Cristhian Ugo Gutiérrez de la Cruz
The poet Homer says that one of Troy’s heroes, Odysseus, was punished by the gods, for his pride, to sail the seas without ever reaching his homeland in Ithaca, exposed to all kinds of unimaginable dangers.
Undoubtedly, the most dangerous of them lay in the sea monsters of Scylla and Charybdis, placed at the edge of a water passage, probably in the Strait of Messina, in such a way that the sailors, wanting to avoid one of the monsters, ended up approaching to the other and vice versa, so it was very likely that they would find death. So crossing it was a challenge for the best sailors and bravest captains of ancient Greece, because not only strength, but above all, intelligence was needed, and failure was paid for with death.
On governance
The word government has its etymology in the Greek κυβερνέιν which refers to “piloting, directing a ship”. An analogy that advises that the Greek people, founder of Western civilization, found many similarities between the art of governing, that is, driving the policy of a State, with the activity of a captain of a ship, since both would have the direction or helmsman of their respective ships, being they responsible for the fate of all those who are embarked on the same boat.
Also, by the way, there will be those who strive to support the captain, avoiding attempts of mutiny and rebellion against the chain of command when things become difficult, either due to bad decisions of the captain, or attempts by other groups to access to power. A situation very similar to what happens in the politics of many Latin American States, whose political history, and even more recent, have witnessed a series of coups of State that did not necessarily have a proposal for a better route or perhaps a better port for the destinations of their respective countries, but on the contrary, simply an excessive desire for power. This in the elites that confuse power as an end in itself itself, and not as a means of governance. As Bertrand Russell pointed out:
There is a great difference between desired power as a means and desired power as an end in itself. The man who desires power as a means first has some other desire, and then wishes to be in a position to satisfy it. The man who desires power as an end in himself would choose his profit taking into account the possibility of securing it. This last class is the most dangerous, since these rulers, or those who aspire to be, do not seek a change in society, but only the privileges that power grants them.
The foregoing would explain the reason why despite the fact that a large part of the Latin America’s countries have already completed 200 years of independence, with the exception of Peru, which will do so in 2021 and Bolivia, which will celebrate them in 2025, it still seems that Like Odysseus, the Latin American States have not yet found the correct way to reach Ithaca, with the leading classes being more concerned with establishing who will drive the ship, (the Peruvian case being the most hopeless, with three presidents in a single year) , that in establishing and designing better instruments to guarantee a dignified and free life to each one of its citizens.
In view of this, many social scientists have carried out various investigations and proposed different explanations for this phenomenon, but of all of them, the lack of institutionality explains better this social phenomenon that has plagued Latin American democracies since their independence.
The political-constitutional systems of the most stable democracies of the West have in common that they have established with great clarity the State project they aspire to carry out. They have State policies which are projected, and are fulfilled in the long term.
It means that the public policies, for their fulfillment, can be adapted according to the circumstances, but there will never be a sharp turn in the middle of the road, but on the contrary, regardless of who the government falls on, it will know that the State from which it has the Reins or the driver’s helmsman already has a duly designed roadmap in advance, and it would be very unwise, in addition to not being smart, to try to change a State policy, when it is probably already running for a long time, and whose results, to be really effective they require discipline, in that order of ideas.
Unlike consolidated democracies, such as those of Western Europe and North America, Latin American countries have a perverse obsession to re-found the State, to change everything that has preceded it.
This desire is manifested with greater evidence when a government is reaching its end, and those who aspire to replace him, during the electoral campaign, make the reform of the State the core of their electoral campaign, so much so that once they come to government, they realize that governing not only requires will, but also above all intelligence, and that the period of government, that can vary from 4 years in Argentina, 5 in Peru and 6 in Mexico, is extremely short to let that the State policies promoted by a government can be appreciated by the community. Thus generates a cycle perverse, where at the end of their mandate the Government warns that their policies have not been fulfilled as expected, and at the same time they are victims of attacks by other political groups, which like them at their time, accuse the impossibility of the imposed model, in such a way that those who come to power, seducing the population with ideas of change, and even of synchronicity constitutional reform, end up in trying to reform the already reformed.
Consequently, the Latin American States are drifting ships, which every five years go directly to the jaws of Scylla, only to understand that they have been deceived, to then change government, and go directly to the clutches of Charybdis. A situation that would explain the high dissatisfaction of the civil population with its authorities, the non-existent institutionality, and a disregard for politics, and with it the delegitimization of the weak institutions of the State. This by the way is nothing new, F. Hayek expresses it this way:
Effective legitimation of power is the most important problem of the social order. The government is indispensable for the formation of this order only to the extent that it has to protect everyone from coercion and violence. But as soon as it claims and obtains for this purpose the monopoly of coercion and violence, it also becomes the main threat to individual freedom.
In conclusion
The main characteristic of a Constitutional and Social State lies in the submission of all public powers to the Constitution, which becomes a guiding norm, or better yet, the navigation chart that States have for their future, that is, to reach where they aspire.
Democracies in Latin America have had since their independence, more than two centuries ago, the naive but sinister habit of considering that changing the Political Constitution ensures the solution of all the problems that overwhelm society.
This magical-religious-constitutional thinking results in countries like the Dominican Republic having 32 Constitutions, or Ecuador with 20 political letters, and Peru, which is currently thinking of convening a constituent, has, despite not arriving yet to the bicentennial, 12 Constitutions. A great difference with Canada, Ireland or Norway, which in all their history have had only one constitution. Therefore It can be affirmed that “the constitution’s purpose is to frame the exercise of power within mandatory norms that guarantee its application in order to achieve and preserve the full validity of the freedom and dignity of the human being”.
The art of government is not based on force, that is, on the political will of the ruler, because as we have seen, true reforms require a time that far exceeds the constitutional mandate of government, which is usually five years on average, and in many cases, reelection is prohibited. While, good governance is based mainly on dialogue with other political groups, because whoever says democracy, actually says consensus, that passes by establishing bridges between the different political groups.
Whoever is in the exercise of power, consider that during his mandate, the State is his, when in reality he is only the captain of a ship in which we are all embarked. Therefore, societies should realize that more important than electing rulers out of sympathy or hatred, what is truly transcendental lies in choosing those options that have as their goal to take us to the ports of justice and freedom, and not on the contrary to the jaws of Scylla and Charybdis, from which later we still cannot escape. This is the responsibility of all, especially of those who believe in democracy and, like Odysseus, know that intelligence always surpasses force.
AUTHOR: CRISTHIAN HUGO GUTIÉRREZ DE LA CRUZ (Bachelor of Political Science from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima-Peru), Bachelor of Political Science from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima – Peru), Master in Policy Management public by the Federico Villarreal National University (Lima – Peru), Candidate for a doctorate in philosophy in the specialty of political philosophy – ethics by the Greater National University of San Marcos (Lima – Peru), Specialist in human rights and public policies).
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy or views of World Geostrategic Insights).
We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Write us! Here’s our email: wgiworld@gmail.com