Go West: Is There Still Time?
Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero
Years ago, Fredo Arias King warned that democratization in Mexico faced a fundamental challenge: the need to build a quality democracy that would break with the legacy of clientelistic corporatism, which for decades had been the backbone of the political system.
His analysis, inspired by the experiences of democratization in Eastern Europe, indicated that the key to profound change lay in adopting the experiences of post-Soviet Central European anti-communism as a unifying element that would allow for the dismantling of authoritarian structures and pave the way for solid, independent, and accountable institutions.
The songs of Scorpions and Pet Shop Boys illustrated the optimism of the time for achieving the democracy of open societies.
In Eastern Europe, the defeat of communism not only implied a political transition but also the construction of a discourse that confronted the legacy of a regime based on ideology, repression, and subordination.
Anti-communism served as a catalyst for consolidating a democratic identity and justifying the break with the authoritarian past.
The narrative was one of liberating society from an ideological enemy, which facilitated the acceptance of change and the construction of new institutions.
The experience offered a lesson: without a clear diagnosis of the system's flaws and without a discourse that mobilizes citizens around profound democratic values, the transition can remain a superficial process, vulnerable to authoritarian relapses and the capture of institutions by elites.
In Mexico, history was different. The struggle against the PRI's authoritarianism was not framed around an ideological enemy, but rather as a search for legitimacy through competitive elections.
However, this strategy took more than twenty years to reveal its limitations.
Fredo Arias King was right to point out, before Denisse Dresser, Héctor Aguilar Camín, Lorenzo Córdova, and José Woldenberg, what it would cost to avoid the necessary historical ruptures to establish liberal capitalist democracy in Mexico and abandon the old regime of the Mexican Revolution—the platypus of the ostentatious, philanthropic ogre.
Neoliberal analysts belatedly recognized that the transition was insufficient to consolidate a quality democracy.
The fragility of the rule of law, the persistence of clientelism, and the inability to transform power structures into a genuinely democratic institutional framework left Mexico in a kind of limbo, vulnerable to populism and deeper subordination to the interests of the United States.
The Chilean experience offers a valuable lesson.
The departure of Pinochet and the process of democratic consolidation in Chile demonstrated that building strong institutions, coupled with a historical memory that promotes reconciliation, can prevent suicidal populism.
The key was a transition that was not merely formal, but involved profound social and economic reforms and a commitment to a high-quality democracy that prioritized institutional values and citizen participation.
Observing these processes from Arias King's perspective invites Mexico to reflect on the need to abandon the logic of anti-communism as a strategy for rupture and, instead, commit to a narrative that strengthens democratic institutions and values.
The history of Eastern Europe shows that without a clear discourse against authoritarian legacies and without a real commitment to building a high-quality democracy, progress can be ephemeral, and the risk of falling back into authoritarianism increases.
The Chilean experience, for its part, shows that the transition can be lasting and solid if institutional reforms are accompanied by a strong and participatory democratic culture.
In a context where populism seems to lurk around every corner, Mexico needs to look to the West and learn that true democratization requires more than competitive elections.
It implies a deep commitment to building solid institutions, to definitively breaking with the corporatist past, and to a narrative that mobilizes citizens around democratic values, not around ideological enemies.
Only in this way can suicidal populism be avoided and progress made toward a future where popular sovereignty is a consolidated reality, not a mere mirage.
