By Hunter Avilio Thomas and Marisa Gonzalez-Mabbutt
April 17, 2020
Introduction
Developments in the definition of populism in the past decade have frequently presented the ideology as a discourse, prescribing it with a set of ideas including a dualistic vision of the world, a will of the people, and anti-elitism. Following this ideational theory, populist attitudes remain latent in societies until they are activated. This activation depends on multiple factors, including the message and organizational framework of a populist politician as well as a political environment that includes corruption, political unresponsiveness, and “widespread failures of democratic governance that can be attributed to intentional elite behavior.” Unlike existing literature that discusses the causes of populism, including the Durkheimian mass society theory and the Downsian rational choice theory, ideational theory takes an ideological approach to populism and attempts to address its causes at the individual voter level.
Though ideational theory provides a distinct lens through which voters can be understood, the application of this theory to different case studies remains scarce. In order to assess the validity of this theory more closely, we examine the case of the Mexican presidential election of 2018. We test the ideational theory by examining the salience of populist attitudes preceding the election. We also posit that this activation of populist attitudes can be primarily attributed to the strategies and rhetoric of populist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and the political climate in Mexico during the time of the election, including mass disdain for corruption, political unresponsiveness by previous parties in power, and widespread failures of democratic governance by the elite, especially concerning increasing violence and economic disparity. In our case study, we explore the components of AMLO’s campaign and character to see where his clear message of populism was expressed to the public. In addition, we employ surveys on public opinion regarding crucial issues relating to failures of democratic governance by the elite to determine what may have triggered the activation of populist attitudes by the public during the election.
Literature Review
Existing literature examines causes of populism through large processes such as globalization and modernization, seeking to understand activation of populism at a collective level rather than an individual one. Mass society theory is particularly geared to address situations in Latin America, as it describes how isolated individuals are attracted to extreme movements, especially when there is a lack of strong political party identification. The main part of the theory argues that modernization and globalization produce a fractured society with no sense of identity. As disunity grows into dissatisfaction and society discovers that there is no outlet through which to mobilize and voice their discontent, they turn to charismatic leaders who frame an identity for them. This can also be exacerbated by the influence of the media, who may sensationalize the spectacle of the populist message.
Rational-choice theory instead views populism from an economic perspective, positing that the relationship between candidates and voters is essentially one that maximizes material self-interest for voters. In essence, rational-choice theory describes a candidate filling a supply “hole” in the market of politics for voters, especially in cases where these “loser” voters are pushed to the fringe of mainstream parties who favor globalization and market-oriented policies that have created these politically and economically unfavorable circumstances for these “loser” voters. While voters are searching for another option, a candidate acting according to this theory would cognitively craft his message to appeal to this untouched demand. These conditions are often related to other aspects of democratic failures, such as weak governance and long-term corruption. Rational-choice theory also identifies the contribution of the electoral arena, especially when parties are dismissive of issues that voters find important.
While the rational choice and mass society theories each contain important insights, there are several critiques to each. Both work within a particular field of study that fails to completely capture the political underpinnings within elections. In addition, each theory approaches populism using globalization and modernization, which is a post-modern and globalized society, fails to account for the perseverance of populism in both Latin America and the world. The most serious flaws of these theories is their “failure to address populism at the individual level…[and] their failure to grapple with populism’s ideas.”
Recent literature on populism dives into populism’s ideas and its effects on behavior, and we believe that this helps best explain the results in the 2018 Mexican presidential election and the victory of AMLO. The ideational theory revolves around the idea of a Manichean discourse where the elite is evil, the common people are good, and the will of the people has been subverted by the conspiring elite. Ultimately, this theory emphasizes that the populist’s formation and voter’s support of the populist message is due to an appreciation of the message. This set of populist ideas or “attitudes” remains latent within a population until activated. Activation of these populist attitudes occurs primarily when “policy failures can be traced to systematic malfeasance by traditional politicians,” including corruption. Naturally, this activation must also be initiated by clear communication of a populist message by a populist candidate in both discourse and organization.
Case Study
Case Selection
After decades of control by the PRI and twelve years of the PAN, Mexico decided to elect a political outsider for president. Though Mexico was following the recent resurgence of populism in Latin America, the activation of latent populist attitudes which encouraged voters to elect López Obrador in 2018 was especially apparent in Mexico. Analyzing this populist activation requires an examination of both the framing of the populist message from the political candidate as well as a look into public opinion surveys to evaluate voter sentiment and populist attitude activation. We note that we lack a vote choice model to analyze the elections, which severely limits our findings. Even so, we chose to evaluate the election by analyzing “voter frustration with chronic poverty and inequality, rising violence, and public corruption,” which constitute the main reasons for AMLO’s win in 2018 and were the three largest issues for Mexican voters heading into the election season.
