Direct Democracy in Latin America

Full Transcript:

INTRODUCTION: 

My name ist Stephan Kyburz. And this is the Rules of the Game podcast.

Direct democracy is a powerful institution that is used in many different ways. On the one hand, it can give the citizens the power to amend legislation or even change government institutions. On the other hand, it has been employed by authoritarian regimes to consolidate political power. The particular application of direct democracy, the specific rules hence truly matter.

With Yanina Welp, I discuss different ways of how direct democratic institutions have been applied in Latin American countries – both in fundamentally democratizing processes but also power grabbing incidents. In particular, we talk about the cases of Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela, based on Yanina’s extensive research and deep knowledge. Yanina also shares her insights on how direct democracy can be a check on the power of the executive and legislative branches of government. And I also want to know what she expects from the second attempt in Chile to write a brand new constitution, that the people will decide on in a referendum in December. One remark regarding Chile: this conversation was recorded just before the new Chilean Constitutional Council was elected, that’s why we do not discuss the election results.

I wanted to have Yanina Welp on the podcast for a while, because of her specific expertise but also her talent to explain complicated matters in a clear and concise way for anyone to understand. So I am very happy to welcome her on the Rules of the Game podcast.

Yanina Welp is a Research Fellow at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Between 2008 and 2018 she was principal researcher at the Centre for Democracy Studies and co-director of the Zurich Latin American Centre, both at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. She got her PhD in Political and Social Sciences from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and a habilitation from the University of St. Gallen.

Two of her recent books are “The Will of the People: Populism and Citizens Participation in Latin America” and the “De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens Assemblies” that she co-edited with Min Reuchamps and Julien Vrydagh.

You can find all her research and contributions on her website and please follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn. I link to all references in the show notes.

I am your host, Stephan Kyburz, and this is the forty-first episode of the Rules of the Game podcast. I am a political economist with a PhD in Economics from the University of Bern in Switzerland. And I previously held positions at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Center for Global Development.

You find a full transcript of this episode on my website rulesofthegame.blog. Please send any feedback to [email protected]. If you like the podcast and want to do me a favor, please give it a 5-star rating. If you’d like to support my work, consider buying me a coffee at buymeacoffee.com and you find the link to it on my website rulesofthegame.blog.

Without further ado, this is my conversation with Yanina Welp.

DISCUSSION:

Stephan Kyburz: Yanina Welp, welcome to the Rules of The Game podcast. I’m very happy to have you on the show.

Yanina Welp: Hi, Stephan. I’m glad to be here.

Stephan Kyburz: Great. So my first question is: what is your first memory of democracy?

Yanina Welp: Well, interestingly, my three memoirs when I think on democracy are related to the World Cup 1978. I’m Argentinian. We won this World Cup and this happened in a dictatorship. The second remembering is also like the opposite of democracy is the war of Malvinas, 1982, which was to somehow pushed at the end of the dictatorship. And then 1983 the re-establishment of democracy with Alfonsín and all this big illusion on the future for the country and the process of democratization.

Stephan Kyburz: Thanks for sharing those memories. And it’s always interesting to hear from my guests that, you know, that a lot of memories are actually from times that were not so democratic, but many countries made the transition to democracy though. That’s always good to hear.

And do you think that had an impact on your career that you became a political scientist and working on democracy?

Yanina Welp: Yeah, I guess Yes, I was always quite interested in politics. I was born in the countryside in Argentina and my father was working in the countryside as agricultor, I don’t know how it is said in English, kind of small farmer, and the way in which they organized to demand how all this was working in the area came later in my reflections on how social capital is built and so on. But I think the transition to democracy had a really an effect on my understanding on what democracy means. And nowadays, when everybody is talking about the democratic backsliding, I consider really important to distinguish between different levels. You know, quite often, I listen young people especially in Europe saying this is not democracy, everything is working badly, et cetera, et cetera. And I think, yeah, maybe it’s not as it should be, but it’s also not that bad. When I was born, Perón died after a month, and then the dictatorship came and it was a very dark period in which people were not allowed to express very basic opinions. So I think this is very important to reflect on what happens to democracy nowadays and distinguish between something that works bad, but still allows for freedom of speech and organization, et cetera. And also to reflect on our own responsibility on the state of the things now. And what is a dictatorship in which all these very basic activities are not allowed.

