试论拉美印第安人运动与左派政党

印第安人运动是拉美社会运动的重要组成部分,其兴起和发展与左派政党有密不可分的联系。拉美左派政党在农村的广泛动员推动了印第安人运动的形成和发展。为实现运动的诉求,印第安人运动经常与左派政党结盟。左派政党的兴衰也影响到印第安人运动的发展。长期以来,这两种政治力量存在分歧与矛盾,政治认同的差异是其重要原因。当前,在拉美"左转"的形势下,印第安人运动与左派政党仍应理顺关系。     

试析20世纪末以来拉美左翼执政对民主政治发展的影响

不同意识形态和政治立场的政治主体对民主模式有不同的选择。"第三波民主化"以来,拉美左翼成为民主政治的拥护者和实践者。20世纪末拉美地区政治格局"左转"对拉美民主政治的发展产生了重要影响。拉美左翼执政后进行了有效的民主治理,促进了经济社会的发展。在政权和政党更迭中,也基本遵守选举民主的竞争原则,使民主政治经受了考验。激进左翼的民主观强调民众赋权和参与,在执政后大胆推进政治体制改革,将参与制民主作为政治变革的根本目标,试图构建以参与制为主的新型民主模式,积极推进参与制民主建设,在一定时期内和一定程度上增强了民主政治的包容性。但是,激进左翼政权加强总统个人集权的行为和强硬的执政风格,弱化了代议制机构的横向问责制,加剧了政治极化,弱化了政治多元性,使得激进左翼的政治民主发展颇受诟病。温和左翼在理念和实践上都没有突破代议制民主的窠臼,使得代议制民主政治得以稳定发展。拉美左翼深化和完善民主的努力取得了一些积极成果,但仍面临诸多方面的严峻挑战。     

拉丁美洲左派

何谓拉丁美洲的左派 ?何谓拉丁美洲的左派 ?有几种看法。英国《剑桥拉丁美洲史》认为 ,拉美左派是指拉美各国的共产党和社会 (民主 )党。1 古巴学者认为 ,目前拉美及欧洲一些社会民主党主张新自由主义 ,已不能再把它们看作左翼政党。2 有人把拉美现在尚存的一些游击组织 (如哥伦比亚革命武装力量、哥伦比亚民族解放军和墨西哥萨帕塔民族解放军等 )都看成左翼组织。3但是 ,在“九一一”恐怖袭击事件后 ,随着美国和欧盟把哥伦比亚两支游击队都定性为恐怖主义组织 ,拉美不少左派党和左派社会运动已与这些游击组织拉开了距离。有人把拉美一些民…     

对拉美左派重新崛起的初步评析

进入 2 1世纪 ,拉美一些左派政党或左派代表相继赢得大选 ,或以新的姿态亮相于国内政治舞台 ,标志着拉美左派力量的重新崛起 ,从祟尚武装斗争转向议会民主道路并取得前所未有的胜利。这说明 ,拉美政治生态已发生重大变化 ,而这一变化将对拉美未来的政治、发展方向和社会发展产生深远的影响。一2 1世纪初拉美左派力量重新崛起具有如下特征。第一 ,一些拉美左派政党或人物接连赢得本国大选 ,成为主导拉美政治舞台的新兴力量。继2 0 0 2年 1 0月 2 7日左翼党巴西劳工党领袖卢拉当选总统后 ,1 1月 2 4日厄瓜多尔前左翼上校、“一·二一日爱国社…     

拉美族群政治的发展——以玻利维亚为例

20世纪90年代以来,族群政治在拉美兴起,其主要特征是一批新兴印第安族群政党的产生。在历史上,拉美族群政党的发展并不显著,这主要归因于该地区存在的制度障碍、资源不足和种族意识相对淡薄。随着第三波民主化浪潮的推进,族群政党在拉美各国大量涌现。印第安族群政党是印第安人政治参与扩大化的产物,反过来又促进了印第安族群的政治参与,提升了自身政治表达的有效性。玻利维亚的"争取社会主义运动"是拉美迄今最为成功的印第安族群政党,它的形成是玻利维亚印第安人数十年自主政治动员的成果。相较于世界其他地区的族群政党,"争取社会主义运动"的兴起没有引发或加剧国内的族群矛盾。它取得竞选成功主要归因于该党的政治诉求和政治主张能够跨越族群边界,构建更广的选民光谱,实施具有多族群联盟的包容性政治策略,保持不同族群之间的合作关系,从而更好地适应了玻利维亚的社会现状。     

