Latin America's forbidden debates

Dante Caputo, Project Syndicate

Twenty-five years ago, only Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela were reasonably stable Latin American democracies. Today, what might be considered electoral democracies are found throughout the region. Indeed, at no time since independence has there been such a proliferation of democracy in Latin America.

But what has been gained is never guaranteed. A military coup is not the only way to destroy a free society. As the political scientist Guillermo O'Donnell observed, democracy's flame can also be extinguished gradually when dreams of justice and social progress fail to materialize.

During the 25 years of the spectacular rise of Latin America democracy, per capita income has increased by a mere US$300. Even in Chile, which enjoyed high economic growth and cut poverty in half, and Brazil, which lowered the percentage of citizens living below the poverty line by a third during the 1990s, the concentration of wealth has increased.

This isn't for lack of structural reforms. At the same time that political changes helped spread democracy across Latin America, structural economic reforms were strengthened. Samuel Morley of the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean put together an index that graded reforms aimed at economic deregulation, trade liberalization, and opening up financial markets. Morley's index, on a scale of zero to one, stood at 0.52 in 1977, but rose to 0.82 by 2000.

Nevertheless, profound economic and political transformation in Latin America has masked a deep disparity between reforms and reality -- indeed, between hopes and their fulfillment. Although this gap endangers the future of Latin American democracy, many Latin American leaders consider it apostasy to admit that living standards are little better today than they were during the era of dictators. Their first inclination is to defend these electoral democracies on the grounds they no longer engage in killing or in torture.

But consider this: Amnesty International and the US State Department have three basic indicators of human rights -- the right to life, the right to physical safety, and the right to freedom from political persecution. They use a scale of one to five, with one representing an optimal level of human rights and five indicating conditions of general terror. During 1977, the worst year for human rights violations, the average Latin American rate of terror stood at 3.0. In 2001, after two decades of democracy, it was 2.6. By contrast, the terror index for Western Europe was 1.1.

Still, to insist that Latin American democracy has been a major disappointment would not merely be pessimistic; it would fail to recognize that the most important values of a free society include the capacity to change, to rectify, and to improve.

The problem does not lie with our shortcomings, but with the way we choose to resolve them. The role of the state, the market, and the region's place in the global economy all need urgent attention and discussion. Yet our leaders consider these subjects taboo.

Our first challenge is to recognize that electoral government has failed to lead to a true democracy of the people. Our second challenge is to find the keys to open that door.

Latin America seems to lack the will to establish a true people's democracy, and it has tied itself to a narrow market economy whose bad outcomes are readily apparent to everyone. But government has a central role to play in the debate over the creation of democracy -- one more important than its oversight of fiscal matters.

Certainly, merely returning to big government will not resolve anything, because it is inefficient and generates the opposite but equivalent imbalance. Indeed, it may be that the framework for a state that can preside over a true democracy has yet to be created.

The same may be said about the market economy. The Washington Consensus -- with its emphasis on liberalization, deregulation, and privatization -- does not forecast greater per capita income, nor does it eliminate poverty. It does, however, increase inequality. Does that mean we should abandon the market economy? No, because, simply put, political liberty cannot be separated from economic liberty.

Ensuring Latin American nations' autonomy in the global economy is yet another vital question that must be debated, because it is essential that national governments have the power to execute their citizens' will. Thus, the commercial and political aspects of government's responsibilities must be integrated. This does not require immediately creating new administrative structures, but skillful political coordination can and must be at the heart of this debate and ensuring its successful outcome.

We cannot base our actions solely on commercial will, because that limits us to operating strictly at the whims of international markets. As the political scientist Samuel Huntington has said, "Business may bring communities closer but it cannot bring them into harmony." Today, Latin American states need political agreements that protect them from becoming the victims of both North American unilateralism and the global economy.

Failure to engage in critical debates about Latin American democracy will surely provide fertile ground for reviving the authoritarian fantasies of the past. If, on the other hand, political leaders lose their fear of debating important issues, Latin America can move forward. Having won some of their freedom, Latin America's people should not be forced to pay the high price implied by their leaders' failure to open forbidden issues to debate.

The writer, a former Foreign Minister of Argentina, was director of the UN Development Program's Project on Democratic Development in Latin America.