The Rule of Getulio Vargas in Brazil - Essay Example

Analysis of the rule of Getulio Vargas in Brazil as an example of Latin American Populism Name Institution Course Date Analysis of the rule of Getulio Vargas in Brazil as an example of Latin American Populism IntroductionML Populism is a political style that is synonymous with Latin America. The first cases of populist politics in Latin America appeared in the early 20th century, in which populist opposition leaders used populism politics to create direct, personal connections between themselves and the ordinary people1. Since then, populist politics has dominated the Latin American politics. In Latin America, José López Portillo of Mexico, Juan Domingo Perón of Argentina, Alan Garca of Peru, Salvador Allende of Chile, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Brazil’s Getulio Vargas are just some of the political leaders who are synonymous with populism politics2. Fausto reveals that these politicians used populist approach to not only rise to power, but also to maintain their authoritarian rule3. Brazil’s Getulio Vargas is an example of the Latin American leaders who used populist politics to appeal to the people and this enabled him to rule Brazil for more than a decade. This essay focuses on Getulio Vargas and analyses his rule in Brazil as an example of Latin American populism. Concept of Populism Defined Populism is a political concept that has been used by leaders in different parts of the world to influence the masses and to maintain the rule. Although the concept of populism has been used far and wide in literatures, scholars have not coined a single definition for the term and are applied differently in different contexts. In the political context, the concept of populism refers to competing for and exercising political clout4. Welch defines the concept as a political strategy where a self-centred leader exercises government authority based on the support they get from a large number of followers5. In other words, populism involves political mobilization of the ordinary people by self-cantered leaders who oppose elite groups on behalf of the constituents. De Castro and Ronci defines populism as a political behaviour that a person or a group of individuals adopt that involves the use of economic tools and other means aimed to generate favourable results quickly irrespective of how short-lived they may be as long as the actions help the leaders acquire and maintain authoritarian power6. The Jordan Young’s Brazil defines the concept as the mobilization of a large number of people against a government that is considered to be led elites who are out-of-touch and acting on their self-interest7. From the different definitions, the common denominator for the term populism is that populism is a political conduct in which self-cantered and authorial politicians use economic and social tools that are popular with the people to gain and maintain authoritarian power, regardless of how short-lived the actions might turn out to be. Getulio Vargas Populism Latin America is one of the regions that have been under the rule of quite a number of populist leaders. Some of these leaders are José López Portillo of Mexico, Juan Domingo Perón of Argentina, Alan Garca of Peru, Salvador Allende of Chile, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Brazil’s Getulio Vargas. Despite these leaders known for authoritarian and dictatorial leadership, the majority ruled their countries for a couple of years mainly because of their abilities to influence the citizens of their respective countries through populist politics. Getulio Vargas is regarded as one of the Latin American populist leaders. Vargas’ populist ideologies can be seen right from the way he risen to power. Vargas became the president of Brazil not through a democratic election, but through a coup de tat in 1930. Before the 1930 Revolution, Brazil were led by dictators and Republican aristocrats who were mainly from Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais states who had been altering power to one after the other and the people since 18898. Because people were tired of these aristocrats, a political Revolution had to be organized in an attempt to overthrow them so as to be able to install a popular leader. At the time, Vargas was the leader of the popular Liberal Alliance and was among the top politicians opposed to the regime at the time. Although an election was conducted, it turned out to be fraudulent as it was alleged to have been stolen by the incumbents and Vargas was among the leaders who opposed the results of the elections. Being a populist politician, Vargas took advantage of the discontent among the population with the incumbent leaders and the fact that the people were demanding for a popular leader to gain power9. He did this through the assistance of the tenentes and the public that helped him overthrow the government that had already gotten out-of-touch with the people. Because people were demanding a democratic and open government, Vargas promised to establish an all inclusive government that respects the rights and liberties of the people and this enabled him to rally a huge support behind him as he sought to overthrow the regime10. However, it turned out that these were just populist strategies of getting support of the people so he could gain power because Vargas, like his predecessors became an authoritarian and dictator, which short-lived the promises he made to the people as he sought their support. After imposing himself as the Brazilian ruler in 1937, things got tough for Vargas and his government because of the biting Great Depression that began in 1929 and Brazil was among the worst affected. The Great Depression caused the prices of Brazil’s main export, coffee to fall sharply and this not only affected the country economically, but also the farmers who dependent of coffee sale as a source of their livelihood11. Therefore, to maintain his rule, Vargas adopted a populist approach by intervening so as to gain the support of the people, who were already feeling the effects of Depression. Vargas particularly reacted by helping the farmers by purchasing part of the coffee production so as to prevent the falling domestic demand. At the same time, Vargas suspended repaying of foreign debts so as have money to help the ailing coffee industry. Accordingly, this helped Vargas gain a huge support of the public who saw him as a leader who is concerned about the economy of the country and is determined to improve it. Additionally, to attract a huge following from the public, Vargas introduced a number of populist monetary policies to tackle the rising inflation and the falling value of the currency that was a concern to the people in the 1930s. For instance, to tackle the rising inflation that had become a concern to the people, Vargas devalued the country’s currency to help manage the exchange rates in the market so as to assist in improving the prices of its coffee exports12. Besides the devaluation of the currency, Vargas, in his first years in office introduced interventionist model as was seen in 1933 when he created the Brazilian Coffee Institute (IBC) to handle all the matters dealing with coffee in the country. Similarly, Vargas created an agency called Instituto de Acucar e do Alcohol (IAA) to address the issues in the sugar industry that had become of concern to the Brazilian people, such as production and marketing of sugar13. Vargas’ populist approaches to politics during his decade long rule is seen