Explaining Electoral Alternation in Latin America. Interview with Olivier Dabène
Olivier Dabène, Political Science Professor and specialist of Latin America at Sciences Po’s Center for International Research (CERI), has recently edited Latin America’s Pendular Politics. Electoral Cycles and Alternations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). He answers our questions on this book, that offers a rich collection of case studies and an innovative theoretical framework. Read the interview.
What is the origin of this edited volume?
This edited volume is the result of a collective research project explaining Latin America’s electoral outcomes, marked in the last fifteen years by systematic alternations. In 2017, CERI’s Political Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean (OPALC) launched a collective research project on elections in the region. The intention was to document the so-called turn to the right that followed a decade of leftist domination. We soon found out that the left/right divide was not very clear. The story told by this cycle of elections is one of systematic alternations, rather than sudden changes of voting preferences.
Can you tell us briefly which period and countries you examine in this volume and how/why you made this choice?
We covered almost all the elections held between 2016 and 2019. This period was marked by electoral defeats for the left. Most observers made the case for a “right turn”, putting an end to an era of progressive governments in the region.
In terms of the various contributions, the introductory chapter offers the theoretical framework that is used by the contributors to illuminate their country case studies.
Each following chapter is the result of surveys conducted during fieldwork. The researchers are all political scientists, members of OPALC, and most of them contributed to two previous collective volumes— Les élections contre la démocratie ? and La gauche en Amérique latine)—published by Presses de Sciences Po in 2008 and 2012 respectively.
Can you briefly define the notion of pendular politics and why it is particularly relevant to analyse electoral alternations in Latin America?
The notion of pendular politics is used to describe waves of elections with similar outcomes in the region. Since the return to democracy in the 1980s, Latin America has experienced several shifts: to neoliberalism in the 1990s, to the left in the 2000s, to the right in 2016-2019 and back to the left more recently. Such waves are quite unique to Latin America.
The book identifies and examines different types of alternations and situates them in relation to empirical material. Can you explain how you discriminate between alternations, and how you confronted empirical material from the different countries and historical contexts under scrutiny?
There is a great diversity of alternations, a fact often ignored by the literature. We differentiate alternations according to their degree, temporality, and content. Here is how we define the three notions. Degree: a high degree of alternation means that the incumbents lost all elections—presidential, legislative, and local. A low level can mean that the opposition was able to win presidential elections without having a majority in Congress. The impact in terms of governability is consequential. Defeat does not secure victory. Temporatlity: contrary to what is usually assumed, an alternation can occur before an election (in cases of destitution for example), or after an election when an elected president decides to turn his back on the coalition that allowed him to win. Finally, content: alternations can favour conservative or progressive political groups.
The typology we built is based on theoretical considerations as well as empirical evidence drawn from 65 elections held between 2004 and 2019.
You write in your introduction that “this book reflects the factors likely to favour alternations, in the different forms and to the different degrees (...) To this end it proposes to test several hypotheses grouped around five variables”. Can you tell us more about this?
We explored the effect of five variables: institutions, public opinion, electoral offer, voting behaviour, and historicisation/contextualisation.
Alternations are likely to occur when incumbents do not run for reelection, when elections are free and fair (institutions), when presidential approval and support for democracy are low (public opinion), when opposition parties are united and programmatic convergence is high (electoral offer), when incumbents’ electoral base is demobilised and voters’ loyalty is shaken (voting behaviour), and when voters are accustomed to defeats and vote is determined by an issue (historicisation/contextualisation).
The model is quite robust, with few deviant cases (mainly non-democratic elections such as occurred in Venezuela in 2018 and Honduras in 2017).
Regarding the different variables, reelection and presidential approval display the strongest correlation with alternations.
The 2017-2019 conservative turn may be explained by two components: a programmatic one and a behavioural one. Would you mind explaining this idea?
The turn to the right is often seen as a reaction against the left, a strategic vote aiming at getting rid of politicians deemed to be corrupt and excessively politicised. Yet, there is also an ideational dimension that is often neglected. Conservative values such as opposition to same sex marriage gained traction during the electoral campains observed.
How long do you think that Latin America’s pendular politics will last?
It will last as long as voters feel frustrated and are keen to punish the incumbents.
Only when governments properly implement efficient policies do we see voters responding casting their votes in favour of incumbents. This happened in the 2000s thanks to an exceptionally favourable economic context. It is not likely to happen again any time soon.
Interview by Miriam Périer.
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Photos:
- Lula supporters in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. By Joa Souza for Shutterstock
- Cordoba, Argentina, Legislative elections, 2021. Photo by for Shutterstock
