Feminised International Politics: three cases from Latin America

What role and impact do women have on politics and international affairs? Nearly a century ago, when suffragettes demanded the vote, a number of assumptions were made about female political representation. They included the claim that women would bring virtue and morality into what was seen as a largely immoral male public sphere, while later feminists argue that women share common interests that are distinct from those of men (e.g. a greater concern with reproductive rights and state provision of social care).

Those beliefs have largely stuck even as the growing body of scholarly literature on female representation remains inconclusive. It has not been helped by the emphasis on women’s involvement in the legislative branch rather than the executive. Furthermore, it has generally focused on women’s descriptive role (i.e. their capacity to change the composition of politics) rather than whether they have had a substantive impact (i.e. if they have pursued a different agenda and with what results).

Latin America: a region of women presidents

Given that uncertainty, being able to compare women as political leaders and their approach to diplomacy may prove useful in this regard. Latin America is ideally placed as a region to draw this comparison since it has seen a number of women presidents over the past few years, including one that has just left office (Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, 2006-10), another more than halfway through her presidential term (Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner, 2007-11) and another at the beginning (Costa Rica’s Laura Chinchilla, 2010-14).

Latin America is also a useful case study in three other ways. First, its foreign affairs have been in a state of flux over the past two decades, which should provide greater scope for presidential action. The structural adjustments, including liberalisation of domestic markets during the 1980-90s occurred alongside an active commitment to democracy and human rights. For two of the three countries – Chile and Argentina – this coincided with the ending of the military dictatorships, while in Costa Rica the absence of a standing army since the 1948 civil war has provided it with a strong moral stance in favour of pacifism. Since then, the countries and wider region have seen a general economic and political shift to the left: Chilean voters continued to elect centre-left leaders from the Concertacion coalition while Costa Rica’s electorate plumbed for Oscar Arias in 2006 and the Argentine electorate for Nestor Kirchner (2003-07), Cristina Kirchner’s husband.

Second, variation between the different female presidents should be possible to spot given the specific conditions in each country. Chile and Costa Rica have been relatively stable politically and economically since the 1990s, in stark contrast to Argentina. During the 2000s the latter veered more to the left than Chile and Costa Rica, the 2001-02 financial crisis resulting in a fluid political and economic environment and greater scope for its presidents to pursue a new policy direction. From the early 1990s Argentina was the International Monetary Funds’s (IMF) model for the region, undertaking an extensive economic liberalisation and privatisation programme and tying its currency to the dollar. That policy proved unsustainable as debts mounted and proved too costly to pay. Abandoning the fixed exchange rate, the eventual political beneficiary, Nestor Kirchner, adopted an increasingly distant stance from its traditional alliance with the US and negotiated repayment of its debt with the IMF. At the same time he aligned with governments in the region that were critical of the previous economic mode, such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.

Third, the present crop of female leaders in Latin America can be compared with minimal interference from other potential variables. By this I mean that they have all come to (or left) power in the last few years and in the same region, thereby diminishing potential contextual differences in terms of time or culture.

Laura Chincilla and Costa Rica

Since taking office in May 2010, Laura Chinchilla is following the main parameters of Costa Rican foreign policy. This is one that, according to Costa Rica academic Otto von Feigenblatt of Nova Southeastern University, stresses human security and rights, with a commitment to political neutrality.

Almost immediately after her inauguration, Chinchilla attended the Central America-European Union (EU) summit. The resulting agreement will lower tariffs on a range of agricultural and industrial goods which would benefit Central American and European exporters respectively. However, Chinchilla’s direct involvement was limited, the bulk of the negotiations having taken place over the past three years. Where she will have a role to play is in the agreement’s ratification, a situation made more difficult by the absence of a congressional majority in her favour.

Alongside the EU agreement, Chinchilla faces two additional foreign policy challenges. The first is relations with China. To date, Chinese trade with Costa Rica is smaller than with the rest of Central America. As she decides how far to open up Costa Rica’s markets to Chinese investment and products, she also faces encouragement from American ambassador Anne Andrew, who claims that US and Costa Rican interests are complementary, to press ahead with greater economic liberalisation.

