem ambigüidades, a pretensão brasileira de ter um assento permanente no Conselho de Segurança e integrar um G-8 ampliado. Defendo também que o Brasil se aproxime cada vez mais da OCDE e, eventualmente, se faça membro-pleno daquela organização.
44) Minhas reservas são essencialmente de método e procedimento. É preciso que não fiquemos reféns de nossas ambições e candidaturas e que não transformemos aquilo que nos chegará, naturalmente, quando formos tudo que pretendemos ser, em um jogo oneroso e essencialmente desnecessário. Nossa diplomacia sofre, no momento, de hiper-atividade. Poderíamos e deveríamos ser mais seletivos na seleção de nossas ambições e objetivos.
45) Fico, naturalmente, satisfeito ao ver o Brasil no G-20, cuja criação tanto deve à nossa iniciativa.
46) É prestigioso também estarmos entre os quatro grandes postulantes a assentos permanentes no Conselho de Segurança. É agradável ver o Brasil, com naturalidade, ao lado de três outros pesos-pesados: o Japão, a Alemanha e a Índia.
47) Não creio que devamos insistir muito no “processo eleitoral” – por assim dizer – para o Conselho de Segurança. O que importa, certamente, é transmitir à comunidade internacional, através de um crescimento robusto, da adoção de políticas sociais apropriadas; de reforço dos direitos humanos entre nós; de busca de um desenvolvimento sustentável - com especial atenção para nossas responsabilidades amazônicas - que somos um país essencial para a construção e consolidação da paz e da segurança internacionais. Isso feito, nossas credenciais se tornarão ainda mais eloqüentes, até que, em determinado momento, sejamos convocados a assumir o lugar que nos espera.
48) Acredito que há uma outra causa que poderíamos acolher, desde já, e que seria, ao mesmo tempo, útil e virtuosa. Refiro-me a buscar para o Brasil a categoria de “investment grade” na avaliação das agências internacionais de crédito. Desejo sublinhar este ponto.
49) Nada simbolizaria melhor a nossa confiabilidade do que esse novo status, que significa que o país não representa mais, graças à previsibilidade de sua conduta, à solidez e transparência de seu comportamento um risco para os que investiram ou apostaram em nós.
50) Essa poderia tornar-se, para a próxima administração brasileira, a partir de 2007, uma bandeira e um desafio que traria enormes dividendos internos e externos e que nos colocaria onde buscamos estar: no círculo estreito dos países plenamente confiáveis em suas operações com a comunidade financeira internacional.
51) Para chegar lá, temos que abandonar tudo o que nos faz menos confiáveis e menos previsíveis. Procuro indicar, a seguir alguns outros caminhos que deveríamos percorrer a partir de 2007.
52) A política nuclear brasileira deve responder às novas inquietações causadas pelo que acontece no Irã e na Coréia do Norte, e para preservar a nossa credibilidade, devemos assinar os protocolos adicionais ao Tratado de Não Proliferação, tranqüilizando a comunidade internacional e resguardando assim o nosso programa de enriquecimento do urânio para fins exclusivamente pacíficos. A nossa transparência e a qualidade do nosso relacionamento com a AIEA devem ser preservadas com o máximo vigor.
53) É importante e urgente a revalorização do Tratado de Cooperação Amazônica (TCA). Sua sede já está em Brasília. Opera, contudo, com poucos recursos e baixa visibilidade. Deveríamos transferi-la para Belém ou Manaus, dando-lhe meios humanos e materiais adicionais e usar, no quadro da proteção de nossos interesses amazônicos, o regionalismo em contraposição ao universalismo.
54) Devíamos indicar ao Secretário-Geral das Nações Unidas que em data certa nosso contingente deixaria o Haiti, quaisquer que sejam as circunstâncias. O processo de recuperação daquele país será, na melhor das hipóteses, longo e incerto e, já dada a nossa contribuição, é hora de anunciar a partida. Talvez o fim do ano de 2007 pudesse ser uma data apropriada.