Stephan Kyburz: I completely agree because there is very different stages of democracy and also the criticism, you know sometimes I feel like we should really appreciate what we have and especially the basic rights of being able to vote and have individual rights, human rights. I think we should really appreciate that. I’m very happy that you say that.

Today we’d like to discuss direct democracy, participatory democracy in Latin American countries. And obviously, I’m aware that this is a very broad topic and there’s so many things we could talk about, but I just wanted to give like a bit of an overview or also some interesting examples. And you have written a book recently “The Will of the People: Populism and Citizen Participation in Latin America”, where you summarize and bring really together your research on the topic and what you’ve been working on for many, many years. So maybe to start the discussion, could you give us very positive or very negative examples of direct democracy or participatory democracy? Just kind of spontaneously what comes to mind?

Yanina Welp: Well, you talk about participatory democracy. So the first thing I would like to do is to clarify a bit what we are talking about. Because when we talk about participatory democracy, we include mechanisms of direct democracy, like a referendum and initiatives, but also a very broad group of other different mechanisms that work at the local level, for instance, or in different ways, such as participatory or citizens assemblies, councils, et cetera, et cetera. And I think the mechanisms of participatory democracy such as the participatory budgeting when are well designed and work well, help the community to build social capital and the government to receive direct information to improve governance. But of course, it could also work in a bad way and just overlap with the clientelistic networks, et cetera, et cetera. And then when we talk about the mechanisms of direct democracy, referendums and initiatives, I think these mechanisms are much more powerful in terms of having an incidence in decision making. And especially when we are talking about these mechanisms at the national level to ratify a constitution, to change the law, to veto a law. And these kinds of examples. In Latin America, many countries, like in Europe I guess, had a more representative system. And after the transition, this started to change. And Uruguay is an exception. Uruguay introduced something similar to the Swiss model with mandatory referendums and citizens initiated referendums. But all the other countries did not have this kind of mechanism. But despite the regulation in general, it did not allow for these activations. Presidents activated it quite frequently. And you ask for negative examples, there are plenty of negative examples I have to say. Presidents even in dictatorship, and I think it’s well known the case of Pinochet. Probably many people think of the 1988 example, which somehow is positive despite it was activated by a dictator, because this opened the room to the transition to democracy in the country. Pinochet activated a plebiscite which was included in the 1990 constitution asking the people to ratify his continuation for eight more years, and people rejected that. So this is a kind of a borderline positive example, very strange. But as a pure negative, I can mention the one of 1978, just a kind of ratification of the country, as a country that respected human rights, which of course was not the case, not at all. And then in 1980 to approve a new constitution, the one people still trying to change in Chile in 2023. So I think Chile provides these examples. And then for a good example or positive example, I would refer the case of Uruguay in which these mechanisms, particularly after the transition, helped to add, which is in my view, the main positive outcomes when we talk about referendums, an extra space to discuss policies when people or a group of people is not happy with what the government has decided. And this happened in Uruguay many times. And I think, to a good extent, it probably explains why Uruguay is the most stable democracy in the region. There are many other reasons. But I think the mechanisms of direct democracy play an important role in Uruguay for all actors, not only for the people or civil society, also for political parties which are frequent activators of these referendums.

Stephan Kyburz: So in Uruguay, that works pretty much like a veto right on legislation like we also see in Switzerland? So legislation is passed by parliament and then the people can still activate a mechanism to stop it.

Yanina Welp: In practice, this is the case. In law not exactly, but people found a way. And as I say, because in the Latin American discussion, normally the defenders of direct democracy feel that this is a mechanism in the hands of the people. And the idea is that the ordinary citizen would be able to manage. And in my view, and this is fit by the Swiss and the Uruguayan example, but also in my view on how democracy works, is much more complicated than that, because what we have is civil society organizations and political parties. And I think this is good if they respect the rules of the game. I mean, if the rule of law is really ruling in the country. It means freedom of expression, a fair and more or less equal competition of ideas. And this is how this works in Uruguay. Yes, when the government approved something, for instance, during the 1990s, the government went into many privatizations of public enterprises and these referendums were activated in many occasions and not always the left win, I mean won, but quite often did. And I think it helps everybody, all the actors, leftist and rightist to explain and justify better why they are defending a policy. And this is the added value of this mechanism. In my view.

