The Rise of Ethnic Politics in Latin America, by Raúl Madrid

The Journal of Politics, Vol. 76, No. 3, July 2014, E14 doi:10.1017/S0022381614000358 The Rise of Ethnic Politics in Latin America. By Raúl L. Madrid. (Cambridge University Press, 2012.) Raúl Madrid’s The Rise of Ethnic Politics in Latin America addresses growing interest in the ‘‘new’’ ethnic politics of Latin America. Yet what Madrid means by ‘‘ethnic’’ goes much further than the narrow confines of oppositional categories often used to describe ethnic groups (in Latin America and elsewhere). Instead, Madrid returns to the currently unfashionable concept of mestizaje (20–22) and explores its usefulness for understanding politics in Latin America—particularly in the context of the resurgence of populism in the region. Doing so, Madrid forces us to rethink much of the conventional narrative of figures like Evo Morales and Rafael Correa. More than that, however, the book offers new insights into research on populism, ethnic parties, and political mobilization—not only in Latin America but beyond. The book is grounded in two generally distinct literatures. Delving into the literature on ethnic parties—particularly those of Kanchan Chandra (on India) and Donna Lee Van Cott (on the Andes)— Madrid walks us through the conventional argument: ethnic parties are more likely to succeed where ethnic groups have a critical mass and where they face few institutional constraints. So long as they can campaign freely, ethnic candidates and parties tend to win by mobilizing their co-ethnics through ‘‘exclusionary’’ ethnic appeals. However, as Madrid deftly points out, this explanation cannot explain the success (and, more importantly, failure) of several ethnic parties across Latin America. For example, in Peru, no successful indigenous party has emerged, despite low institutional constraints and a large and geographically concentrated indigenous population (Chapter 4). And while Bolivia’s Evo Morales is often used as an example of a successful indigenous candidate, the existing theory cannot explain why Morales was successful but Aymara firebrand Felipe Quispe was not (Chapter 2). Although at its core, the book is about ethnic politics, Madrid integrates this into the literature on populism (26–30). Research on Latin American politics has long explored the concept of populism— ! Southern Political Science Association, 2014 which is itself a deeply contested conceptual minefield. Research on populism has tended to ignore ethnicity as an important dimension (although some cultural historians have recently begun to do so). Populism is instead associated with economic policies or political strategies, for example, and as part of a process of modernization or nation building. When studies address social divisions, the focus has been on socioeconomic differences, not ethnic divisions. Like other contemporary scholars, Madrid believes that populism is alive and well. Unlike them, Madrid argues that Latin American populism today thrives because it explicitly incorporates an ethnic dimension. However, Madrid argues that this new ‘‘ethnopopulism’’ is not based on mobilizing co-ethnics in the way predicted by the ethnic politics literature. Rather, the kind of ethnic mobilization found in ethnopopulism relies on the flexible, fuzzy ethnic identities produced by mestizaje. It is in his consistent treatment of mestizaje that Madrid’s book really shines. Like most scholars today, Madrid also adopts a constructivist approach (6) to ethnic identity. Unlike them, however, Madrid takes great care to avoid falling back into ‘‘primordialist assumptions’’ (16–18) when discussing ethnicity in Latin America. Too often, work on ethnic politics in Latin America adopts static categories, dividing populations neatly into ‘‘indigenous’’ and ‘‘nonindigenous’’ (and sometimes also ‘‘Afro-Latin’’) categories. Yet, after five centuries of coexistence, ethnic identities in Latin America are not sharply defined. This, Madrid argues, explains both why specifically ‘‘indigenous’’ parties (those who use divisive rhetoric) tend to fail and why nonindigenous parties can still win over indigenous voters by making ‘‘ethnic appeals.’’ Three country chapters (on Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru) do a good job of supporting Madrid’s central argument and offer a unique perspective on figures like Evo Morales and Rafael Correa. Despite their differences (Morales is a coca farmer, Correa is a U.S.-educated economist), both have succeeded by making ‘‘inclusive’’ ethnic appeals (4–5) that appeal to voters across the ethnic spectrum. The case studies do a good job of illustrating how more ‘‘radical’’ indigenous parties (like Ecuador’s Pachakutik) have stumbled when their rhetoric became ‘‘exclusionary’’ and did not appeal to a wider range of ethnic identities. A few shorter case studies (on ISSN 0022-3816 1 2 Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Colombia) further illustrate the argument, although these are not fleshed out beyond a few pages each (Chapter 5). The book’s main limitation is a product of data availability. Although Madrid’s logic about the role of mestizaje in explaining the success and failure of ‘‘ethnic’’ political mobilization strategies is convincing, it is difficult to demonstrate with available census and other survey data on ethnicity, which adopt simple categories. Madrid’s argument could be strengthened with additional surveys asking respondents to place themselves on a spectrum. Additionally, it would be useful to learn if ethnic identity changed (or became more salient) over time. Another set of limitations involves case selection. Madrid focused on the Central Andes because of its large indigenous population. But is mestizaje useful for understanding political mobilization in countries like Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, or Costa Rica? Moreover, can mestizaje offer any new insights into populist mobilizations in earlier periods, such as 1940s Brazil, book review Mexico, or Argentina? These questions—as well as the question of whether mestizaje (in other forms) has explanatory power beyond Latin America—are simply not explored in the book. Despite these limitations, the book is a significant contribution to the study of contemporary Latin American politics—particularly as a strong counterpoint to much of the conventional narratives about the new ‘‘left’’ or ‘‘indigenous’’ politics in the region. Scholars interested in the Central Andes will find in Madrid’s book a useful framework of analysis for comparing and contrasting three understudied cases. Beyond that, Madrid offers an important counterpoint to much of the conventional literature on populism and the ‘‘new left’’ in Latin America (which often ignores ethnicity)—but, perhaps more importantly, to the growing body of literature that adopts a simplistic explanation of ethnic politics in the Andes. Miguel Centellas, Jackson State University