Unicamp Journal – What are think tanks and why study FIL?

Maria Julia Gimenez - The think tanks, from a Gramscian perspective, are a type of private hegemonic apparatus that developed over the course of the 1980th century, reaching, in the XNUMXs, a form of advocacy, defending ideas, working mainly on influencing a specific audience, such as consumers, parliamentarians, CEOs [executive directors of companies], large owners, etc., creating and disseminating frameworks for understanding reality.

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's field theory, we can say that they articulate some elements from the fields of communication, business, universities, scientific knowledge and politics. In doing so, they juggle these capitals, giving their own form to their actions, depending on their objectives: defending values, defining guidelines in the formulation of public policy, training political cadres, influencing electoral processes, among others.

It is important to say, however, that the think tanks are not exclusive to the liberal right. They are a political form whose effectiveness possibly has to do with neoliberalism. But there are think tanks on the left, there are think tanks conservatives, there are think tanks of religious groups etc. There may be think tanks of various currents, because they are a political form.

I remember that the late professor Reginaldo de Moraes, who advised me at the beginning of my doctorate at Unicamp, said that, if the political form of the party began to consolidate itself during the 19th century and was effective for the political regime in the 20th century, the form think tanks It was articulated throughout the 20th century and seems to have become very effective at the beginning of the 21st century.

We can state that, in the specificity of the Latin American liberal field, the consolidation of think tanks takes place in the 1980s, but takes a qualitative and quantitative leap from the 2000s onwards. In both moments, the importance of these institutes and their international connections is evident. Hence my interest in studying the FIL.

A series of previous studies show that the American Atlas Network, created in 1981, had and has a very important role in the constellation of think tanks liberals at the international level, supporting the creation of think tanks, linking them and unifying the agendas in defense of liberalism. Latin America was a key scenario for the expansion of this liberal international network. Numerous think tanks were born in countries such as Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Venezuela, Mexico, and some of these are still active.

In the early 2000s, it is possible to see the renewal of this plot defending liberalism, with the incorporation of new think tanks and the expansion of articulation networks. In this context, FIL was born in Madrid (capital of Spain), chaired by Mario Vargas Llosa until his death.

What studies like the one in the book show is that the explosion of think tanks liberals at the beginning of the 21st century is linked to a response to the popular processes of challenging neoliberalism and the emergence of the cycle of progressive governments in some important countries in the region: Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador. My interest in FIL arises from the search to understand the role of Spanish interests in this type of active articulation in Latin America, historically organized from the United States.

In addition to the colonial ties with most of the countries in the region, it is important to highlight that Spanish capital was one of the great beneficiaries of the neoliberal reforms and especially the privatizations of the 1990s, with the presence of large corporations such as Repsol, Telefónica, Red Electrica España, Banco Santander, BBVA.

The book seeks to understand the actions of this network defending liberal ideals to confront changes in the regional political context, which these people see as a threat to the regional order. However, this did not only depend on interests external to the region, but on an articulation that links intellectuals, businesspeople, former leaders, journalists, academics, writers, activists and think-tankers from Spain, the United States and Latin America.

When the market of ideas embrace reason neoliberal

JU – And is this form more effective for the right due to its economic power and the relationships it mobilizes, for example, with the major media outlets?

Maria Julia Gimenez – It has to do with that in part. Liberals, driven by the defense of capitalism, are able to mobilize big business, which provides material support, yes. But it is also because they work on a political basis, which is advocacy and not necessarily education.

We can say that they need to maintain a common sense that is dominant, that is already one, two, three steps ahead of other ways of understanding the world, in dispute. And because they do not necessarily work on free dissent, in trying to create free-thinking subjects.

JU – What is the difference between advocacy and political training?

Maria Julia Gimenez – If, from the perspective of political education, the challenge is for people to be able to write their own history and participate in political processes by incorporating different ways of understanding and acting in their present, with this type of apparatus focused on incidence and persuasion, political action depends on the mobilization and effectiveness of ready-to-use frameworks. It is a marketplace of ideas. In education, there is a logic that moves away from the marketplace of ideas to work based on dialogue and the people’s own experience, their concrete reality. think tanks do without it.

