The Rise of Populism and the Need of Global Unity: A Controversial World Status-Quo

December 19, 2022

About the author:

 

TIO

Around the world recently, many countries are going through, or have just finished a leadership change, e.g., the U.S., the UK, Italy, Sweden, Brazil, etc., and are facing  their own problems. In the midst of the current global turmoil, it is clear that voters in many democracies across the world expect leadership changes to solve their long-standing issues. But is this reasonable? What are the political and economic realities and can these issues be solved by changing administrations?

 

Alfredo Montufar-Helu Jimenez

The assertion that voters in democracies expect leadership changes to solve long-standing issues is not 100% accurate – it lacks context.

 

We must bear in mind that leadership change is ingrained in democracies because those who hold office are elected, either directly or indirectly, and for a limited period of time, by the people to represent their will. This is why voting is regarded as the most important political right and cornerstone of the democratic system. It defines what it is: the government by the people and for the people.

 

Despite the many advantages and benefits of the democratic system, one of its major weaknesses is the tendency towards short-termism. This is driven by two key factors:

• The first is the short-sightedness of voters, also called voter myopia. Many studies have shown that a majority of voters care mostly about what’s happening to them right now, and what will happen in the immediate future rather than in five years or a decade. Certainly, this varies across ages as well as education and income levels.
• The second is the short-term objectives of politicians and the interest groups that support them. Specially in democracies that lack strong institutions and/or checks and balances, politicians can take advantage of voter short-sightedness by promising grandiose public goods, as well as specific short-term solutions in order to be voted into office – or to remain in office, in the case of incumbents. The problem is that there is no consideration about the long-term effect of these solutions and public goods – which oftentimes end up being “white elephants.”

 

What I am saying is that short-termism is one of the key drivers behind electoral results in democracies. The electoral campaigns of candidates are a combination of the political principles of the party they represent, of long-term strategic goals, and of their understanding of key short-term needs of the electorate – especially of specific groups, such as farmers. For many voters, even if they agree with a candidate’s political principles and long-term strategic goals, whether they vote for him/her will be driven by their belief in his/her ability to address their more immediate needs and concerns.

 

There is no doubt that the past few years have been extraordinary given the rising number of economic and geopolitical headwinds, and the magnitude of their impacts. The future outlook does not look good either. Global growth is slowing down, inflation is running rampant, national currencies are depreciating, and the COVID-19 pandemic continues causing disruption. These headwinds have exacerbated domestic structural imbalances and led to a surge in the cost of living across the world,  and the impact has been more severe for most developing economies, which lack the financial and fiscal capacity of advanced economies.

 

One of the key drivers behind the leadership transitions that we are currently seeing in many countries, is the perceived ability of candidates – whether incumbent or not – to address these headwinds.

 

Is it reasonable to expect that the newly elected governments will be able to address all these issues? Not really: many issues are reflective of economic imbalances that cannot be tackled with short-term monetary and fiscal policy measures – they require long-term structural reforms. In other words, addressing these issues requires time – time that the newly elected governments do not have. Their time in office is constrained by their countries’ respective electoral cycles.

 

 

TIO

Are there similarities between the situations in the U.S., the UK, the EU and Brazil? 

 

Alfredo Montufar-Helu Jimenez

I think the current similarities amount to a crisis of democratic systems. 

 

Democratic systems were built under the idea that they would benefit all of society. In reality, they have not benefited all of society and many democratic countries have become polarized. Many countries have witnessed an ever-widening income and wealth inequality. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The segments of the population that are disenfranchised are increasing. And, under the current backdrop of economic slow-down, pandemic disruption, political weakness and geopolitical instability, the trend has been exacerbated. 

 

This trend began several years ago. Think about Trump. Even before he was elected to the White House, there were already rising tendencies of anti-globalization, protectionism, and xenophobia that were taking over politics, policy and public opinion across the world. There was an already emerging trend, and what happened over the past couple of years has only accelerated it. A major reason for this trend is that democracies have not been able to effectively represent the interests of all their people. The gap between beneficiaries and the disenfranchised has led to political polarization. What has really triggered this is the fact that personality politicians like Donald Trump in the U.S., Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico, understand and utilize political polarization to take advantage of peoples’ short-sightedness. They take extremist positions that target the needs of a particular segment of the population who feel wronged by the current political system. 

 

Trump, Bolsonaro and Obrador targeted their campaigns to disaffected voters, Bolsonaro from the right, López from the left and Trump from whatever his political stand might be. It is not about the ideology, but about understanding what moves voters and targeting those who feel wronged. Against the recent backdrop of domestic economic weakness, unemployment, inflation, etc., everyone felt wronged. The majority of the populations in Latin America, at least, feel wronged by a system that they perceived as corrupt and beneficial only for elites. In the U.S., the question is a little different. The politicians have been very effective at targeting their messages at those who feel wronged by the political system by taking extremist positions to capture votes, which worsens the situation considerably.

 

 

TIO

As a researcher from Latin America, could you please further elaborate on your perspective on the just-finished Brazilian general elections? According to many commentators, Latin America, including Mexico, is experiencing a second pink tide. Is this the usual democratic seesaw – where parties are removed for not being able to solve long-term problems – or is it indicative of something more?