拉美左翼力量崛起评析

20世纪90年代后期,拉美左翼力量逐渐发展壮大。进入21世纪,拉美一些左翼政党或左翼组织正以崭新的姿态活跃于政治舞台,成为拉美民主政治中的新景观和政治发展的新趋势,其突出表现为:一些拉美左翼政党或人物接连赢得本国大选,成为主导拉美政治舞台的新兴力量;“圣保罗论坛”成为拉美左翼力量汇聚的中心;“世界社会论坛”成为拉美左翼乃至全球左翼展示力量和政治诉求的平台。然而,左翼力量能否在拉美占据主导地位则将受到国内外诸多因素的影响和自身局限性的制约。拉美左翼力量所奉行的理念不是主观臆造和一时的心血来潮,而是对拉美社会现实的反映。拉美左翼政党只有不断进行理论和实践的创新,才能取得更大的发展。     

拉美左派崛起浅析

进入21世纪,拉美地区影响最大的政治变化就是左派政权的重新崛起。20世纪90年代后期,一系列内外因素为拉美左派力量的重新崛起提供了不可多得的契机。左派力量在拉美几个国家掌握政权以及在影响日益扩大的世界左翼论坛中发挥着重要作用是其重新崛起的重要标志。拉美左派的重新崛起是通过和平的民主选举的方式实现的。在掌握国家政权后,左派领导人的政策主张倾向于对新自由主义政策进行温和的调整,而非激进的革命。目前看来,拉美左派仍处于积蓄力量的阶段。如何在经济发展和社会正义之间找到一个平衡点,使拉美走出“发展—危机”这个不断重复的怪圈,是摆在拉美左派领导人面前长期而艰巨的任务。     

拉美左派的现状与发展趋势

4年前 ,正在为争取执政地位而奋斗的巴西劳工党领袖、现任总统卢拉关于 6～ 8年内拉美大多数国家将由左派政党执政的预言 ,曾引起国际政治学界的广泛关注。 4年后的今天 ,这个预言已得到部分印证一些左派政党上台执政 ,一些左派代表进入议会或担任省市要职 ,拉美的政治版图发生了重大变化 ;不少国家的左派组织虽然没有直接进入政治领导地位 ,但积极参政 ,在本国社会政治生活中扮演着重要角色。拉美左派正在走出低谷 ,重新进入政治舞台中心 ,在拉美政治发展和社会进步中发挥重要作用。国际舆论界以“拉美左派正在重新崛起”“拉美政治向左转…     

文明与现代性:拉丁美洲的印第安人运动

拉丁美洲寻求解放的主要任务之一大概就在于从欧洲中心论中解放出来,构建自己的发展模式.印第安人运动为此带来极大的潜力,它以其主张的深刻性和实践为世界和拉丁美洲开辟一条新的历史地平线.印第安人运动大概是当代拉美现实中最具改造力的因素之一.它不仅是地区性的社会运动,也具有世界政治和社会进程的普遍内容和全局观.在拉美特别是安第斯和南美地区,印第安人运动已经不再是争取上台执政和赢得权力的进攻性抵抗运动.在对欧洲中心论和对殖民权力结构框架下的现代发展模式进行深刻反思和决裂后,拉美的印第安人运动已成为一场争取文明的运动.     

