The Rise of Ethnic Politics in Latin America by Raúl L. Madrid (review)

In this book, Madrid tries to explain ethnic party success in Latin America, taking as a starting point ethnic parties that have won 10 percent or more of the vote in a national election. Like the only previous major work on the subject, by Donna Lee Van Cott, Madrid opens with three substantive chapters on Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru—the Latin American countries with the largest indigenous populations—and a fourth chapter on countries with smaller indigenous parties. To this base, he adds a chapter on the impact of ethnic parties on democracy.

While Van Cott explains the emergence and success of indigenous parties as a result of contextual and institutional conditions, Madrid focuses almost entirely on success as the dependent variable, and campaign strategies as the explanatory variable. Each of the three country-based chapters begins with careful comparisons between several aspiring ethnic parties, with the same institutional context but different strategies. He follows with a quantitative analysis of the correlates of the vote at the county level, matching higher votes for specific parties to characteristics of the population.

Madrid gives us convincing evidence that successful ethnic parties have made inclusionary appeals to mestizos and whites, using a blend of ethnic symbols and populist language, while unsuccessful parties made appeals that were taken to be exclusionary. Underlying his argument is an even more powerful claim: no party in Latin America can win elections based on indigenous votes alone, not only because there are too few indigenous, but because many “indigenous” are not just indigenous but also Spanish or mestizo, depending on the circumstances and the advantages of acting as one or the other. Ethnic boundaries are fluid. Thus, exclusionary appeals can alienate not only whites and mestizos, but people who identify as multiethnic.

Populism is the glue that binds indigenous voters together with poorer mestizo and white voters. Its anti-elite, us-versus-them rhetoric is the common cause around which they unite. Indeed, since indigenous people are universally among the poorest in Latin America, it is hard to imagine a bridging frame that would not be either populist or Leftist. At times, it seems, Madrid could be prescribing a strategy for any successful new party—ethnic or not. However, Madrid’s book does not help us understand much about individual indigenous political participation. It would be particularly helpful to have direct evidence demonstrating one of the central causal claims, that exclusionary appeals drive away multiethnic voters who sometimes identify as indigenous or speak indigenous languages. This would require surveys that do not currently exist, rather than the aggregate voting data used by the author.

Still, the book makes two important contributions. First, it contradicts the consensus of many scholars who claim that ethnic parties lead to polarization and democratic breakdown. Madrid argues that because of the Latin American legacy of racial mixing, ethnic parties must make inclusionary rather than exclusionary appeals, and therefore that their efforts enhance the quality and stability of democracy. Second, Madrid’s focus on strategy will surely lead to lively debates among practitioners as well as scholars. Some will see his argument as too voluntaristic, while others may see it as not voluntaristic enough. After all, leaders like Evo Morales do not grow on trees.

Madrid’s definition of success in terms of national political presence is both interesting and problematic: interesting, because it suggests a strategy for a coalition of minorities to achieve real power to address their problems, and problematic, because even 10 percent of the vote is quite beyond most Latin American indigenous groups. If success is unattainable on Madrid’s terms, would ethnic organizations be better advised not to invest in ethnic parties at all?

Finally, Madrid invests enormous significance in the symbiosis between ethnic parties and populism without explaining why populism (and only populism) can create an inclusionary alliance. The omission is strange given Madrid’s aversion to populism. His argument...