55) A diplomacia comercial brasileira tem aumentado a cada ano sua eficácia. Aprendemos a melhor defender nossos interesses na OMC e em outros foros e, dentro e fora do Itamaraty começamos a ter um know-how sobre como avançar nossos objetivos jogando melhor as cartas em tabuleiros em que antes operávamos com pouca perícia.
56) É essencial continuar a aperfeiçoar a teoria e a prática dessa política comercial que é o terreno onde enfrentamos hoje nossos principais desafios.
57) A diplomacia sozinha não é suficiente e é preciso estimular cada vez mais as parcerias com associações comerciais, com entidades públicas ou privadas e com os grandes escritórios de advocacia e consultoria que operam no comércio internacional.
58) O MERCOSUL deve ser equipado para acolher novos sócios e enfrentar novos desafios. Precisa de um grau maior de institucionalização e parece-me esgotado o ciclo em que - para que funcionasse – bastava contar com a disposição informal e flexível de seus dois grandes sócios. Há um déficit de idéias que sejam ao mesmo tempo realistas e visionárias,
59) É preciso tratar futuras possibilidades de associação – sobretudo a ALCA – com um realismo rigoroso e não sermos levados nem pela ingenuidade nem pela paranóia. Os interesses se identificam e se defendem com objetividade sem que seja preciso transformar esses interesses em causas contaminadas por considerações ideológicas em que predomine a paixão e a emoção.
60) Minhas maiores inquietações incidem hoje, contudo, sobre uma arquitetura administrativa que me parece claramente desaconselhável.
61) Há em andamento um programa de expansão dos quadros do Itamaraty, que prevê a absorção, nos próximos quatro anos, de quatrocentos novos diplomatas. Não acredito que precisemos desses números e, sobretudo, não acredito que precisemos fazer a incorporação de novos quadros nessa escala e velocidade. Temo que ocorra – em conseqüência - uma perda importante de qualidade na seleção e na formação do pessoal.
62) Não me parece que a diplomacia brasileira esteja carente hoje de números e que se deveria buscar um aproveitamento e uma qualificação profissional cada vez maior dos funcionários que já existem e não a ampliação tão explosiva de seus números.
63) Se por um lado é desejável que o acesso à carreira diplomática seja o mais aberto e democrático possível não é menos verdade que as exigências de qualificação acadêmica e intelectual não podem ser colocadas em um patamar inferior. O diplomata deve continuar a ser um agente cosmopolita do interesse nacional. Deve poder defender o Brasil em vários campos e vários idiomas e, sobretudo, no inglês que é a língua franca do nosso tempo.
64) Vejo nesse aumento exagerado e apressado de quadros, uma manifestação adicional da tendência tão característica do momento político atual brasileiro, de fazer crescer o aparelho do Estado e criar posições e vagas não requeridas pela realidade atual ou pelas mais projeções mais razoáveis para o futuro próximo.
65) Interromper logo o processo em curso e fazer com que o Instituto Rio Branco – continue a formar pequenas turmas de alta qualificação é objetivo que vai muito além de sua definição administrativa. Uma diplomacia inchada e com critérios mais frouxos de admissão e qualificação é um passo em sentido contrário à busca da excelência que temos perseguido. Ao oferecer a miragem de emprego para muitos estamos sacrificando a idéia da qualidade dos poucos necessários para que se possa conduzir bem a nossa política externa.
66) Chego ao fim destes comentários. Os termos da nossa equação fundamental continuam os mesmos: procuramos acesso aos mercados protegidos, às tecnologias de ponta e aos diretórios do poder internacional.
67)A nossa contrapartida é oferecer à sociedade internacional uma credibilidade assentada na democracia, no respeito aos contratos, na racionalidade macroeconômica e na transparência em matéria de política nuclear.