拉丁美洲--左派力量最活跃的地区

拉美是目前左派力量最活跃的地区2 0世纪 80年代 ,随着军人政权纷纷倒台 ,拉美地区进入民主化的发展时期。各国开放党禁 ,普遍实行民选制度。政党合法化为拉美左派政党开展活动创造了良好条件 ,也为左派政党壮大队伍提供了良机。其中不少左派政党通过选举在议会中拥有自己的席位 ,在国家政治生活中发挥一定的作用。苏联解体和东欧剧变使世界共产主义运动陷入低潮 ,对拉美左派力量产生了强烈冲击 ,带来灾难性后果。在 2 0世纪 90年代的大部分时间内 ,拉美左派力量明显削弱 ,处境十分艰难。古巴因苏联中断援助 ,陷入极度困难时期。执政约 l0年…     

Contemporary Social Movements in Latin America

Social movements have multiplied in Latin America since the 1990s. Like the parties and governments of the Left, these movements aim to resist neo-liberal reform. Their support comes from the indigenous populations, landless peasants, unemployed workers, and public sector employees. They function by means of participatory democracy and don＇t seek to take state power. International contacts and cooperation are growing rapidly. Such movements have had an important impact upon the region. However, they are facing new problems in the years ahead.     

The incorporation of indigenous concepts of plurinationality into the new constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia

This article studies the new constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia in order to determine to what extent indigenous concepts of democracy have been incorporated into these important documents. The research presented here suggests that there is a significant correlation between the demands made by indigenous social movements over the past two decades and the new constitutional texts of both countries, which essentially embrace the alternative forms of citizenship and democracy espoused by indigenous social movement groups. For many activists, these changes open the door to what they perceive as a richer democracy.     

What does democracy mean? Activist views and practices in Athens,Cairo, London and Moscow

We shed light on the discontent with and the appeal of democracy by interviewing some of the most committed critical citizens: core activists in street protests. Based on interviews in Athens, Cairo, London, and Moscow, we found that they rejected representative democracy as insufficient, and believed democracy to entail having a voice and a responsibility to participate intensively in political decision-making. Activists saw themselves as engaged in prefigurative politics by fostering democratic practices within the movement and, ultimately, in society, but also raised concerns about internal power dynamics reproducing existing inequalities and exclusions. The insistence by activists that citizens have both a right and a duty to participate should be taken more seriously by political scientists and policymakers, not just as a threat to democracy and democratization, but as an opportunity. However, contemporary social movements are not straightforward sites of prefiguration, but sites of struggle between experimental and traditional forms of organizing, between inclusive aspirations and exclusive tendencies.     

Mass Mobilization and Elite Exchange: Democratization Episodes in Italy and Spain

At its dawn, democracy was a social movement, but little attention has been given to social movements in recent (mainly American) theorizations of democratization.1 The reason for this seems to be the division of labour in the social sciences as well as the bad press that movements gained between the two world wars and in the cold war years. As a result, most theorists have emphasized the role of elites in transitional cycles and largely ignored the role of social movements. Since the 1960s, advances in social movement theory and research both in Europe and North America allow a fresh look at the role of movements in transitional cycles. In this article, three aspects coming from this tradition ‐ the structure of political opportunity, the relations of elites and citizens, and the problem of organization ‐ are applied to three episodes of democratization: the failed transition to democracy in Italy after the First World War, the successful transition in Spain in the mid‐1970s and the incomplete transition in East‐Central Europe since 1989. The article closes with a brief reflection on the role of learning from past transitions in democratization cycles.     

The local in the global: rethinking social movements in the new millennium

In this article we discuss the failure of social movement theories to adequately understand and theorize locally based, grassroots social movements like the landless workers movement in Brazil, ‘livability movements’ in third-world cities, and living wage movements in the USA. Movements such as these come to the attention of most social movement analysts only when the activists who participate in them come together in the streets of Seattle or international forums like the World Social Forum. To date, it is the transnational character of these protests that have excited the most attention. Building on scholarship that looks at the link between participatory democracy and social movements, this article takes a different tack. We show how some social movements have shifted their repertoire of practices from large mass events aimed at making demands on the national state to local-level capacity building. It is the local struggles, especially the ways in which they have created and used institutions in civil society through extending and deepening democracy, that may be the most significant aspect of recent social movements, both for our theories and for our societies. Yet these aspects have received less attention, we believe, because they are less well understood by dominant social movement theories, which tend to focus on high-profile protest events. We look at the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement and the Justice for Janitors Campaign in Los Angeles to illustrate the important terrain of civil society as well as the role of community organizing.     

