Radical Pessimism

This chapter describes radical pessimism as a neoliberal democratic political affect that combines of radical worldviews with a belief that change is impossible. It begins with the question of how past and present forms of political violence have shaped Mayan conceptions about the limits of democracy and of their own political agency, leading many to “sell out” for personal interest. It documents how Sampedranos retain elements of radical political imaginary that predominated in the region in the 1970s, prior to the extreme state violence of the 1980s, but that routine acts of state violence targeted at social movements that informs engagements with hostile sovereign forces, including authoritarian political parties. The chapter also describes how these political imaginaries are being reconfigured through more recent forms of politics in defense of territory against extractive industries. The conclusion reflects on the possibility of a radical organization of pessimism.

Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes the main findings of the previous chapters in capsule form, evaluates their implications for existing literature on democracy and development and the politics of redistribution. It also compares these findings to those of scholars and organizations in Guatemala who make similar claims. It asks what it will take to decolonize democracy and development, and what it could take to build a progressive populist alliance against neoliberalism under prevailing conditions in Guatemala.

Cruel Populism

This chapter examines how authoritarian politics in San Pedro Necta operates. It begins with an overview of different Guatemalan populisms in the 20th century, and then examines the populist rhetoric and strategy of the FRG as it played out in San Pedro. It describes how FRG populism tapped into and reinforced and tapped into a sense of powerlessness, as well as the kinds of resentments created by party politics. Authoritarian populism reinscribed neoliberal democracy’s foundational limits as it tapped into wells of insecurity, mistrust, uncertainty, and resentment created by its failures. It appealed to corporeal needs and perceived grievances, gaining followers without ideological resonance and despite revulsion at national candidates and policies.

The Capacity for Democracy

This chapter examines how discourses of capacidad both enabled and constrained Sampedrano desires for democracy. I describe how state agrarian programs trained Sampedranos’ to solicit development projects, navigate the state, and run electoral campaigns, and how, after the transition to democracy, Mayas used discourses of capacidad to legitimate an indigenous right to govern, and eventually took municipal power in the mid 1990s. I describe the developmentalist political vision shared among this coalition, and how in 2003, this coalition splintered, and then lost an election to a less qualified candidate from an authoritarian party, revealing major exclusions in capacidad as a standard for earning rights.

Introduction

Guatemala’s armed conflict was one of the longest and bloodiest in modern Latin American history. It spanned decades of organizing by peasant, indigenous, student, religious, and workers’ organizations, along with several armed revolutionary groups—motivated by anti-imperialism, land reform, equality, and social democracy—that were all violently opposed by a fascistic military dictatorship backed by national elites and the US government. Its nadir was a brutal scorched-earth campaign in 1981–1983, during which the army killed tens of thousands, displaced over a million, and committed hundreds of massacres in order to divide guerrilla organizations from their civilian base in the indigenous western highlands....