68) É indispensável prosseguir no rumo certo e dar provas permanentes de confiabilidade e previsibilidade. Não perdemos o rumo embora tenhamos perdido posições nos últimos anos para a Rússia, a China e a Índia que são aqueles grandes paises emergentes com os quais somos comparados. Não podemos nos distanciar desse pelotão cuja cadência deveria ser a nossa em crescimento, abertura e integração na economia mundial. Um nacionalismo à moda antiga; um estatismo anacrônico; uma visão simplista do conceito de soberania e a substituição de uma gestão rigorosa da coisa pública por uma retórica retumbante não nos ajudarão.
69) É com essa exortação que termino essas reflexões em que procurei me valer de uma longa experiência para antever algumas dificuldades e oportunidades futuras. É sempre mais fácil perceber o passado do que antecipar o futuro. Os historiadores acertam mais do que os profetas.
Procurei, contudo – sem fugir ao desafio do tema – identificar certas linhas de reflexão e ação que permitam que no próximo quatriênio, em matéria de política externa, o Brasil não se afaste do que tradicionalmente tem feito e abandone, sem qualquer hesitação, tudo aquilo que virou peso morto, excesso de bagagem ou resíduo descartável.
Marcos Castríoto de Azambuja
Embaixador Marcos Castríoto de Azambuja
1) Minhas premissas – e elas servirão como fio condutor deste papel - são as de que a política externa brasileira tem uma longa trajetória marcada pela racionalidade e pela prudência e o Itamaraty - instrumento principal de sua execução - uma reputação consolidada de eficácia e profissionalismo.
2) Admitidas essas premissas pareceria evidente que a continuidade e atualização das grandes linhas da política externa do Brasil e o fortalecimento de seu braço executor devam ser objetivos que interessam ao país em seu conjunto e às diferentes correntes políticas através das quais se organiza a vida política nacional.
3) Farei assim – e em primeiro lugar - a defesa de que o tratamento das grandes questões de política externa continue a se fazer – para alem de interesses setoriais ou partidários - pela identificação segura e serena de objetivos nacionais - permanentes e circunstanciais - em torno dos quais seja possível criar, sempre que possível, um amplo consenso reunindo as grandes tendências culturais, econômicas, políticas e sociais do nosso país.
4) Apesar de estar falando hoje no Instituto Tancredo Neves, não seria defensor de uma política externa para o Brasil que pudesse ser rotulada como uma “política do PFL”. Isso se aplica, naturalmente, ao PSDB, ao PT ou a qualquer outra grande corrente que pretendesse se substituir ao que me parece ser o nosso vetor central e indispensável: o de que a política externa do Brasil seja rigorosa e profundamente do Brasil no seu todo e não – exclusiva ou dominantemente - de uma das correntes ou tendências em que o país, democraticamente, se expressa.
5) O Brasil soube - e não de hoje - fazer com que sua política externa fosse uma força de aglutinação e convergência de interesses e legítimas ambições nacionais e não o terreno em que, por razões diversas, tendências e objetivos apenas sectários se manifestassem.
6) Temos sabido evitar, como regra, que a política externa seja contagiada por personalismos, voluntarismos, amadorismos, emocionalismos e vários outros “ismos” que, se tolerados, costumam fazer com que a política exterior de um país seja errática, ziguezagueante e contraditória ou, contrario sensu, rígida e inflexível e que, em decorrência, gere incertezas e desconfianças desnecessárias e contraproducentes entre vizinhos, parceiros e na comunidade internacional como um todo.
7) É preciso continuar atentos para poder reagir de forma apropriada cada vez que a política externa pareça estar sendo utilizada como instrumento através do qual se busquem essencialmente ganhos de política interna. Não sugiro – é evidente – que a política interna e a política externa sejam compartimentos estanques. Isto não é possível nem, a rigor, desejável. Há muitos terrenos em que ambas interagem com naturalidade. O que acho que se deve evitar é dissipar crédito e prestigio externos para a obtenção de pequenas vantagens políticas ou eleitorais internas com efêmeros e enganosos resultados.