The second challenge is Costa Rica’s relationship with Honduras – and Central America more generally. Chinchilla’s predecessor, Oscar Arias, brokered an agreement between the deposed president Manuel Zelaya and the instigators of the June coup in late 2009. Chinchilla’s first actions after winning the presidential election earlier in the year was to visit and appeal to neighbouring countries to readmit Honduras into the Organisation of American States (OAS) and restart the Central American Integration System (SICA) – the latter has not met since the coup.

Michelle Bachelet and Chile

Like Chinchilla, Michelle Bachelet largely operated within broadly set foreign policy parameters for Chile. It is revealing to read her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in September 2008 to see how she perceived her role as an international actor, particularly as a ‘reliable partner, [and] not as an unconditional ally’ of Washington.

Just like her predecessors in the Concertacion since the return of democracy in 1990, Bachelet’s approach remained one committed to greater international integration and engagement. Examples of this included an increasing number of bilateral trade agreements including with Canada and Mexico in late 1990s and the US in 2004 on the one hand as well as peacekeeping efforts in Haiti.

In terms of her own time in office, Bachelet highlighted her country’s election to the UN Human Rights Council, financial provision for low cost treatment of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in the International Drug Purchase Facility (UNITAID) and development assistance to Haiti the hallmarks of that policy. In addition, Bachelet’s role as the acting president of the new South America-wide organisation, UNASUR, was instrumental in bringing together other heads of states to issue a declaration in support of Bolivian democracy and head off a potential coup in that country in September 2008.

Cristina Kirchner and Argentina

Given the economic and political crises of the early 2000s which helped realign Argentine foreign policy under Nestor Kirchner, Cristina Kirchner has had arguably had the greatest scope of the three women presidents to diversify her country’s foreign relations. However, her approach has been broadly in line with that of her predecessor and husband by maintaining previously developed links with Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba – all of which have adopted a more critical attitude towards the US and the role of market liberalisation. Among the ongoing commitments signed up to by Cristina Kirchner include support to create an alternative development bank for the region in the guise of the Bank of the South (Banco del Sur) initiative with Venezuela and a jointly proposed reform of the global financial system with Brazil’s President Lula ahead of the 2009 G20 summit in London, to which both countries were invited.

That Cristina Kirchner has adopted the same direction to foreign policy as her husband has drawn criticism. This was apparent in early 2009 when she visited Fidel Castro at the same time that Barack Obama took office in Washington. Domestic opponents accused her of pursuing foreign support that were more in keeping with the contentious George W Bush period rather than in the more accommodating Obama era.

At the same time, Cristina Kirchner’s critics may reflect her domestic difficulties since the start of her term. They include agricultural producers’ protests against her government’s export tax soon after she took office and the fracturing of her political support, resulting in her party’s legislative defeat in mid-2009. As a result, much of the expectation that she aroused as a candidate has not come to pass, including in foreign affairs. Prior to her election in late 2007 she had made a number of overseas visits to Bill Clinton, Spanish Prime Minister José Zapatero and the Paris Club (the finance ministers of the 19 countries with whom Argentina owes much of the debt that it defaulted on in the early 2000s). These trips seemed to indicate that Argentina would diversify its relations under her presidency. That it has not done so is reinforced by the largely peripheral role that Argentina has influencing the international agenda. This is evident in two ways: first, when compared to Brazil’s relative influence, both within the regional trading bloc, Mercosur, and at last year’s G20 summit; second, her reiteration of the sovereignty issue over the Falklands/Malvinas in February.

By raising the question of the Falklands/Malvinas, Cristina Kirchner is not doing anything new in Argentina foreign policy. In raising objections to British deep sea oil drilling she merely echoes the view of the political establishment, which sees the islands as belonging to Argentina. Despite Cristina Kirchner’s stance, her achievements have been few: while she may claim victory through regional recognition of Argentina’s claims, the change in government in London and Washington’s unwillingness to involve itself directly in mediating talks between Buenos Aires and Britain has stymied progress.

Conclusions

Given the changing political and economic environment in Latin America over the past three decades, presidents have faced a regional order in flux. As a result, they have had the scope to shape and change their foreign policies in different ways, especially as the international arena is one where they face fewer domestic limitations. Instead, the constraints that presidents face are international, from past policy decisions their outcome to their relative room for manoeuvre in the global political and economic order.

