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Natural Corporatism and the Passing of Populism in Spanish America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Ronald C. Newton
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Extract

In the aftermath of the military revolt that overthrew the Popular Unity government of Dr. Salvador Allende in September 1973, reports began to seep out of Chile that the junta was supervising revision of the constitution in a “corporativist” sense. The structural alterations contemplated are designed, in the first instance, to ensure permanent military representation in the councils of government. However, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, head of the military junta, has made it known that the new constitution will also give a prominent place to industrial, commercial, agrobusiness, mining, and professional associations, which he terms “the authentic representatives of the people.” Such employers' and trade associations—known collectively as “gremios patronales,” to distinguish them from trade unions or “gremios de obreros” — have been in existence for many years, but a number of them experienced a sharp upsurge of political militancy in the late 1960's in reaction to what their leaders perceived as the leftward drift of the then-ruling Christian Democratic Party. Their role, under the direction of the Confederation of Production and Commerce, in arousing resistance to the Popular Unity government elected in 1970 and, ultimately, in paralyzing it before its final downfall is widely known, at least in outline.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 34 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1974

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References

1 New York Times, 10 23, 1973.Google Scholar

2 NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America), Latin America and Empire Report, VIII, 8 (10, 1973), 3–5.Google Scholar The NACLA brings a “New Left” interpretation, frequently combined with extensive research, to the Latin American scene.

3 New York Times, 10 23, 1973.Google Scholar

4 Adapted from Schmitter, Philippe C., Interest Conflict and Political Change in Brazil (Stanford, 1971), 383Google Scholar and passim. I have earlier objected to the use of “corporativism” to describe these phenomena; the objection is withdrawn. See Newton, Ronald C., “On ‘Functional Groups,’ ‘Fragmentation,’ and ‘Pluralism’ in Spanish American Political Society,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, L (1970), 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Brazil will be alluded to in passing, but the main concern of this essay is with the states of Spanish America and with a specifically Hispanic politicolegal tradition. For detailed treatment of Brazil see Schmitter, , Interest Conflict and Political Change in Brazil.Google Scholar

6 As pointed out recently by Garraty, John A. in “The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression,” American Historical Review, LXXVIII (1973), 914–15.Google Scholar

7 Lombardini, S., “Italian Fascism and the Economy,” in Woolf, S. J., ed., The Nature of Fascism (New York, 1968), pp. 156–162.Google Scholar

8 Hughes, H. Stuart, The United States and Italy (Cambridge, 1953), p. 88Google Scholar, cited by Kogan, N. in Woolf, , The Nature of Fascism, p. 17Google Scholar; anonymous reviewer in the Times (London) Literary Supplement, 03 2, 1973, pp. 225–27.Google Scholar

9 The most significant of these, perhaps, was the old Chilean Falange Nacional, which became the Christian Democratic Party in the late 1950's. With the transition the emphasis on corporatism was much diminished.

10 To my knowledge, none of the writers associated with the “New Left” have utilized the corporatist approach. The concept, however, is not inherently anti-Marxist, nor an “alternative to Marxism,” as the ideology has of course been.

11 Most are represented in the present collection and citations thereto. I should, however, like to acknowledge my own intellectual debt to a number of authors—Gino Germani, L. N. McAlister, Richard Morse, K. H. Silvert—who are not.

12 It is also likely that some scholars first became aware of the possibilities of the corporatist approach through examination of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional)-dominated post-Cárdenas Mexican system, which Robert Scott has long since identified as and described in terms of “corporative centralism” (Mexican Government in Transition [Urbana, 1959], pp. 162–176).Google Scholar Though not conspicuous for popular participation nor adherence to the conventions of representative democracy, the Mexican system, by the criterion of effectiveness, is clearly a success. The PRI's party and national executives have been able to contain the divisive importunities of the organized interests represented through the “sectors”; prolonged stability has permitted the regime to pursue its long-term developmental goals. But the present-day Mexican sociopolitical structure is the precipitate of the processes of the Revolution, and has no analogue elsewhere in Latin America.

13 For a fuller treatment see my 1970 essay cited in note 4.

14 In my earlier essay, I suggested that natural corporatism was also limited by a second set of factors: the existence of durable and viable structures of interest aggregation, the party system and legislature. As examples, I offered in 1970 Uruguay and Chile. In 1973 this no longer applies. Of the major states, only Venezuela and Colombia retain any vestiges of conventional systems.

15 The failure to see that in industrialized society most secondary structures are of necessity “mechanical” and bureaucratized, are not and cannot be social solidarities, is, it seems to me, a chief weakness of the conservative theorists who sought to recreate harmonious, “integral” societies on what they took to be the preindustrial model.

16 “An Authoritarian Regime: Spain,” in Allardt, E. and Littunen, Y., eds., Cleavages, Ideologies, and Party Systems (Helsinki, 1964), pp. 291–341.Google Scholar

17 See Newton, , The Hispanic American Historical Review, op. cit., esp. 22–28.Google Scholar

18 Only time, of course, will prove or disprove the assumption that populism and natural corporatism are drawing to a close. One may be fairly certain, however, that national systems now growing sufficiently “advanced” to experience these phenomena will not in fact do so to any great extent. We are a long way from the crudities of a “stages” thesis, à la Rostow, which would demand that each system recapitulate, with perhaps a bit of telescoping, the entire trajectory of more “developed” systems. Within Latin America, the demonstration effect is close enough at hand to obviate this. I suspect also that, on the South American continent, at least, mingled admiration for and fear of the Brazilian model will accelerate present trends toward military authoritarianism.

19 See note 17.

20 Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, Revolution in Spain (New York, 1939), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar Originally published in the New York Daily Tribune, 1854.Google Scholar