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 MALAISE IN

REPRESENTATION

IN LATIN AMERICAN

COUNTRIES
Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay

Edited by
Alfredo Joignant,
Mauricio Morales, and
Claudio Fuentes
 Malaise in Representation
in Latin American Countries
 Alfredo Joignant • Mauricio Morales • Claudio Fuentes
Editors

Malaise
in Representation
in Latin American
Countries
Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay
Editors
Alfredo Joignant Claudio Fuentes
Universidad Diego Portales Universidad Diego Portales
Santiago, Chile Santiago, Chile

Mauricio Morales
Universidad Diego Portales
Santiago, Chile

ISBN 978-1-137-59987-2    ISBN 978-1-137-59955-1 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59955-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016959486

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.

Cover design by Samantha Johnson

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America Inc.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A
 Foreword

There can be no doubt that something important and profound occurred

in Chile in 2011. The student movement that erupted so dramatically that
year, and has since persisted, was initially about the country’s educational
model but soon also began to question the political order established by
the 1980 constitution. Not so long afterwards, just before the start of the
2014 Football World Cup in Brazil, a number of cities there saw surprising
outbursts of popular indignation, initially about the tournament’s high
economic cost but soon also about the political class and its growing signs
of corruption. In this same period (2010–2013), the Arab Spring was
blossoming into democratic regimes in countries like Tunisia and Libya
where they would previously have been unimaginable. And then, again
not so long afterwards, an original social movement erupted in Turkey,
starting in the Taksim Gezi Park and escalating into protest against the
Erdogan government’s censure policy.
It was in this turbulent political context, mostly in middle-income
countries, that Canada’s International Development Research Centre
(IDRC) approached the editors of this book with a view to analyzing
the problems of disaffection and malaise with democracy in the southern
cone of Latin America. That is where Chile came in. Given that it had for
years been held up as a model of transition to democracy and its peaceful
consolidation, it would be interesting to look at what had been happening
there since 2011 and compare it with two other middle-income countries
in the same sub-region (Argentina and Uruguay) in a bid to identify par-
ticular trends and, possibly, common patterns.

v
vi Foreword

To this end, we developed a research strategy that implied carrying

out public opinion surveys in Argentina (N = 1200), Chile (N = 1200),
and Uruguay (N = 1202) and surveys of an important sample of mem-
bers of both houses of these countries’ Congresses and their executives,
using a common questionnaire that was only slightly modified in order
to accommodate country-specific language usages (Argentina, N = 140;
Chile, N = 164; Uruguay, N = 121). The design of the population samples
(probabilistic) was identical and the questionnaires sought to capture the
ways in which political activity is perceived.1
The project that gave rise to this book began with a seminar in
Montevideo in July 2013, attended by most of the authors, and concluded
with a seminar in Santiago in July 2015 at which all the work published
here was presented and debated. As you will see, the authors are political
scientists and sociologists, which is in line with the decision of the editors
and the IDRC to analyze the same topic from a multidisciplinary perspec-
tive. Beyond the challenges that such a multidisciplinary approach implies,
the exercise proved an extremely gratifying experience, not least because
it is unusual (at least in Latin America) for political scientists and sociolo-
gists to analyze and discuss the same topic and to do so as part of the same
research project. It is our sincere belief that the future of the social sciences
will be multidisciplinary, putting behind them the petty disputes between
schools and scholars that can hamper scientific progress.
We are aware that the notion of malaise, although slightly more familiar
to sociologists, is a difficult one to use in political science. If we opted to
do so, it is because we firmly believe that the problems of distrust and dis-
affection are a far cry from the imprecise diagnosis of a “crisis of represen-
tation” or even worse a “crisis of democracy”. But the notion of malaise,
whose conceptualization is developed in the Introduction to this book, is
also attractive because it is widely used in ordinary everyday language and
it was well worth adopting this word as a category of analysis.
We would like to thank the Diego Portales University for the constant
support it has provided throughout the three years of this project. We
are also indebted to the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies
(COES, CONICYT/FONDAP/15130009) and Fondecyt Project
1150790 for their support in 2015, the last and crucial year of writing
the manuscript. Our special recognition goes to Florencio Ceballos, the
IDRC program official who accompanied and constantly encouraged us
 Foreword  vii

from the start of the project and, through him, to the IDRC, for the
trust it put in us. We would also like to acknowledge the efficient support
we received from the team at the Diego Portales University’s Electoral
Observatory (Carlos Cantillana, Lucas Perelló, Gonzalo Contreras, Alexis
Marambio, Mario Herrera, Daniela Oliva, and Ignacio Soto).
Although some chapters of this book were written directly in English,
we would like to thank Ruth Bradley for her extraordinary editing and
translating skills. For at least one of the editors (Alfredo Joignant), she is
an essential part of his intellectual work and, at this stage, a friend.

