Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T21:05:13.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ambivalent Moderation: The FMLN’s Ideological Accommodation to Post-War Politics in El Salvador

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2018

Ralph Sprenkels
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

El Salvador’s FMLN is an oft-cited example of a rebel movement which successfully embraced electoral democracy. This article examines the ideological dimensions of this transformation. In the course of the Salvadoran peace process, the FMLN substantially overhauled its ideological orientation and associated modes of engagement with the state and the broader political system. Moderation unfolded in four subsequent stages: the resignification of revolution as a process of reform, the FMLN’s rebel-to-party adaptation, the electoral consolidation of the FMLN, and the FMLN as the party in government. Over the years, while electoral politics invited public moderation, Leninist dogma continued to dominate internal party politics. This article finds that the post-war FMLN has employed seemingly contradictory ideological repertoires in parallel. This ambivalence, strongly rooted in the war, has facilitated the FMLN’s electoral ascendency. It has also strained democratic consolidation in El Salvador.

Keywords

rebel-to-party transformationmoderationideologydemocratizationEl Salvador
Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , June 2019 , pp. 536 - 558
Copyright
© The Author(s). Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Ralph Sprenkels is Lecturer in Conflict Studies at Utrecht University. Contact email: [email protected]

References

Acevedo Moreno, H. (2009), ‘Un FMLN Organizado Bajo Principios Leninistas’, unpublished manuscript (Sonsonate: Escuela de formación política e ideológica Feliciano Ama).Google Scholar
Allison, M.E. (2006), ‘The Transition from Armed Opposition to Electoral Opposition in Central America’, Latin American Politics and Society, 48(4): 137–162.Google Scholar
Allison, M.E. (2016), ‘Why Splinter? Parties that Split from the FSLN, FMLN and URNG’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 48(4): 707–737.Google Scholar
Allison, M.E. and Alvarez, A.M. (2012), ‘Unity and Disunity in the FMLN’, Latin American Politics and Society, 54(4): 89–118.Google Scholar
Almeida, P. (2010a), ‘El Salvador: Elecciones y Movimientos Sociales’, Revista de Ciencias Políticas, 30(2): 319–334.Google Scholar
Almeida, P. (2010b), ‘Social Movements, Political Parties, and Electoral Triumph in El Salvador’, NACLA Report on the Americas, 42(6): 16–21.Google Scholar
Arauz, S. (2017), ‘La Dirección del Partido ha Decidido Cortar Definitivamente con Nayib Bukele’, El Faro Revista Digital, 13 September, https://elfaro.net/es/201709/el_salvador/20884/“La-dirección-del-partido-ha-decidido-cortar-definitivamente-con-Nayib-Bukele”.htmGoogle Scholar
Auyero, J. (2010), ‘Clandestine Connections: The Political and Relational Makings of Collective Violence’, in E.D. Arias and D. Goldstein (eds), Violent Democracies in Latin America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press): 108–132.Google Scholar
Azpuru, D. (2010), ‘The Salience of Ideology: Fifteen Years of Presidential Elections in El Salvador’, Latin American Politics and Society, 52(2): 103–138.Google Scholar
Binford, L. (2010), ‘A Perfect Storm of Neglect and Failure: Postwar Capitalist Restoration in Northern Morazán, El Salvador’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 37(3): 531–557.Google Scholar
Blair, H., Booth, J., Córdova, R. and Seligson, M. (1995), Civil Society and Democratic Development in El Salvador: A CDIE Assessment (Washington: USAID).Google Scholar
Burihabwa, N.E. and Curtis, D. (2019), ‘The Limits of Resistance Ideologies: The CNDD–FDD and Legacies of Governance in Burundi’, Government and Opposition: An International Journal of Comparative Politics, 54 (in this issue).Google Scholar
Byrne, H. (1996), El Salvador’s Civil War: A Study of a Revolution (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner).Google Scholar
Cannon, B. and Hume, M. (2012), ‘Central America, Civil Society and the “Pink Tide”: Democratization or Dedemocratization?’, Democratization, 19(6): 1039–1064.Google Scholar
Caravantes, D.V. (2016), ‘Nicaragua da Asilo Político al Expresidente Funes, Investigado por Cinco Delitos de Corrupción’, El Faro Revista Digital, 6 September, https://elfaro.net/es/201609/el_salvador/19214/Nicaragua-da-asilo-político-al-expresidente-Funes-investigado-por-cinco-delitos-de-corrupción.htmGoogle Scholar
