Colombia is the second most polarized country in the world. This is suggested by the results of the most recent confidence barometer from the consulting firm Edelman, one of the most reputable in the world, and which was presented at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland.
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The Trust Barometer -as it is known in English-, with more than 32,000 respondents in 28 countries, seeks to understand how people’s trust evolves and what is its impact on social and political life. Among the conclusions of the study, entitled Navigating in a polarized world, there is a classification of countries by levels of polarization. To do this, Edelman asked the respondents two questions: how divided do they think their country is and if they think that division can be overcome. Based on the responses, he divided the countries into groups.
In the Strip of “highly polarized” countries, the first place is occupied by Argentina, followed by Colombia, USA, Spain, South Africa and Sweden. Meanwhile, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, France, the United Kingdom and Japan appear in the area of ”high risk of severe polarization”. Countries such as Malaysia, China and Saudi Arabia were classified in the study as the “least polarized” territories.
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In his study, Edelman explains that there are four factors that drive polarization and further accentuate the differences: anxiety and concern about the economy, mistrust in governments that leads to institutional imbalance, the huge gap in the levels of trust between social classes and the media, which are increasingly submerged in disrepute.
Thus, as the barometer explains, polarization results from that deadly formula: lack of trust in the government and the absence of a common identity and values, added to a perception of systemic injustice, economic pessimism and mistrust in the media. . Under those conditions, he adds, the acceptable level of social debate drops to “a critical level of polarization.”
Although the detailed data of the case of Colombia will be known towards the end of February, it was anticipated that the 51% of those surveyed believe that the country is more divided today than in the past and that there has been a 22-point drop in economic optimism in the last year.
This leads, according to the study, to people feeling more unprotected, having greater fears for their future and mistrusting the institutional framework. “Polarization is more serious when the issues that generate division become deeper in society,” says Daniel Quiroga Plazas, director of Edelman Global Advisory for Latin America, adding that “political and social situations, prejudices, gaps economics and violence are a reflection of what fosters polarization.”
From the point of view of Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir, doctor in international relations and professor at the Universidad del Rosario, Colombia’s position in the ranking is due to the “little level of debate that exists in society. What we see, instead, is the politics of personal accusations, of the denial of the other. It is evident that we do not process or confront the differences ”, he affirms.
Although Jaramillo clarifies that the polarization coming from politics itself and democracy “is healthy”, the problem, he says, arises when the polarization becomes “affective”, as in the case of Colombia. “There we not only say that we do not agree, but we consider the other position to be illegitimate and the argument is focused on the annulment of the rival.”
The Mexican professor César Ruíz Galicia, a graduate in Political Science and Latin American Studies, agrees with this, who points out that affective polarization arises “when there is political actors who establish the friend-enemy axis as the center of their way of understanding and doing politics. So that at one point the confrontation is no longer to defend an opinion, but rather it becomes a pitched and identity issue, which is played in the code of barras bravas”.
Ruíz Galicia, however, explains that, although it is true that polarization entails more risks than benefits for democracies, it should not be overlooked that it also includes positive aspects. “It invigorates political participation, increases the range of ideological diversity, strengthens the relationship between voters and parties, simplifies the dilemmas of the electorate in the privacy of the ballot box, and builds strong political identities.” What happens, the expert clarifies, is that polarization becomes “a fast track to achieve a process of politicization and citizen activation, and this is not the best path for a country.”
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Latin America, a region in crisis
The sources consulted by this newspaper agree that Latin America is facing political instability and an adverse economic situation aggravated by the consequences of the pandemic, widespread inflation and the effects of the conflict in Ukraine deepening the spaces of ungovernability in several countries of the region.
“Latin America has always reflected great political and institutional instability, just not at the level of recent times. These fluctuations come from a greater degree of social polarization and the little possibility of improvement in reasonable terms”, explains Juan Battaleme, academic director of the Argentine Council for International Relations (Cari).
In his opinion, the difficult economic situation that countries are going through and its consequences on citizens are the main factor in the current political and social turmoil. In addition to the fact that, from his point of view, “caudillismo is still in force in the region,” which leads to the appearance of leaders who offer solutions that are difficult to put into practice and who obey to try to channel social unrest “.
In this regard, Theodore Kahn, associate director of Control Risks, considers it important to distinguish between polarization and phenomena such as populism and conflictive politics.
“In many parts of Latin America, we are experiencing the resurgence of populism, which is based on the charismatic power of a leader, regardless of his ideology, and his direct connection with the people, bypassing political institutions. But this does not necessarily imply that there is polarization in the strict sense”, Khan considers, pointing to two examples: Mexico and Argentina.
“The situation in these two countries is due, for me, to the resurgence of populist movements. In Mexico, the great division is between those who are with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and those who are not, more than left versus right”, explains Kahn, warning, however, of the negative effects of polarization in the political life of a country.
“For a democracy to work, different political factions have to agree on complicated issues and identify common goals rather than points against. As the actors take extreme positions, this becomes more difficult. adds.
Hence, for him, what happens to countries like Colombia is that the different political forces lack “rules of mutual respect and civility”, which are added to the conjunction of phenomena such as polarization, populism and conflict in politics.
The case of Argentina
In his study, Edelman located Argentina as the most polarized country. According to the results, 64 percent of the citizens consulted consider that the country is more divided today than in the past and trust in the government barely reaches 20%, the lowest of the 28 countries included in the study.
The Argentine political scientist Juan Negri, however, has objections to that classification. Although he acknowledges that Argentina is polarized in political terms, since, as he explains, for about ten years the vast majority of the population has voted for two stable electoral groups (the ruling party and the coalition of non-Peronist forces), he clarifies that that country “It is not ideologically fractured” and that this polarization does not have “overtones of divided societies.”
In fact, in his opinion, “Argentina is a much more peaceful country, especially if we compare it with the region.” Negri refers, for example, to events that show a more accentuated polarization, such as the social unrest in Chile in 2019 or the national strike in Colombia in 2021 or more recent events such as the anti-government protests in Peru after the failed self-coup by Pedro Castillo in December and the violent assault on January 8 to overthrow Lula in Brazil.
“There was, yes, in 2022 an assassination attempt on the Argentine vice president, Cristina Fernández, a very serious event, but it is the first act of political violence in many years in the country,” adds the political scientist.
Of course, he explains that in Argentina the immediate consequence of polarization is “the inability to think of an economic development project, which is manifested in its stagnation for several years now.”
However, Negri believes that the delicate economic situation that the country is going through will possibly lead to a consensus among different sectors around an economic course in the coming months.
The truth is that polarization has become a central concern of democratic societies in recent years. And although the question of how to solve it can be complex, for Theodore Kahn “the way out has to be aimed at recovering strong leadership from consolidated political parties. Not necessarily to avoid polarization, but to be able to manage it well, reaching consensus and agreements”.
WILLIAM MORENO HERNANDEZ
International Writing
TIME
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