Populism characterizes many governments during the second decade of the 20th century.

Context and general characteristics

• The international scene has been marked by the crisis of 1929, the Second World War, and the post-war.

• Soon, between the late 1920s and the 1960s, political regimes traditionally classified as populists occurred in Latin America.

• However, this term was created after the fall of these regimes (to criticize them).

• Therefore, some historians reject its use today.Sociologists such as Octavio Ianni (1926-2004) and Francisco Weffort (1937-2021), in turn, sought a more precise definition for these Latin American governments.

• It was a series of governments that succeeded the oligarchic republics and preceded the military regimes (which were inserted in a historical context of capitalist modernization and industrialization of Latin America).

• They are governments that, despite one or the other sympathy and alliance, cannot be defined as socialists or as fascists.

Politicians

Populism is associated with politicians such as:

• Juan and Eva Perón in Argentina.

• Getúlio Vargas, Juscelino Kubitschek, Jânio Quadros and João Goulart, in Brazil.

Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico; José María Velasco Ibarra, Ecuador.Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Colombia. Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre in Peru.

After the 1930s

• The global economic crisis, exacerbated by World War II, helped weaken oligarchic and agro-export regimes, paving the way for new leaders, or at least leaders who presented themselves as new, to gain projection based on the connection established with the urban population.

• The exception was Mexico, where populism anchored itself in the peasant." These governments fostered an industrialization process based on the substitution of imports (ISI); to fill Latin American industrialists with the old markets left.

• Thus, a fundamental element of Latin American populist regimes was economic nationalism, put into practice through a state-led industrialization policy.

• It is a fact that Latin America experienced sharp economic growth in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.Sometimes there was an anti-foreigner discourse.

Anti-foreigner

• In Peru, for example, political leader Haya de la Torre said foreign companies extracted national wealth to sell it abroad.

• In Brazil, in the 1960s, the urban population surpassed the rural population, driven by the industrial development policy adopted during the Vargas Era.

Generally

• Such governments have controlled sectors of the economy, such as the basic industry in general and the oil, mineral, and banking sectors.

• According to the prospect of creating a connection with the urban masses, populist regimes established labor laws and came to control unions.

• Often, these politicians used practices considered authoritarian.

• They disrespected, ignored, and even, in more extreme cases, persecuted the opposition and institutions such as parliaments and courts.

Nationalist speech

• In addition to the economic field, nationalist discourse predominated in the political and social segments.

• Parties in honor of leaders and their deeds, as well as speeches in stadiums, were hallmarks of populist regimes.

• Except for Mexico, the urban masses were the main support base of populist leaders.

• To a large extent, this support was related to labor policy, which reduced working hours, and instituted mandatory vacations.

• On the other hand, trade unions were tied to the state.

• Argentina, Perón connived with the torture and death of radical communists.

• This repression secured, for a time, the support of the national bourgeoisie.

• Populism demanded a centralized state that strongly intervened in the economy and controlled the labor movement.

United States

• In this context, it is necessary to understand the relationship between the United States and populist regimes.

• In the passage from the 19th century to the 20th century, from the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, which lasted from 1901 to 1909, the United States had military intervention in Latin American countries to guarantee its interests.

• This policy became known as the Big Stick.

• When nazi and fascist regimes ascended in Europe, there was a concern for the United States that Latin America would line up with the Italian and German governments.

• If this happened, North America would lose a critical sphere of influence.

• In this sense, the policy of good neighborliness was a fundamental element for, for example, Getúlio Vargas' Brazil to enter the Second World War alongside the Allies.

The end

• Most of these populist regimes ended in the context of the Cold War when military coups occurred in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

• At that time, the United States changed its foreign policy again and began to support the coups on the grounds of "fighting communism" and "Soviet influence."

• They were able to protect their investments and influence in Latin America.