Opinion – Latinoamérica21: President Boric’s limited notion of democracy in Chile

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Chilean President Gabriel Boric has often insisted that he has had to let go of many of the traditional clichés of the Chilean left. However, perhaps he is not aware of all that he still carries with him.

In recent weeks, Boric has repeated a phrase he loves, but without realizing that it reflects a limited notion of democracy, typical of the traditional left, especially in Latin America.

The president says every time he has the opportunity: “Democracy is about solving people’s problems, because if it doesn’t, people become disenchanted.” That would be the fundamental value of democracy: ensuring the well-being of the population, above all at the socio-economic level (although not only).

In expressing this idea, Boric is inscribing himself to the usual conception of the Latin American left, according to which the nature of democracy is purely instrumental; it has no value in itself.

This lack of knowledge of the substantive value of democracy has consequences: it is what led to praise the Cuban regime for a long time and to hide the “imperfections” of governments like the Venezuelan or the Nicaraguan.

The Latin American left is still reluctant to admit that democracy has a dual value.

The democratic system is not simply a welfare factory. Its substantive value consists in being a system that allows a social group to make collective decisions under peaceful and predictable conditions.

This substantive value is crucial to human development. Therefore, collective democratic decisions can be more or less to our liking, aligned or not with our ideology or our value system.

But, if a decision was adopted normatively correctly, democracy fulfilled its main function: allowing the social group to adopt collective decisions peacefully.

Naturally, the democratic system is also oriented towards the common good and, in this sense, will seek the well-being of the population. But reducing the value of democracy to this second function reflects a disregard for the substantive value of democracy, which can jeopardize this level of human development.

As Adam Przeworki said, development is something very oral: being able to eat and being able to speak. And, if any of the elements of the binomial is violated, human development is impeded.

On the other hand, the lack of knowledge of the substantive value of democracy leads to the maintenance of a deficient civic political culture.

If citizens (and, above all, their political representatives) only value democracy for its ability to generate well-being, it is not surprising that they cease to feel committed to democracy as soon as a national or international economic crisis arises.

Where, then, should we look for defenders of the public value of the democratic political system?

And, of course, if there are no defenders of the substantive value of democracy, this political system will be exposed to multiple crises and can never be said to be fundamentally consolidated.

Opinion polls show that in Latin American countries there are still significant sectors of the population with a low democratic culture that depreciate the value of democracy.

President Boric should realize that in Chile there are still sectors of the population that are discontented and dissatisfied with democracy and, in fact, could have had a significant influence on the outcome of the last plebiscite.

Naturally, the two dimensions of the value of democracy are connected: raising the standard of living of the population can also contribute to a greater commitment to the democratic system. But this is not automatic or linear.

Special attention needs to be given to the elevation of democratic political culture in Latin America.

It would, therefore, be a fundamental achievement of Boric’s presidential term if the commitment to the substantive value of democracy increased significantly among the population until the end of his government.

However, for that, he would have to get rid of this simply instrumental notion of democracy that he still drags with him as soon as possible.

Translation of Giulia Gaspar

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