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The Handbook of South American Governance is a path-breaking, much-needed and innovative
collection, providing up-to-date and thought-provoking analysis. It brings together first rate
scholars, focusing of the different issue-areas, institutions and actors that shape South America's
politics and political economy. The interpretation of governance is rightly broad, with chapters
tackling, amongst other themes, history, path dependence, states and markets, political parties,
business and labour, regional integration, debt and water governance. Moreover, the Handbook
offers theoretical rigour as well as rich empirical detail. As such, it should be required reading
not only for researchers, teachers and students of this rapidly changing region but also for
comparativists interested in the complex interactions between global, national and local
political economies and flows of people, ideas and goods.
Jean Grugel, Professor of Development Politics, University of York

Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde are to be commended. The Handbook of South Amer-
ican Governance compiles state-of-the art analyses by leading European, Latin American and US
scholars who bring theoretical sophistication to bear on topics ranging from security, regional inte-
gration and economic governance, human rights, and so on, to the role of crucial actors, including
the military, business élites, labour and indigenous activists, and others. Emerging challenges are also
analysed, including extractivism and transnational natural resource governance, social movements
and scaling up citizenship and migration flows. This volume will be obligatory reading for social
scientists and practitioners interested in the future of governance in the region.
William C. Smith, Professor Emeritus, University of Miami and former Editor,
Latin American Politics and Society

We have waited a long time for a book like this. Hugely useful, it is a comprehensive, inci-
sive and ambitious enquiry into the nature of relations between state, economy and society in
South America and the fascinating tensions that ensue. Unusually, the collection of essays
takes a historically embedded approach from Independence onwards. This 'long view' of
governance charts a sweeping vista of governance and its flows of ideas, money, and power.
All the while, the authors anchor their wide-horizon analysis in the policies, practices, struggles
and experiences of state and citizen in South America, demonstrating a rigorous eye for
revealing detail. This excellent book will undoubtedly find its now-essential slot on academic
bookshelves and course reading lists for all Latin Americanists.
Lucy Taylor, Senior Lecturer, Aberystwyth University

This book makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the role of actors and
institutions in addressing questions of development, social justice and democracy in Latin
America. The editors provide a rigorous conceptual lens for the analysis of governance
practices and this, together with the range of issues covered, makes it a major reference book
for anyone interested in understanding the main social, political and economic challenges
facing the region in the 21st Century.
Francisco Panizza, Professor in Latin American and Comparative Politics, Department of Government,
The London School of Economics and Political Science
This page intentionally left blank
 Handbook of South
American Governance

Governance in South America is signified by strategies pursued by state and non-state actors directed
to enhancing (some aspect of) their capabilities and powers of agency. It is about the spaces and the
practices available, demanded or created to ‘make politics happen’. This framework lends explanatory
power to understand how governance has been defined and practiced in South America.
Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde bring together leading experts to explore what demands and
dilemmas have shaped understanding and practice of governance in South America in and across the
region. The Handbook suggests that governance dilemmas of inequitable and unfulfilled political
economic governance in South America have been constant historical features, yet addressed and
negotiated in different ways. Building from an introduction to key issues defining governance in
South America, this Handbook proceeds to examine institutions, actors and practices in govern-
ance focusing on three core processes: evolution of socio-economic and political justice claims as
central to the demands of governance; governance frameworks foregrounding particular issues and
often privileging particular forms of political practice; and iterative and cumulative processes
leading to new demands of governance addressing recognition and identity politics.
This Handbook will be a key reference for those concerned with the study of South America,
South American political economy, regional governance, and the politics of development.

Pía Riggirozzi is Associate Professor at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom. Her
research focuses on the political economy of development and regionalism in Latin America.
Her work has been published in New Political Economy, Development and Change, International
Affairs, Review of International Studies, and Economy and Society. Pía is currently engaged in a
collaborative ESRC-funded project that explores regional integration processes and poverty
reduction through health in the South.

Christopher Wylde is Associate Professor at Richmond, the American International Uni-

versity in London, United Kingdom, and Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Latin
American Studies (ILAS), School of Advanced Study (SAS), University of London. He has
published numerous articles on post-neoliberalism, as well as three books: Latin America after
Neoliberalism (2012), Argentina Since the 2001 Crisis (2014, co-edited with Cara Levey and Daniel
Ozarow), and Emerging Markets and the State (2017).
This page intentionally left blank
 Handbook of South
American Governance

Edited by Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde

First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde for selection and editorial material and
Routledge for other content
The right of Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Europa Commissioning Editor: Cathy Hartley
Editorial Assistant: Eleanor Catchpole Simmons
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN: 978-1-85743-818-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-31566-116-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Taylor & Francis Books
 Contents

List of illustrations xi
List of contributors xiii
Acknowledgements xix
Abbreviations xx

1 Introduction: Governance in South America 1

Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde

PART I
Governance and development in South America 13

2 South American governance in the colonial period 15

José Briceño-Ruiz

3 Post-colonial South America: Nineteenth-century laissez-faire governance 27

Colin M. Lewis

4 Dependency Theory and South American governance in

post-neoliberal times 45
Miguel A. Rivera-Quiñones

5 Neoliberal governance in South America 56

Laura Macdonald

6 The concept and practice of post-neoliberal governance in South America 70

Christopher Wylde

7 Inter-American relations in historical perspective 83

Thomas O’Brien

vii
Contents

PART II
The institutionalization of governance in South America 97

8 Governing security in South America: From the Inter-American Treaty of

Reciprocal Assistance to the South American Defence Council 99
Jorge Battaglino

9 The Organization of American States: Promise and limitations as a

hub institution 111
Andrew F. Cooper

10 Governing debt: South America and the IMF 124

Pablo Nemiña

11 Governing development in South America: Between old and

new challenges 137
José Fernández Alonso

12 Governance as regional integration: ALADI, CAN and MERCOSUR 147

Laura Gómez-Mera

13 Regional governance in South America: Supporting states, dealing with

markets and reworking hegemonies 159
Pía Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie

14 The new minilateralism in regional economic governance: Cross-

regionalism and the Pacific Alliance 173
Jorge Garzón and Detlef Nolte

15 South–South cooperation and the governance of development aid in

South America 191
Alejandra Kern and Gino Pauselli

16 China’s spin on governing its relationship with South America 204

Carol Wise

PART III
Placing actors in South American governance 219

17 The place of the military in South American governance 221

Orlando J. Pérez

viii
 Contents

18 Beyond states and markets in South America: Lessons of Labour-Centred

Development from Chile and Argentina 235
Adam Fishwick and Benjamin Selwyn

19 A foot on each side of the picket-line: The contradictory role of labour

unions in South American governance 248
Daniel Ozarow

20 Business interest groups and policy-making in South America 262

Néstor Castañeda

21 Democracy, pluralism and the media in South America 275

Carolina Matos

22 Human rights activists and advocacy in South America 286

Francesca Lessa and Cara Levey

23 Indigenous rights and resource governance 296

Roberta Rice

24 The South American right: Powerful elites and weak states 308
Barry Cannon

PART IV
Emerging issues/old dilemmas 319

25 Shaking up governance and inequality in South America: A political-

economy account 321
Jeff Dayton-Johnson

26 Social movements and governance in South America 334

Sofia Donoso

27 Extractivism and citizenship 348

Juan Grigera

28 Governing natural resources 357

Jewellord Nem Singh

29 Transboundary water governance in South America 373

Marcelo Saguier

ix
Contents

30 The drugs trade 385

Grace Livingstone

31 Creating space for autonomous governance: South America and the

global governance structural power game 402
Sean W. Burges

32 International migration in South America: Emerging forms of governance 415

Ana Margheritis

33 Scaling up citizenship: The case of the Statute of

MERCOSUR Citizenship 428
Marcelo Mondelli

PART V
Possibilities and prospects in the study of South
American governance 445

34 Institutions, actors and the practice of governance in South America:

Conclusion and directions for further research 447
Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde

Index 457

x
 List of illustrations

Figures
4.1 Current account balances (2002–2015) 51
4.2 Terms of trade adjustment (2002–2015) 52
10.1 IMF disbursements towards Latin America and Caribbean and programmes
approved, 1954–1981 126
10.2 IMF financing approved and disbursed towards Latin America and Caribbean
and quantity of programmes approved, 1982–2015 130
12.1 Intra- and extra-regional trade in Andean Community 152
17.1 The armed forces should combat crime and violence 231
25.1 Income shares of top 1%, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, selected
years 1993–2012 327
28.1 Key iron producers in the world economy 360
28.2 Key copper producers in the world economy 361
28.3 Oil production of selected Latin American countries, 1965–2015 361
30.1 Coca cultivation in the Andes 1987–2014: US Monitoring (hectares) 392
31.1 South America* exports and imports with Africa and the Middle East (US$000s) 408
33.1 Temporary residence given to MERCOSUR’s nationals, disclosed by countries.
2004–2013 433

