From the unfulfilled promises of liberal peace to authoritarian leadership in El Salvador

Abstract

From the late 1980s onwards, El Salvador started a series of neoliberal policies that consolidated in the state through the Chapultepec Accords of 1992 (“agreement”). The agreement closed 12 years of civil conflict between a civil-military regime and the guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). After more than three decades of the agreement, promises of social peace, equality, poverty reduction, and land redistribution remain unfulfilled. The liberal-economic state’s structure has prompted authoritarian governments to maintain the status quo. The article aims to analyse the development of that crisis through four sections: 1) Liberal peace theoretical debate; 2) Mixed methodological aspects; 3) Discussion: Unfulfilled promises of liberal peace in El Salvador; 4) Result and frustration: El Salvador, authoritarianism and liberal peace.

The article uses a study case methodology that combines quantitative and qualitative approaches to relate authoritarian leadership and unfulfilled liberal peace promises, along with a revision of theoretical approaches (i.e. historical, central and peripheral perspectives of liberal peace). It uses hermeneutics and documentary research, combining databases revision from Latinobarómetro, Variety of Democracy, the World Bank, the International Organization for Migration, and Transparency International. The time frame analyzed covers three decades from the agreement that ended the civil conflict in 1992 to 2022, and it considers three variables (i.e. economic stagnation, public debt and migration; corruption; violence and insecurity).

The liberal peace theoretical debate establishes three perspectives: historical and democratic, centre, and peripheral.

The first group of theories –known as historic and democratic perspective- highlights the creation of interdependent relations that make war a costly option and the spillover effect that attracts developing states to the democratic ruling. It trusts that democracies and free market economies do not fight among themselves. The Cold War during the 1970s and 1980s marks this period, backing liberal-democratic hegemonic thinking that spreads through international organisations and Washington´s influence.

The second group of theories –normative-institutional- starts after the end of the Cold War and changes towards shaping institutions to receive liberal peace. At the local level, normative-institutional theories agree that leaders in democratic ruling are the object of institutions and public opinion pressure that limit their room of manoeuvre to declare war. It articulates with the first-generation theories in the economic interdependence assumption as a variable that avoids democracies going to war when costs overcome benefit calculations.

The third group of theories constitute peripheral and critical perspectives that analyse the consequences of liberal peace imposition. It studies the interaction between liberal international actors and illiberal domestic forces that compete within the state to set procedures that reflect their ideologies. In this sense, liberal orders clash with illiberal ones to create shared political technologies, strategies and practices such as state-securitised development. Critical theories draw similar arguments from post-colonial and constructivist social standpoints.

The theoretical framework helps to interpret the failed development of liberal peace in El Salvador after the Chapultepec peace process. The accord pushed transformations to enhance democracy, institutions, market economies and suppression of counterinsurgency doctrine within the security sector. However, liberal peace failed to reduce conflicts and limited state capacities to implement the accord concerning land redistribution, poverty eradication, social justice and equality. Thus, liberal peace creates three crises that promote authoritarian rule to cope with them: economic crisis, corruption and violence.

The evaluation of variables selected to interpret unfulfilled liberal peace promises describes convergent crises in three domains: economic, political and social.

Regarding economic crisis, the article mentions how the agreement implemented an economic program of rural industrialisation, land redistribution and social measures to reduce poverty. However, the program's results were less ambitious and neoliberal measures gave prevalence to privatisation and state reduction in detriment of social justice and labour rights. The evolving conditions reduced economic growth, created public debt, and increased levels of migration directed to developed states.

The corruption category describes the lack of policies to fight impunity, keeping the ruling elites' control of state institutions. Corruption perception and varieties of democracy (V-Dem) indexes reveal the lack of public trust in state institutions at all branches: executive, legislative and judiciary. The results show a weak democratic culture that cannot consolidate its mandate after the Chapultepec accords.

The third category, violence and security, expresses the convergent consequences of economic and corruption crises. It is noteworthy that the historical evolution of El Salvador has perpetuated violence as a mechanism to preserve the status quo of oligarch ruling and neoliberal economic structure. Equally, violence has been the model of conflict resolution society, and it was the answer to the restrictive political regime of the 1970s. After the peace agreement, the amnesty law created a state of impunity that transferred to institutions and collective culture. The governments –left and right-wing parties- have been instrumental in facing violence with severe security policies to win public opinion support.

All mentioned above opens the analytical section concerning the three categories that demonstrate the unfulfilled promises of liberal peace in El Salvador. After evaluating the variables, the article summarises with concise arguments that link the assumption of unfulfilled liberal promises and authoritarianism in El Salvador.

Finally, the article concludes that unfulfilled liberal peace promises rooted in the 1992 Chapultepec agreements have resulted in convergent crises that paved the way to authoritarianism in El Salvador in the figure of Nayib Bukele. The latter has influenced state institutions to promote an accurate environment for more stringent security measures to the detriment of democratic guarantees; however, with certain positive results lowering homicide and emigration rates in the country. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that radicalisation of urban population and Salvadorian diaspora that demand security have paved the way for stronger presidentialism.

After years of traditional market policies that eroded state’s capacities, it is relevant to mention that Salvadorian citizens’ frustration with democratic promises -evident in country’s instability and insecurity- influenced political preferences. Thus, the electorate preferred a more authoritarian state that faced daily violence problems, despite traditional corruption and lesser democratic liberties.

The experience of El Salvador highlights lessons learned for other countries that are transiting post-conflict periods, such as Colombia, and the perils of returning to authoritarian governments.