Stephan Kyburz: I agree with that. I think direct democracy works best if also representative democracy, if parliament works really well, right? If they can really compliment each other and if the parliament produces a lot of good laws, but obviously they are political and some are maybe not the optimal solution for society and then the people still can decide for those ones that are kind of on the balance.

Yanina Welp: I fully agree with what you say. It came to my mind something Professor Andreas Auer, a Swiss professor and lawyer, used to say, he used to say that when an abrogative referendum was activated in Switzerland, this was because the system didn’t work. But the system provides an extra opportunity for further discussion. And if the abrogation is approved, it works well, and if not, it also works well because it’s a confirmation. While some people weren’t happy with the result, meaning people or civil society organizations or parties, there was one more stage to talk about the thing and decide with a definitive decision. And this is the way in which, I think, you also would conceive direct democracy, as opening a public debate with decision making capacity.

Stephan Kyburz: Exactly. And also if the people reject something, that it goes back to parliament in a way, indirectly or directly, and has to be worked on again to find a better solution that finds a majority. I think it’s interesting that you mentioned Pinochet in 1988 who wanted to extend his tenure for another eight years and it was a top down referendum, like a recall we could say on his tenure and that could also have gone wrong. The people rejected that, right? So he couldn’t stay in power. But it could also have gone the other way.

And now Chile is in the process of writing a new constitution also with a lot of direct democratic mechanisms at work, right? So the people were able to build up enough pressure to have two referendums on whether they want a new constitution and whether there should be a constituent assembly that is separate from parliament and both was approved. And then a new constitution was written, but then it was rejected as we know last September. And now there is a new process where a group of experts appointed by the government is working on a new constitution. So how do you assess this whole process from a participatory viewpoint? What are also maybe the good and bad elements in it?

Yanina Welp: Yeah, it’s a huge and very interesting question. I will try to focus on a few points that for me are fundamental and I think there is a huge discussion also in Chile and we have more and more data to test different hypotheses. In general, I would say that there is a view that claims that the constitution was rejected because it was bad. And a second view that says that the constitution was rejected because it was not really representative because the constituents were radical, plenty of independents, et cetera, et cetera. In my view, things are much more complicated as normally. It’s not only a question of experts, clearly not, because if we think that there is a model of a good constitution, then there is no room for politics, right? We should just base our understanding on expertise and that’s it, no room for politics. But we know that politics are, or even expertises are not neutral. I mean, there are always different ideas in the room and the only way to resolve between different alternatives is democracy, is democratic politics. The only fair way to resolve that. And in terms of representativeness, the second argument against the constitutional convention, in my view, something that was a bit missed in the reflections, is that time matters and representativeness is something that is built in a process, it is not given. And I think this also maybe connects with the discussion on citizens assemblies, that nowadays this is really important in Europe. Because there are many scholars that assume that citizens assemblies are representative and legitimate because they are demographically representative. And I think legitimacy is something that is built in the political process and in the communication process. And this is what went wrong in the Chilean process. For many reasons we can discuss, I mean, the position of the big media corporations, the many mistakes the constituents made, et cetera, et cetera. And in this sense, I think we go back to one of our first points: the assumption that the system was facing a crisis of representative democracy and the solution for that was to just include more participation was basically wrong and is basically wrong for the Chilean system and for any system. Because participation and representation are just two very important components of a democratic system and not opposites at all. And in this sense, if we have, for instance, an independent selected to write the constitution, even if he or she is independent, he or she becomes a representative. I mean, he’s representing other people or is playing a role in some way of a representative. And this is part of the discussion in Chile. And I think experts also have an important role in the new constitution that is quite controversial. Because the assumption is that experts are neutral and they are not neutral. And I think an open conversation about that is relevant.

Stephan Kyburz: That question also applies obviously to citizens assemblies, I think. But that’s another topic. So you mentioned the time dimension. Even independents are political beings, right? So even independents, they build factions probably at some point in the process. And would you say that it would have been better if the election of the constitutional convention would have had more time to build the different interest groups? Or because maybe it was also kind of almost like a protest vote at that stage, right?