Note
1. This material is available on request.
 Contents

1 Malaise in Representation: Attitudes, Beliefs, Behaviors,

and Causalities   1
Alfredo Joignant, Mauricio Morales, and Claudio Fuentes

Part I Chile, a Chronic Malaise with and Among Elites   45

2 Discontent, Collective Protest, and Social Movements

in Chile  47
Nicolás M. Somma

3 Malaise and Democracy in Chile  69

Carolina Segovia

4 Elite–Mass Congruence in Chile  93

Peter M. Siavelis

5 Malaise in Representation in Chile: An 18-Year-Old

Debate in Search of Evidence 119
Patricio Navia

Part II Uruguay, the Antonym of Malaise 137

6 Political Opportunity Structure, Social Movements,

and Malaise in Representation in Uruguay, 1985–2014 139
Germán Bidegain and Víctor Tricot
ix
x Contents

7 Weak Malaise with Democracy in Uruguay 161

Daniel Chasquetti

8 Political Congruence in Uruguay, 2014 187

Daniel Buquet and Lucía Selios

9 Uruguay: A Counterexample of Malaise in Representation:

A Propitious Transformation of the Old Party Democracy 211
Jorge Lanzaro and Rafael Piñeiro

Part III Argentina, the Malaise as Routine  233

10 Protest, Social Movements, and Malaise in Political

Representation in Argentina 235
Sebastián Pereyra

11 Malaise in Political Representation: Citizen Attitudes

and Sociocultural Tensions in Argentine Democracy 257
Mariana Heredia and Federico Lorenc Valcarce

12 Mass–Elite Congruence and Representation in Argentina 281

Noam Lupu and Zach Warner

13 Political Representation and Malaise in Representation

in Present-Day Argentina 303
Gabriel Vommaro

14 Malaise as a Symptom of Conflict: Argentina, Chile,

and Uruguay in Comparative Perspective 323
Manuel Alcántara and Timothy J. Power

Index 339
 Contributors

Manuel Alcántara is a professor at Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, and

Director of FLACSO-Spain. He has been General Secretary of Asociación
Latinoamericana de Ciencia Política (ALACIP) (2002–2009). His research
focuses on parliamentary elites, political parties, elections, and legislatures
in Latin America. He is the author of several books, notably El Oficio de
Político (Tecnos, 2012) as well as editor of Politicians and Politics in Latin
America (2008).
Germán Bidegain’s academic interests are democratic theory, compara-
tive politics, and social movements theory, especially in Latin American
politics. His research has been published by Latin American Politics and
Society, Revista de Ciencia Política, and Pléyade.
Daniel Buquet is a full professor at Social Science Faculty, Universidad
de la República, Uruguay. His research focuses on political parties and
electoral systems in Uruguay and Latin America. His research has been
published by Journal of Democracy, Electoral Studies, Revista de Ciencia
Política, Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política, Revista Debates, América
Latina Hoy, Política, Revista Sistema, and Perfiles Latinoamericanos.
Daniel Chasquetti is a full professor at Social Science Faculty, Universidad
de la República, Uruguay. His research focuses on legislative behavior,
political careers, and Uruguayan politics and has been published by
Legislative Studies Quarterly, Journal of Politics in Latin America, América
Latina Hoy, Revista de Ciencia Política, Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia
Política, and The Journal of Legislative Studies.