Background: Mexico Before the Election
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ruled Mexico for nearly a century. The PRI rarely stuck to a single ideology─rather, their goal was re-election while adjusting to the country’s needs over time; however, the party was not above corruption. For years, candidates from opposition parties tried to contest the PRI in elections but were never successful. Even with the formation of the National Action Party (PAN) in 1939 and the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1989, wresting power from the PRI seemed impossible. As for many countries Latin America, the 1990s proved to be a time of formative change for the nation. The assassination of presidential candidate Luis Colosio and an economic downturn in 1994 finally dislodged the grip of the PRI. Mexico grew increasingly tired of the promises from the party and with their style of governance. In 2000, Vicente Fox from the PAN was elected. Fox brought some change to the country, including the seguro popular, but failed to address corruption and rising violence. After Calderon’s election in 2006, Mexico realized that it was tired of the experts and the elites, no matter the party. When AMLO made his presidential bid in 2006 and 2012, politics began to shift in Mexico. A former governor of Mexico City with a celebrated record, AMLO was a campesino, un hombre del pueblo from Tabasco who was promising radical and institutional change. He was what Mexico was looking for: a leader with a fresh new vision and the “fourth transformation” of Mexico.
The Populist Side: Framing and Organization of Populist Ideas in the Campaign
AMLO designated himself as a principled political outsider well before the start of his third presidential campaign. Though he was the former leader of the PRD, he left the party in 2014, criticizing the party for compromising its values after supporting a PRI-led reform package that raised tax and gas prices. He then formalized his National Regeneration Movement (Morena) into a party, maintaining the purity of his ideas and incorporating a reminder of the representation he sought for darker-skinned Mexicans within the party name. AMLO’s creation of a new party a mere four years away from the following election was a particularly interesting move because of what it denotes about López Obrador’s trust in populist ideals. Though two unsuccessful campaigns with the PRD could have conceivably provided reason for the party switch, it was also quite a risky move. Hugo Chávez waited nearly 15 years before his movement translated into electoral wins on a widespread, national level. For a candidate in his mid-sixties, he could not have been sure whether the party change would lead to the height or beginning of the end of his political career. Moreover, this move challenges the part of Downsian theory that claims that populism occurs with open electoral rules as they relate to party organization. The formation of Morena put AMLO “at a considerable financial and advertising disadvantage” based on Mexico campaign laws for new parties, indicating that the creation of a new political party brings its own challenges. Taking the amount of risk into consideration, breaking away from an established party to solidify his own movement required a significant amount of individual belief in the ideas AMLO was publicly supporting.
A crucial step following the formation of his new party would be the elucidation of the party and its leader’s platform. López Obrador repeated his views from previous elections, promoting “government representation of all, the rich and the poor, the majorities and minorities, the believers and the non-believers,the populace from the fields and from the cities, for Mexicans of all social classes, of all sexual preferences and from all cultures.” His main policies involved battling corruption and inequality, especially for the marginalized, rural populations in Mexico, and also addressed insecurity and violence. He promised to fight corruption by cutting the salaries of government officials, prohibiting public officials from working at companies and stopping the construction of the Mexico City airport. AMLO targeted his message to indegous groups in Oaxaca, Chiapas, Gurrero, and other rural states in southern Mexico. He also promised to nationalize PEMEX and end the drug war by building the economy and giving checks to lower classes. His positions gave power to the pueblo and not to the political elite.
Additional samples of his rhetoric show consistent and strong amounts of ideational populist discourse, including the Manichaean struggle and the will of the people. Moreover, he presented himself as an outsider of the Mexican political class. His pedigree was different: he was from Tabasco and grew up in a middle-class family, he didn’t speak English or graduate from Harvard like his predecessors, and he promised to get rid of the Mexican presidential plane by flying coach as well as driving to work. When he returned home, he talked to his old friends and neighbors as if he were one of them instead of a presidential candidate. AMLO was authentic and said what was on his mind. He was simply an ordinary Mexican, willing to do the people’s will. It is important to note, however, that López Obrador’s charisma strays from the Durkheimian charisma of the Weberian sense. AMLO stressed his working-class roots above almost all else, and though many of his critics aspire to paint him as Venezuela’s Chavez, his supporters, though fiercely loyal, tend to keep away from any godlike characterizations.
