Linkse christenen en politieke ontwikkeling in Latijns-Amerika

Niekerk, A.E. van

The article is devoted to the developmental ideology of the leftist Christians in Latin America, the so-called ’COMUNITARISTAS’. The author argues that this development-ideology, often called socialismo comunitario, is not so leftist as one might suppose at first sight. Some of their basic ideas have been adopted from the traditional concept of European Christian democracy, with certain local adaptions. According to the comunitaristas, underdevelopment must be defined as a lack of social integration. That is to say: underdevelopment should not be viewed as a relative backwardness in comparison to the more ’advanced’ industrial countries. One should rather speak of ’misdevelopment’ in the sense that some structures and population groups are politically, economically and culturally overdeveloped, while others — the so-called ’marginados’ — are underdeveloped and excluded from effective participation in the system. Political development, then, should be conceived as a process of...Show moreThe article is devoted to the developmental ideology of the leftist Christians in Latin America, the so-called ’COMUNITARISTAS’. The author argues that this development-ideology, often called socialismo comunitario, is not so leftist as one might suppose at first sight. Some of their basic ideas have been adopted from the traditional concept of European Christian democracy, with certain local adaptions. According to the comunitaristas, underdevelopment must be defined as a lack of social integration. That is to say: underdevelopment should not be viewed as a relative backwardness in comparison to the more ’advanced’ industrial countries. One should rather speak of ’misdevelopment’ in the sense that some structures and population groups are politically, economically and culturally overdeveloped, while others — the so-called ’marginados’ — are underdeveloped and excluded from effective participation in the system. Political development, then, should be conceived as a process of increasing participation, which has to be channelled through the introduction of a complex of new structures and new institutions. The functions of these substructures are twofold: promotion of material progress and institutionalization of political pressures from below toward the decision-levels of the political system as a whole. A clear link is discernible between this conception and, on the one hand, the emphasis on the necessity of voluntary associations in the more traditional definitions of democracy, common to certain american political scientists (Huntington, Shils, Coser), and on the other, the principle of subsidiarity in European Christian democracy. The author agrees with the necessity of increasing participation as a prerequisite for social and political development. However, putting political development on a par with institution-building — as some political scientists do — may mean no more than the insertion of typically modern — particularly western — structures in a traditional system which is not receptive to them, at least as far as the present stage of political development in Latin America is concerned. A more realistic and operational appraisal of political development might be one which postulates more modest aims in the sense of giving due consideration to the possibility of using certain traditional-autochtonous elements for modernizing ends, producing some form of psychological participation without modern institution building. This is what is currently being achieved by different kinds of populist movements, a modernizing force which through the use of elements such as paternalism and charisma, provides a closer link with the existing system and which therefore might be more conducive to political modernization.Show less

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Linkse christenen en politieke ontwikkeling in Latijns-Amerika