Castañeda, J. (1993), La Utopía Desarmada (Mexico City: Joaquín Mortiz).Google Scholar
Chávez, J.M. (2017), Poets and Prophets of the Resistance: Intellectuals and the Origins of El Salvador’s Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Ching, E. (2016), Stories of Civil War in El Salvador: A Battle over Memory (Durham: University of North Carolina Press).Google Scholar
Clark, M. (2015), ‘The New Left and Health Care Reform in El Salvador’, Latin American Politics and Society, 57(4): 97–118.Google Scholar
Co Latino (2015), ‘Medardo González: En El Salvador Estamos Listos Para Defender al Gobierno’, 21 July.Google Scholar
Colburn, F.D. (2009), ‘The Turnover in El Salvador’, Journal of Democracy, 20(3): 143–152.Google Scholar
Colburn, F.D. and Cruz, A. (2014), ‘El Salvador’s Beleaguered Democracy’, Journal of Democracy, 25(3): 149–158.Google Scholar
Córdova Macías, R., Cruz, J.M. and Zechmeister, E.J. (2015), ‘The Political Culture of Democracy in El Salvador and in the Americas, 2014: Democratic Governance across 10 Years of the AmericasBarometer’, Vanderbilt University and USAID, www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/es/AB2014_El_Salvador_Country_Report_English_V3_W_100615.pdfGoogle Scholar
Cortina Orero, E. (2017), La Guerra por Otros Medios: Comunicación Insurgente y Proceso Revolucionario en El Salvador (1970–1992) (San Salvador: UCA Editores).Google Scholar
Crandall, R. (2016), The Salvador Option: The United States in El Salvador, 1977–1992 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Curtis, D. and Sindre, G. (2019), ‘Transforming State Visions: Ideology and Ideas in Armed Groups Turned Political Parties – Introduction to Special Issue’, Government and Opposition: An International Journal of Comparative Politics, 54 (in this issue).Google Scholar
de Zeeuw, J. (2010), ‘“Sons of War”’: Parties and Party Systems in Post-War El Salvador and Cambodia’, Democratization, 17(6): 1176–1201.Google Scholar
Deonandan, K. (2007), ‘Revolutionaries to Politicians: Can the Transition Succeed?’, in K. Deonandan, D. Close and G. Prevost (eds), From Revolutionary Movements to Political Parties: Cases from Latin America and Africa (New York: Palgrave): 227–245.Google Scholar
ERP (1994), ‘Boletín Informativo Número 4 (diciembre)’, Manuscript.Google Scholar
Ferroggiaro, K.M. (1995), ‘Reframing Revolution: The Rebirth of the Latin American Left’, in C. Derber (ed.), What’s Left? Radical Politics in the Postcommunist Era (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press): 86–106.Google Scholar
Finocchiaro, M. (1999), Beyond Left and Right: Democratic Elitism in Mosca and Gramsci (New Haven: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
FLACSO (1995), El Salvador: El Proceso Electoral 1994 (San Salvador: FLACSO).Google Scholar
González, L. (1992), Acuerdos Hacia una Nueva Nación: Recopilación de los Acuerdos de Paz Suscritos con el Gobierno de El Salvador (San Salvador: FMLN).Google Scholar
González, L.A. (2011), ‘El FMLN Salvadoreño: De la Guerrilla al Gobierno’, Nueva Sociedad, 234: 143–159.Google Scholar
Greene, S.R. and Keogh, S. (2009), ‘The Parliamentary and Presidential Elections in El Salvador, March 2009’, Electoral Studies, 28(4): 666–669.Google Scholar
Grenier, Y. (1999), The Emergency of Insurgency in El Salvador: Ideology and Political Will (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press).Google Scholar
Handal, S.J. (2004), El FMLN y la Vigencia del Pensamiento Revolucionario en El Salvador (San Salvador: Institute Schafik Handal).Google Scholar
Harmel, R. and Janda, K. (1994), ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 6(3): 259–287.Google Scholar
Harnecker, M. (1993), Con la Mirada en Alto: Historia de las Fuerzas Populares de Liberación a Través de Entrevistas con sus Dirigentes (San Salvador: UCA Editores).Google Scholar
Holland, A.C. and Palmer-Rubin, B. (2015), ‘Beyond the Machine: Clientelist Brokers and Interest Organizations in Latin America’, Comparative Political Studies, 48(9): 1186–1223.Google Scholar
Huntington, S.P. (1991), The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press).Google Scholar
IUDOP (2016), ‘Los Salvadoreños y las Salvadoreñas Evalúan la Situación del País a Finales de 2015’, IUDOP Boletín de Prensa, 30: 1–16.Google Scholar
Jarstad, A. and Sisk, T. (2008) (eds), From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kowalchuk, L. (2003), ‘From Competition to Cooperation: Threats, Opportunities, and Organizational Survival in the Salvadorean Peasant Movement’, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 74: 43–63.Google Scholar