I consider that the form think tanks, regardless of the political field to which it is linked, works mainly on the logic of incidence, and this form, in turn, is linked to neoliberal reason, working from the offer of a series of limited ideas or frameworks ready to be consumed. Then society is divided between the good and the bad, between the communists and the anti-communists.

Political construction goes beyond that, it has to do with the people's own desires, and this is done through a concrete dialogue that unfolds in the territory, with the population's own experiences, and not in a persuasive way.

JU – As you can see, the FIL says it was created to “defend the basics against irrationality,” in reference to the rise of progressive governments in Latin America. Given this, how do you assess the construction of this enemy by the FIL and other liberal organizations? How important are the banners of anti-communism and anti-populism?

Maria Julia Gimenez – The political grammar centered on the idea of ​​anti-communism was key during the Cold War, both in the dispute between the United States and the Soviet Union and for the military dictatorships that were established in Latin America. The National Security Doctrine, the backbone of the Latin American dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s, brings the idea of ​​a communist enemy that was infiltrating and that needed to be eradicated, a matter of national and international security.

Sometimes we think that with the end of the confrontation between the Americans and the Soviets and the dictatorships, this would be over. In fact, it did. But this did not mean a complete “turning of the page,” as shown by the hemispheric security plans for Latin America, which came from the United States at the end of the Cold War. The idea of ​​the “red peril” remained dormant, serving other purposes and presenting new dangers, such as narcoterrorism, peasant movements, indigenous peoples, and migration. This powerful idea, however, rose again in a poignant way in the 2000s, linked to the offensive against the process of challenging neoliberalism and the consolidation of the cycle of progressive governments in part of the region.

Vargas Llosa was a figure who exemplified this historical process. After gaining prominence as one of the great Latin American writers of the boom of magical realism, in the 70s he moved away from supporting the Cuban revolutionary process, positioning himself as an anti-Castro actor, embracing neoliberalism and, thanks to the support of a vast network of think tanks liberals, became a reference in the defense of liberalism in the world.

After his failed attempt to become president of Peru in 1990, Vargas Llosa moved to Spain, where he became a recognized cultural figure in the defense of liberal values ​​and principles. This was due to the support he found within the ranks of the Spanish Popular Party, led by José María Aznar, and the support provided by a vast network of think tanks liberals who today have a global reach.

The recovery of this anti-communist grammar and the advance of the right today inevitably make us reflect on the insufficiency of the processes of memory, truth and justice, which are important for the construction of democracy. However, even in places where this process did occur, figures like Milei [Javier Milei, current president of Argentina] can still emerge. So, evidently, the processes of memory, truth and justice need to advance further.

JU – Speaking of Milei and other far-right leaders, what is the role of think tanks liberals in the emergence of these frameworks?

Maria Julia Gimenez – In Milei’s case, throughout the campaign and to this day, he treats Alberto Benegas Lynch (son) as his political hero. Benegas Lynch (son) is the founder of Eseade [Escuela Superior de Economía y Administración de Empresas], a think tanks aimed at training economists and business administrators, in addition to being a business school, founded in the late 1970s in Buenos Aires [Argentine capital]. However, it was his father who, in the late 1950s, created one of the first think tanks liberals of Latin America, a fundamental entity for establishing the first contacts with and organizing a series of trips and exchanges involving figures such as the Austrian economist Ludwig Von Mises and, later, Friedrich Hayek.

So Milei leans on someone who creates one of the first think tanks from the region and who is the son of someone who was fundamental to the dissemination of neoliberal thought in Latin America. In other words, there is nothing completely new about this extreme right. What we saw was that, in a process of crisis, also of liberal hegemony, these people went to the extreme. There are principles of an anti-system stance in these figures that bring important novelties, but they are not completely new. 

We can determine the historicity of the emergence of a series of conditions that served as a catalyst for Milei or [former president Jair] Bolsonaro. The so-called Bolsonarism is the articulation of a series of demands from the right – from the military, religious fundamentalists, liberals, ruralists, gun owners, etc. In other words, what fueled Bolsonaro in 2018 is not new. Because, for example, the line of former [economy minister Paulo] Guedes takes us back to the Chicago Boys [a reference to a group of economists who pioneered neoliberal thought, who formulated, for example, the economic policy of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile]. We could do the same if we observe the trajectory of the military or ruralist environment. So to what extent is this extreme right something new?