Tables
10.1 Accumulated IMF disbursements towards Latin America and Caribbean 127
10.2 IMF disbursements and programmes towards Latin America and Caribbean,
1954–2015 129
12.1 Agreements signed and in force under ALADI 149
12.2 Economic Complementarity Agreements establishing free trade 150
12.3 Andean Community’s institutional structure 151
12.4 MERCOSUR’s institutional structure 154
14.1 The spread of the strategy of cross-regionalism in South America 178
14.2 Main foreign economic policy strategies of Latin American States 180
16.1 Annual commodity price trends in real dollars, 2000–2015 210
16.2 Comparative macroeconomic performance for the South American-6,
2001–2015 averages 211
16.3 China’s outward FDI stocks to LAC countries and two regions, 2003–2014
(millions of US$) 212

xi
List of illustrations

19.1 Conditions supportive of labour development (early 1900s) 252

23.1 National Development Plan Priorities, word count 299
25.1 Gini indices, selected South American economies, 1986–2014 326
25.2 Effect of public finance on inequality 331
28.1 Rent capture in resource-rich Latin America, 2015 365
28.2 Gross fixed capital formation as % of GDP in Latin America and Asia 368
30.1 Coca cultivation in the Andes 1987–2014, by country (hectares) 393
30.2 Global cocaine use 394
30.3 Coca cultivation in the Andean region 1987–2015, by country (hectares) 396
33.1 Origins of the regional blocs in the south 429
33.2 MERCOSUR’s institutional spaces created between 2006 and 2010 431
33.3 Initiatives of MERCOSUR which have greater and positive impact in the
border areas listed in the ‘Citizenship Card’ 432
33.4 Initiatives of MERCOSUR which have greater and positive impact in the
border areas listed in the ‘Citizenship Card’ 434
33.5 Bodies and forums that address specific issues relating to frontiers issues
(Res. No. 59/15) 437

xii
 Contributors

Pía Riggirozzi is Associate Professor at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom. Her
research focuses on the political economy of development and regionalism in Latin America.
Her work has been published in New Political Economy, Development and Change, International
Affairs, Review of International Studies, and Economy and Society. Pía is currently engaged in a
collaborative ESRC-funded project that explores regional integration processes and poverty
reduction through health in the South.

Christopher Wylde is Associate Professor at Richmond, the American International Uni-

versity in London, United Kingdom, and Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Latin
American Studies (ILAS), School of Advanced Study (SAS), University of London. He has
published numerous articles on post-neoliberalism, as well as three books: Latin America after
Neoliberalism (2012), Argentina since the 2001 Crisis (2014, co-edited with Cara Levey and Daniel
Ozarow), and Emerging Markets and the State (2017).

José Fernández Alonso is an Assistant Researcher at the National Council for Scientific and
Technical Research (CONICET) and an Assistant Professor of International Economy at the
National University of Rosario, Argentina. He received his PhD in International Relations
from the National University of Rosario. His research focuses on the access of Latin American
countries in the international financial system.

Jorge Battaglino is a tenured Senior Researcher at Argentina’s Council of Scientific Research

(CONICET) and professor in the School of Politics and Government at the Universidad
Nacional de San Martín. His research interests include civil–military relations, South American
security, militarization, arms purchases and defence policy. His publications have appeared in
journals such as Journal of Politics in Latin America, Defense and Security Analysis and Política y
Gobierno, among others.

José Briceño Ruiz is Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Administration of Universidad
Cooperativa de Colombia, Bogotá and former Professor at the Faculty of Social and Economic
of the University of the Andes, Venezuela (2003–2017). His research areas are Latin American
regionalism, comparative regionalism and international political economy. His most recent book
is Post-Hegemonic Regionalism in the Americas: Toward a Pacific and Atlantic Divide? (Routledge,
2017).

Sean W. Burges is a Senior Lecturer in international relations at the Australian National

University, a visiting scholar at Carleton University, Canada, and a non-resident Senior

xiii
List of contributors

Research Fellow with the Washington, DC-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, USA. He is
author of Brazil in the World: The International Relations of a South American Giant (2017) and
Brazilian Foreign Policy After the Cold War (2009) in addition to more than 30 scholarly articles
and book chapters on Brazilian foreign policy, inter-American affairs, South–South relations,
and development.

Barry Cannon lectures in the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University in Ireland.

His main research interests are on development, democratization, civil society, and the left and
right in Latin American politics. His latest book is The Right in Latin America: Elite Power,
Hegemony and the Struggle for the State (Routledge, 2016).

Néstor Castañeda is an Assistant Professor of Latin American Political Economy at University

College London, United Kingdom. His research focuses on business interest groups, tax politics,
political finance regulation and economic development in Latin America.

Andrew F. Cooper is Professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the
Department of Political Science, University of Waterloo, Canada, and an Associate Research
Fellow at UNU-CRIS (United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Inte-
gration Studies), Bruges, Belgium. His books include, as author, The BRICS VSI (Oxford
University Press, 2016) Diplomatic Afterlives (Polity, 2014) and Internet Gambling Offshore: Car-
ibbean Struggles over Casino Capitalism (Palgrave, 2011), and as co-author, Intervention Without
Intervening? OAS and Democracy in the Americas (Macmillan, 2006).

Jeff Dayton-Johnson is Dean and Professor of Development Practice and Policy at the Mid-
dlebury Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California, USA. He is the editor of Latin
America’s Emerging Middle Classes: Economic Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and co-editor,
with Javier Santiso, of the Oxford Handbook of Latin American Political Economy (Oxford, 2012).

Sofia Donoso is Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies
(COES), Chile. She holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Oxford,
United Kingdom. Her current work focuses on the determinants of participation in protests in
Chile and Argentina. She is the co-editor of Social Movements in Chile: Organization, Trajectories,
and Political Consequences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Her research on Chile’s student move-
ment and trade union movement has been published in the Journal of Latin American Studies and
Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, as well as in several book chapters.

Adam Fishwick is Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies and Public Policy at De Montfort Uni-
versity, United Kingdom. His research focuses on work and workplace resistance in develop-
ment, as well as alternative, radical forms of development in Latin America. He has been
published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Geoforum and Capital & Class.

Jorge F. Garzón is Research Fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in
Hamburg. He obtained his PhD from the University of Hamburg, at which he now regularly
lectures in comparative regionalism and international political economy. His latest publications
include: ‘Multipolarity and the Future of Economic Regionalism’, International Theory 9(1).

Laura Gómez-Mera is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami,

USA. She holds a DPhil from Oxford University and an MSc from the London School of

xiv
 List of contributors

Economics, both United Kingdom. She is the author of Power and Regionalism in Latin America
(Notre Dame University Press, 2013).

Juan Grigera is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow based at the UCL Institute of Americas,
United Kingdom. He completed a PhD from the University of Buenos Aires with support from
CONICET, Argentina, after being awarded an MSc in Development Studies from the London
School of Economics. Currently he is an active member of the editorial board of Historical
Materialism (London) and Cuadernos de Economía Crítica (Argentina).

Alejandra Kern is Director of the Center for Research on International Cooperation and
Development at the National University of San Martín, Argentina. She was awarded a PhD in
Social Sciences from FLACSO Argentina and BA in International Relations from Salvador
University. Her research interests are development cooperation in science and technology,
South–South cooperation and German development cooperation.

Francesca Lessa is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Latin American Centre of the
University of Oxford, United Kingdom. She is the author of Memory and Transitional Justice in
Argentina and Uruguay: Against Impunity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), published in Spanish
translation in 2014, and co-editor of Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights Accountability:
Comparative and International Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Cara Levey is a Lecturer in Latin America Studies at University College Cork, Ireland. She is
the author of Fragile Memory, Shifting Impunity: Commemoration and Contestation in Post-dictatorship
Argentina and Uruguay (Peter Lang, 2016) and co-editor of Argentina since the 2001 Crisis: Reco-
vering the Past, Reclaiming the Future (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), published in Spanish translation
in 2016.

Colin M. Lewis is Professor Emeritus of Latin American Economic History at the London
School of Economics & Political Science, United Kingdom. His research interests include the
politics of economic governance, social history, business history and the economic history of
foreign investment in Latin America. For details of his publications and work in Latin America,
see: www.lse.ac.uk/lacc/people/academic-staff/colin-lewis.aspx.

Grace Livingstone is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University
of London, and teaches at the Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, both
United Kingdom. Her publications include Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy and War (LAB/
Rutgers University Press, 2003), America’s Backyard: Latin America and the United States from the
Monroe Doctrine to the War on Drugs (Zed Books, 2009) and Corporations, Social Movements and
Foreign Policy: British Policy towards the Dictatorships of Argentina and Chile, 1973–82 (forthcoming,
Palgrave Macmillan). She is also a journalist and has reported for the BBC World Service, The
Guardian, the Independent on Sunday and The Observer.

Laura Macdonald is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University,

Ottawa, Canada. She has published numerous books and articles, including The Politics of Vio-
lence in Latin America and the Caribbean (with Tina Hilgers, Cambridge University Press 2017)
and Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas: Beyond the Washington Consensus? (with Arne Rückert,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

xv
List of contributors

Ana Margheritis is Reader in International Relations at University of Southampton, Associate

Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and Co-ordinator of the
Migration@Soton Research Network, all United Kingdom. She previously worked and held
several visiting positions at highly ranked universities in the USA, Europe and South America.
She is the author of four sole-authored books, including Migration Governance across Regions:
State-Diaspora Relations in the Latin America-Southern Europe Corridor (Routledge, 2016), editor of
two other volumes, and co-author of a seventh. Her peer-reviewed articles on transnational
migration, international political economy and foreign policy have appeared in a wide range of
journals (see https://soton.academia.edu/anamargheritis).

