Assessing Democracy in Latin America: A Tribute to Russell H. Fitzgibbon by Philip Kelly

Author:Philip Kelly [Kelly, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780429721274
Google: AptIEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 59381891
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

Civil society is part of the social world but is not all encompassing of social life. It is distinguishable from political society (political parties) and economic society (firms). Whereas political and economic society emerge from civil society, civil society emerges from society at large.

This chapter argues that though democracy will be established in Cuba sometime in the future, Cuban democracy will not conform to normative models of liberal democracy. Democracy à la cubana will be characterized by features of in-civility in civil society. Incivility, an aspect of Cuban political culture, is born from two main sources: the politics of passion and the politics of affection. In turn, the politics of passion and the politics of affection emanate from six sources: (1) the historical legacy of competing normative paradigms in Cuban political culture, (2) the origins of organized groups forming civil society after the demise of the socialist state, (3) “lo informal” or the culture of informality, (4) the codes of passion, (5) the retreat to the personal (or the shifting involvement cycle), and (6) the charged political economy of transition.

This chapter will first present a theoretical reconsideration of the role of emotions in democracy in order to set the foundation for the argument that passionate politics and the politics of affection are likely to be detrimental to democracy and civility. Next it will sketch the reasons why democracy will be established in Cuba in the future. And, third, it will analyze the six dimensions of emotional politics already mentioned to conclude that there is a strong tendency for incivility in the island’s future.

The democracy that is most likely to emerge on the island will be far from perfect, will share striking continuities with the past, and will dash the hopes of many who dream of democracy with a capital D. This disappointing view of democracy is part of a long tradition in the literature on democratic governance dating to the nineteenth century, even by some authors who are proponents of democratic practices. The cynicism about democracy also has a long genealogy in Cuban intellectual history. As far back as the nineteenth century cultural pessimists on the island have remarked on the frustration that has followed modern projects of independence, nationalism, republicanism, and democracy. These writers point to culture, with its affectivity, as the principal reason for the tarnished results of even the most promising of political projects. I would add that the normative models that have been aspired to—creations of modernity, by and large—have contributed to their own frustration because they have been intrinsically flawed, primarily by their utopianism and their neglect of the importance of affect. More important, they have been in logical competition with contending paradigms that are part and parcel of Cuban political culture.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.