Latin American democracies need to meet citizens’ basic needs. Here’s how
No region democratized as quickly and as irreversibly as the Americas following the Cold War. But now that progress hangs in the balance. Now, democracies are withering, autocracies are consolidating and kleptocracies seem like the order of the day.
However, democracy in the Americas is resilient, having overcome military coups, hyperinflation and spiraling criminal violence in the past. And it has a bright future if it can adapt to meet citizens’ most basic needs.
Furnishing quality services to the region’s inhabitants should be the focus of President Biden’s agenda with the 27 participants from the Western Hemisphere during the upcoming Summit for Democracy. Breathing such life back into Latin America and the Caribbean’s democratic consensus would help the U.S. government and its hemispheric neighbors confront mutual challenges such as crime, migration, and energy security and send a message to the world that democracy delivers.
In just the past month, elections were stolen in Nicaragua and Venezuela and corrupted in Honduras, while Chile saw high abstention rates in firstround voting that left one of the region’s most stable democracies to decide between two ideologically opposed candidates. Whether in Chile, Brazil, Colombia, or Mexico, populism now risks replacing constitutional governance as the organizing principle for the region’s politics.
Inequality, corruption and insecurity have prevented many from participating fully in representative government. Underinvestment in social services and the persistence of informal labor markets, where six out of 10 in the region work, left many living paycheck to paycheck, even as poverty dropped in the early 2000s. These features tore at the fabric of the social contract ushered in by the region’s transition from dictatorship to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s, exacerbated by scandals of elites stealing from government coffers and hiding their money offshore.
Even before COVID-19, Latin America and the Caribbean was facing a wave of social unrest over economic stagnation and government dysfunction. Misinformation on social media contributed to polarization on issues relating to public health, human rights and immigration.
Satisfaction with democracy plummeted below 50% in 2018, the first time in almost 30 years.
When the pandemic struck, a region representing a mere 8% of the world’s population fell victim to some 30% of the world’s known COVID-19 fatalities. The burden of lockdowns and a slow vaccine rollout fell disproportionately to the most vulnerable. The most severe regional economic contraction ensued, leaving 26 million more people unemployed and 22 million more people below the poverty line in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2020 alone.
No matter this perfect storm, 63% of Latin Americans still believe democracy is the best form of government. But to ensure that regional democracies rise to the occasion and deliver improved socioeconomic results, the Biden administration should emphasize three main pillars.
First, President Biden’s Build Back Better World initiative should expand beyond transportation, climate and health to make the effective delivery of public services in education, personal finance and nutrition cornerstones of its programming in Latin America and the Caribbean. Rebuilding the region’s prosperity has as much to do with administering accessible social-service systems, introducing fair taxation regulations and putting food on the table as it does with unveiling shiny, new infrastructure.
Second, the Biden administration should prioritize the Caribbean and Amazon basins as top recipients of aid to help communities adapt to the effects of climate change. Adverse climate events have spurred a vicious cycle of economic ruin, hunger and displacement, including escalating migration to the United States. Negotiations currently are under way to recapitalize the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation is preparing to launch new infrastructure projects. Washington should link
lines of credit from those institutions to advancements by the region’s governments in renewables, reforestation and community-based resilience.
Third, the migration crisis is now a hemispheric phenomenon that demands shared responsibility and common strategies. Countries such as Colombia have admirably shouldered their responsibilities by legalizing the status of a million Venezuelans, but growing xenophobia over migrants across the region is politically and socially destabilizing. Washington should set an example by expanding employment options for temporary migrants, while supporting migrant regularization and integration programs elsewhere via multilateral lenders. A recent $800 million loan to Colombia is a compelling proof of concept.
The Summit for Democracy’s global focus on human rights and anticorruption is a commendable start, but addressing the difficulties democracies encounter in carrying out quality-of-life services is just as important. Latin America and the Caribbean are ripe for this brand of U.S. partnership, the successes of which would be welcome news for citizens in this hemisphere and small-D democrats the world over.