Inclusión política en el marco de procesos de paz y su significado para el desarrollo de los sistemas de partidos y la democratizaciónlos casos del FMLN (El Salvador), M-19 (Colombia) y MLN-T (Uruguay) en perspectiva comparada

Résumé

Latin America, assumed as “a living political laboratory”, is a region that, carefully observed, allows us to understand the causes, courses and consequences of its various social and political variables. These are interrelated here with the main objective of analyzing the historical events experienced around three peace processes, political inclusion, party systems and democratization lived in three different countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s: El Salvador, Colombia and Uruguay. The political inclusion, referred to former guerrilla groups -FMLN, M-19 and MLN-T-, specifically aims to understand the transition of these belligerent left organizations to political parties, and therefore to explainthe variations offered in peace processes, the scenarios of democratization or transition and its performance in later years. This study wants to contribute to the state of the art of studies in democratization, party systems and conflict resolution in Latin America comparatively, which are relate in a broader framework with historical processes such as theattempts ofrevolution in the region, the Third wave of democracy or the end of the Cold War. For it this dissertation goes to the comparative method, typical on political science, here asspecified by the Heidelberg School, which invites from a historical-empirical perspective to analyze differences and similarities of the cases insisting on a proper contextualization. At the same timecontributes tocomplexifythe influence of the central causal relationship of political inclusion on party life and the degree of democratization achieved, in addition to recognizing the possible interdependence and complexity of the variables. To operationalize the study, a historical account of each country and each guerrilla group is counted, describing individually and comparatively the configuration that made possible not only the emergence of armed conflicts or violent situations, but alsothe framework of political inclusion within the search of peace and democratization. This is vital to understand the tension between a revolutionary moment and one tending towards consensus and political reform. Finally, the configuration of the party systems at the time of the demobilization and inclusion processes of the old guerrillas is described, framing it in two additional aspects that describe the new institutional framework and its performance: the type of presidentialism and the quality of democracy. A central element that transcends is the working hypothesis, which establishes that depending on the type of political integration strategy followed by the old guerrilla groupsand, according to the context of each country, a change occurs in the conditioned party system or not due to its degree of success and maintenance over time, in turn affecting democratic performance in a tending positive way. This hypothesis is fulfilled, to the extent that such success-produced not from the simple transition to institutional political life allowed by the peace and inclusion processes, in addition to the achieved level of coalition or party autonomy- depends on the continuity of a renewed left political identity that manages to transcend the armed (illegal) experience to the political party (legal). This develop a coherence that overcomes the external conditions of the initial phase of a peace and integration process to one ofelectoral normalityand democratic competitiveness, withinindividualcontexts such as the evolution of the type of presidentialism. Although the similarities of the three cases are based on the goal of pacifying and democratizing, of “changing the bullets for votes” and opening political representation, the results are different. The levels of performance are differentiable, relativizing the effects of peace processes and political inclusion. To that extent, while the former representatives of the FMLN and MLN-T guerrillas in Salvador and Uruguay achieved long-term power quotas until they reached the presidency after having overcome dictatorship contexts, this growth was frustrated in the colombian M-19 butwith the permanence of a dispersed party system and a violent context. Likewise, presidential styles differ, while El Salvador and Colombia have tended to a reinforced or even rigidpresidentialism, Uruguay has done to a more attenuated or “parliamentary”model. Moreover,if in the first two countries the quality of democracy still leaves to be desired, the last onehas come to be distinguished by its consolidation and high level, even at a regional comparative level.