This being said, the Costa Rican, Chilean and Argentine cases highlight the extent to which women as presidents have been largely hemmed in by their countries’ position in the world. In none of the three examples have female presidents carved out a new foreign policy direction; rather they have operated within the framework they inherited. While these have been supportive of a more multilateral environment and emphasise democracy and markets, there is nothing distinctively ‘female’ about them; international norms have all moved in this direction, even before women acquired the top job. Furthermore, women presidents in Latin America do not appear to be necessarily more virtuous or moral in their dealings with their peers, either in the region or globally.

In sum then, the evidence from the three cases suggests that women as presidents have a more descriptive than substantive role in international affairs. Of course this can only be a tentative conclusion; several objections can be made. One is the small presence of women as presidents in the region and the potential substantive shift that could result from a larger number of them. Another is women’s ability to shape the international agenda without using formal political institutions like the presidency (e.g. through participation in and lobbying of international organisations such as the World Bank and UN). These present additional variables which would need to be taken into account if a more comprehensive measure of women’s impact on international politics is to be made. Until then, as with the current literature on the matter, it will remain both incomplete and uncertain.

Guy Burton is a research associate for the Latin America International Affairs Programme at the LSE Ideas Centre.

Prospects for Chile under the Piñera administration

The electoral victory of Sebastian Piñera in Sunday’s Presidential elections in Chile marks the first time that the Right has come to power via an electoral process since 1958, although the Pinochet dictatorship was also a 17-year period of right wing domination.

This electoral result will change many things in Chile, and in the region as a whole. Within Chile the social-liberalism of the Concertacion has now come to an end, and will be replaced by a more traditionally neoliberal version, a paradox in a world that has witnessed the catastrophic results of neoliberal economic policies. In the region as a whole, the US has now gained a geopolitical ally in its conflict with the Left governments in Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and across Latin America.

Piñera and his political supporters in Congress will want to make some fairly significant changes, but will have to contend with the fact that neither chamber of Congress is under their control. Their willingness to work constructively with the opposition is as yet untested, but it is highly likely that Piñera will be both more willing and more able to use Presidential veto and decrees, than the Presidents of the Concertacion were. The temptation to do so will be high given his control of some of the media (he owns a national TV channel), and the media’s overall right wing bias, as well as the international support that Piñera will be able to count on from the US and international media organisations.

The probable policies of the Piñera presidency will be influenced by their international links. Piñera and his supporters have a close relationship with right wing organisations in Latin America and in Spain, with Jose Maria Aznar’s Partido Popular, and Alvaro Uribe probably providing the models that Piñera will seek to emulate in Chile. This does not bode well for the health of Chilean democracy, for Uribe’s Colombia is not only one of the most unequal countries on the planet, with severe social problems, but also a country where the rule of law does not function if you are a member of the political opposition or a trade unionist, and where the State has become completely entwined with paramilitary and drug trafficking elements, creating a social nightmare which Chile would do well not to emulate.

One of the priorities of the Piñera presidency will be to ‘reform’ Codelco, the State copper company which supplies some 70% of the State’s income, although since privatisation in 1978 it has only accounted for 40% of all copper production. Copper is the ‘wage of Chile’ and Harvard’s Institute of International Development has estimated that Chile lost over 26 billion dollars in copper revenue between 1978 and 2003 – and some Chilean estimates are much higher. Although Piñera has mentioned increasing the royalty that foreign companies must pay for mineral extraction (currently one of the lowest in the world), it is much more likely that he will seek to make ‘savings’ by reducing Codelco’s workforce, attacking the salaries and working conditions of the State employed copper workers and perhaps by privatising parts of the company. Although this will no doubt be popular among both his right wing supporters and foreign mining corporations, it will inevitably fuel increased social conflict, which is why his second priority will be to attack the trade union movement.