Another essential part of AMLO’s campaign organization consisted of his policies, message, and party, which consisted of purist, left-leaning ideas that the country had not seen in many years. Most Mexican political parties capture the right (PAN), the center (PRD), or are variable (PRI). While a Downsian perspective may induce us to think that AMLO was attempting to capture an untapped demand for a left-leaning politician, political preferences in Latin America would indicate otherwise. Overall, Latin Americans remain fairly conservative in their political ideology. Pushback on ideational theory might note that ideology might be secondary to populist attitudes. That is to say, perhaps AMLO cared more about carrying a populist message in his speech over his political ideology. Even with that thought, researchers show that populism “does not override traditional ideology.” Consequently, we are left with the notion that not only did López Obrador care about carefully crafting his populist message, he believed that this message and his left-leaning campaign promises would lead enough voters to realize and act on their populist attitudes─maybe, not in those exact terms, but he stood by his platform and trusted voters would as well.
The Public Side: Public Opinion and Failures in Democratic Governance
Economy
In 2016, an enormous 82% of Mexicans felt that the economy had worsened, with 53% believing their personal wealth had worsened within the last year. Mexico’s GDP growth staggered between 1% and 2.5% during Peña Nieto’s presidency, a low number for a large economy with plenty of growing room. His fiscal reforms consisted primarily of allowing foreign investment into the oil industry, which reversed the status of the traditionally state-owned enterprise. Despite the international acclaim for his policies, 57% of the country opposed the move, and only 37% of respondents thought the economy was being managed well. Levels of economic disparity remain high in Mexico and are most noticeable along the urban-rural divides. General discontent with the economy within this context shows how mass society theory fails to explain some aspects of the causes of populism, primarily because the theory focuses on social causes over other factors. Though workers could be defined as the fractured society without an identity, there is plenty of indication that this division has not come solely from modernization or globalization but based on the belief of the mismanagement of the economy by elite politicians in a post-modern society.
Economic perceptions do not always align with reality, either. From 2012 to 2014, GDP went up in Mexico. In fact, the GDP in 2014 was the best year Mexico had in that decade. While the economy was doing relatively well in 2014, 67% of Mexicans still believed that the economy was doing poorly, which had risen from 2012. This tells us that Mexicans have a different perception of reality. Perceptions in Mexico come from citizens’ current economic situations, and these may not necessarily follow overall economic realities. Many Mexicans felt that they were not doing better economically in 2014 than any other previous year, even though GDP was rising rapidly. This shows that the average citizen may not make rational, economic decisions based on economic realities since perceptions and situations are different from realities. As such, expecting individuals to make rational, economic decisions going into the elections may not entirely hold, and the components of economic theory may not entirely explain election results. This also shows that Mexicans aren’t knowledgeable about economic statistics such as GDP. The truth is, the economy has remained stagnant for a long time and has actually gotten worse under AMLO. AMLO’s approval ratings have remained high not because of his focus on GDP but because of his initiatives to help everyday Mexicans with their basic needs. This was seen with the becas estudiantiles that were finally given to Mexican students, a program that various Mexican politicians had promised for years, but never was implemented until AMLO got to power.
Moreover, AMLO’s platform on economic policy catered to the lower-class and threatened wealthy individuals with investments in the markets he was set on nationalizing. Despite this, López Obrador maintained broad level support among all socioeconomic levels, with 36.8% of the lower-class, 37.2% of the middle-class, and 38.5% of the upper-class preferring AMLO. This may indicate that Mexicans took their personal economic situations into account more than the candidate’s economic positions. It may also mean that though economics played an important role in the elections, the “material self-interest” of Downsian theory did not apply in this case. We feel that the democratic failures that were ascribed to the elite and the allure of AMLO’s populist message better explained the situation, as the cause of the election results come from individual circumstances rather than large-scale processes.
Violence
Violence and crime affect approximately 1 out of every 3 Mexicans, with 43% of respondents reporting that their neighborhoods did not feel safe. A majority feel that this crime is related to drug trafficking. Mexico’s war on drug trafficking organizations has only resulted in more deaths since policy changes in the early 2000s and many Mexicans consider the police to be less trustworthy than Congress. In addition, only 12.6% of respondents reported: “a lot” of trust in the criminal justice system. The concern over violence carried into the election results. Policies passed by the government before the election included heavy-handed military maneuvers that attempted to crack down on drug cartels but often resulted in more deaths. In addition, articles investigating previous presidencies found evidence that the Mexican government was purposefully lenient on certain cartels, prompting cries of corruption. The public had many reasons to believe that violence was at least indirectly connected to purposeful failure in democratic governance by traditional, elite politicians. This disdain for political inaction may have been a considerable factor in activating populist attitudes in voters.