Yanina Welp: Yeah, I mean time matters and is an issue clearly. But with more time, I’m not sure if a different result would have been achieved. Because it’s important to understand that any political processes and a democratic innovation or the constitutional convention in this case, works in a given context. And this convention was working in the context of a new government which was also losing legitimacy during the way. And the traditional parties were taking or recovering some positions. So all this framework was also as a basement. And then in a different order, but it’s clear that the lack of experience of some members of the constitutional convention also played a role. So it’s difficult. I think time was clearly a variable to understand what happened. But with more time, I’m not sure if the result would have been different.

Stephan Kyburz: And how do you assess the new attempt? So now we are in the process, it was recently announced that there is a second attempt to write a new constitution with a group of experts appointed by the government. What do you expect from that process? And do you think, you know the first draft of the constitution had a lot of institutional questions but also a lot of political questions that were included, right? What do you think will maybe be different in the second draft?

Yanina Welp: Well, the process is quite different. First of course, as you said, it’s a commission of experts, then there will be the election of representatives to write the constitution. I mean the design of the process is quite different. Now, we have the commission of experts and there will be also elected a constitutional convention. But the forces that we can expect to be represented in the new convention are quite different than the forces that were represented in the previous one. And this, if we look at it from the perspective of what social scientists are telling us. We can see for instance, the Icelandic process, you know, like the first convention was activated very close to the social upheaval, the demonstrations, all that. Now this is far away after the pandemic, et cetera. We are going back to more stable normal politics. And I think in Iceland happened the same, you know, all this first period of mobilization that happened in 2008 then was going down and down. And this context is also playing a role in Chile now. And as I said before, the government has lost a lot of legitimacy, is also fighting to keep an agenda. The social movements also have during the first process lost some legitimacy. So I think the context is quite uncertain, I would say. And I’m afraid, I can’t say that I have a clear expectancy on what will happen now.

Stephan Kyburz: Yeah, we will all see, I will follow further this process. I had already two episodes on Chile with Claudia Heiss and Gabriel Negretto, which were really interesting discussions. So I’m really curious to see what will happen.

So you have written about many different countries in Latin America and three of them that you described in a paper are Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, where direct democracy took like a different turn. You also had these populist movements that tried to make like huge changes to the rules of the game essentially and where governments used direct democracy both to bring more participation to the citizens but mainly also to consolidate power. Can you talk about each case a little bit or do you have any common patterns that you see what really happened?

Yanina Welp: Yeah, with these three cases, which of course have many things in common but also many differences. I think it’s clear a kind of fundamental tension we have between the rule of law and the will of the people, which is also the topic of my book. And this is because liberal democracies in Latin America in many countries were built in a way in which elites protected their economical interest. So these systems or many of these systems and particularly Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela were exclusive systems. Despite the law maybe was like very close to the American model or in practice, it was easy to see and still now in other countries in Latin America that the elites were white, while most of the population was not white, political elites, universal studies in countries in which access to university was very difficult for the general population. And the same in many senses and the law in this sense, this idea of a constitution having some limitations to be not replaced, to avoid risking replacement, to avoid factions, which we can think that yes, it has sense because it provides stability. But in these countries it was operating really as a safe word, or protecting the interests of the status quo. So then when the three movements in Bolivia, Evo Morales and the MAS, in Ecuador with Alianza PAIS and Rafael Correa, and in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez and his movement appeared in the political scene. For many sectors of the population this brought a lot of hope because there was an exclusive system protecting the interest of a very small elite. However, what I described in this article is to what extent the will of the people was an appellation, a claim of these three processes to build a new power. And maybe, yes, for instance, the Bolivian case is interesting in this sense. I think if you look at Bolivia, during the MAS government, the country changed a lot in terms of development, inclusion, improving the health, education, et cetera, et cetera. So in terms of social policies, there is a huge change but in terms of political or institutional aspects, the government of the MAS was slowly or not that slowly co-optating different institutions. And as soon as the people was claiming with an independent agenda, they also repressed, and did not allow the people to have a voice. Although the case of Bolivia is particularly interesting because for instance, in 2009, the government tried to build a motorway in the middle of the natural park, the TIPNIS, and then social movements organized, and claim and protest and demonstrate and the government had to give one step back and accept the demands. So Bolivia is a case in which social movements I think keep some independence. While in Venezuela, for instance, the government of Chavez first and then Maduro, which in my view is clearly just a dictatorship and is not anymore even a populist regime, it’s just a dictatorship. They activated many times referendums, but as soon as they had the control over the political setting, institutions, parliament, et cetera, et cetera, there was no more space for citizens initiated referendums for instance. And the same happened in Ecuador. However, again, the differences between the countries. Despite the framing could be more or less the same, the outcomes are not the same. As I said in Venezuela, what we have is a dictatorship, not a closed one like in China because there is an opposition, there are some spaces, but it is a dictatorship. In Ecuador it is a kind of electoral democracy with a lot of fails. But the government, I mean, Correa nominated his successor, the successor failed to following him. And then in a new election, we have a different president. And Bolivia followed also a different path. But the conception of the will of the people or the way in which direct democracy was activated in a strategic way was similar in the three cases.