8) Evito exagerar. A nossa trajetória em política externa tem tido – e não é de agora - seus equívocos e tropeços. Apoiamos muito alem do que devíamos o então colonialismo de Portugal; nosso voto na resolução sobre o “sionismo” nas Nações Unidas foi, simplesmente, um erro. Encontraria sem dificuldade não poucos outros exemplos no passado próximo ou distante.
9) Estou consciente de que uma política externa definida pela busca da consensualidade, com rigorosa execução profissional acima dos embates naturais dos jogos político-partidários apresenta, também, alguns problemas que é preciso desde logo apontar.
10) Em primeiro lugar, uma política externa, assim formulada e executada tende a ser lenta na sua resposta a novas circunstâncias e oportunidades. Embora se erre pouco, muitas vezes se demora muito a acertar. Uso, como exemplo, o fato de que o Brasil, durante muitos anos, resistiu às novas tendências internacionais para a defesa do meio-ambiente e dos direitos humanos, em parte porque continuávamos casados com idéias de repudio a quaisquer ingerências externas, mesmo depois que essas atitudes foram superadas pelo fato de que certos temas passaram a ser objeto legítimo da ação e da preocupação internacionais.
11) Vivemos anos – porque não dizer décadas – em que a política externa do Brasil sofria os constrangimentos e os engessamentos da Guerra Fria no plano internacional e os limites que impunha o autoritarismo doméstico. Hoje não poderíamos invocar - para desculpar nossos desacertos – nem essas circunstâncias nem essas atenuantes.
12) Em segundo lugar, existe sempre o risco de que um profissionalismo rigoroso possa levar a um corporativismo estéril. O Itamaraty tem que estar permanentemente atento para não transformar-se em um sistema fechado de ação e reflexão e permanecer, pelo contrário, aberto e sensível às tendências que vão sendo desenhadas, de forma irresistível pela opinião pública nacional e internacional.
13) O problema sempre residirá em conciliar tradição com inovação; estabilidade com criatividade; ortodoxia com a rápida adequação a novas circunstâncias.
14) Antonio Francisco Azevedo da Silveira, que foi Chanceler do Brasil – e nada conservador por temperamento e convicção – disse de forma memorável: “A melhor tradição do Itamaraty é saber renovar-se”. Esta indispensável conciliação entre o respeito pelas boas regras e pelos bons procedimentos e a necessidade imperiosa de ajustar o país a um mundo em acelerada mutação, faz com que a política externa do Brasil deva ser objeto de uma permanente reflexão da qual devem participar, naturalmente, governo, a oposição e todos os segmentos da sociedade civil.
15) A concepção e execução da política externa brasileira tem sido um exercício relativamente fácil. Tivemos ao longo da nossa historia sorte e juízo. Vivemos atrás de fronteiras bem desenhadas e bem definidas em relação cooperativa com vizinhos não belicosos e a nossa massa crítica desestimula veleidades agressivas e garante que tenhamos um peso extraordinário nas tomadas de decisão regionais.
16) Não estamos nem nos sentimos ameaçados pelos que nos rodeiam. Nossos gastos com defesa são muito pequenos em termos absolutos e em proporção ao nosso PIB. Espero e desejo que assim continuem a ser.
17) A América do Sul é um remanso estratégico e estamos distantes das grandes zonas de conflito e turbulências internacionais. Somos paises com uma longa história de instabilidade interna embora de bom e previsível comportamento no cenário internacional. As raras exceções apenas confirmam a regra.
18) Não precisamos falar, no nosso entorno, de uma real ou suposta liderança brasileira que, a rigor, não estamos desejosos nem a exercer nem a custear. Uma suposta liderança brasileira gera não pequeno ressentimento e desconfiança e basta deixar que os fatos da nossa geografia, demografia e poder agro-industrial, científico e tecnológico falem por si mesmos,
19) Não temos dívidas históricas a resgatar com os vizinhos. Não temos ameaças ou cobranças a fazer. É no nosso interesse coibir o comércio ilícito de bens, o tráfico de drogas e o terrorismo em todas as suas formas. Estamos, com naturalidade, do lado das boas causas.