Mass-society theory cannot address what about violence triggers populist attitudes. All candidates in the election placed violence as one of their top priorities. Though two parties had been tested and had failed to appease the public with their policies, three other candidates maintained platforms that would have provided the necessary identity for voters to work through. Therefore, it was not the absence of identity but rather an identity against traditional politicians (among other factors) that moved voters from latent to active populism.
Rational-choice theory largely addresses maximization of material self-interest with regard to changing socioeconomics, corruption, and electoral rules. Though violence connects to corruption in the government, violence apart from corruption–which comprises the majority of it–is not explained by the Downsian thought. Weak governance, on the other hand, is addressed by rational-choice theory. It is possible that government inability to combat violence pushed people to a populist option, as they felt they had no other option. Though it is a compelling thought, there were two other candidates besides AMLO who had not had a party that had failed the people yet, and one was an independent who wouldn’t even have carried a negative party association. Moreover, 70% of voters identified with the phrase “I’m voting for the candidate who will move the country forward,” prompting the idea that the majority of AMLO’s supporters in the election felt that he was the best choice, not merely the only choice. This could also support that his populist platform, combined with dissatisfaction with the elite parties, had triggered an activation of populist attitudes in voters.
Corruption
Corruption is another factor that likely influences voter behavior during this election. In 2014, 72.5% of Mexicans agreed that corruption existed in the government, and in 2016, one-third of respondents reported that corruption had affected them. Government institutions, including Congress, the court system, and civil servants, are consistently given the least amount of praise in their evaluations. Half of all survey respondents said that these groups had a negative impact on the country. Corruption continues to be one of the large hurdles for Mexico politically, and the electoral dissent that emerged beginning with the 2000 election of Fox may have signaled that the country was attempting to push back against corruption.
Mass society theory might claim that corruption leads to weak party identification and could consequently lead to a fractured sense of identity that brings people to a populist candidate. Though AMLO’s votes consisted significantly of crossover votes from other parties, the majority of voters voted within the same party that they voted for in the election prior. This may suggest that party identification remained strong within parties even with party dissatisfaction. Part of this crossover of votes for AMLO may have consisted of another motive entirely, which could have been a strong party bias against the PRI. 59% of people reported that removing the PRI from power was important in this election cycle, suggesting that party identification was perhaps not fluid but geared toward a greater purpose against the PRI. Overall, this suggests that the link between corruption and the mass society is, at best, a weak explanation of the election outcomes.
While mass-society theory doesn’t explain the existence of corruption, rational-choice addresses failures of democratic governance and corruption within its theory, stating that: “where corruption is widespread, citizens feel unfairly treated by authorities and are persistently dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy.” We found this to be true on both counts in Mexico, where respondents felt that their civil rights are not properly being upheld and where 62% are completely dissatisfied with the way democracy functions in the country. Despite this evidence, there are a few items that weaken the mechanisms of the economic theory. First, even support for AMLO across socioeconomic levels meant that those who are benefitting at the highest levels from corruption still planned on voting for a candidate who actively campaigned against parts of the system that benefited them. In addition, every other candidate, especially those not associated with the corruption of the PRI or other elite, traditional parties, campaigned with the same anti-corruption stances. Again, we found that though AMLO might have been perceived as the lesser of the evils (which again, according to surveys, may not have really been the case), he was not the only option when it came to candidates that were labeled as outsiders and had similar stances on these key issues. While Downsian theory does explain some aspects of this part of the election well, it does not clearly describe what happens at the individual level. Meanwhile, democratic failures relating to corruption and how they affected people on an individual level can be explained by the ideational theory, which proposes that populist discourse and intentional elite collusion would activate populist attitudes instead.
Conclusion
Our case study finds significant evidence to support ideational theory to explain the outcome of the presidential election, although this evidence is not as persuasive as a vote choice model analysis. Overall, Mexico’s societal division caused by economics has progressed beyond any effects that may have come from modernization. Socioeconomic division seems to be perpetuated by recent decisions made by politicians rather than deep-rooted processes. Furthermore, lack of trust in traditional, elite politicians could likely have activated, to some degree, the populist attitudes of voters. These same principles seem to hold for violence and corruption as well, in that we can fairly say that mass-society struggles to explain the individual aspects of these issues that became central to the presidential election, and that rational-choice theory also struggles in its scope to convey the required individual changes that determine the course of an election. Ultimately, more research would need to be performed for more conclusive results. We still maintain, however, that the combination of populist discourse and organization on the part of AMLO, when mixed with a political climate of discontent and desire for change, may have worked together to activate populist attitudes in the presidential election of 2018.
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Hunter Avilio Thomas 