Parties, Democracy and Grounded Utopias: A Reply to Sara Motta
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00702.x |
| Date | 01 December 2007 |
| Author | Francisco Panizza |
| Published date | 01 December 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00702.x
Parties, Democracy and Grounded Utopias:
A Reply to Sara Motta
Francisco Panizza
The London School of Economics and Political Science
The article is a reply to Sara Motta’s article ‘Utopias Re-imagined: A Reply to Panizza’ in this journal.
It discusses the relations between representative and participatory democracy in Latin America in the light
of Motta’s vindication of different forms of participatory democracy. It argues that when analysing the
advances of the left and the centre-left in contemporary Latin America it is difficult to ignore the strategic
role played by left-of-centre political parties in winning elections and the importance of controlling the
state as a crucial instrument for promoting change. It further argues that while participatory democracy
is essential for a democratic polity, it presupposes a well-functioning representative democracy rather than
an alternative to it. Against Motta’s celebration of localised, anti-capitalist utopias the article vindicates a
process of iterative yet cumulative change that shapes and reshapes the political and institutional
parameters that redefine what governments consider politically possible, feasible and desirable. It con-
cludes by noting that the twentieth century’s failure of totalising utopias makes us overlook the success
of other, more grounded and open forms of utopian thinking, such as political democracy and economic
social democracy, which have the potential to improve the lives of millions of people in Latin America.
I very much welcome Sara Motta’s (2006) critique of my article ‘Unarmed
Utopia Revisited: The Resurgence of Left-of-Centre Politics in Latin America’
(Panizza, 2005). If anything, since my article was published the rise of the left in
Latin America has become even more relevant as a topic for academic research
and debate. In what follows I will revise my arguments in the light of Motta’s
criticisms and in the process reassess the argument’s continuous validity, taking
into account political developments in the region since my article was first drafted
nearly two years ago.
The main problem with Motta’s critique is that she lets her sophisticated theo-
retical considerations get in the way of addressing my arguments and, even more
relevantly, of a historically embedded analysis of recent political changes in Latin
America. Motta (2006, p. 899) claims that conceptually I assume that the state is
the central focus of political power and democracy; that political parties (more
centrally elites) are privileged agents of structural change; and that the nation state
is the spatial limit of political change and analysis. In truth I never made these
assumptions in the abstract. I do believe that the state and political parties are
important actors in most political systems and that it is very difficult to conceive
of a democracy without parties. But the centrality of the state and political parties
in processes of change is contingent on specific political conjunctures and it
would be utterly naïve to ignore the relevance of non-state actors in these
processes.
© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association
886
F R A N C I S C O PA N I Z Z A
The recent electoral victories of parties of the left and centre-left represent a
major change in Latin American politics, as they have followed a long decade of
centre-right hegemony.When analysing the advances of the left and the centre-
left in contemporary Latin America it is difficult to ignore the strategic role played
by left-of-centre (LOC) political parties in winning elections and the importance
of controlling the state as a crucial instrument for promoting change. Does this
amount to ignoring the importance of non-state, non-party actors? Most cer-
tainly not. What I did in my article (Panizza, 2005, p. 719) was carefully to limit
the analysis of the left to what I thought was more relevant for my argument.
There is a world of difference between explicitly limiting a subject of inquiry and
wilfully ignoring the vast universe of actors and topics that fall outside it,
including the multiple dimensions of political power. Taking all these on board
would have required the writing of a totally different article. The charge of
ignoring non-party, non-state actors is more galling given the fact that I explicitly
acknowledged that left-wing grass-roots movements have grown greatly in
number and influence in Latin America and I included the grass-roots tradition
as one of the main influences on LOC parties in the region (Panizza, 2005, p. 720,
pp. 722–3).
There is surely much more to be said than my rather brief remarks on the
influence of left-wing grass-roots movements on the parties and governments
of the left and I am sure that Motta would have much to say on that topic. The
shame is that she says very little about this in her article. Instead, she limits
herself to mentioning a number of grass-roots movements, such as the Movi-
mento Sem Terra (MST) in Brazil, the peace communities in Colombia, sec-
tions of the piquetero (unemployed) movement in Argentina, the Mapuche
movement in Chile and the many indigenous social movements in Bolivia, and
claims that these movements ‘are actively engaged in a struggle to recapture
public space and...
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