Narrative and elucidating the concept of democracy: the case of Myanmar’s activists and democratic leaders

Narrative analysis has been widely employed in the social sciences. Yet there has been no systematic application of narrative theory to the study of how the word “democracy” is given meaning by political actors. Using the empirical example of the Burmese democracy movement in the lead up to the historic 2015 election victory of the National League for Democracy, this article argues that narrative analysis can contribute in unique ways to the interpretive task of “elucidating” the concept of democracy. Tracing plot and character construction within activist and aid worker stories about democracy in Myanmar, this study reveals three prominent and diverging narratives of democracy within and around the movement; a liberal narrative, centring on liberal democratic institutions and values, a benevolence narrative, focussing on the value of moral leadership and selflessness, and an equality narrative, highlighting the importance of cultural reform towards greater relational equality. Attention to these narratives has implications for donor “democracy promotion” strategies raising new questions about the role of formal institutions of democracy, the perceived source of “solutions”, and the impact on internal struggles within democracy movements.     

World politics and social movements: the Janus face of the global democratic structure

This article advances a theoretically informed understanding of the relationship between world politics, democracy and social movements. The pivot of the discussion is the concept of a global democratic structure. The global democratic structure is rooted in changes taking place after the end of the Second World War, but has become globally dominant only after the end of the Cold War. The global democratic structure is undergirded by powerful political, security and economic interests. At the same time, however, it provides opportunities for social critique and change. This potential is exemplified through a discussion of the role of social movements in world politics. Social movements are influential through discursive means. The article offers a number of propositions about the conditions for social movement success and failure in the global democratic structure.     

Parties,Protest and Pluralism in Cambodia

In the 1990s, early post-Cold War optimism regarding the rapid spread of democracy in the South faded, as multiparty elections in new democracies were observed to exacerbate conflicts of identity rather than ameliorating the effects of conflicts of interest. Research in Cambodia suggests, however, that the promotion by political parties of identity-based conflict offers opportunities for individuals and groups to attempt to insert a more pragmatic interest-based agenda. Party activities also offer an exemplar for political advocacy and activism, which is useful to non-party interest groups and social movements. Cambodia's electoral experience further suggests that parties attempting to respond to such interest-based agendas may be rewarded by voters at the polls. Analytical focus upon the efforts of individuals and non-party movements to make use of the opportunities offered by political parties, rather than upon the mobilizational strategies and rhetorics of party leaders, offers a more optimistic prognosis for democracy in the third world.     

Civil society and substantive democracy: Governance and the state of law in Belgium

Since the late 1980s, democratic institutions and an active civil society are being prescribed as important ingredients and preconditions to reduce poverty, social exclusion, and violent civil strife. Multi-party systems and elections are seen as the most important expressions of formal democracy. This paper argues that more attention is needed to substantive democracy, which requires a greater understanding of the various legal-political variants within a democratic framework. The paper discusses in some depth the crisis of governance in Belgium. The analysis raises questions about the relationship between 'political' and 'civil society', and between social movements and political parties.     

‘The unfinished business of democratization’: struggles for services and accountability in South African cities

At the end of July 2009, South African cities became the terrain of violent protests. Several reasons lay behind the social unrest, but protesters were particularly vocal in demanding basic services and houses, reminding the newly elected president of his electoral promises of delivering to the poor. This article analyses two of the most prominent post-apartheid social movements that in the past decade have been confronting the state on issues of services and accountability. These struggles reveal the limits of the unfinished democratization and the dysfunction that characterizes policy and decision-making processes at the local level. These movements are contributing through their existence and actions to the deepening of democracy by creating new spaces for political confrontation and participation that can influence local governance and enhance development.