The Chilean Labour Code, which governs all aspects of Labour relations, is still essentially the one enshrined in Pinochet’s 1980 Constitution (written and ratified during the years of military rule), and as such contains many repressive measures. Piñera can be expected to push for the traditional neoliberal measures of increasing the level of exploitation of the workforce, in other words, labour flexibility, as well as an increased repression of trade union strikes and demonstrations. It is highly probable that the elements within the police and security services that served the Pinochet regime will cooperate fully with these measures. On top of this, the replacement of Concertacion supporters within state institutions such as the ministries, will mean that Concertacion supporters and especially communists and former members of other left wing organisations will find it extremely hard to find work, especially in sectors like education, which are still dominated by Pinochet era appointees, or by members of right wing parties such as the proto-fascist Union Democratica Independiente (UDI). It also holds out the possibility that Chilean ambassadors and representatives in international forums and institutions might be human rights abusers with close links to the Pinochet dictatorship.

One of the groups that can expect an even more repressive response are the indigenous Mapuche of the South of Chile. Several have been killed over the last few years by the Carabineros, Chile’s militarised police, but it is clear that under a right wing government with allies among the great landowners who are the main cause of the conflict, the Mapuche can expect not only further repression by state agencies, but also repression on the part of paramilitary groups set up by the landowners, a measure that has precedent in the Pinochet dictatorship when paramilitary groups terrorised the indigenous population.

The human rights groups that have consistently struggled for justice for the human rights abuses suffered under the dictatorship will most likely see their cause set back significantly. Piñera has already made an agreement with the Carabineros and Armed Forces that there will be impunity for these abuses under his government. It is highly probable that human rights abusers imprisoned under the Concertacion will be pardoned, paroled or otherwise released. Furthermore, it is likely that Piñera will appoint other human rights abusers and their apologists to positions within the bureaucracy, and the various quango’s.

On an institutional level Chile will probably suffer increasing corruption. Piñera is an unscrupulous businessman, who has already demonstrated his capacity to mix business and politics. He can now be expected to use political power to enrich himself and his supporters even further, and they will expect to be able to enrich themselves from State coffers also. This is not because they are especially venal, but because the economic structure of Chile means that the State is the most significant creator and distributor of wealth. What effect this will have on levels of satisfaction is hard to say, but it is likely that it will contribute to popular discontent in much the same way that Berlusconi has affected Italian politics.

Latin America has, over the last few years become the scene of an anti-neoliberal surge, in the wake of the economic and political horrors of the 1980s and 1990s, which has seen Leftist governments come to power across the region. These governments have come into conflict with the United States as they have sought to solve the deep structural problems that have prevented them from achieving development and social justice. Chile can now be expected to go from being a behind-the-scenes player, or a neutral actor and tacit supporter of these governments, to becoming a vociferous opponent of the processes in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia especially. A political alignment with the noxious Uribe regime in Colombia will be established, and the putschist regime in Honduras will likely be recognised. Furthermore, US policies in the region will now receive enthusiastic Chilean support to the extent that Chile may well offer forces for Afghanistan, and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that they will offer the US the opportunity to replace the lost military base at Manta with some kind of installations in the north of Chile.

The economic policies and political orientation of Piñera’s Chile will also probably lead to Chile’s isolation from organisations such as Unasur (which Bachelet was unable to join because of Congress's veto) as well as Mercosur. This will serve to make Chile even more dependent on trade (Chile’s main exports are in the primary products chain: minerals, wood, wood chip, fish, fishmeal, fruit, wine and other agroproducts) with the US, Europe and other countries at the expense of regional trade. Given the free market ideological basis of this trade policy, we will probably not see any diversification of exports, nor any investment in technologies or industries that might reduce the dependence on primary products.

The overall effect of these policies will be to polarise Chile further, and most likely lead to a gradual increase in social mobilisation against Piñera and the Right. Whether the Left and the Centre-Left will be able to establish a new, post-Concertacion alternative remains to be seen, but it is likely that a right wing government will lead to an increased politicisation of the population, and therefore the re-emergence in Chile of three political blocks. Institutionally the challenge will be to accommodate these blocks within a system that was explicitly designed to exclude the Left from political representation, an aim that was successful until the latest 2009 elections when 3 Communist deputies were elected to Congress. However, some commentators in Chile point to the success of the Spanish populist Right, and to Berlusconi in Italy as examples of how the Right in Chile may be able to maintain, and deepen its power base. The ultimate result will depend upon the success of the 'progressive majority' within Chile in constructing a strong alternative.