Carolina Matos is a Lecturer in Media and Sociology at the Department of Sociology, City,
University of London, United Kingdom. Matos obtained her PhD in Media and Commu-
nications at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and has taught and researched in the
fields of media and development, gender and international communications at London School
of Economics, University of Essex, University of East London and Goldsmiths. Matos is the
author of Journalism and Political Democracy in Brazil (Lexington Books, 2008), Media and Politics
in Latin America: Globalization, Democracy and Identity (I.B. Tauris, 2012) and Globalization,
Gender Politics and the Media (Lexington Books, 2017).

Marcelo Mondelli is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at UNR National University

of Rosario, Argentina and received his Master’s (Hons) in International Relations at Dublin
City University, Ireland. He was formerly Advisor to the High Representative General of
MERCOSUR (ARGM 2015–16), responsible for the Research Department at the Social
Institute of MERCOSUR (ISM 2011–14) and Researcher at CLACSO (South/South Program
2013/14).

Jewellord Nem Singh is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin,
Germany and an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Leiden University, The
Netherlands. He is the Editor of a special issue on ‘Developmental States beyond East Asia’
published in Third World Quarterly (forthcoming, 2018).

Pablo Nemiña has a BA in Sociology and PhD in Social Sciences, both from the University of
Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technical
Research (CONICET), based at the Institute of Social High Studies, National University of San
Martín, and Associate Researcher in the International Relations Department, Latin American
Faculty of Social Sciences, Argentina. His main research areas are international political economy,
financial relations and IMF (International Monetary Fund) crisis intervention. Major publica-
tions are Neoliberalismo y desendeudamiento. La relación Argentina – FMI (with Mariela Bembi),
Buenos Aires, Capital Intelectual, 2007, and ‘Aportes de la Economía Política Internacional a la
comprensión teórica de la relación entre el FMI y los países en desarrollo’, in Civitas. Revista de
Ciências Sociais, PUCRS, Vol. 17, No 1, 2017.

Detlef Nolte is Director of the GIGA Institute of Latin American Studies and Professor of
Political Science at the University of Hamburg. He was President of the German Latin Amer-
ican Studies Association (ADLAF) in 2010–2016. Research interests are comparative regionalism
and regional governance in Latin America, and constitutional change and political institutions in
Latin America.

xvi
 List of contributors

Thomas F. O’Brien is a John & Rebecca Moores Professor of History at the University of
Houston, USA. His work focuses on US Latin American relations and the process of globali-
zation. He is the author of four books, including Making the Americas: The United States and Latin
America from the Age of Revolutions to the Era of Globalization, and The Revolutionary Mission:
American Enterprise in Latin America.

Daniel Ozarow is a Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom,

where he received his PhD. He is co-editor of Argentina Since the 2001 Crisis: Recovering the Past,
Reclaiming the Future (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Co-Chair. of the Argentina Research
Network. He has recently published articles on workers’ self-management, Argentina’s debt and
resistance to the NAFTA agreement.

Gino Pauselli is Research Assistant at University of San Andrés, Argentina. His research
interests are human rights and foreign policy, foreign aid and South–South cooperation. He has
published in Human Rights Review, Iberoamerican Journal of Development Studies and International
Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis.

Orlando J. Pérez is Associate Dean, College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Mill-
ersville University, Pennsylvania, USA. He received his MA and PhD in Political Science from
the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Civil–Military Relations in Post-Conflict Societies:
Transforming the Role of the Military in Central America (Routledge, 2015), Political Culture in
Panama: Democracy after Invasion (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011), and co-editor of Latin American
Democracy: Emerging Reality or Endangered Species? (Routledge, 2nd edn, 2015).

Roberta Rice is Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Calgary, Canada.
She is the author of The New Politics of Protest: Indigenous Mobilization in Latin America’s Neoliberal
Era (University of Arizona Press, 2012) and co-editor of Re-Imagining Community and Civil
Society in Latin America and the Caribbean (Routledge, 2016).

Miguel A. Rivera-Quiñones is a Lecturer at the Political Science Department at the Uni-

versity of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras and previously at the Institute of Development Studies at
the University of Sussex, United Kingdom. He has worked as consultant for several interna-
tional organizations and his research interests focus on topics associated with globalization,
development and public policy.

Marcelo Saguier is a Research Fellow at the Argentine National Scientific & Technical
Research Council (CONICET) and the Director of the International Relations Programme at
the School of Politics and Government, National University of San Martin, Argentina. His
research interests are regionalism, natural resource governance for sustainable development, and
transnational social movements. Recent publications include ‘Social and Solidarity Economy in
South American Regional Governance’, Global Social Policy, 17(2), 2017 (with Z. Brent), and
‘Canadian Mining Investments in Argentina and the Construction of a Mining-Development
Nexus’, Latin American Policy, 7(2), 2016 (with G. Peinado).

Benjamin Selwyn is Professor of International Relations and International Development at the

University of Sussex, United Kingdom. He is author of Workers, State and Development in Brazil
(2012), The Global Development Crisis (2014), The Struggle for Development (2017), and co-editor
of Class Dynamics of Development (2017).

xvii
List of contributors

Diana Tussie heads the International Relations Department at FLACSO/Argentina. She is the
founder of the Latin American Trade Network, editor of the journal Global Governance, and a
Senior Member of the Argentine Council for Scientific Research. Although primarily a scholar,
Diana has held government posts in her native Argentina.

Carol Wise is an Associate Professor in the School of International Relations at the University
of Southern California, USA. She specializes in international political economy and develop-
ment, with an emphasis on Latin America. Wise is author of Dragonomics: The Rise of China in
Latin America (Yale University Press, forthcoming 2018).

xviii
 Acknowledgements

This collection is the result of a genuine collective enterprise. It is the product of a shared
commitment of all contributors to the study and practice of better and more inclusive govern-
ance in South America. Special thanks go to the contributors for sharing their ideas and ener-
gies, and for reflecting on the different dimensions, and from different perspectives, of
governing in South America. Equally, this Handbook would not have been possible without
the unending support from the team at Routledge and those who have worked in the pro-
duction of this Handbook. We would like to thank in particular Cathy Hartley and Eleanor
Simmons in helping us to prepare the manuscript.
We tested and refined some of the ideas within this book at conferences and seminars –
including the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and the International Studies Asso-
ciation (ISA) – so we are grateful to those who contributed through panel discussions and
comments helping all of us advance our ideas about what governance in and for South America
means, both in theory and in practice. We thus thank the Department of Politics at South-
ampton and the School of Communications, Arts, and Social Sciences at Richmond, the
American International University in London for technical and financial support.
As always, Pía would like to express her thanks to John, dedicate her work to Delfina and
Celina with love, and thank Chris, endlessly, for thinking together and for the many hours of
discussion during the time we worked together. Chris would like to thank his family for their
support, especially his brother Jonathan – who will always be a source of inspiration, and of
course Pía for patiently listening to his musings and interventions on South American
governance.
We both think that the road is ready for further research into what makes more viable and
equitable governance in the region. We hope that this Handbook is a step in that direction.

xix
 Abbreviations

ALBA Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América

(Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America)
ALADI/LAIA Asociación Latinoamericana de Integración (Latin American
Integration Association)
art. article
BRICS Brazil, Russian Federation, India, People’s Republic of China,
South Africa (informal grouping of large emerging economies)
CAN Comunidad Andina de Naciones (Andean Community of
Nations)
CELAC Comunidad de Estados de América Latina y el Caribe
(Community of Latin American and Caribbean States)
ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
IMF International Monetary Fund
MERCOSUR/MERCOSUL Mercado Común del Sur/Mercado Comum do Sul (Southern
Common Market)
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
NGO non-governmental organization
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
UN United Nations
UNASUR Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (Union of South American
Nations)
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
US(A) United States (of America)
WTO World Trade Organization

xx
 1
Introduction
Governance in South America

Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde

Governance is a key issue of our times. Conceptually it refers to the complex ways in which
human interaction takes place within and outside the space of the nation state, and how that
interaction is regulated and governed (Gamble 2014; Jessop 2016: 50). But it is not only about
interactions; governance is also about how institutions regulate those ‘social and economic, as
well as political, processes by which power and influence are put into practice, outcomes are
shaped and decisions made and implemented’ (Cerny 2014: 48). In practice, governance is sig-
nified by strategies pursued by state and non-state actors directed to enhancing (some aspect of )
their capabilities/powers of agency. This framework lends explanatory power to understand
how governance is defined and practiced in South America. Governance, as a political economic
project in South America, can be associated with state capacity to deliver inclusive democracy and
socio-economic equality. In fact, the dilemma of governance in South America unfolded as a
perpetual tension between weak political institutions reproducing social and economic
inequalities and conflicts over political recognition, rights and distribution.
There are three reasons above all for a new Handbook of South American Governance. The first
is that regional governance in South America has been, and still is, defined by competing
models and processes of economic development that have affected the institutionalization of
democracy, quality of democracy, and how countries insert in the international political econ-
omy – as individual countries and/or collectively – shaping modalities of foreign policy and
regional diplomacy. Second, there is a need for a longue durée approach, to borrow Fernand
Braudel’s concept, to understand the implications of competing models of development – not as
a sequence of successes and failures in governance, but rather as an unfinished business where
inclusive and sustained economic growth, social development, and the consolidation of social
justice underpin democracy in the region. Development must be understood as an historical
change process (Kothari 2005); revealing governance in South America to be a work in progress.
This Handbook looks at the historical traces that explain contemporary dilemmas of equitable
and sustainable political economic governance in the region. Generally, historical analyses are far
less interested in what has remained in place, that is, in continuity, or reappearances, let alone in
things falling out of fashion and fading out. But when studying what has defined governance
and thus shaped its associated dilemmas, the reappearance of an ‘old’ question became evident:
in what sense are we witnessing something that represents a search for autonomous political and

1
Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde

economic governance in South America? Or are we simply witnessing an update of what has
always been the formula of governing and governance in the region? This takes us to the final
reason why we consider this Handbook invaluable; the insightful work of all contributors here
suggests that governance dilemmas of inequitable and unfulfilled political economic governance
in South America are not uncommon historical features. Nonetheless, in the process of defining
and seeking sovereignty, South America has pioneered regional and international norms,
debates and alternative modalities of political economic governance that need to be taken more
seriously in political theory and practice.
This Handbook looks at these issues, offering a comprehensive overview of the history and
evolution of governance as a project of political economy, and how it manifested in practice in
South America since independence. As such, the Handbook explores modalities of governance at
international, regional, national and issue-based levels of policy. By so doing, the Handbook depicts
practices and strategies and the complex constellation of actors influencing policy-making
processes and outcomes across different and often multiple layers of governance.