Stephan Kyburz: It’s super interesting and I will link to this paper in the show notes. I recommend people to read it because it brings in all the the dynamics, and all these populist movements that made like huge promises to the people for them to have more say and also to use referendums to approve everything and then the people kind of blindly or “semi-blindly” gave over power to those leaders. What were the reasons that the bottom-up direct democratic institutions couldn’t prevent, especially in Venezuela, that the country went completely overboard in a sense, into a dictatorship? Because the leaders suggested bottom up processes, but they were not powerful enough for the people, right? Because control in the end was with the leaders.

Yanina Welp: Yeah, it’s an interesting question. With Fernando Tuesta Soldevilla who is a professor in Peru, we edited a book in Spanish with a collection of studies trying to find out why bottom-up direct democracy was not working in the region in general. The exception, as I said, is Uruguay. And the book is called “El diablo está en los detalles”, in English “the devil is in the details”, and what we found is that there are several reasons to explain why bottom-up direct democracy is not working. And one reason is the weaknesses in the institutional designs. Now, in some countries, you have the regulation, but it’s unclear who will check when the commission wants to initiate a citizens initiative. Now in Switzerland, for instance, you don’t have constitutional control of the topic but in all the Latin American countries you do have. So the court should check if the topic is constitutional or not. But also the electoral body should control the number of signatures. And it’s unclear who will do it first. This happened in Ecuador for many years. So when an initiative arrived to the electoral body, the electoral body sent it to the constitutional court and the constitutional court said “no, first you check if the signatures are good and enough” and then I go, and they were “No, it’s yours, it’s yours”. And then it’s also related, well, the constitutional evaluation in Costa Rica, Ciska Raventós found that dozens of citizens’ initiatives were blocked because the constitutional court declared it unconstitutional. Which is also in some way, it is too much power to the constitutional authority to decide on what is constitutional or not. And then too many exceptions on what can be consulted through a referendum, which is also why sometimes a […] issue cannot be consulted. And this is common in many countries and then an extra reason which is common in these countries in which co-optation is on the table is this: co-optation. For instance, there was a recall referendum against Chavez in 2004. And after that, twice, people collected enough signatures to activate a recall referendum against Maduro in 2016 and in 2022. And both were blocked because the institutions which are in charge of controlling the process align with the government and it won’t happen, you know. So this is part of the problem, institutional designs, political will and co-optation.

Stephan Kyburz: And do you think that was intentional by the leaders? So they were kind of teasing the people to hand over power? But once the leaders knew they are in power, they can essentially ignore the rule of law, right? And that’s also what you write about in the paper.

Yanina Welp: Yeah, this is a way of conceiving power. I think it’s this illiberate way of conceiving power and it is the kind of problem with these conceptions of, I mean, with populist. But I don’t like, you know, nowadays, we are claiming that populist are everywhere. And I think, it’s sometimes the concept that is not very useful. But in any way, look at Morales also. Now, the mandatory referendum works as a referendum which can keep in a better alignment, the will of the people and the political decisions. So Evo Morales and García Linera wanted to introduce the re-election again. They had a majority in parliament so they introduced the re-election. But since 2009 with a new constitution, a mandatory referendum has to be activated to ratify that. So the referendum was activated and was rejected, was rejected! But what happened? Evo Morales asked the constitutional tribunal to interpret the law in claiming that re-election was a fundamental human right. And the tribunal said yes, re-election is a human right. So he ran again for office despite in the referendum, people said “no”. So yeah, it’s this basic idea of me in power is the best and I am the people. And if someone is against me, it’s because they are not the people.