 

Alfredo Montufar-Helu Jimenez

We are definitely seeing the emergence of more left-wing governments in Latin America – there is no question about it. But what is driving this so-called “pink tide” is not necessarily an ideological shift to the left from the majority of the population in the region. 

 

Rather, what we are seeing is the result of an increasing anti-systemic sentiment. And this is not exclusive to Latin America. It is a global trend. Large parts of the population – especially those at the bottom of the wealth and income pyramid, those that are unemployed and struggling financially, and those that have been disenfranchised from the benefits of economic growth and globalization – are just fed up with the prevailing political system. Because, irrespective of which party wins and of the ideology it represents, the results end up being the same: elected officials are perceived as not caring about the circumstances of the disenfranchised.

 

This trend is behind many of the election results over the past couple of decades, such as that of Donald Trump in the U.S., Boris Johnson in the UK, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Gabriel Boric in Chile, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico.

 

This is not to say that ideology played no part in these elections. But what really determined the election of these personalities is people’s desire for something different to the prevailing political system. Only then can we understand the election of TV-personality Trump as President of the U.S., of Bolsonaro as President of Brazil after years of left-wing governments, and of AMLO as President of Mexico only four years after founding his own political party.

 

This begs the question: If people’s desire for change is so strong, why were Trump and Bolsonaro voted out? 

 

The answer is that their policies and style of government alienated a large part of those who initially supported them; thus, voters switched and decided to vote against them. People who had voted for them realized that their expectations were not met. The supporters of these leaders, those who held the middle-ground, even those who chose not to vote during the last election, along with the dissenters, found themselves left out during the term, and turned into the majority that voted for someone else. In certain cases, it’s not even about choosing the better candidate, but that voters started to fear what incumbent leaders would do. This led to the victories of Joe Biden in the U.S. in 2020, and of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil this year.

 

 

TIO

Do you think the changes in Latin America are part of a temporary and/or global political and economic realignment? And what’s the role of Latin America in these global changes?

 

Alfredo Montufar-Helu Jimenez

The current government changes in the region are mostly driven by domestic factors. They need to be assessed against the domestic circumstances in which they occur. As I have already mentioned, the “pink tide” that we are seeing in Latin America is not really indicative of an ideological shift to the left from the majority of the population. Rather, these changes: (i) are being driven by a disenchantment with the prevailing political system, and mostly from those who have been disenfranchised, and; (ii) are being facilitated by the short-sightedness of voters. Trump, Bolsonaro and AMLO are all candidates who, in their own ways, represented a break from the prevailing political system in the eyes of those who elected them, and who promised to address the issues that a majority of the population cared about, and which previous governments did not deal with. So, I don’t think these government changes are reflective or part of the temporary or global political and economic realignment you mentioned. In fact, I think that Latin America has not had a significant role in the changes to the geopolitical landscape that have been experienced in recent years.

 

 

TIO

Facing these global shifts, it seems that the world today lacks a sense of priority and direction. What do you consider necessary to bring together the divided Global South and Global North to address the pressing issues of the current financial crisis, climate change, economic disparity and the pandemic? And as you have mentioned, there are still certain populist politicians appealing to the trend of protectionism and xenophobia, which worsens the situation. How can governments get together to address these issues despite all the headwinds?

 

Alfredo Montufar-Helu Jimenez

In my view, peace and stability are the cornerstones of international efforts to address these issues. 

 

All the challenges the world is facing can only be solved through concerted actions of countries despite their political and economic systems. But the problem is that we are living in a world which is becoming increasingly unstable, marked by global economic weakness and deterioration of the geopolitical environment. Nationalism, populism and xenophobia are taking a hold of policy, politics and public opinion, while mistrust and miscommunication between China and the West are growing.

 

So, the first requirement I would say, is a united leadership in the world. And leadership can only be taken by the largest political and economic powers in the world, which are China, the United States and the European Union. It is time for these entities to demonstrate real leadership by reverting the ongoing trend of technological and economic decoupling to, more fundamentally, communicating and establishing stable channels of communication. 

 

 

TIO

Starting from the idea that the world needs this global leadership, and the three parties should tackle the world’s problems, are the current international institutions and mechanisms still sufficiently capable of sustaining the current status-quo?

 

Alfredo Montufar-Helu Jimenez

No. The international institutions need to be reformed and there is already an agreement on reform to better reflect the realities of the world. You can see it in the conversations between the states within the WTO. International governance has been outpaced by world-wide developments. Right now, the international systems, which were developed decades ago, are not effective in representing the interests of every country. A new global mechanism needs to give more voices to developing economies, and I think that is something that everyone agrees on. The problem, however, is that there are different ideas on how these institutions need to be reformed. So again, we are coming back to what I have consistently promoted: the world needs more and better communication.

 

 

 

 

Please note: The above contents only represent the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of Taihe Institute.

 

This article is from the November issue of TI Observer (TIO), which is a monthly publication devoted to bringing China and the rest of the world closer together by facilitating mutual understanding and promoting exchanges of views. If you are interested in knowing more about the October issue, please click here:

http://www.taiheinstitute.org/Content/2022/11-30/1912145654.html

 

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