Contextualizing the dilemma of governance in South America

Since the late nineteenth century, governance in South America was part and parcel of the
difficulties of reconciling a primarily oligarchic model of liberal economics with political models
of social inclusion. These tensions were often aggravated by unequal insertion of the region into
the global political economy. In fact, we argue, models of governance in South America are
embedded in countries and political cultures shaped not only by the recent past of profound
economic and political liberalization but also by historic legacies which may include institutional
fragility, a sometimes abysmal gulf between a formal democratic order and the persistence of
everyday realities of social exclusion, impoverished citizenship and practices of patrimonialism,
and corruption and double-dealing; often fuelled by and in the shadow of US influence in the
region.
The disintegration of Spanish and Portuguese colonial administrations left the continent with
weak institutional frameworks that struggled to absorb and regulate economic and political
conflicts (Briceño Ruiz in this volume). What followed was a complex process of state forma-
tion shaped by the pressures of (re)constructing markets and the insertion of new economies in the
logic of international trade. As Colin Lewis puts it, South American nations and their dilemmas of
governance have been part and parcel of a co-foundation process where states, and the con-
struction of a regime of rules, have been determined by the creation of market economies – and
vice versa (Lewis in this volume). Furthermore, the pressures of markets, as Lewis puts it, con-
ditioned the formation of domestic institutions and their regulatory capacity. Their evolution
tended to be highly exclusionary, and at times captured by and reproducing elite politics. The
problem of the oligarchic state, however, was that it was too weak to implement development
programmes (Cannon in this volume). Nevertheless, increasing export expansion, industrializa-
tion and infrastructure investment enhanced South America’s insertion into the global division
of labour and solidified the basis for elite-led ‘order and progress’ and ‘peace and administration’
(Lewis in this volume).
Problems of unequal development, social exclusion, and representation were typically man-
aged through political and institutional centralization, tariffs, or the role of religion (Gargarella
2005). Political inequality, however, coexisted with increasing economic inequality. Inequality,
in turn, recurrently undermined the stability of the oligarchic state. Given economic inequality,
the problem of the political incorporation of the poor, urban workers as well as agricultural
labourers, and a context of land concentration, the contemporary social contract could no

2
 Introduction: Governance in South America

longer be supported. South American governance as a political and economic project came
under pressure. Demands for inclusion and democratization, in a context of increasing ideolo-
gical polarization as Cannon explains in this volume, exposed the difficulties of exclusionary
political systems to absorb and process conflicts that were engrained in a system of production
and an economic project that was in many ways the DNA of the institutional structure in the
region. The difficulties of state-building, social and political inclusion, mobilization against elite
politics, and an incessant search for stable and autonomous models of growth and development
vis-à-vis the steady assertion of US global and regional hegemony defined how governance has
both been ‘understood’ and ‘done’ in South America.
The new millennium in South America has witnessed a series of transitions from right of
centre governments to those of the left or left of centre. Some see this as evidence that the new
democracies engineered in South America (and the continent more widely) in the last decades
of the twentieth century are now institutionally stable (Panizza 2005, 2009; Hershberg and
Rosen 2006; Grugel and Riggirozzi 2007, 2009). Governments committed to broader forms of
representation, redistribution and better and more accessible public services took office in Vene-
zuela in 1998, Brazil in 2002, 2006 and 2010, Argentina in 2003 and 2008, Uruguay in 2004,
Bolivia in 2005, Ecuador in 2006 and Paraguay in 2008. The rise of the new left is an indica-
tion that the more cautious, consensual and pro-elite democracies that characterized the early
stages of democratization are over. Instead, claims are being made on behalf of South America’s
ordinary people (Lomnitz 2006). The new left signified, in other words, the emergence of a
new kind of politics, and a renegotiated pact between the state, society and the market (Grugel
and Riggirozzi 2012; Wylde 2011; Foxley 2010).
Liberal ideas about the centrality of the market for development were not simply taken ‘off
the shelf’ and implemented wholesale: policies were mediated temporally by political leaders,
the demands of business and investors (national and international), the strength of social move-
ments and labour, national institutional preferences (Blyth 1997), and sometimes international
financial institutions (chiefly the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and/or World Bank). But
it is also the case that dominant economic ideas take on a life of their own and can sometimes
obtain an influence that goes beyond their policy significance. In addition to underpinning
policies, neoliberal ideas came to shape and set the frameworks for debate. The very idea that
development depends on freeing the market itself became a ‘weapon’ that facilitated the intro-
duction of policies that enabled marketization and restrained collective action against market
reform (Blyth 1997). A highly unusual temporal confluence in interests and convictions
between business, development and finance agencies, and governing elites lent authority to the
task of rolling back the state (Babb 2009). Neoliberalism served as an effective ideational cri-
tique of statist economic production and a rallying cry for those committed to freeing the
economy from the grip of ‘special interests’. In this highly politicized climate, all government
action that rolled back the state and incentivized the market was labelled ‘neoliberal’, making it
seem almost impossibly idealist to suggest other ways of running the economy.
The template for South America’s engagement with neoliberalism was the Washington
Consensus (Macdonald in this volume), the name itself an indication of the extent to which
neoliberalism was leveraged and supported by the political and economic authority of the USA
and the international financial institutions. The Washington Consensus set out to transform
development and governance practices across South America via a range of policies from the
privatization of public assets to cuts in public expenditure. A leaner, more focused state was to
be achieved through cutbacks in infrastructural and welfare spending and tight fiscal discipline.
The tax base was broadened (so that more people paid taxes) and high rates of tax at the top
were reduced or ‘streamlined’ (so that capitalists would pay less tax and would be freed to invest

3
Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde

more in the economy). Trade liberalization measures, including the adoption of a uniform tariff,
were designed to encourage exports and foreign investment; and legal and juridical policies
introduced to enhance and protect property rights, along with reform to the labour market, and
the introduction of foreign investment in pension provision, public utilities and natural resour-
ces. The point is not just that the role of the market was enhanced in everything from educa-
tion to health and housing but that the state, though it hardly disappeared, was clouded in
shame and decried as old-fashioned, rent-seeking and inefficient. The Washington Consensus
was thus part of a holistic right-wing liberal mantra about the intrinsic superiority of the market
over the state and it played well at a time of conservative and timid democratization when the
‘excesses’ of the Left could be blamed for having provoked the extreme violence that engulfed
much of the region in the 1960s and 1970s.
There is some evidence to suggest that liberal economics did indeed limit (or at least hold up
to the light) corrupt state practices. Weiss (2003: 5), for example, notes than some of the
Washington Consensus reforms ‘whittled away at entrenched authoritarian legacies’. But over-
all, the immediate political (as well as economic) impact of the Washington Consensus on
South America’s nascent democracies was negative. It led to the introduction of highly con-
centrated, undemocratic and non-consultative procedures within government, reduced access to
the state and deepened poverty, heightened social and economic exclusion and increased social
tensions. One particularly difficult transition to embed was the attempted transformation of
citizenship. With strong traditions of both corporatist and social movement-based forms of
citizenship, it is no surprise that attempts to allocate citizenship through the market were widely
resisted in South America, at times openly and through mass protest in Venezuela, Bolivia and,
eventually, Argentina, or through alternative forms of collective organization as with the
Landless Movement in Brazil. In the end it was the difficulty of reconciling neoliberalism with
popular expectations of a new era of inclusive, democratic politics, rather than a failure of its
strictly economic rationale, that has led to its unravelling. By the end of the 1990s, poverty rates
averaged 40 per cent across the region as welfare was systematically squeezed and inclusion
reduced to those who could pay for health, good schooling and social security. Inequality was
somehow and perversely a functional feature, or an unintended consequence, of neoliberal
governance (see Dayton-Johnson in this volume)
As the problems associated with free markets have spiralled and the authority of the idea of
neoliberalism has declined, so an intellectual agenda has emerged that, in South America at least,
derives from two distinct but linked threads: the different national experiences of marketization
and economic liberalization as a development strategy and their material consequences in terms
of rising poverty, inequality and social exclusion; and a widespread rejection of the mystique of
neoliberalism itself. Post-neoliberalism is, in short, both an attempt at articulating a fresh set of
ideas about how the economy should be run, bolstered by a conviction that there should be
greater control over markets for reasons of morality, democracy and efficacy, and specific and
often contingent politics that aim to correct existing architecture of governance (Wylde in this
volume).
The result is emerging strategies for development that focus principally on a critique of
unmediated marketization (with the suggestion that the state should do a better job in terms of
regulation, the provision of public goods and distribution) that is combined with a new moral
tone and a concern with poverty and social exclusion. This is articulated in conjunction with
what can only be called fiscal conservatism: South American governments have learned the hard
way that greater policy autonomy must be paid for by independence from the international
financial organizations. There is, then, a common attempt to recalibrate and rehabilitate the role
of the state and public spending, but without creating ‘excessive’ expectations about the

