Beyond colonization and tropicalization: The deliberative wave in Latin America

In this article we address and critically evaluate some of the first deliberative practices with random selection in Latin America. We include cases from Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Chile. Each of these innovations has been particularly groundbreaking. In Mexico, the Observatorio Anticorrupción de Chihuahua addressed a difficult issue rarely addressed by citizens' assemblies in the Global North: corruption. In Bogota, the Asamblea Ciudadana Itinerante introduced a new model of citizens' assemblies in which deliberation takes place sequentially. In Chile, a deliberative poll was conducted in what is perhaps today the most important constituent process in the world. We also discuss some of the network efforts being undertaken to improve deliberative democracy in the region. We show how these advances can be used in other parts of the world, and we raise some challenges that the new mechanisms face in the Latin American continent. We note a clear difference in the region between participatory but non-deliberative practices and deliberative practices as such, the latter of which seek to change opinions and interests through deliberation. We insist that we must avoid both the colonization of deliberative democracy — the unreflective importation of deliberative models and practices from the North — and the tropicalization of deliberative democracy — the idea that the South needs its own type of deliberative democracy, even renouncing its basic principles, such as argumentation and the absence of coercion. We believe that the core normative ideals of deliberative democracy are equally applicable anywhere in the world, which does not mean that we should endorse a non-deliberative importation of models. We also note that, while importation is already taking place, adaptation has brought changes to deliberative practices specific to Latin America. Adaptation can help reimagine deliberative democracy worldwide and breathe new life into the model, just as happened with participatory democracy decades ago. Even some issues that are often seen as shortcomings can present opportunities. Inequality is ubiquitous in Latin America, but inequality can help redesign citizens assemblies. It can exert pressure for socioeconomic criteria to be included in the recruitment process, or for low-income citizens in the assemblies to act as experts in public services that only they, not the rich, use.