20) O momento, contudo, requer muita sensibilidade, já que assistimos ao inicio de um novo ciclo populista na América do Sul que traz consigo uma carga de exaltação felizmente mais retórica e verbal do que real, mas que reclama de nossa parte administração cautelosa e algum distanciamento,
21) Será preciso sempre perseguir os nossos interesses estáveis e de longo prazo com paises como a Venezuela, Bolívia, Peru – onde o fenômeno populista se manifesta - sem nos identificarmos com desmandos ou excessos das lideranças atuais ou futuras desses países.
22) Sobretudo com o atual governo da Venezuela, uma prudente e cordial distancia é a melhor opção: desconfio do “bolivarianismo” de Hugo Chávez e da capacidade que o governante venezuelano tem, de promover controvérsias e polêmicas e de causar mal-estar e desconforto a seus vizinhos continentais ou hemisféricos.
23) Fizemos bem em defender a legitimidade democrática na Venezuela quando esta se viu ameaçada. Faremos melhor ao nos dissociar da retórica cada vez mais estridente de Chávez cuja administração, essencialmente incompetente, é camuflada pelo “boom” dos preços do petróleo.
24) Por seu lado nossos interesses com a Bolívia - cada vez maiores em conseqüência da presença da Petrobras a de outras empresas brasileiras naquele país e da operação do gasoduto - requerem a construção de uma relação eficaz e pragmática marcada, também, pelo necessário distanciamento de algumas posições e causas de Evo Morales.
25) Dito em outras e simples palavras, o Brasil é sócio natural e permanente de seus vizinhos, mas não é interlocutor solidário de eventuais governantes cujas agendas não nos dizem respeito e nos causam, em alguns casos, evidente embaraço e constrangimento.
26) É importante destacar o que está dito acima: um Brasil crescentemente maduro e racional terá que conviver com lideranças de rumo incerto em alguns paises próximos e terá que separar a legitimidade desses governos – democraticamente eleitos – de bandeiras e sentimentos que não são os nossos e que muitas vezes sequer nos convêm.
27) Embora prefira o conceito de América do Sul tão claro em sua definição geográfica ao de América Latina, que contém um número não-pequeno de ambigüidades, acho que não devemos repudiar essa latinidade (inclusive em sua projeção ibérica) e que devemos construir, sobretudo com o México, uma relação privilegiada.
28) Não encontramos ainda com o México o terreno comum para um diálogo construtivo. Há mal-entendidos de lado a lado e é pena que as duas maiores economias ao sul dos Estados Unidos não tenham identificado os grandes temas de aproximação. Coloco a revalorização da relação com o México no alto da agenda daquilo a que deveríamos conceder atenção especial nos próximos anos.
29) Hoje as prioridades declaradas da política externa brasileira são a América do Sul e a África. Não tenho nenhuma dúvida de que a América do Sul (ou Latina) deva ser o objetivo central das nossas preocupações já que o Brasil é essencialmente uma potência regional, embora com significativas projeções e interesses em escala mundial. A América do Sul é o nosso entorno e a nossa circunstância.
30) A escolha da África como segunda área prioritária me parece essencialmente discutível. Não porque pretenda reduzir a importância da África – sobretudo a parte ao sul do Saara para nós – mas porque não consigo atribuir àquele continente um peso maior do que a outros com pelo menos igual densidade e relevância para o Brasil em todos os sentidos.
31) A escolha da África é arbitrária e poderíamos, talvez e com tão boas razões apontar a Europa, a Ásia ou a América do Norte como áreas prioritárias de ação de nossa política externa.
32) O volume de nossas transações, interesses e intercâmbio com essas outras áreas é significativamente maior do que as que temos com o continente africano e não vejo na linha do horizonte, uma alteração importante desses fluxos que deverão manter – senão ampliar – a sua importância para nós.