4
 Introduction: Governance in South America

possibilities of redistribution in the short term. Grugel and Riggirozzi (2017) contend that what
links post-neoliberal states is a combination of more expansive public spending alongside stra-
tegies to increase national shares in international markets. The result is an ambiguous, pragmatic,
fluid and at times even contradictory policy mix that varies from country to country, at odds
certainly with the rigid orthodoxies of the neoliberal high period in the 1990s but quite distant
also from the projects of root and branch transformation that characterized the left in South
America before 1970 (Rivera-Quinoñes in this volume). Fundamentally, while neoliberalism in
South America was facilitated by a process of regime change without state transformation, post-
neoliberalism represents the opposite: transformation of state governance under conditions of
continued democracy.
Post-neoliberalism hinges on the need to revamp and renew what citizenship means. One
source of ideas here is a belief in continental solidarity, articulated via the attempt to redraw
the political map of the Americas through new regional organizations which sets out to rival
the neoliberal open market regionalism of the 1990s (Riggirozzi and Tussie 2012; Riggirozzi and
Tussie in this volume). The search for a regional mission, a new sense of what region-building is
about, denotes a rescaled debate about the construction of alternative modalities of governance
through collective action. Contentious actions are contextual, invented and, importantly, his-
torically constituted. Organized collective responses indicate the interconnections between past
and present understandings of state institutions and policy practices.
Contending actors are bounded by socio-economic and political institutions; they are influ-
enced by themes, symbol and tactical innovations of group and individual actions borrowed
through past practices of collective action. For Charles Tilly (1975, 2006), state–society relations
can be understood through repertoires of contention, or the whole set of meanings that a group
has for making diverse sets of claims on different people and groups; it’s not only about what
they do when they make a claim but also what they know how to do and what society has
come to expect them to do within a culturally sanctioned and historically confined set of
options.
As Riggirozzi and Tussie argue, contending action in regional politics has been a genuine
way of reclaiming the space for the redefinition of consensuses, reworking what governance is
about in a way that is at odds with the Washington Consensus and neoliberal governance. A
correlation at the national level is reflected in confident assertions of citizenship and inclusive
and socially responsive governance. Patterns of citizenship shape up in distinctly national ways as
different institutional frames support very different kinds of collective action and allow different
sorts of claims to be made. Likewise, institutional settings and regime features have significant
impact on the rhythms and episodes of contentious actions, as well as on state capacity to
respond, and more generally state–society relations (Tarrow 2012: 3, 124–125).
Notwithstanding justice claims as central to the construction of shared social imaginaries,
ordinary citizens are influenced by references to historical memories that symbolize a discrete set
of categories constitutive of emancipatory politics. In other words, although experiences of
marginalization are necessary elements to transform grievances into concrete political struggles,
‘citizenship pacts’ are inevitably shaped by iterative and cumulative engagements between states
and social groups who frame and carry demands within specific governance frameworks. In
democratic settings, as Sidney Tarrow (2011: 6) reminds us, ordinary people in alliance with
activists and influential citizens will frame their claim and pull out resources at particular his-
torical conjunctures to exert influence to change established rules through contentious politics.
Experiences of marginalization or discrimination as well as perceptions of injustice often channel
into concrete political struggles advanced by social actors or networks of actors within specific
governance frameworks. From this perspective, the referential point for social action is the

5
Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde

system of political and economic governance, and the degree to which the political establishment
is open or closed to demands advanced by social actors. Following this line of argument, Grugel
(2006: 214) suggests that the legitimacy of organizations is defined by the extent that governments
foster and create opportunities for participation and activism of social actors within governance
processes. In vibrant democracies, civil society organizations are expected to play a vital role
transforming the patterns of access to, and the practices and policies of, the state.
In South America despite a real and genuine engagement with democratic ideas across the
continent, democracy faltered as the twentieth century progressed. Over the last two decades
there has been a very important debate, and much real political action and social conflict, sur-
rounding how to interpret citizenship; all in the context of the quite troubled relationship
between the progressive regimes, their pursuit of (neo)extractivist policies, and the militant
opposition of social movements – from labour to indigenous peoples – to these same policies
governing ‘alternative and autonomous development’. The contribution by Rice focusing on
indigenous resistance and the commodification of land through the market in Ecuador and Bolivia,
and those of Nem Singh Grigera and Saguier regarding the governance of natural resources and
environmental citizenship, locate this debate as central to understanding contestation to neoliber-
alism and current governance deficits in South America. The region also has a long tradition of
labour (Ozarow in this volume) and social movement (Donoso in this volume) organizations
that have sought to redress inclusive governance within communities, with or independent
from the state. New regional dynamics identified by Riggirozzi and Tussie (this volume) point
to a further space for norm creation and political action and advocacy. This has generated new
questions concerning what regionalism is in terms of its philosophical, legal and institutional
basis; and what roles and purposes the practice of regionalism gives expression to. Regional
governance may be expressed as (re)newed opportunities concerning regional citizenship rights
(Mondelli in this volume) and political settlements around new patterns of migration (Mar-
gheritis in this volume); or defensive reactions to economic vulnerabilities (Gómez-Mera in this
volume) and trade-led minilateral responses (Garzón and Nolte in this volume). What becomes
clear in South America is not the question of whether regional governance exists, it clearly
does, rather it is what kind of governance arrangements take place through social action, distinct
issue areas, and with or without leadership from regional, hemispheric or global hegemons.
There are, in other words, quite different versions and practices of post-neoliberalism at dif-
ferent levels of governance, ranging from the radical models that proclaim the need for a rec-
tification of history and see the overthrow of neoliberalism as part of a process of national
redemption – Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador – to models that put limits on the social role of
the market in particular – Chile, under Michelle Bachelet, Brazil under the Workers’ Party
governments, Uruguay under the Frente Amplio, and to a lesser extent Argentina under the
Kirchners (Yates and Bakker 2014). These experiments were dubbed by Panizza (2005) as
‘social democratic’. These regimes are, clearly, far from being a complete repudiation of neo-
liberal reform in the 1980s and 1990s. There is a quite explicit acknowledgement that the
market model of the 1990s requires recalibration – and that South America now has the tech-
nical knowledge and attendant state capacities to carry this adjustment out without external
supervision.
Renewed state activism, however, has sat alongside a strategy for growth that remains based
on the export of primary commodities – and a distinctive dependency on China (Wise in this
volume), taxes on exports that provide the resources for enhanced state spending on welfare and
industrial growth, and a new governance dilemma of how to finance inclusive and sustainable
development. As Wylde (this volume) demonstrates, post-neoliberalism may have distributed
the benefits of dependence better than neoliberalism – after all poverty and inequality have

6
 Introduction: Governance in South America

been the great victory of the new left project – but it is still a project of governance reflective of
the ‘paradox of plenty’ (Karl 1997) rather than a strategy that genuinely transformed the old
conflict between states, societies and markets.
A number of core dilemmas have clearly permeated South American governance across dif-
ferent modes of capital accumulation. Economic, political and civil rights have all been pursued
by different actors across different spatial levels of analysis (state, regional, global) of governance.
As such, a number of claims – from indigenous rights to environmental and resource governance –
are not to be considered ‘new’ as such, rather as old dilemmas being pursued by actors in new
ways, in the context of changing governance structures at different levels of analysis. The next
section will further expand on this understanding through an investigation of the evolution of
how agents of governance have strategically navigated terrains of governance at different spatial
levels of analysis.

Levels and agents of governance

The capacity to promote the realization of collective goods for the public interest constitutes
governance. This can be understood in terms of political spaces in which norm creation, poli-
tical action, and political advocacy can occur. It follows from this that the interaction between
people and space must be understood as a dynamic enabler of social meaning and practice. The
institutional setting in which actors interact in norm creation can occur at multiple levels of
spatial analysis – global, regional, national, sub-national.
The complex, mutually re-constitutive dialectics concerning any analysis of governance
generate a series of complex institutions and structures that are strategically navigated by a ple-
thora of actors at multiple sites of spatial analysis. Alternatively expressed, governance concerns a
set of arrangements that allow politics (or agency) to happen. In this context, understanding
politics at different levels and how they are manifested in different dynamics of political action
and public policy advocacy becomes paramount. This Handbook thus becomes a collection of
thoughts about the roles and purposes to which the practice of governance gives expression.
The arrangements that allow a particular politics to ‘happen’ are embedded in institutional
structures, driven by social relations, and manifest in public policy profiles.
The practice of governance at different spatial levels unfolds in terms of inclusion. In South
America this has traditionally come in the form of economic inclusion, and has been managed
through the resultant tensions between states and markets. In the 1980s and 1990s – in the
context of a return to democracy – distributional conflicts related to inclusive and sustainable
development were defined by the imperative of the market. In the twenty-first century this
inclusion has manifested more in terms of civil rights as well as social and ecological rights (Lessa
and Levey, Rice, Grigera and Saguier in this volume). This has led to agents expressing forms of
identity politics and new demands to include and recognize a concomitant suite of rights
through alternative modalities of governance. ‘Old’ groups have found new opportunities to
express their agency in order to realize specific governance desires. Working classes that
used trade unions in the twentieth century to gain privileged access to the state (see Rivera-
Quiñones in this volume) found themselves fractured in the wake of neoliberal reform and
sought additional channels to express their agency in the form of social movements (see Donoso
and Ozarow in this volume). Furthermore, these agents have found multiple institutional sites
to express their agency, giving them greater opportunities for ‘play-making’ (Riggirozzi and
Tussie 2012; Riggirozzi 2015). For example, (very) old ideals concerning a Pan-Americanism
have manifested in one form through regional citizenship rights and attendant migration pat-
terns (see Margheritis in this volume), that MERCOSUR is working towards in one particular

