Introduction

Hypothesis

The political makeup and status of Latin American countries has been a matter of interest for American society for many years. On political, academic, and socialeconomic levels, the roles of freedom and democracy – or at least the perception of their existence – are scrutinized by Americans with American perspectives in Latin America. As a Venezuelan-American and as someone who grew up in Venezuela and steeped in Latin American culture, I was interested in the ways that certain Latin American countries have fallen into fascism or dictatorship.

While comparisons can be reasonably made between Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and other dictators and demagogues of the world, I think it is important to distinguish the ways that overall Latin American - especially Hispanic Latin American - culture influences the kind of demagoguery that leads to fascism. The politics of Venezuela having taken its cues from Cuba and influencing Nicaragua cannot be understated. It is also important to note that the democracies that were eroded and replaced with something more sinister have always been distinct in philosophy and understanding from the more Anglo-American style (Davis 2007).

From Cuba to Nicaragua to Venezuela to El Salvador, the descent of certain countries from promising fledgling democracies to failed states is inherently tied to cults of personality and to American intervention. However, these countries have also seen significant economic changes throughout their modern histories which often coincide with and are – I hypothesize – directly related to their loss of freedom and democracy. This visualized research project aims to answer the impossible question: Which came first? The chicken or the egg? It would seem logical to hypothesize that it is the loss of freedom that precipitates a drop in GDP and overall financial wellness, but my hypothesis is that a decrease in financial health and stability is a catalyst for the kinds of candidates and cults of personality that lead to fascism. In this paper, I focus on Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and El Salvador as countries that are at different stages of this democratic backslide, while drawing comparisons to the rest of Latin America.

My specific hypothesis is that Cuba is at the tail end of a particular long-term political cycle in which a country loses much of its individual rights, education, political power, and socioeconomic capacity. Cuba’s dictatorship took hold years before Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez was born or Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega took power. After Cuba, I will argue that Venezuela is next in the cycle. It has already cycle through one leader who took a sledgehammer to the constitution and left behind him a successor who has proven both incompetent and willing to treat his citizens inhumanely. Nicaragua, whose political crises have been ongoing even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, took a serious political downturn in 2006, four years after a failed coup in Venezuela in 2002. Last, El Salvador, with its new populist president, Nayib Bukele, has shown that it may too be on the backslide to fascism. What makes El Salvador unique in this group is that its leader is right-wing and not left-wing like Castro, Chavez, and Ortega. However, I will argue that the political leanings of these leaders are almost immaterial when one compares the similarities in the countries and their situations.

Methods

Freedom in the World

The data that makes up this research is pulled mostly from Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Project (“Freedom in the World | Freedom House” n.d.). Per its own website,

The Freedom in the World report is composed of numerical ratings and supporting descriptive texts for 195 countries and 15 territories. External analysts assess 210 countries and territories, using a combination of on-the-ground research, consultations with local contacts, and information from news articles, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and a variety of other sources. Expert advisers and regional specialists then vet the analysts’ conclusions. The final product represents the consensus of the analysts, advisers, and Freedom House staff (“Freedom in the World | Freedom House” n.d.).

Freedom in the World releases one edition every year, giving each country that they assess a score out of 100. There are several categories that Freedom House measures to make up the final score and all the categories are sorted into two distinct sections: political rights (which makes up 40% of the score and civil liberties (which makes up 60% of the score). Within political rights, there are three subcategories:

  1. Electoral Process (3 questions)

  2. Political Pluralism and Participation (4 questions)

  3. Functioning of Government (3 questions)

Within civil liberties, there are four subcategories:

  1. Freedom of Expression and Belief (4 questions)

  2. Associational and Organizational Rights (3 questions)

  3. Rule of Law (4 questions)

Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights (4 questions)

There are 25 total questions, each of which can get a score from 0-4. The total score, out of 100, can be representative of an overall “freedom” score for every country for any given year. This system of grading has been in place since 2013, which means that there are 10 years of data available for all 210 countries and terrotories that Freedom House observes.

The Freedom in the World project attempts to quantify and measure freedom, which makes it a useful measure of analysis in looking at trends in political rights and civil liberties over time. Though this analysis is limited by the small time series (2013-2023), the numerical scale that Freedom House applies to all the countries it looks at allows for inter-country and cross-time analyses.

The data that makes up this paper is gathered from Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Reports for 19 countries, along with GDPs for each country, HDI scores, and population gathered from the CIA World Factbook.