33) A conclusão, portanto, é de que o Brasil deveria evitar – como regra geral - a identificação de áreas prioritárias, exceção feita àquela em que geograficamente nos inscrevemos. Será útil recordar sempre que o Brasil, como ator global não deve e não pode estabelecer hierarquias entre as diferentes regiões com as quais mantêm um relacionamento cada vez mais intenso e diversificado.
34) Ao procurar defender para a ação diplomática brasileira um sentido de inovação dentro da continuidade busco corrigir uma tendência um pouco ingênua e não menos irritante da atual administração; a de pretender-se iniciadora ou criadora de processos que já têm longa trajetória.
35) É natural que cada governo busque aparecer como inventor de algumas senão de todas as rodas. Isso é da natureza mesma do jogo e não há talvez como corrigir. Registro, entretanto, minha impaciência com um comportamento que sugere que a nossa história não conta ou não houve e que o Brasil com trajetória de mais de cinco séculos teria sido inventado ontem.
36) A política externa como expressão mesma da identidade profunda da Nação e do Estado se fortalece quando apresentada não como invenção do momento e sim como formulação atualizada de interesses e objetivos que vem de longe e vão longe e que foram amadurecidos por uma longa experiência e reflexão.
37) O fortalecimento econômico do Brasil e a sua consolidação democrática, além da prática de políticas essencialmente racionais macroeconômicas é somatório de conquistas de longo curso e que devem muito aos últimos governos brasileiros. Concentro-me neles embora muitos de nossos acertos antecedam mesmo a nossa existência como nação independente no começo do século XIX.
38) Ao Presidente Sarney se deve a aproximação com a Argentina, o desmonte dos suspeitos programas nucleares paralelos e o esboço da arquitetura essencial do Mercosul.
39) Ao Governo Itamar Franco o reforço dessas tendências e, com o Plano Real, o ingresso do Brasil no círculo dos países com conduta macroeconômica racional.
40) Coube ao Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso, em dois mandatos, através de uma vigorosa e esclarecida política presidencial dar ao Brasil uma nova fisionomia como país com aspirações legítimas e razoáveis para ascender aos mais exclusivos círculos de tomada de decisão internacionais e apresentar-nos como parceiro essencialmente confiável.
41) O Presidente Luís Inácio Lula da Silva e sua equipe puderam levar adiante essas políticas e teve ele a vantagem não-insignificante de que a oposição a seu governo nunca pretendeu retirar legitimidade de seu ativismo como ator internacional à maneira do que fizera com tanto zelo o Partido dos Trabalhadores sobre a política presidencial externa de seus antecessores.
42) O Brasil mais forte, mais estável, mais racional e mais maduro que herdou deu ao atual Presidente da República atual os meios para que, aproveitando seu temperamento expansivo, continuássemos com toda uma linha de projetos que buscam, em seu conjunto, elevar a hierarquia do Brasil na vida internacional.
43) Defendo, sem ambigüidades, a pretensão brasileira de ter um assento permanente no Conselho de Segurança e integrar um G-8 ampliado. Defendo também que o Brasil se aproxime cada vez mais da OCDE e, eventualmente, se faça membro-pleno daquela organização.
44) Minhas reservas são essencialmente de método e procedimento. É preciso que não fiquemos reféns de nossas ambições e candidaturas e que não transformemos aquilo que nos chegará, naturalmente, quando formos tudo que pretendemos ser, em um jogo oneroso e essencialmente desnecessário. Nossa diplomacia sofre, no momento, de hiper-atividade. Poderíamos e deveríamos ser mais seletivos na seleção de nossas ambições e objetivos.
45) Fico, naturalmente, satisfeito ao ver o Brasil no G-20, cuja criação tanto deve à nossa iniciativa.
46) É prestigioso também estarmos entre os quatro grandes postulantes a assentos permanentes no Conselho de Segurança. É agradável ver o Brasil, com naturalidade, ao lado de três outros pesos-pesados: o Japão, a Alemanha e a Índia.