7
Pía Riggirozzi and Christopher Wylde

institutional context (see Mondelli in this volume) Whilst governance at the state level remains
a core concern, access to sites of regional governance and, to a lesser extent, global governance
(see Burges in this volume, and Nemiña for the specific case of the IMF or Alonso on the
World Bank) have led away from an analysis of globalization as a monolithic, absolutely con-
straining phenomenon to one that understands its limits, but also the not insignificant ‘room for
manoeuvre’ present in different ‘political economies of the possible’ (Santiso 2006).
Governance in South America has traditionally related to tensions between states and mar-
kets, located at multiple sites of spatial analysis. The central dilemma in South American gov-
ernance has traditionally related to issues concerned with how markets make states, and states
make markets – and how states and markets accommodate and respond to social demands for
governance. This Handbook suggests that whilst states and markets remain important, the
nature of social contestation has proliferated and therefore we invited the contributors to
look at:

i how justice claims became central to the demands of specific social groups;
ii how these governance frameworks, from state–society pacts to regional institutions, are
important because they foreground particular issues as central problems and privilege
particular forms of political practice; and
iii iterative and cumulative processes leading to the emerging of identity politics and episodes
of contentious actions.

South America has historically been a laboratory for the realization of, and resistance to, a
hegemonic capitalist model of development and governance. There is a vast literature examin-
ing South America’s political economy in the twentieth century that focuses on the liberal
trading order and associated Fordist international production regime as well as the intellectual
tradition associated with dependency critiques of governance as ‘dependent development’ (e.g.
Dos Santos 1970; Frank 1966; Cardoso and Faletto 1979; Rivera-Quinoñes in this volume). In
the 1990s, a growing literature stressing governance defined the terms of debate and practice,
turning attention to institutional determinants of efficiency and how authority is exercised
vis-à-vis the markets (Kaufmann et al. 2000). Building on these ideas, several cross-national
empirical studies have found a positive relationship between the quality of institutions, gov-
ernance structures, and economic growth (Knack 2003). But the crises that erupted in much of
the region with the onset of the twenty-first century were due to more than South America’s
embrace of the Washington Consensus in the 1980s and 1990s; in a very real way, they were the
latest episodes in a drama that has been played out since the 1930s over the state and the
direction of the region’s political economy. In light of this, (South American) scholars
recognize that governance is more than getting the institution, and politics, right and that post-
neoliberal modes of resistance are currently reworking the terms of governance across the
region (Grugel and Riggirozzi 2012; Panizza 2009).
What these approaches share is an understanding that development policy, or wider concerns
of models of political economy, emerge from complex interactions and interdependencies
between interlinked and overlapping levels of governance. This Handbook associates itself with
this rich tradition in the literature examining the history of and political economic dynamics
defining governance as a debate and in practice in contemporary South America. The chapters
in the Handbook offer thematic and issue-based in-depth analysis, exploring the terms of gov-
ernance as defined by governing arrangements, modalities of engagement of states and non-state
actors, and dilemmas of governing in a globalized world.

8
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Bang vir die Lewe

Uit die oorspronklike Frans van Henri Bordeaux

ná die 137e Franse uitgaaf vir Suid-Afrika
vertaal en bewerk

deur
JAN F. E. CELLIERS

(Derde Druk.)
Die Nasionale Pers, Beperk, Drukkers en Uitgewers, Kaapstad,
Stellenbosch, Bloemfontein en Pietermaritzburg.
1925.
 VOORWOORD AAN DIE LESER.
Hierdie verhaal het, as vervolgstorie, in „Die Brandwag” verskyn,
van die allereerste nommer af.
Baie boeke van die buiteland, en veral romans, behandel
toestande, persone en insigte wat vir die gewone Afrikaanse leser
vreemd en dus onverstaanbaar en ongenietbaar is. Dit kan van
hierdie boek nie gesê word nie: wat hier aan ons vertoon word, is
algemeen-menslik—sulke persone en hartstogte en gevoelens en
kontraste tref ons by ons net so aan.
Sonder dat die outeur as sedemeester optree, gaan daar ’n sterk
morele invloed van sy boek uit, deurdat hy ons op meesterlike wyse
die teëstelling laat sien tussen swakkelinge—ryk en bedorwe
sywurms wat bang is vir die lewe en stryd en strewe daarvan—en ’n
famielie van staatmakers wat sout en krag in hulself het.
Die sentrale figuur is ongetwyfeld die brawe ou moeder Kibert—vir
haar vergeet ons nooit weer nie as ons die verhaal gelees het. En
ons dink daarby aan die talryke Afrikaanse moeders en dogters wat
agtien jaar gelede op so treffende wyse aan die wêreld getoon het
hoe min hulle vir die lewe bang was—en vir die dood. Hulle rus daar
op ons velde vandag, dog die dag sal kom dat Afrikaanse skrywers
ook uit hul lewe stof sal haal vir roerende en opbouende verhale.
Dog die gewone lewe lewer daartoe al stof genoeg op; hierdie
skrywer—soos elke goeie skrywer—maak die gewone vir ons
interessant en het geen kunsies, soos intrigue en sulke goed, nodig
nie.
Hierdie verhaal is goed inmekaargesit. Die skrywer gee nie
onnodige praatjies en beskrywinge nie; ook sy natuurbeskrywinge is
net van pas op die toestande wat voorgestel word en nie
plesiertuintjies waar die outeur in verdwaal en die verband van sy
storie versteur nie.
Die Vertaler.
 INHOUD.
Hoofstuk. Bls.

Deel I.
I. Terugkoms van Marcel Kibert 1
II. Broer en Suster 17
III. Die Blommefees 31
IV. ’n Agtermiddag op Chenée 39
V. Die Geheim van Alida 55
VI. Meneer en Mevrou Delourens 70
VII. Die Huweliksaanvraag 86
VIII. Planne 101
IX. Afskeid 113
X. Vertrek 121
Deel II.
I. Dertien aan Tafel 130
II. Die Boodskap van die Veldwagter 148
III. Haar Laaste Kind 154
IV. Roubeklag 162
V. Jan 173
VI. Isabella 187
VII. Die Geheim van Paula 201
VIII. Mevrou Kibert 214
IX. Haar Laaste Kind 223
X. Kalme Berusting 233
 Bang vir die Lewe.
Uit die oorspronklike Frans van Henri Bordeaux na die 137e Franse
uitgaaf vir Suid-Afrika vertaal en bewerk deur Jan F. E. Celliers.
 I.
TERUGKOMS VAN MARCEL KIBERT.[1]