xi
xii Contributors

Claudio Fuentes is Director of School of Political Science, Universidad

Diego Portales, Chile. His recent books include La Solución Constitucional
(co-edited with Alfredo Joignant, Catalonia, 2015), El Fraude (Hueders,
2013), El Pacto (UDP, 2012), and Contesting the Iron Fist (2005). He is
the winner of the Best Dissertation Award 2003 (Human Rights Section)
of American Political Science Association (APSA).
Mariana Heredia is an assistant professor at Instituto de Altos Estudios
Sociales (IDAES), Argentina. Her research has been published by Estudios
Sociológicos, Russian Review of Social Research, Social Sciences Information,
and Revista Mexicana de Sociología. Her latest book is Cuando los
Economistas Alcanzaron el Poder (Siglo XXI, 2015).
Alfredo Joignant is Professor of Political Science, Universidad Diego
Portales, Chile, and Principal Researcher of Centro de Estudios de
Conflicto y Cohesión Social (COES), Chile. His latest books are La
Solución Constitucional (co-edited with Claudio Fuentes, Catalonia, 2015)
and The Politics of Memory in Chile (co-edited with Cath Collins and
Katherine Hite, 2013). His work has been published in Revue Française
de Science Politique, Genèses, Politix, Journal of Latin American Studies,
Democratization, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, Política y Gobierno,
and Revista Mexicana de Sociología.
Jorge Lanzaro is a professor at Instituto de Ciencia Política, Universidad
de la República, Uruguay. His latest books are Social Democracias
“Tardías” en Europa Meridional y América Latina (CEPC, 2014),
Parlamentarismo y Presidencialismo (CEPC, 2012), and Political Parties
and Democracy (co-edited with Kay Lawson, 2010).
Federico Lorenc Valcarce is Assistant Professor of Political Sociology,
Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Researcher of Consejo Nacional de
Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) at Instituto Gino
Germani, Argentina. His research has been published by Societés
Contemporaines, POSTData, and Estudios del Trabajo. His latest book is
Seguridad Privada (Miño y Dávila, 2014).
Noam Lupu is Associate Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt
University and Associate Director of the Latin American Public Opinion
Project (LAPOP). His research has been published in American Journal of
Political Science, American Political Science Review, Comparative Political
Studies, Journal of Politics, and World Politics.
 Contributors  xiii

Mauricio Morales is an associate professor at Universidad Diego Portales,

Chile. His research has been published by Democratization, Latin American
Politics & Society, Latin American Research Review, Revista de Estudios
Políticos, Política y Gobierno, Revista de Ciencia Política, Estudios Públicos,
and Revista de Ciencias Sociales. He co-edited with Patricio Navia El Genoma
Electoral Chileno (UDP, 2009) and El Sismo Electoral de 2009 (UDP, 2010).
Patricio Navia is Master Teacher of Global Studies in Liberal Studies,
New York University, and full-time professor at Universidad Diego
Portales, Chile, and associate researcher at COES. His research has been
published by Latin American Research Review, Revista de Ciencia Política,
Estudios Públicos, Foreign Affairs, Revista Española de Ciencia Política,
Política y Gobierno, and Democratization. He co-edited with Alfredo
Joignant Ecos mundiales del golpe de Estado (UDP, 2013).
Sebastián Pereyra is an assistant professor at Universidad Nacional de
San Martín, Argentina. His research has been published in Revista de
Desarrollo Económico, Revue Tiers Monde, and Revista Trayectorias. His
latest book is Política y Transparencia. La Corrupción como Problema
Público (Siglo XXI, 2013).
Rafael Piñeiro is an assistant professor at Universidad Católica del
Uruguay. His research has been published in Latin American Politics and
Society, Latin American Research Review, Journal of Democracy, Política y
Gobierno, and Revista de Ciencia Política.
Timothy Power is Director of the Brazilian Studies Programme and
Associate Professor of Brazilian Studies at University of Oxford. His
research concerns democratization and political institutions (parties, legis-
latures, and elections) in Latin America, especially Brazil. His work has
been published by Democratization, Dados, Latin American Research
Review, Latin American Politics & Society, Political Research Quarterly,
International Social Science Journal, Latin American Research Review,
and International Political Science Review.
Carolina Segovia is an associate professor at Universidad Diego Portales,
Chile, and Director of Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales
(ICSO), Universidad Diego Portales. Her research has been published by
Revista de Ciencia Política, Revista Latinoamericana de Opinión Pública,
Revista de Ciencia Política, and Papel Político.
xiv Contributors

