Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and Socialism Today (review)

Since the 'pink tide' (of leftist, radical or nationalist governments) began to sweep across Latin America, much has been written about this apparent reawakening of an anti-globalization left. Regrettably, since much has been tendentious, journalistic and wishful thinking, we have awaited a solid interpretation and theorization of the phenomenon. This study largely provides that. It makes its politics clear, but – apart from a few moments – Raby is too experienced a political analyst with too substantial and nuanced a knowledge of Latin American politics to allow sympathy to prevent analysis.

The book's basic premise (that we are witnessing a revolutionary leftist populism) is outlined at the start and (unusually) discussed theoretically at the end, with case studies in between. The opening chapters are excellent. The first is a theoretical discussion of liberal democracy and 'popular democracy'; the treatment is commendably balanced (although Trotskyist analyses tend to be dismissed rather too easily), self-critical and thorough, and is one of the best features of the book, worth recommending to students as an essay in its own right. The following chapter (a little less successful) discusses socialism and popular democracy; its success lies in setting this within the contorted arguments on the left, taking us back usefully to (largely forgotten) Dependency Theory.

The meat of the book consists of three chapters on cases: one each on Cuba and Venezuela and one on the essentially failed experiments of Chile, Nicaragua and Portugal. The Venezuelan chapter is easily the best, balancing detail and overview to inform and analyse, providing a valuable service given the paucity of reliable detail or objectivity on chavismo. Again, this chapter alone merits recommendation as a reference source and astute interpretation; the only gap seems to be the lack of a convincing explanation as to how exactly the Venezuelan armed forces became revolutionary as opposed to progressively nationalist (à la Velasco).

The treatment of Cuba is perhaps less successful. While it usefully points us in new directions – towards the revolutionary role of the llano, the revolutionary potential of the Ortodoxos and the significance of the two Declarations of Havana – it is somewhat sketchier (perhaps because it covers 50 rather than 10 years), and with a greater tendency towards admiration. Indeed, although the book, to its great credit, largely resists the latter in its determination to analyse and its willingness to confront weaknesses, it does occasionally lapse into a discourse that reveals its sympathies. Thus, we read about 'the people', about Fidel as 'the personification of this collective subject, its intuitive mouthpiece' (111), and that 'many of the common people would without doubt be ready to die for Chávez' (159). Whatever the truth in these assertions, they rather weaken the impact of the overall argument and remind us that, in part, the book's theoretical position has been built around an appreciation of the two leaders and their revolutions.

The chapter on the other three cases is disappointing, because while trying to say too much about too many diverse examples it says frustratingly little about any of them. This is especially disappointing on Portugal, given Raby's undoubted expertise, and, given the arguments of Weeks and Dore about Sandinismo's failure precisely because of its populism, an opportunity might have been missed to engage more substantially with the book's theoretical underpinning.

The final chapter is one of the book's clear strengths, rounding off the discussion by proposing a theoretical model in the light of the cases analysed, the argument for interpreting the two main cases as examples of a leftist populism. Taking its cue from Laclau, it bravely proposes a positive engagement with the idea of leadership, reminding us that the academic distaste for personality may miss a key factor in these processes. While questions are inevitably posed – how exactly does such a populism actually work (in comparison with the post-1930 examples), not least in conceding power to 'the people...