Klaar om te vertrek, in haar een hand haar sambreel, alhoewel dit

mooi weer is, terwyl die ander die swart kripsluier wegskuiwe wat
van haar hoedjie afhang oor haar gesig, staan mevrou Kibert te wag
in haar voorkamer op Maupas, moeite doende om geduldig te bly.
En nadat sy al verskeie kere na die horlosie gekyk het, staan sy op
en loop met langsaam, swak stappies deur die kamer; dan gaan sy
meteens weer sit, nie op een van die lekker sagte leuningstoele nie,
dog op ’n rottingstoel, waarvan sy gou kan opstaan sonder alte veel
moeite. Mevrou Kibert is al taamlik oud, kort en dik, en haal
langsaam asem. Haar gelaat vertoon sagtheid sowel as beslistheid.
Haar oë is helder-blou, en sy kyk daar so teer en droefgeestig uit,
dat dit lyk of daar trane in is—getuiende van ’n skroomvallige en
liefhebbende geaardheid, wat maklik skrik aan te ja is deur omgang
met die wêreld; maar haar vierkantige ken en haar gesette, stewige
postuur, gee weer ’n indruk van geeskrag en weerbaarheid. Haar
wange het, ondanks haar jare, nog fris gebly, duidende op edel
bloed en goeie gesondheid.
Na ’n bietjie aarseling, besluit sy om ’n deur oop te maak en te
roep:
—Paula, kom jy nou? Dis tyd om te gaan.
’n Helder en suiwer stem gee antwoord:
—Ag, ma, ons het nog baie tyd.
—Dis al sewenuur op die horlosie, sê die ou vrou, maar sonder
haarself op te win.
—Ma weet dat die horlosie drie-kwartier voor is.
—Ja, maar hy kan miskien meteens agtergebly het, hy is so vol
nukke.
Die jongmeisie antwoord met ’n skaterlag, maar uitlag is dit darem
glad nie. Spoedig laat sy daarop volg:
 —Ek sit nou my hoed op, ma, en ek kom.
Getroos gaan mevrou Kibert weer sit. Sy laat haar oë gaan deur
haar voorkamertjie (hulle woon buite die dorp), oor die wit gordyne,
onlangs skoon gewas en gestryk, waar die lig dowwerig deur val,
reeds versag deur die nuwe somergroen van die groot bome buite.
Die meubels is oud en stemmig, en daar is nie onnodige opskik nie.
Dis die roostyd, en sy sit ’n vaas met rose aldag daar, as ’n
offerande aan die portrette van die geliefdes aan die muur—oorsaak
van al haar vreugde en smarte; die vergrote portret van haar man,
dokter Maurits Kibert, gestorwe die jaar vantevore as slagoffer van
sy plig gedurende die koorssiekte wat geheers het; en die portret
van haar dogter Thérèse, ’n klein meisie van twaalf jaar, na God
geroep in die daeraad van haar jeug en skoonheid. Daar is ’n
groepie van haar kinders op één portret bymekaar: Etienne, haar
oudste seun, ingenieur in Tonkin; Marcel, offisier; Magreet,
pleegsuster; Frans, by sy broer in die verre Oos; dan Paula, die
laaste wat nog vir haar oorgebly het. Ag, hoeveel maal het sy al
moet afskeid neem—en vir altyd—in sestig jaar tyds! Maar dit lyk of
hulle haar toelag vandag—’n feesdag in haar huis van rou.
Haar twede seun, Marcel, is terug in die land. Hy het deelgeneem
aan die oorlog in Madagaskar tot onderwerping van die inboorlinge.
Op agtienjarige leeftyd was hy reeds kaptein. Hy het die erekruis
gewin en kom nou terug, fris en gesond, na afwesigheid van drie
jaar. ’n Telegram, vanmôre ontvang, wat sy al gelees en herlees het,
lê nog oop op die tafel, en het haar te kenne gegee dat hy sal
aankom op Chamberie vanaand met die trein van half-ag. En dis
daarom dat mevrou Kibert haar vandag twee ure te vroeg klaar
gemaak het om na die naburige dorp, Chamberie, te ry en haar seun
by die stasie te ontmoet. Haar gedagtes loop haar al vooruit op die
treinspoor waar hy langs moet kom. Maar sy voorsien by die
ontmoeting ’n ontroering wat al haar moed sal verg. Daar ver in die
vreemde land het Marcel gehoor van sy pa se dood. As die dood in
die verte diegene tref wat ons liefhet, hoe bitter en wreed is dan sy
slae! Met die eerste oogopslag sal Marcel haar rouklere sien en die
vermeerderde tekens van haar ouderdom. Daar sal ’n skaduwee van
die dode oprys tussen haar en haar seun. Sy beproef haar kragte,
en sê by haarselwe:
—Sy kinders het nog nooit teruggekom met die trein van hier of
daar nie, of hy was altyd self by die stasie om hulle te verwelkom. Ek
sal nou daar wees in sy plek.
Paula kom nou die kamer in. Haar fraai blinkend-swart hare omlys
haar ronde dofkleurige gesig. Haar swart klere laat haar dun lyk,
maar sy lyk nie swak nie. Uit haar fiere houding en vaste uitkyk
straal beslistheid en dapperheid. Hierdie kind van twintig jaar het al
geweet wat lye is, op ’n leeftyd dat die lewe sy hoogste geur en fleur
het. Om nie ’n swakkeling te wees nie, het sy haarself skrap gesit,
en die gevolge van die stryd kom uit in haar houding.
Paula het ’n nuwe hoedjie in haar hand wat sy stilletjies klaar
gemaak het die dag vantevore.
—Sit nou eers stil, ma. Ma moet mooi lyk as Marcel vandag kom.
Kyk wat ’n mooi hoedjie het ek klaar gemaak; daardie een wat ma op
het, is te afgedra.
Haar ma wil eers teënstribbel, maar laat haar dan begaan.
—Maar nou word dit darem regtig tyd, my kind.
—Ja, sê Paula, ek gaan Trelas roep.
Trelas is die kneg, wat sal leisels hou op die pad na Chamberie.
Paula kyk nog ’n keer op die horlosie en sê:
—Ons sal nog ’n uur by die stasie moet wag.
—My kind, ek sou tog nie te laat wil wees nie.
Met moeite klim sy van die stoep in die rytuig. Noudat sy sit,
probeer sy te glimlag met Paula, en die onvoleindigde glimlag gee vir
’n oomblik aan haar gesig die frisse saligheid terug, wat die bekoring
van haar jeug was. Paula spring vlugtig in die rytuig, en gaat naas
haar sit.
—Laat loop maar, Trelas, en ’n bietjie gou, hoor; maar moenie alte
baie slaan nie, en pasop by die afdraands.
 —Tyd genoeg, sê Trelas drogies.
Hul ry onder die laning van swaargeblaarde kastaiingbome en
plataanbome deur, verby die eikebosse. Die ou merrie begin haar
bene te kry en so hard te draf dat mevrou Kibert bangerig word.
Agter die bult is die son al ondergegaan, dog die blonde lig van die
someraand verlig die velde nog lank.
—Ma, kyk tog na die berge, sê Paula.
In ’n groot sirkel lê die berge om Chamberie, hul rotsagtige toppe
helder-rooskleurig getint, terwyl op hul voet, en langs hul kante, soos
’n fyn sluier die blouagtige waas hang, wat mooi weer voorspel.
Maar mevrou Kibert is te besorg om na die sonnegloeie op die toppe
van die berge te kyk; meteens kom dit uit waaroor sy sit en prakseer:
—Sê nou die trein was te vroeg! En hoewel sy dit mènens gesê
het, is sy die eerste wat glimlag oor so ’n nuwe veronderstelling. Sy
sien hoe die tere en ligte skaduwee stadig die berge uitklim, terwyl ’n
oomblik die toringkruisie van die dorp helder daarteen afsteek. Sy
wys dit aan haar dogter, as ’n beeld van stralende geloof. En nou
daal dieselfde stille vrede neer op die hele natuur, en ook vir die
eerste keer, sedert lank, op die gesigte van die twee vroue in rou.
Naby Chamberie kom ’n rytuig, met twee pragtige harddrawers
bespan, hul agterop, en ry hul verby.
—Dis die rytuig van die famielie Delourens, sê Paula. Hulle het
ons nie gegroet nie.
—Hul het ons seker nie herken nie.
—O ja, ma, maar vandat ons ons geld verloor het deur ons oom te
help, groet hul ons amper nie meer nie.
Sy praat van ’n famielie-ramp wat voorgeval het kort voor die dood
van haar vader. Mevrou Kibert neem die hand van haar dogter.
—Dis maar niks nie, my kind; dink tog daaraan dat ons netnou vir
Marcel sal sien.
Maar na ’n oomblik stilte vra Paula;
 —Was dit nie pa wat vir Alida Delourens gedokter en gesond
gemaak het nie toe die koorssiekte so geheers het, waaraan pa ook
self gesterwe het?
—Ja, fluister die ou vrou, en al haar plesier is weg as sy daaraan
dink. En sonder klag voeg sy sag daarby:
—Ja, en hul het nog altyd vergeet om die rekening te betaal. So
maak die ryk mense baie maal. Hul weet nie dat ’n mens geld moet
verdien om te lewe nie.
—Dis omdat hul aan niks anders as aan tydkorting dink nie.
Mevrou Kibert sien ’n bitter trek op die nog jong gesig.
—Luister, my kind, ons moet hul nie beny nie. Onder die
verstrooiing vergeet hul om te lewe. Sou hul selfs weet dat die lewe
iets kosbaars is? Hul weet nie wat ’n mens se hart kan vervul en dit
harder laat klop nie. Ek sal gou sestig jaar oud wees.—Ek kan my
gestorwene en my opofferinge tel. Ek het my dogter Thérèse verloor,
en my man, wat my krag was. Jou ouer suster, Magreet, is
sendelinge, en ek het haar in vyf jare nie gesien nie. Etienne en
Frans is in Asië, in Tonkin, en ek ken nie eens my kleinkind wat daar
in die verre land gebore is nie. Marcel kom terug vandag, nadat sy
afwesigheid my drie jare van onrus besorg het. Maar ek het darem
tog ’n skone deel ontvang. Ek prys die Heer, Wat my beproef het
nadat Hy my met weldade oorstelp het. Elke dag van my lewe het ek
gevoel hoe goed Hy is. Selfs in my ellende het Hy my ’n steun gegee
—en dis jy.