with regards to how he approached the Brazilian working classes. Vargas was aware that, for him to main his authoritarian rule, he had to seek the favours of the Brazilian working class so as to prevent them from dissenting. At the time Vargas forcefully gained power, the working class were not happy with the conditions in which they worked and were demanding for the terms of their working conditions to be improved. As such, when Vargas become the ruler, among the first things he did was to appease the working classes by introducing reforms in the labour market through the creation of Social Security Institute14. The mandate of the institute was to provide medical assistance and welfare protection, such as pension and retirement benefits to the country’s working class all put under the control of the federal government. Additionally, Vargas provided the workers with incentives for the formation of labour union, something that the working class had been clamouring for but in vain15. Making such populist approaches made Vargas appeal to the working class and this help prevent dissent from the workers against his regime. The political revolt that occurred in the 1920 resulted in the arrest and detention of many people in Brazil. The revolt also resulted in the death of hundreds of people some of whom were maimed in the process. However, in public, Brazilians were demanding that those who were involved in the revolt of 1920 be pardoned and amnesty granted to them16. As such, when Vargas took over power, to appeal to the people and rally them behind his government, he promised to embark on immediate Reconstruction of the country and that he would extent amnesty to the people who were involved in the 1920 revolt. Vargas’ promise for amnesty for those involved in the 1920 revolt was just a populist approach well calculated to appeal to the masses and he achieved this as this populist approach enabled him appeal to not only the tenets that they differed with ideologically, but also to the la patria’s17. Additionally, Vargas populist style of leadership became evident after his decade long rule when students, military and political elites started rising against his government in demand for democracy18. Vargas was a dictator, autocratic and authoritarian leader who curtailed the democracy and civil liberty of the people something that did not go well with the people who thought that he was going to promote democracy19. Because of this, the people started dissenting and rebelling against his government from all over the country. Upon realizing that everybody was rising against his dictatorial rule, Vargas changed his style of leadership by adopting populist appeals to the masses by declaring, introducing favourable labour, introducing constitutional reforms, as well embarking on economic and industrial modernization to get the support of the workers and entrenching democracy by introducing two new political parties20. Historians reveal that the populist reforms introduced by Vargas changed the negative opinions that the people had about the leadership of Vargas thus enabling his to rule the country for more than a decade. Moreover, Vargas rule was also marred by populist politics as was seen when he declared war on corruption. Reports indicate that Brazil was one of the most corrupt countries in the world in the early to mid-20th century. According to Loveman, corruption was widespread in Brazil to the extent that it becomes part of the Brazilian culture21. The high corruption continued even after Vargas had taken power. Realising that Vargas was not going anything to tackle corruption, people began staging protest to address corruption. Realising that people were tired of corruption, Vargas immediately adopted a populist political approach to corruption by promising war on corruption. This way, the leader was able to appeal to the people whom as a result rallied behind him accordingly enabling him to rule for many years until 1954, when he committed suicide. Lastly, Vargas rise into prominence and power came about because he took advantage of the virtual civil war and the political assassination of the opposition vice president candidate in the run up to the 1930 elections. The virtual civil wars of the 1930 coupled with the assignation of the opposition vice president candidate created anger among the population against the ruling government. Vargas being an opportunist took advantage of this as immediately he returned from exile, he made the civil war and the assassination that he linked the government to in order to get the support of the people, which was indeed a populist political approach22. Conclusion Getulio Vargas is one of the most famous populist leaders in Latin America. Vargas ruled Brazil for more than a decade after getting to power through a coup and subsequently through democratic elections. The analysis indicates that Vargas managed to rule Brazil for those many years because of his populist approach to politics. He used populist politics, such as promising to national reconstruction, entrenching freedom and civil liberty, economic and constitutional reforms, as well as war on corruption. Additionally, to gain the support of the masses, Vargas promised to introduce labour reforms to help improve the social and economic welfare of the people. These among other populist approaches to politics enabled Vargas rule the country for many year. However, Vargas was later on overthrown from power and committed suicide later on in 1954. Bibliography Burns, E. Bradford. A History of Brazil (2nd Edition). New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. De Castro, Paulo R. and Marcio Ronci. Sixty Years of Populism in Brazil (1991): 151-173. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/6876088.pdf Edwards, Sebastian. Left Behind: Latin America And The False Promise Of Populism. Web. 24 February 2017 http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/184784.html Fausto, Boris. A Concise History of Brazil. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Green, John. The Rebirth Of Populism In Latin America Poses A Powerful Challenge To The Neoliberal Order Send To Friend Printer-Friendly Version. 26 August 2006. Web. 24 February 2017 https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1903 Herring, Hubert. A History of Latin America, 759-768 the Dictatorship of Getulio Vargas, 1930-45.Compiler Daniel W. Blackmon. CD-Rom. Coral Gables, Coral Gables, FL, 2002. Jordan Young’s Brazil. Vargas’s Suicide Notes: 24/8/1954. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1972. Levine, Robert M., and John J. Crocitti. “The reality of the Brazilian countryside”, in the Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Duke: Duke University Press, 1999. Loveman, Brian. For la Patria: Politics and the Armed Forces in Latin America. Boston, MA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004. The Economist. The Return of Populism. 12 April 2006. Web. 24 February 2017 http://www.economist.com/node/6802448 U.S. Library of Congress. The era of Getúlio Vargas, 1930-54. Web. 24 February 2017 http://countrystudies.us/brazil/16.htm Weiss, Morgan A. Opposition Politics and Populism: A Comparative Analysis of South American Populist Governments. New York, NY: ProQuest, 2009. Welch, Clifford Andrew. “Vargas and the Reorganization of Rural Life in Brazil (1930-1945),” Rev. Bras. Hist., 36 (2006): 71. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0102-01882016000100081&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en Read More