47) Não creio que devamos insistir muito no “processo eleitoral” – por assim dizer – para o Conselho de Segurança. O que importa, certamente, é transmitir à comunidade internacional, através de um crescimento robusto, da adoção de políticas sociais apropriadas; de reforço dos direitos humanos entre nós; de busca de um desenvolvimento sustentável - com especial atenção para nossas responsabilidades amazônicas - que somos um país essencial para a construção e consolidação da paz e da segurança internacionais. Isso feito, nossas credenciais se tornarão ainda mais eloqüentes, até que, em determinado momento, sejamos convocados a assumir o lugar que nos espera.
48) Acredito que há uma outra causa que poderíamos acolher, desde já, e que seria, ao mesmo tempo, útil e virtuosa. Refiro-me a buscar para o Brasil a categoria de “investment grade” na avaliação das agências internacionais de crédito. Desejo sublinhar este ponto.
49) Nada simbolizaria melhor a nossa confiabilidade do que esse novo status, que significa que o país não representa mais, graças à previsibilidade de sua conduta, à solidez e transparência de seu comportamento um risco para os que investiram ou apostaram em nós.
50) Essa poderia tornar-se, para a próxima administração brasileira, a partir de 2007, uma bandeira e um desafio que traria enormes dividendos internos e externos e que nos colocaria onde buscamos estar: no círculo estreito dos países plenamente confiáveis em suas operações com a comunidade financeira internacional.
51) Para chegar lá, temos que abandonar tudo o que nos faz menos confiáveis e menos previsíveis. Procuro indicar, a seguir alguns outros caminhos que deveríamos percorrer a partir de 2007.
52) A política nuclear brasileira deve responder às novas inquietações causadas pelo que acontece no Irã e na Coréia do Norte, e para preservar a nossa credibilidade, devemos assinar os protocolos adicionais ao Tratado de Não Proliferação, tranqüilizando a comunidade internacional e resguardando assim o nosso programa de enriquecimento do urânio para fins exclusivamente pacíficos. A nossa transparência e a qualidade do nosso relacionamento com a AIEA devem ser preservadas com o máximo vigor.
53) É importante e urgente a revalorização do Tratado de Cooperação Amazônica (TCA). Sua sede já está em Brasília. Opera, contudo, com poucos recursos e baixa visibilidade. Deveríamos transferi-la para Belém ou Manaus, dando-lhe meios humanos e materiais adicionais e usar, no quadro da proteção de nossos interesses amazônicos, o regionalismo em contraposição ao universalismo.
54) Devíamos indicar ao Secretário-Geral das Nações Unidas que em data certa nosso contingente deixaria o Haiti, quaisquer que sejam as circunstâncias. O processo de recuperação daquele país será, na melhor das hipóteses, longo e incerto e, já dada a nossa contribuição, é hora de anunciar a partida. Talvez o fim do ano de 2007 pudesse ser uma data apropriada.
55) A diplomacia comercial brasileira tem aumentado a cada ano sua eficácia. Aprendemos a melhor defender nossos interesses na OMC e em outros foros e, dentro e fora do Itamaraty começamos a ter um know-how sobre como avançar nossos objetivos jogando melhor as cartas em tabuleiros em que antes operávamos com pouca perícia.
56) É essencial continuar a aperfeiçoar a teoria e a prática dessa política comercial que é o terreno onde enfrentamos hoje nossos principais desafios.
57) A diplomacia sozinha não é suficiente e é preciso estimular cada vez mais as parcerias com associações comerciais, com entidades públicas ou privadas e com os grandes escritórios de advocacia e consultoria que operam no comércio internacional.
58) O MERCOSUL deve ser equipado para acolher novos sócios e enfrentar novos desafios. Precisa de um grau maior de institucionalização e parece-me esgotado o ciclo em que - para que funcionasse – bastava contar com a disposição informal e flexível de seus dois grandes sócios. Há um déficit de idéias que sejam ao mesmo tempo realistas e visionárias,
59) É preciso tratar futuras possibilidades de associação – sobretudo a ALCA – com um realismo rigoroso e não sermos levados nem pela ingenuidade nem pela paranóia. Os interesses se identificam e se defendem com objetividade sem que seja preciso transformar esses interesses em causas contaminadas por considerações ideológicas em que predomine a paixão e a emoção.