Met haar klein handjie, sonder handskoen, druk Paula die
verrimpelde en gekerfde hand van haar moeder.
—Ja, dit is so, ma, ek sal nie meer kla nie.
Hul is eindelik by Chamberie, na die rit van drie myle. Trelas laat
die vroue afklim by die stasie en gaan opsy met die rytuig.
Paula kyk op die horlosie en sien met verbasing dat dit tien minute
oor sewe aanwys. Haar ma sien dat sy verwonderd lyk:
—Het ek jou nie gesê ons sou te laat kom nie?
 Die jongmeisie glimlag:
—Te laat, omdat ons nie meer as twintig minute sal moet wag nie?
Hul gaan na die wagkamer. Net soos mevrou Kibert die deur
oopmaak, wil sy weer terugtree. Maar Paula druk haar saggies
binne-toe. Die kamer is vol deftig aangeklede mense. Dis die hoë
mense van Chamberie wat wag op ’n trein wat hul na die komedie
sal neem. Paula en haar ma herken die famielie Delourens.
Mevrou Kibert voel ongemaklik en wil uitgaan; sy fluister in Paula
haar oor:
—Laat ons in die wagkamer van die derde klas gaan: dis beter
daar.
—Waarom? sê Paula.
Op dié oomblik verlaat ’n aansienlike jongman ’n klompie vroue
wat daar staan, en stap na hulle toe. Hul herken in hom luitenant Jan
Berlier,[2] ’n vriend van Marcel. Hy groet hul op die vriendelike
manier wat ’n mens dadelik eie laat voel.
—U wag op die kaptein, is dit nie so nie, mevrou, want u hou tog
nie van reis nie.
—O, nee!
—Hoe bly sal hy wees om u netnou te ontmoet!
—Vroeër, sê die ou vrou aan die jongman, wat sy al as kind geken
het, was dit sy vader wat hom altyd ontmoet het, weet u!
—Ja, ek weet.
En om nou nie verder op ’n publieke plek oor die sterfgeval uit te
wy nie, laat Jan Berlier daarop volg:
—Ek sal Marcel ook nog die hand kan druk, eerdat ons trem
weggaan.
—Kom soek hom op by ons huis. Gaan u op reis?
—Vir vanaand. Ons gaan na die stad. Daar word vanaand ’n nuwe
komedie-stuk opgevoer. Maar u stel daar nie belang in nie.
 Altyd openhartig, antwoord mevrou Kibert:
—Ek is nog nooit in ’n komedie gewees nie. En om u die waarheid
te sê, ek het daar ook nie spyt van nie.
Alhoewel sy saggies praat, het twee jongmeisies in ligte klere haar
gehoor, en een van hulle, met bruin hare en brutale blik, bars uit van
die lag. Dit kan wees dat ’n luitenant wat met hulle staan en praat,
die lag verwek het.
Paula bekyk die meisie wat lag, veragtelik, van bo tot onder met
haar swart oë, wat ’n snelle blits uitskiet.
—Moenie hier so bly staan nie, sê Jan.
Die ou vrou gaan sit in ’n donker hoekie, op ’n stoel wat naas ’n
leë leuningstoel staan, net soos iemand wat hom nederig en
bangerig voel.
—Maar neem dan tog die leuningstoel, ma, sê Paula ’n bietjie
ongeduldig. Sy beantwoord drogies ’n groet van die ander
jongmeisie van die twee—wat nie met haar saam gelag het nie,
maar gebloos.
Die jonkman praat nog ’n paar woorde met hulle en gaan dan
terug na sy eie geselskap. Paula kyk hom na en hoor hoe hy aan
mevrou Delourens sê:
—Ja, dis mevrou Kibert. Sy verwag haar seun uit Madagaskar.
—Watter een? Sy het so baie.
—Maar die offisier, Marcel!
—Watter rang het hy?
—Kaptein—dié wat die eremedalje gewin het—beroemd, sê Jan
haastig, ’n bietjie ongeduldig oor die uitvra, want die meisie met die
bruin hare roep hom.
Maar mevrou Delourens wil nou meer hoor:
—Beroemd? Wat het hy gedoen?
—Weet u dan niks van die slag van Audriba, waar sy kommando-
afdeling die oorwinning behaal het nie?
 —Is jy seker daarvan?
—So seker as iets. Die hele land praat van Marcel Kibert.
Mevrou Delourens is dadelik vol belangstelling, en tree op mevrou
Kibert toe. Tot selfs in haar verval word die ou weduwee nou
belangwekkend, omdat haar seun so ’n naam gemaak het.
—Kom die kaptein vanaand tuis, mevrou? Ag, ons het hom almal
met ons harte gevolg, daar in die verre land en in die vreeslike
oorlog, waar hy sy land eer aangedaan het. In die koerante het ons
gelees wat hy alles volbring het in die slag van Audriba.
Agter sy vrou staan mnr. Delourens, ’n baie onderdanige en
hoflike klein mannetjie, en met ’n hoofbeweging bevestig hy al wat sy
vrou sê.
Mevrou Kibert voel haar in dié omgewing baie ongemaklik. Hoe
steek haar armoedige rouklere af (alhoewel deur haar dogter
opgeknap) by hul deftige aandkleding; sy voel dat sy geen enkele
gedagte gemeen het met hierdie mense van die wêreld nie. Almal
kom rondom haar staan en wens haar geluk. Na mevrou Delourens
kom mevrou Orlandi haar gelukwens. Laasgenoemde is ’n ou
Italiaanse gravin wat stil lewe in Chamberie en gedokter was vir haar
senuwees deur oorlede dokter Kibert. Meneer De Marthenay, ’n
luitenantjie, kyk die ou vrou op ’n byna brutale manier deur sy
oogglasie aan. Bangerig beantwoord sy hulle met enkele woorde;
die bloed styg in haar wange op, haar dogter Paula merk dit, en kom
haar te hulp. Paula is meer op haar gemak en, selfs ’n bietjie styf,
ondanks die lieftalligheid wat die twee jong meisies haar betoon—die
bruine Isabella Orlandi, wat in haar woorde net so aanstellerig is as
in haar houding, en veral die ander meisie, die blonde Alida
Delourens, wat van nature vriendelik is. Sy oorlaai Paula met
beleefdheidjies en voorkomendheid, haar stem is sangerig en
breierig, sy versag die hardklinkende woorde en praat met ’n
aangename soetvloeiendheid.
—So, dan kom jou broer vandag? Jy is seker bly? Dis al jare
gelede dat ek hom laas gesien het. Weet jy nog toe ons almal saam
gespeel het in julle tuin by Maupas, of in ons syne by Chenée.
 —Ja, sê Paula, en nou speel ons nie meer saam nie. Die tuin by
Maupas lê woes, en dié by Chenée is weer alte mooi versorg.
—Maar waarom kom jy nie meer na ons toe nie? Jy moet regtig
kom.
En Paula vra haarself af waarom haar vriendin van vroeër dae—
deur lewensomstandighede van haar geskei—nou so vriendelik vir
haar is. Sy kyk na haar eie swart rok, so eenvoudig en glad, en
bewonder dan, sonder afguns, Alida haar ligblou lyfie, opgemaak
met wit kant en ’n bietjie laag in die hals—’n wit, dun hals, wat lyk
soos ’n tere blom. Paula beskou dan verder haar gelaat, waarvan die
trekke fyn en suiwer is, en die ligrose gelaatskleur sonder ’n vlekkie.
Sy kan nie help om te sê nie:
—Hoe mooi is jy tog, Alida!
Die fris wange word meteens purperrooi. Alida gaan opsy om
iemand te laat verbykom, en Paula merk dat selfs haar slap-
sleperige stap iets bydra om haar dooierig-tingerige bekoorlikheid te
voltooi: naas haar voel Paula beter haar eie jong krag. . . .
—Nee, Paula, dis jy wat mooi is. . .
Daar kom die trein aan en breek al die gesprekke meteens af.
Almal storm die wagkamer uit. Die famielie Delourens en hul
geselskap soek eersteklas rytuie in die trein, wat nou stilhou. Die
mense wat uit die trein stap, loop al haastig na die uitgangsdeur. Die
voorste van almal is ’n lang jonkman, skraal en regop; hy hou sy
hoof fier omhoog. In sy hand dra hy ’n sabel, in groen baai. Net soos
hy mevrou Kibert opmerk, hardloop hy na haar toe, en is in haar
arms.
—My kind! sê sy, en ondanks haar besluit om sterk te bly, bars sy
in snikke los.
En hy, hy rig hom weer op ná die omhelsing, en teer kyk hy sy
moeder aan, wat die merke dra van haar beproewing. Sy
songebrande, byna hardvogtige gelaat, vertoon ’n ontroering. ’n
Naam wat hulle nie nodig het om uit te spreek nie, beef op hulle
lippe, en een selfde eerbiedige nagedagtenis roer hul harte. Die
vreug van sy terugkoms gee iets treffend nuuts aan die smart wat
hulle al lank gevoel het.
Met versagte blik kyk Paula haar groot broer en haar ma aan.
Voor die deurtjie van die trein draai Alida Delourens en Isabella
Orlandi om, en sien die verwelkoming van die jong offisier; en
Isabella kyk mevrou Kibert met spotlaggende oë aan, omdat sy so
dik is en nog huil daarby.
Jan Berlier staan opsy en wag eerbiedig. Hy kom na Paula toe.
—Hoe gelukkig is hulle tog!
En met iets treurigs in sy stem voeg hy daar nog by:
—As ek van ver af terugkom, is daar niemand wat my verwag nie.
Marcel omhels ook sy suster.
Jan kom laggend nader:
—Ek wil nou ook my beurt hê.
—So, Jan, is dit jy?!
En as warme vriende druk die twee mekaar hartlik die hand. Jan is
’n oomblik ontroerd, dog glimlag nou weer:
—Tot weersiens. My trein gaat weg: ek moet hardloop.
—Waar gaat jy?
Al lopende draai die jonkman half om en sê:
—Ons gaan na die komedie in die stad. En hy wys met sy hand na
die mense wat by die trein staan.
Marcel Kibert laat haastig sy oog oor die deftig uitgedoste mense
gaan. Maar Paula draai nog ’n keer om en sien hoe Alida haar groet
uit die treinraampie. Sy groet terug, haastig, en nie besonder
vriendelik nie, net of sy ’n soort wantroue of bygelowige vrees voel
vir daardie verleidelike verskyning. Haar jong vurige siel het, deur
vroegtydige leed, ’n soort van trotse gevoeligheid oorgehou.
Waarom was Alida so tegemoetkomend? dink Paula. Haar oë volg