Kriger, N. (2003), Guerrilla Veterans in Post-War Zimbabwe: Symbolic and Violent Politics, 1980–1987 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kundnani, A. (2012), ‘Radicalisation: The Journey of a Concept’, Race and Class, 54(2): 3–25.Google Scholar
Lemus, E. (2014), ‘La Millonaria Revolución de Alba’, El Faro Revista Digital, 19 January, https://elfaro.net/es/201401/noticias/14423/La-millonaria-revolución-de-Alba.htm.Google Scholar
Lemus, E. (2016), ‘Alba Tiene Ocho Offshore en Panamá y así Reduce Impuestos en El Salvador’, El Faro Revista Digital, 11 April, https://elfaro.net/es/201604/el_salvador/18388/Alba-tiene-ocho-offshore-en-Panamá-y-así-reduce-impuestos-en-El-Salvador.htm.Google Scholar
Lenin, V.I. (1970), Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (Moscow: Progress Publishers).Google Scholar
Linz, J. (2006), Robert Michels, Political Sociology, and the Future of Democracy (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers).Google Scholar
López Bernal, C.G. (2016), ‘Schafick Jorge Handal y la “Unidad” del FMLN de Postguerra: entre la Memoria y la Historia: El Salvador, 1992–2015’, Diálogos, 20(2): 13–29.Google Scholar
Luciak, I. (2001), Después de la Revolución: Igualdad de Género y Democracia en El Salvador, Nicaragua y Guatemala (San Salvador: UCA Editores).Google Scholar
Mampilly, Z. (2011), Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life During War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Manning, C. (2008), The Making of Democrats. Elections and Party Development in Postwar Bosnia, El Salvador, and Mozambique (New York: Palgrave).Google Scholar
Martínez, O. (2017), ‘How Not to Assemble a Country: In El Salvador, the Legacies of Violence Persist and Intensify’, NACLA Report on the Americas, 49(2): 139–144.Google Scholar
Martínez Peñate, O. (1995), El Salvador: Del Conflicto Armado a la Negociación 1979–1989 (Ontario: Bandek Enterprises).Google Scholar
Medrano, J.R. (1992), ‘Revolución Democrática. Tesis para Estrategia del FMLN’, manuscript, San Salvador, Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen.Google Scholar
Michels, R. (1962), Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (Glencoe: Free Press).Google Scholar
Mitra, S.K. (2013), ‘The Ambivalent Moderation of Hindu Nationalism in India’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(3): 269–285.Google Scholar
Monche, N.O. (2014), ‘El Salvador: Retos a los Partidos Políticos’, Revista de Ciencia Política, 34(1): 171–187.Google Scholar
Montgomery, T.S. (1995), Revolution in El Salvador: From Civil Strife to Civil Peace, 2nd edn (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).Google Scholar
Montoya, A. (2015), ‘The Turn of the Offended: Clientelism in the Wake of El Salvador’s 2009 Elections’, Social Analysis, 59(4): 101–118.Google Scholar
Montoya, A. (2018), The Violence of Democracy: Political Life in Postwar El Salvador (New York: Palgrave).Google Scholar
Pareto, V. (1991), The Rise and Fall of Elites: An Application of Theoretical Sociology (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers).Google Scholar
Peceny, M. and Stanley, W. (2001), ‘Liberal Social Reconstruction and the Resolution of Civil Wars in Central America’, International Organization, 55(1): 149–182.Google Scholar
Perla, H. and Cruz-Feliciano, H. (2013), ‘The Twenty-First-Century Left in El Salvador and Nicaragua: Understanding Apparent Contradictions and Criticisms’, Latin American Perspectives, 40(3): 83–106.Google Scholar
Puyana, J.R. (2008), ‘El Proceso de Selección de los Candidatos a Diputados del FMLN: ¿Qué hay Detrás de las Candidaturas?’, Reflexión Política, 10(20): 202–225.Google Scholar
Réserve, R. (2009), ‘Las Elecciones de 2009 en El Salvador: Avances y Retos de la Democracia’, Nueva Sociedad, 224: 4–18.Google Scholar
Réserve, R. (2012), ‘El Salvador: Entre el Continuismo y la Desilusión’, Revista de Ciencia Política, 32(1): 151–169.Google Scholar
Réserve, R. (2016), ‘El Salvador: Un Año Político y Social Convulse’, Revista de Ciencia Política, 36(1): 177–194.Google Scholar
Ruano, J. (2016), ‘Hegemonía y Contrahegemonía en la Nueva Coyuntura Política’, La Universidad, 8: 19–39.Google Scholar
Samayoa, S. (2003), El Salvador: La Reforma Pactada (San Salvador: UCA Editores).Google Scholar
Schedler, A. and Hoffmann, B. (2016), ‘Communicating Authoritarian Elite Cohesion’, Democratization, 23(1): 93–117.Google Scholar
Selbin, E. (2010), Revolution, Rebellion, Resistance: The Power of Story (London: Zed Books).Google Scholar