The extreme way in which things are being carried out is, of course, something new, but in the book I end with an anecdote. Former Argentine President Mauricio Macri, who some analysts consider to be “less extreme” on the right than Milei, meets with Vargas Llosa, who criticizes him. The Macri government was already in crisis and it was almost obvious that the then president would not be reelected. The issue revolved around the gradualism, the speed of the neoliberal program, not around changing that program. The issue was whether this program had to step on the gas and go after the rights of the Argentine people or whether it had to be a little more moderate and pretend to be democratic.

In my opinion, what changes from one to the other is whether or not they pretend to be democratic, which does not mean that Macri is more democratic than Milei. In the case of Argentina, we will see important figures from the Macri government within the Milei government. And Macri is also a product of the work of organizations close to the FIL. Macri's promotion also occurs largely on an international level through these institutes. Milei is outspoken, he is unbalanced in the way he expresses himself. But the truth is that, in the Milei government, the structure of the economic apparatus and the security apparatus, two fundamental axes of a liberal state, come from the Macri government. Just as Milei's main political reference is a fundamental family in the structure of these apparatuses at the regional level.

Os think tanks work not on the visibility of themselves, but rather on creating and disseminating frameworks and the figures that defend them. Macri or Milei are partly products of these ventures. María Corina Machado, in Venezuela, is also. think tanks and its think-tankers, however, do not seek fame or votes. For example, Alex Chafuen is an Argentine economist who became a naturalized American and, for 30 years, the director of the Atlas Network, the largest international liberal network in the world. In Argentina, however, he is not a complete unknown. Alberto Benegas Lynch (son) began to be known in Argentina after Milei started talking about him. Otherwise, no one, except those who studied this or the liberals themselves, would know who Lynch was.

JU – Could you say more about the role of Spain and the United States in the FIL?

Maria Julia Gimenez – The United States’ position in control of its “backyard,” Latin America, dates back to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, under the motto “America for Americans.” The United States positions itself as a kind of guardian of our region, which is repeated in the fight against the communist enemy, the Soviet Union.

One of the transformations that occurred after the end of the Cold War in Latin America is the process of transition from dictatorships to restricted bourgeois democracies. In the case of Europe, the departure of fascism consolidated other national bourgeoisies more closely linked to liberal interests. Of course, there is a historical difference here; being bourgeois in Europe is not the same as being bourgeois in Latin America. There is a difference in where the button to press and make decisions is.

Thus, in addition to the colonial history that never disintegrated in the region, in the 1980s and 1990s, there was the development of a neoliberal program to restrict the functions of the State, in a State project aimed mainly at guaranteeing individual property, the extraction of natural resources, the free circulation of goods and control over the population. 

The Spanish bourgeoisie, supported by this cultural relationship it maintains with Latin America, begins to be, in a way, the “ambassador” of European interests in Latin America, in line with the United States, which, let’s say, dominates not only Latin American territory but also Western European territory and especially Southern Europe. So, the exit from fascism and Francoism in Spain is also linked, as in the case of Latin America, to the construction of a series of restricted bourgeois democracies, under the control of financial capital, which facilitated, due to this already unequal relationship between Europe and Latin America, this “ambassadorial” form of Europe as a second place in domination over the region.

So we could say that if the United States was the main investor, in the sense that Latin America received mainly North American capital in the process of privatization and destruction of the State, the second country in this process was Spain, as a representative of Europe. Spanish capital, a product of this bourgeoisie that is strengthening itself in the process of transition from fascism to restricted democracies, will be the main beneficiary of privatizations in Latin America, showing a strong interest in preserving this order in the region.

The occurrence of the process of challenging neoliberalism and cycles of progressive governments that question the interests of the Global North, whether the United States or Spain, and that question privatizations – in some cases, this process even culminates in the nationalization of companies in strategic sectors privatized in the 1990s – makes it possible to strengthen these Atlantic ties to put a brake on the transformations in Latin America.