Stephan Kyburz: I mean, that claim that comes so often right, that politicians are the people, especially in presidential systems. And that’s also an aspect, actually, I wanted to ask you. We talked about the balance between representative and direct democracy. But then also we have in all these three cases and in most Latin American countries, these are presidential systems where also in the process of changing the constitution, a lot of power was given to the presidents. Is there a way or would you say more emphasis or more discussion should be put also on the legislature, on parliament and how parliament is elected and how parliament can essentially balance those other institutions, direct democracy and the presidential system.

Yanina Welp: Yeah, two dimensions on your question. If we go back to the constitutional replacement processes in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia: the three processes are quite different in the sense that I think Ecuador and Venezuela share much more in common. In Ecuador and Venezuela, the constitution enforced when Chavez and Correa arrived to power did not include the option of calling for a constituent assembly, “assemblea constituente”. And in these two cases, the president activated a referendum claiming that the direct decision of the people was over the law, this idea of originated constituent power against the delegated constituent power. And after that, they established a regulation of the constitutional convention. In this occasion, the citizens’ assembly, which warranted them to have control over the process of writing the constitution. In Bolivia, the situation was different. First because in 2004, there was a reform that included the constituent assembly. So the referendum to enter into the process was not activated, they went direct to that. And second, because the electoral law to select the constituents did not provide the majority to the MAS, to Morales’ party. So in Venezuela and Ecuador, the process was highly controlled. And in fact, if you look at Venezuela and I think it’s in the article, it’s very interesting because they had 180 days to write the constitution and they finished much earlier, which is very unusual, you know. And this was because they were all aligned with the president in writing the constitution.

Stephan Kyburz: It’s not a good sign, usually.

Yanina Welp: It’s not a good sign. Then in Ecuador, they had internal problems because Acosta, who was the president of the constituent assembly, had a very strong position on climate change issues. And at the end he was removed from that position. But it was an internal problem, not inter-party. While in Bolivia, the process was very long because they had many fights because nobody had control over the assembly. So the process was quite different. Although at the end, in Bolivia it even ended with violence. And so I think the majorities going back to your question, this tension between presidential and parliament is different in different countries. You have different competencies for the presidents, different roles for the parliament. So, it’s not like linearly, you can say that presidential systems are the problem. I wouldn’t say that it’s not the topic of my expertise, but plenty of scholars dealing with this in Latin America and there are different views. So you have one dimension that is related to institutional designs and of course, proportional systems help to have more representation. Although you have the opposite side and, and you see that in Chile, now a too proportional system could open room for too much fragmentation and then it’s very difficult to arrive to take decisions. So then you have one part or one side that is institutional design and the other is the ability of the different groups to negotiate and arrive to an agreement. And what is failing is this conception of power. You know, it’s a kind of majoritarian conception of power in some systems, again, not in all.

Stephan Kyburz: I think it’s interesting that you mentioned the proportional system of course. And I think in Chile, you know, there was a big shift in the electoral system from their bi-modal system and then to a proportional system. But so the political landscape almost didn’t already adjust, right? And so you had a lot of independents for the constituents assembly and I’m pretty sure or I think if there would have been maybe another election or these factions would have built groups or more coherent kind of strategies, maybe then the constitution would have looked a bit different.

Yanina Welp: Yeah, this is a very good point. I mean, we don’t know, but I think the question clearly makes sense. Because if you look and, and you mentioned your interview in previous conversations, Claudia Heiss and Gabriel Negretto. Gabriel is doing a research now on the effects of the change in the voting. Now, in the entry referendum in Chile, voting was non-mandatory and 47% or, or 51, I don’t remember, but half of the electorate voted in the first round while the ratification vote was mandatory and more than 88% voted, of course, it affects a lot. So in Chile, there were many institutional changes in a short period of years and the adaptation of the different groups is still in process.

Stephan Kyburz: But would you agree that if you have a parliament that is very elitarian, that is not representing the people very well, that there is a bigger risk of a big populist or a revolutionary movement that then tries using direct democracy to overrun the system as a whole and, and go out of balance like in Venezuela?

