The forms of government according to the depositaries of power are varied and since Ancient Greece in Western thought have configured a rich collection of typologies. Today it is very common to read about democracy and its antagonist, autocracy; others that were in force for a long time, such as aristocracy or theocracy, have been left behind. Whoever held power, be it an individual or a group, gave shape to the term. The word kratia competed with arche from which monarchy, oligarchy, anarchy were derived.
The current times of tired democracies immersed in tired societies are generating very peculiar moments that little by little have been tending towards the configuration of governments whose common denominator is frequently pointed out to be the low quality of their members. In this way, the idea that a large part of the problems of politics today is due to the fact that the current rulers are the most inept is spreading everywhere.
It is therefore not surprising that The Economist has selected as word of the year the term kakistocracy, whose root comes to define precisely the government of the worst and least qualified. A term that is not found in ancient sources, but which serves to define the current state of politics in part of the American and European countries. The neologism has quickly jumped to sectors of American public opinion and from there it is beginning to be generalized to define the situation in other countries.
However, the categorization of good or bad rulers or of greater or lesser qualification to carry out government action is a difficult task. There are three different levels that define the degree of complexity: the specific characteristics of the national context, analyzing individually the profiles of the people who carry out the office and emphasizing the results of their action in government according to their performance in different areas. Although they must be conceived in a constant interaction, it is possible to approach these facets separately. Thus, studying strictly the people who assume political responsibilities is a path to follow of undoubted interest.
There are three groups of factors to consider in order to carry out the suitability of their performance that are found in this type of individual. Firstly, there are the individual characteristics related to biological issues, others linked to the socialization process and others to the formative path. Secondly, it is necessary to consider the experience generated in the trajectory prior to holding office, whether in the field of politics itself or in other professional fields. Finally, there is the person’s previous performance in terms of the combination of the ethics of responsibility and the ethics of conviction, according to the famous distinction made by Max Weber.
The integration of all this makes it possible to define ideal models and, eventually, to elucidate categories according to pre-established scales. In this way, the degree of improvement or deterioration of the political class, or of individual politicians considered individually, can be established regarding a given temporal evolution. Are politicians today better or worse than ten or twenty years ago within the same country? Are those of one country better or worse than those of a neighboring country?
These are pertinent questions insofar as today the crisis of representation, on the one hand, points to the political class as responsible for the discrediting of politics and, on the other, has consequently accentuated the presence in the political arena of characters outside the partisan tradition and promoted by novel mechanisms of individualistic empowerment. The decomposition of the partisan universe, volatile, de-ideologized and immersed in a deep identity crisis, is combined with mechanisms of intermediation and participation that did not exist a short time ago. The digital society, fragmented and hyper-individualistic, is subjected to novel advertising tools that push personalist candidacies to power without any filter whatsoever.
If the analysis focuses exclusively on the holders of the Executive Power in cases in which they were elected, leaving aside the members of their cabinets or the members of the Legislative Power to refer to the current strictly Latin American state environment, the comparison immediately puts on the board mediocre characters referred to the last presidential election day according to the factors just mentioned. Pedro Castillo, as well as his successor Dina Boluarte, and Xiomara Castro would be placed at the bottom of the scale due to their null previous political experience and their disheveled ethical attitude. Rodolfo Chaves, Nayib Bukele, Javier Milei and Daniel Noboa, possessing a slight background of knowledge of political activity before assuming the presidency, and also with a meager ethical behavior, would follow them. Daniel Ortega and Nicolás Maduro would be completely condemned for their absolute abandonment of minimum ethical standards in addition to their ill-tempered behavior.
The matter is neither irrelevant nor anecdotal, since its number represents almost half of the Latin American cases, although the fact that it is limited to the heads of state omits a more detailed analysis of the rest of the members of the Executive. This study, together with that of legislators and other spheres of power, would help to determine the degree of progress of kakistocracy in the Latin American state, a universal problem to which politics in the region is no stranger.
Now, to conclude, in addition to the levels of complexity referred to above, when it comes to categorizing the good ruler, there is also the evaluation of public opinion. Public opinion is strongly manipulated by increasingly sophisticated propaganda techniques that build narratives based on half-truths, if not on completely false versions of reality. Disinformation and the emphasis on emotional issues in countries especially impacted by social traumas such as insecurity or hyperinflation that generate different forms of violence is the framework on which the popularity of Nayib Bukele, Javier Milei and Daniel Noboa is successfully built.
*Machine translation proofread by Janaína da Silva.
Autor
Director of CIEPS - International Center for Political and Social Studies, AIP-Panama. Professor Emeritus at the University of Salamanca and UPB (Medellín). Latest books (2020): "The profession of politician" (Tecnos Madrid) and co-edited "Dilemmas of democratic representation" (Tirant lo Blanch, Colombia).
