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DEVELOPMENT: Iraq Crisis Widens Gap between Society and Politics

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 11 2003 (IPS) - The growing global gap between civil society and political institutions has reached alarming proportions with the impending prospect of war in Iraq, agreed participants in a Latin American seminar on the issue, meeting here Monday and Tuesday.

Some European governments have announced that they will back the United States in its plans to attack Iraq for alleged violations of the ban on weapons of mass destruction, and would do so even without the authorisation of the United Nations, ignoring the protests of the majority of the population in their countries, noted Roberto Savio, president emeritus of Inter Press Service (IPS).

The strongest popular opposition to the war is Spain, where 90 percent of survey respondents say they are against a war on Iraq. And like Spain, the governments of Britain and Italy are going against the current of around 70 percent of the poll respondents in those countries, said Savio.

The distancing of the political powers from the social movements and non-profit associations that embody civil society has been accentuated in the past three months, Savio said, noting that this phenomenon was reflected in the World Social Forum III, which drew 100,000 people to the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in January.

This is the result of the "imperial policy" of the U.S. government of President George W. Bush and the counterweight of the "radicalisation" and empowerment of civil society through the creation of communication structures and networks, he said.

But the levels of "democratic deficit" vary according to country and region. In Europe, for example, there is strong social participation in the governments of the Nordic countries, but not in the Mediterranean countries.

In Latin America, Brazil is experiencing a situation that is starkly opposed to that of Argentina, where the gap between politics and society has reached new extremes, said the Italian-Argentine journalist.

The seminar "Democracy, politics and civil society: a widening gap" marks the beginning of an ongoing debate that the organisers plan to take to other Latin American countries, involving political, social and academic institutions in each.

The Rio gathering, with the participation of 38 mostly Latin American experts, was organised by the United Nations University for Peace, based in Costa Rica, and supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre, the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses, and IPS.

The relationship between Brazilian political institutions and civil society has experienced various phases in the past two decades, says Luis Dulci, secretary-general of the Brazilian presidency, a ministerial post, and governmental representative for dialogue with society.

In the 1980s, when Brazil was rebuilding a national democratic project in the wake of a military dictatorship, the values associated with social justice and democracy predominated, and political parties even made the effort to draw closer to society, said Dulci.

But the following decade, with the "hegemony of neoliberalism", saw the "dismantling of organisations created during the democratic struggle," until a sea change in 2002 that allowed the election of leftist former metalworker Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the presidency, said the official.

The challenge of the new Lula government, sworn in Jan 1 and backed by the leftist Workers Party (PT), is to establish an administration that is "not bureaucratic, but instead shared with society," one that promotes participatory democracy, Dulci said.

This will not be easy because the government has inherited "a vertical state", a hierarchy that lacks mechanisms and "vocabulary" for "horizontal dialogue" with the people, he commented.

This is why the government is remaining alert, he said, to avoid two opposite dangers: the continuation of the political-social gap, and the integration of the social organisations into the government, which would limit their autonomy and independence.

Sociologist Elizabeth Jelin, professor at the University of Buenos Aires, says the breach between civil society and political powers has not necessarily been widening, but instead has fluctuated.

And in several cases in the past few decades the gap has narrowed, she said.

Jelin cited the example of the feminist movement, which was marginalized in 1975 when the United Nations organised the World Conference on Women, in Mexico, but was recognised at later international meetings, and many governments established agencies in defence of women’s rights.

The world’s problems today are complex because we are experiencing a "change d’époque", with "a new fearless capitalism," says Gerardo Caetano, director of the political science institute at the University of the Republic of Uruguay.

The defenders of "fearless" capitalism believe there is no alternative to the "theocracy of the market", but it is a model that has reached the point that it can no longer modify itself to keep up with its contradictions, Caetano explained to IPS.

Capitalism has lost the ability to incorporate new demands, the flexibility that has been key to its survival, he added.

Today’s capitalism is suffering from the insufficiencies of international institutions created more than 50 years ago, like the International Monetary Fund, and from total uncertainty, Caetano said.

The crisis requires a policy with new utopias, which point out "what is desirable, not just what is possible," and the negotiation of a new social pact, at the national and international level, said the Uruguayan political expert.

A project of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is studying the state of democracy in 18 Latin American countries, including the population’s perception of their government and its agenda. A preliminary report is to be released at the end of this year.

The goal of forecasting potential threats to democracy in the coming years arises from recent polls in which two-thirds of Latin Americans surveyed said that official policies "always benefit the same people," noted Freddy Justiniano, coordinator of the UNDP’s regional strategy implementation office in Latin America.