Silber, I.C. (2011), Everyday Revolutionaries: Gender, Violence and Disillusionment in Postwar El Salvador (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press).Google Scholar
Sindre, G.M. (2016), ‘Internal Party Democracy in Former Rebel Parties’, Party Politics, 22(4): 501–511.Google Scholar
Sindre, G.M. (2018), ‘From Secessionism to Regionalism: Intra-organizational Change and Ideological Moderation Within Armed Secessionist Movements’, Political Geography, 64: 23–32.Google Scholar
Söderberg Kovacs, M. and Hatz, S. (2016), ‘Rebel-to-Party Transformations in Civil War Peace Processes 1975–2011’, Democratization, 23(6): 990–1008.Google Scholar
Southall, R. (2013), Liberation Movements in Power: Party and State in Southern Africa (Woodbridge: James Curry).Google Scholar
Sprenkels, R. (2005), The Price of Peace: The Human Rights Movement in Postwar El Salvador (Amsterdam: Cuadernos del CEDLA).Google Scholar
Sprenkels, R. (2011), ‘Roberto d’Aubuisson versus Schafik Handal: Militancy, Memory Work and Human Rights’, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 91: 15–30.Google Scholar
Sprenkels, R. (2018a), After Insurgency: Revolution and Electoral Politics in El Salvador (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press).Google Scholar
Sprenkels, R. (2018b), ‘Negotiated Revolution or Captured Peace? The Historiography of the Peace Process in El Salvador’, Contemporanea, 21(2): 301–315.Google Scholar
Tezcür, G.M. (2010), ‘The Moderation Theory Revisited: The Case of Islamic Political Actors’, Party Politics, 16(1): 69–88.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (2003), The Politics of Collective Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Tilly, C. and Tarrow, S. (2008), Contentious Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers).Google Scholar
Torres-Rivas, E. (1996), ‘Los Desafíos del Desarrollo Democrático en Centroamérica’, Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos, 22(1): 7–40.Google Scholar
van der Borgh, C. and Savenije, W. (2015), ‘De-securitising and Re-securitising Gang Policies: The Funes Government and Gangs in El Salvador’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 47(1): 149–176.Google Scholar
Villalobos, J. (1989), ‘A Democratic Revolution for El Salvador’, Foreign Policy, 74(1): 103–122.Google Scholar
Villalobos, J. (1999), Sin Vencedores ni Vencidos: Pacificación y Reconciliación en El Salvador (San Salvador: Instituto para un Nuevo El Salvador).Google Scholar
Viterna, J.S. (2012), ‘The Left and “Life” in El Salvador’, Politics and Gender, 8(2): 248–254.Google Scholar
Wade, C. (2016), Captured Peace: Elites and Peacebuilding in El Salvador (Athens: Ohio University Press).Google Scholar
Wickham, C.R. (2004), ‘The Path to Moderation: Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party’, Comparative Politics, 36(2): 205–228.Google Scholar
Whitfield, T. (1995), Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuria and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).Google Scholar
Whitfield, T. (2007), Friends Indeed? The United Nations, Groups of Friends, and the Resolution of Conflict (Washington: United States Peace Institute).Google Scholar
Whiting, M. (2018), ‘Moderation without Change: The Strategic Transformation of Sinn Féin and the IRA in Northern Ireland’, Government and Opposition: An International Journal of Comparative Politics, 53(2): 288–311.Google Scholar
Wilson, A. (2019), ‘Ambiguities of Radicalism After Insurgents Become Rulers: Conflicting Pressures on Revolutionary State Power in Western Sahara’s Liberation Movement’, Government and Opposition: An International Journal of Comparative Politics.Google Scholar
Wolf, S. (2017), Mano Dura: The Politics of Gang Control in El Salvador (Austin: University of Texas Press).Google Scholar
Wood, E. (2000), Forging Democracy from Below: Insurgent Transitions in South Africa and El Salvador (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Wood, E. (2003), Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Yañez, M. (2014), ‘Rupturas y Debates Internos del FMLN desde los Acuerdos de Paz a la Victoria Electoral’, in E. De Gori, K. Pirker and C.E. Villacorta Zuluaga (eds), 2014 Año de Elecciones. El Salvador y Costa Rica: Miradas Sobre el Orden Politico (Buenos Aires: Sans Soleil Ediciones): 183–193.Google Scholar
Young, K. (2015), ‘War by Other Means in El Salvador’, NACLA News, 16 March, https://nacla.org/news/2015/03/16/war-other-means-el-salvador.Google Scholar
Zamora, R. (1998), El Salvador: Heridas que no Cierran. Los Partidos Políticos en la Post-guerra (San Salvador: FLACSO).Google Scholar