An outlook from South America
For the last month South America has been immersed in convulsion. It all started in Peru, where a conflict between the President (which, in turn, had taken office after the resignation of the originally elected President in 2016) and the Vice President left the country with virtually two simultaneous presidents for two days.
The tension then moved to Ecuador, where for two weeks the streets of Quito (the capital city) and other towns where in a state of upheaval due to a rise in the price of gasoline. As a result of the riots the government had to move its operations to the city of Guayaquil, ultimately, stepping back on its attempt to raise prices. Civil protests even emerged in Uruguay, one of the most socially and politically balanced countries in the region, in this case to reject a proposal to take the armed forces to the streets to tackle the insecurity problems that have grown in the last years. All these upheavals add to the long-lasting institutional crisis in Venezuela, which for the last years has also become a humanitarian crisis.
But, by far, the most striking riots happened in Chile and Bolivia.
Bolivia is currently having its own urban disorder following two controversial events. First of all, a coup against a government who had a constitutional mandate until January 2020. The coup was preceded by a presidential election where the President in office at the time won after some alleged irregularities on the counting of the votes (and after having lost a referendum in 2016 where the citizenry had rejected the constitutional reform that would allow the president to candidate for a new term). As a result of the coup, catalyzed by the police and the armed forces’ withdrawal of support to the government, the former president had to flee to Mexico while bloody battles broke out on the streets, confronting the supporters of the deposed president with militants of the opposition and, later on, the armed forces that, this time, decided to obey the orders of the new, illegitimate, government. So far, 23 people have lost their lives in the clashes.
In Chile, for its part, there has not been a coup but for more than a month there have been millions on the streets claiming that they are living in a regime that is not truly democratic, and that they want a radical change. What is striking (at least for the external observer) is that unlike Ecuador or Bolivia, Chile is normally praised as the most developed country in Latin America. While riots and discontent could seem expectable in Ecuador, who could expect 1.2 million people marching against not only a government but also a whole development model in one of the most richest countries (according to GDP per capita) of the region?
The demonstration on October 25 has already been described as the most massive since the return of democracy in Chile. 1,2 million people o the streets. — Ph: BBC Mundo
In order to answer the question it is important to make some remarks.
First, the Chilean society is organized upon a (illegitimate) Constitution which was established in 1980, under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. During this process, which lasted 17 years, more than 30,000 Chileans were tortured, murdered or disappeared. In 1991, once democracy was recovered, a study conducted by the prestigious UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) showed that 54% of adults believed neither in the State institutions nor in politicians. The same study was conducted in 2017 and 2019, showing that the share of skeptics and unsatisfied raised to 80% and 95%, respectively. Moreover, in 2001, 50,000 high school students went to the streets to complain against the governing system, in a demonstration remembered as the “mochilazo” (“mochila” is the Spanish word for “school bag”). Five years later, in 2006, 1.4 million teenagers all over the country marched against the privatization of the education system in an event labelled as the “pingüinazo” (“pingüino” is the Spanish word for “penguin”, and is also the way boys and girls are referred to due to the appearance of the school uniform). The same happened in 2012, this time with the university students.
“It’s Not 30 Pesos, It’s 30 Years” — Ph: Getty Images
Besides the growing discontent that these figures show, little has changed in Chile.
Discussing if the Chilean model (liberal democracy political system combined with an extractive and financialized economic model) is better or worse than other models in the region (ranging from the state-led inward-oriented cases of Argentina and Brazil to the state-led extractive cases of Bolivia and Ecuador until 2017) goes beyond the scope of this post. The point that I want to make is that in different places of South America, no matter the ideological bias of the government in office, there seems to be a growing demand for new and wider spaces of citizen participation.
Chile might be the most remarkable case at the moment (because the demands of the citizenry has reached the point of demanding the creation of a Constitutional Assembly, something the president said is willing to discuss) but there are many others. And nowhere in the region there seems to be a political class capable of understanding the type of reforms that are needed to bring politics to the 21st century.
The future must be shaped through the deliberation and actions of citizens. Hannah Arendt argues that people’s action has unlimited capabilities to build the future. It is the subjective capacity of the human initiative what allows reaching the new, the unexpected, the unlikely. It is there, Arendt claims, where lies our freedom and the essence of politics. That is why in the political domain innovating implies regaining the capacity of citizens to take part, to propose, to debate. Just as in the field of business innovation is made with a clear goal (making profits), in the political arena the new developments should be aimed at the expansion of rights and freedom, in such a way that they are accessible to all.
So, what can be done to build a future where all the voices are listened? One possible way is decentralizing the structures where power resides.
The State institutions are showing neither the listening skills nor the agility to adapt to the changes that the citizenry is demanding. Some proposals (like liquid democracy) have already been made to upgrade political practices. In some cases such proposals, like the participatory budget and sociocracy, are already working. Taking into account the last straw that gave rise to the conflicts in Ecuador and Chile (the increase in the price of gasoline, as it had previously happened in France in late 2018), by means of these tools governments could have a more accurate perception of people’s state of mind before making decisions. For instance, non-binding referendums can be made in those cases where the government is not sure about the citizenry reaction to a certain policy.
All these alternatives can be implemented in a large scale with relatively low costs and high levels of security by means of Blockchain. With this technology both the proposal-making process and the votings are facilitated, at the same time that people’s votes are unfalsifiable. However, given the current state of the Blockchain technology it is not possible to combine the features of transparency and privacy in a secure way (however, the team of EOS Argentina is currently exploring alternatives to make this possible). While some of the outcomes of these polls could be directly enforced on the code as it happens with decentralized autonomous organizations, others would require off-chain or even analogical procedures to be entirely incorporated into the institutions of the State.
The migration to a digital democracy would imply an improved version of this political system in terms of correspondence between the desires of the citizenry and the outcomes of political procedures. To be successful, the process has to be gradual and balanced in terms of the different dimensions that this endeavor comprises.
While Blockchain keeps on making its progress to become the core technology for data processing and storage, it is crucial to advance in the process of digital literacy (which is not equivalent to the fact of having a smartphone) of the people that live in vulnerable conditions.
The experiences of Democracia en Red , covering purely political use cases, and Moneda PAR, more focused on financial inclusion, are good examples of how technology and social change can go hand in hand to produce great impact. Our societies require a redesign in the rules of the game upon which they work.
But that new game will only be a better one if everyone is invited to play, and if we are all given the tools to play it on equal terms.
WRITTEN BY
Sebastian Valdecantos
Ph.D. in Economics (Université Paris Sorbonne-Cité). Co-founder of Moneda PAR. Researcher at the University of San Martín (Argentina)