Statistical and Visual Analyses

Correlative and Causal Relationships Between GDP and Freedom

It’s clear that visually, GDP is having an impact on Freedom Score in El Salvador and to a certain extent, Nicaragua. Let’s do a regression of each country to see if up close, these patterns are statistically significant.

##               Estimate Std. Error   t value     Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 61.2128082 3.97833126 15.386554 9.042591e-08
## FreeScore   -0.5134858 0.05815661 -8.829363 9.982664e-06

##               Estimate Std. Error   t value    Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) 34.2635633  5.8430266  5.864009 0.000239543
## FreeScore   -0.4478797  0.1396062 -3.208166 0.010690331

##               Estimate Std. Error    t value    Pr(>|t|)
## (Intercept) -12.073792  34.163125 -0.3534159 0.731913720
## FreeScore     5.075736   1.249355  4.0626837 0.002830528
Regressions of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela
  GDP GDP GDP
Predictors Estimates std. Error CI p df Estimates std. Error CI p df Estimates std. Error CI p df
(Intercept) 61.2128 3.9783 52.2132 – 70.2124 <0.001 9.0000 34.2636 5.8430 21.0457 – 47.4814 <0.001 9.0000 -12.0738 34.1631 -89.3561 – 65.2086 0.732 9.0000
FreeScore -0.5135 0.0582 -0.6450 – -0.3819 <0.001 9.0000 -0.4479 0.1396 -0.7637 – -0.1321 0.011 9.0000 5.0757 1.2494 2.2495 – 7.9020 0.003 9.0000
Observations 11 11 11
R2 / R2 adjusted 0.897 / 0.885 0.533 / 0.482 0.647 / 0.608

Regression Analysis

So interesting results. With an adjusted R2 of 0.885, we have a very good, statistically significant model of El Salvador’s loss of freedom being impacted by its loss of GDP. The slope of -0.5135 indicates that falling GDP has a clear, if slow impact on El Salvador’s Freedom Score. As for Nicaragua and Venezuela, it’s more complicated. Nicaragua also has a negative relationship between GDP and Freedom Score - but given the adjusted R2, it’s clear that GDP accounts for less of the loss of freedom than other factors. For Venezuela, the relationship is actually positive. Given Venezuela’s power within OPEC and its significant oil reserves make it likely that it is the loss of freedom that has caused a final loss of GDP (in the last few years, GDP has fallen).

Political Rights and Civil Liberties over Time

Both political rights and civil liberties have declined for all of the countries of interest, with the exception of civil liberties in Cuba, which are going up.

Analyzing El Salvador’s Unique Situation

El Salvador is an interesting example. Unlike the other three countries, it is going far-right wing instead of left-wing. Its political problems center gang violence and many of the Salvadoran people, instead of pushing against systemic inequality, are in need of a generally safer country. The fact that GDP and HDI are positively correlated shows that El Salvador does better when it is freer – especially prescient since its government has begun to arrest and imprison people without due process and without impunity. Unlike Venezuela, there is no delay in effect between a decrease in freedom and a decrease in GDP.

Conclusion

What to Take Away from Analyzing Freedom in the World

It’s clear that there is a correlation between GDP and freedom (or at least the way we have decided to quantify freedom) in Latin America, especially countries undergoing a descent into fascism, be it right-wing or left wing. What is also interesting is that this relationship changes by country, even though the overall effect is that freedom is decreasing in Latin America.

Overall Freedom

Since freedom appears to be decreasing all over Latin America, the question is why? If GDP is partly a cause, then is inequality a catalyst? It would be important to analyze all Latin American countries, especially countries such as Peru and Bolivia, at the beginnings of their own democratic backslides, to track the relationship between GDP and loss of freedom. This analysis is also incomplete without making a comparison to other countries in the region, such as non-Latin American countries in the Caribbean, the United States, and Spain and Portugal (where the culture of paternalism in politics hails from).

However, I think it is clear that GDP and freedom in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and El Salvador are intrisincally tied together. The causal relationship between these factors might not be obvious, but the correlation is clear. And at least in El Salvador’s case, it is clear that a drop in GDP has been a canary in the coal mines for the past ten years: an indicator that freedom is becoming more elusive by the day.

Bibliography

  1. “Freedom in the World | Freedom House.” n.d. Freedom House. Freedom House. Accessed December 14, 2023. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world.