Yanina Welp: What we see is that there are two opposite ways to arrive to a similar setting of the emergence of an anti-systemic actor. If you have the institutionalized political party system, let’s take Peru for instance, with parties that are created for each election and the survival is not warranted for the following election. You have these incentives for the radical actor or extremist populist or whatever you want to call it. But if you have a highly institutionalized system unconnected to the population, you have also this incentive. So two ways to arrive to a similar situation.

Stephan Kyburz: Would you agree that if people feel that politics is very elite driven and people don’t have control, that an important element is trying to change the electoral law and how, how parliament is representing the people because that’s so important as a stabilizing factor, right?

Yanina Welp: Yeah, I agree with the general idea. But at the same time, I feel that in the global discussion on the democratic backsliding too much emphasis is posit on the leaders, the populist right, radical, right, et cetera, et cetera and second level in institutions, you know, like electoral laws, et cetera, et cetera. And not much is on political culture and social capital. Because I mean, we as citizens, we also need to feel a responsibility with what is going on. Now, it’s like, I think in many countries, people feel like victims, nothing more than victims. And in the democratic system again, you can’t feel that, I mean, you also can do something. I mean, it’s I don’t know, it’s a reflection but I think also this needs to work because if you have it like in Chile, you know, a super proportional way with quotas for gender, indigenous movements, et cetera, indigenous population. But then it also doesn’t work because the way in which legitimacy, the policy making is built needs time engagement, compromise, is not just a question of an electoral law. It is much more than that.

Stephan Kyburz: Would you agree that in Chile, the situation is becoming more stable also due to the change in the electoral law rather than becoming unstable?

Yanina Welp: Today, I could say yes, today. But as I said before, I think in all this process time matters and there is some uncertainty. In my reading of what happened in Chile is that the 2019, the huge political demonstrations emerged not surprisingly. In the international media it was surprisingly in Chile this happened. Whoever who follows Chilean politics could see that demonstrations were coming once and again from much earlier. So it was there. And also I would like to say that Bachelet’s government tried to answer to the constitutional change demand, to the students’ demand, and she was not allowed to somehow because of the political system and for the protection of the status quo. So there is a responsibility of the political elites in general in not providing an answer. But said that, then in 2019 and 2020, the answer, I mean, arriving at an agreement and going to the plebiscite was a good answer from the political system. And after that, we entered into a new phase and probably now we are entering into a new phase, and in my view it is not negative. I would say I’m like moderately optimist with the Chilean politics.

Stephan Kyburz: That’s good to hear. I was in Chile in 2005 or 2006, beginning of 2006. And I remember before that and after there were always a lot of protests by students mainly to change the educational system. And President Bachelet, she had, you know, good intentions to change. But obviously, this is also a power struggle, right? I mean, if there are strong elites, they don’t just give up power without a fight.

Yanina Welp: Yeah, this is a kind of tragic thing. Latin American elites and maybe elites in general are not learning, you know, like opening the system is very important and their own position will be affected if they don’t do this in time. We can go back to Venezuela. “Caraço” in 1989 was the starting point for what would happen later with Chavez. So I think it’s a very clear learning unlearning point there that once and again, this happened and they are not taking this into consideration.

Stephan Kyburz: I agree. I think we could go on for another couple of hours. It’s been very interesting also, and there are things that we haven’t talked about, like, for example, the recall referendum in Peru and in other countries that has become much more important. I will link to that paper for sure. And maybe we can have another conversation at some later point. But for now, do you have any books or articles on direct democracy, participatory democracy or maybe even deliberative democracy that we haven’t really touched on in Latin American countries that you’d like to recommend?

Yanina Welp: I can suggest a Handbook that is not only in Latin America. In fact, it has only two chapters dealing with Latin America, a Handbook on Citizens’ Assemblies with Julien Vrydagh and Min Reuchamps. With many chapters dealing with democratic innovations, which are a different, I mean phase of our conversation but very relevant for the global conversation and these ideas on the will of the people, public opinion, democracy, etcetera, etcetera.

Stephan Kyburz: Thanks a lot. And for sure, I will link to your work. And I think there is a lot in Spanish but also a lot in English that is very interesting. And yeah, so Yanina Welp, thanks a lot for taking the time. Really appreciate it. And it has been a very interesting conversation for me. I’ve learned a lot. So thanks for being on the Rules of The Game podcast.

Yanina Welp: Thank you, Stephan, for the nice conversation.

Outro:

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