60) Minhas maiores inquietações incidem hoje, contudo, sobre uma arquitetura administrativa que me parece claramente desaconselhável.
61) Há em andamento um programa de expansão dos quadros do Itamaraty, que prevê a absorção, nos próximos quatro anos, de quatrocentos novos diplomatas. Não acredito que precisemos desses números e, sobretudo, não acredito que precisemos fazer a incorporação de novos quadros nessa escala e velocidade. Temo que ocorra – em conseqüência - uma perda importante de qualidade na seleção e na formação do pessoal.
62) Não me parece que a diplomacia brasileira esteja carente hoje de números e que se deveria buscar um aproveitamento e uma qualificação profissional cada vez maior dos funcionários que já existem e não a ampliação tão explosiva de seus números.
63) Se por um lado é desejável que o acesso à carreira diplomática seja o mais aberto e democrático possível não é menos verdade que as exigências de qualificação acadêmica e intelectual não podem ser colocadas em um patamar inferior. O diplomata deve continuar a ser um agente cosmopolita do interesse nacional. Deve poder defender o Brasil em vários campos e vários idiomas e, sobretudo, no inglês que é a língua franca do nosso tempo.
64) Vejo nesse aumento exagerado e apressado de quadros, uma manifestação adicional da tendência tão característica do momento político atual brasileiro, de fazer crescer o aparelho do Estado e criar posições e vagas não requeridas pela realidade atual ou pelas mais projeções mais razoáveis para o futuro próximo.
65) Interromper logo o processo em curso e fazer com que o Instituto Rio Branco – continue a formar pequenas turmas de alta qualificação é objetivo que vai muito além de sua definição administrativa. Uma diplomacia inchada e com critérios mais frouxos de admissão e qualificação é um passo em sentido contrário à busca da excelência que temos perseguido. Ao oferecer a miragem de emprego para muitos estamos sacrificando a idéia da qualidade dos poucos necessários para que se possa conduzir bem a nossa política externa.
66) Chego ao fim destes comentários. Os termos da nossa equação fundamental continuam os mesmos: procuramos acesso aos mercados protegidos, às tecnologias de ponta e aos diretórios do poder internacional.
67)A nossa contrapartida é oferecer à sociedade internacional uma credibilidade assentada na democracia, no respeito aos contratos, na racionalidade macroeconômica e na transparência em matéria de política nuclear.
68) É indispensável prosseguir no rumo certo e dar provas permanentes de confiabilidade e previsibilidade. Não perdemos o rumo embora tenhamos perdido posições nos últimos anos para a Rússia, a China e a Índia que são aqueles grandes paises emergentes com os quais somos comparados. Não podemos nos distanciar desse pelotão cuja cadência deveria ser a nossa em crescimento, abertura e integração na economia mundial. Um nacionalismo à moda antiga; um estatismo anacrônico; uma visão simplista do conceito de soberania e a substituição de uma gestão rigorosa da coisa pública por uma retórica retumbante não nos ajudarão.
69) É com essa exortação que termino essas reflexões em que procurei me valer de uma longa experiência para antever algumas dificuldades e oportunidades futuras. É sempre mais fácil perceber o passado do que antecipar o futuro. Os historiadores acertam mais do que os profetas.
Procurei, contudo – sem fugir ao desafio do tema – identificar certas linhas de reflexão e ação que permitam que no próximo quatriênio, em matéria de política externa, o Brasil não se afaste do que tradicionalmente tem feito e abandone, sem qualquer hesitação, tudo aquilo que virou peso morto, excesso de bagagem ou resíduo descartável.
Marcos Castríoto de Azambuja
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