Theoretical approaches to understanding contemporary populism in Latin America

The main points of the Latin American political culture and mentality and especially of its areas with a minor degree of modernization arise from colonial times. They have suffered of course many alterations; the most important one has been caused by the modernization process in the second half of the 20th century. But the leading features of that culture are still alive: authoritarianism, paternalism and centralism, on the one side, and the inefficient functioning of the state bureaucracy, on the other. The present populism is nourished from the preservation of this political culture. Its broad acceptation is due to the conservation of those features seen now as people's own. Actual theories tend to strengthen this situation. In the political field populism can bring in a return of nationalist and collectivist behaviour patterns and of political proceedings, which are characterized by caudillismo, charismatic attraction, irrationalism and authoritarian hierarchies.