Lucía Selios is an assistant professor at Universidad de la República,

Uruguay. Her research focuses on public opinion, elites, and representa-
tion in Latin America and has been published by América Latina Hoy,
Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política, Studies of Changing Societies, and
POSTData.
Peter Siavelis is a professor at the Department of Politics and International
Affairs, Wake Forest University. His research focuses on Latin American
electoral and legislative politics and has been published by Latin American
Politics & Society, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies,
Electoral Studies, Democratization, Party Politics, and Journal of Politics in
Latin America. He co-edited with Scott Morgenstern Pathways to Power
(2008).
Nicolás M. Somma is Associate Professor of Sociology at Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile and associate researcher at COES, Chile.
His research focuses on political sociology, social movements, and com-
parative sociology in Chile and the Americas in general. His work has been
published by Comparative Politics, Party Politics, Sociological Perspectives,
The Sociological Quarterly, Política y Gobierno, Social Science History, and
Acta Sociologica.
Víctor Tricot is Academic Director of School for International Training
(SIT), Washington, DC. His work focuses on social movements, political
participation, party systems, and political cleavages.
Gabriel Vommaro is an assistant professor at Universidad Nacional de
General Sarmiento, Argentina, and researcher of CONICET, Argentina.
His research focuses on culture and politics in post-transitional democracy
and has been published by Politix, Cahiers des Amériques Latines, Apuntes
de Investigación, Desacatos, and Revista SAAP. He has recently co-­
authored with S. Morresi and A. Bellotti Mundo PRO (Planeta, 2015) and
with Hélène Combes Sociologie du Clientélisme (La Découverte, 2015).
Zach Warner is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. His work has been published in Political Analysis.
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Trust in political institutions in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay 5

Fig. 1.2 Sympathy for political parties 6
Fig. 1.3 Internal efficacy in the countries of the Americas
(“Internal efficacy” is conventionally understood as individuals’
own perception of their capacities as regards political matters in
terms of giving them some understanding of politics and
permitting their participation. This definition is operationalized
in public opinion surveys through questions such as “You feel you
have a good understanding of the country’s most important
political issues. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this
statement?”)7
Fig. 1.4 Number of street demonstrations in Chile, 2009–2011 8
Fig. 1.5 Number of people participating in marches in Chile, 2009–2012 8
Fig. 1.6 Support for democracy in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay.
Percentage indicating that “Democracy is preferable to any
other form of government” 9
Fig. 1.7 Perceptions of corruption 30
Fig. 3.1 The dimensions of malaise 71
Fig. 3.2 Malaise in Chile, 2005–2014 76
Fig. 3.3 Correlations between dimensions of malaise in Chile 80
Fig. 3.4 Level of malaise and protest activities 81
Fig. 3.5 Typology of citizens according to results of survey for Chile 84
Fig. 3.6 Malaise and participation by type of citizen 85
Fig. 4.1 Preferences for regime type among party elites by coalition 102
Fig. 4.2 Ideological self-placement of deputies and the electorate
in Chile 103

xv
xvi List of Figures

Fig. 4.3 Most important issues facing the country for Chilean
deputies and the electorate 105
Fig. 4.4 Factors the influence poverty for Chilean deputies
and the electorate 107
Fig. 4.5 Views of the role of the state in institutions for Chilean
deputies and the electorate 113
Fig. 5.1 Chile and Latin America GDP per capita, 1990–2014 121
Fig. 5.2 Tertiary educational enrollment and 18–24-year-old
population in Chile, 1983–2011 122
Fig. 5.3 Levels of trust in political parties and support for
democracy in Chile, 1995–2014 128
Fig. 5.4 Perceptions on the importance of political parties and
support for democracy in Chile, 1995–2014 130
Fig. 5.5 Is Chile making progress? 1900–2015 131
Fig. 5.6 Perception about present and future economic situation,
1990–2015132
Fig. 6.1 Support for democracy 145
Fig. 6.2 Percentage of citizens who trust political parties, 1995–2013 146
Fig. 6.3 Satisfaction with democracy, 2013 146
Fig. 7.1 Attitudes toward democracy in Uruguay, Argentina,
and Chile 169
Fig. 7.2 Attitudes toward democracy and sociostructural factors 170
Fig. 7.3 Attitudes toward democracy and reaction to scandals 175
Fig. 7.4 Malaise with democracy and social protest 178
Fig. 7.5 Participation in primaries by attitude toward democracy 181
Fig. 8.1 Election results in Uruguay, 1942–2014 192
Fig. 8.2 Ideological positions of citizens and legislators in Uruguay,
2014194
Fig. 8.3 Ideological positions of citizens and those
attributed to parties 195
Fig. 8.4 Ideological distribution of citizens and legislators by party 196
Fig. 8.5 Ideological distribution of citizens and legislators 197
Fig. 8.6 Country’s principal problem according to legislators
and citizens 198
Fig. 8.7 Country’s top principal problems according to citizens and
legislators by block 199
Fig. 8.8 Collective 207
Fig. 8.9 Frente Amplio 208
Fig. 8.10 Traditional block 208
Fig. 12.1 Example of congruence calculation 287
Fig. 12.2 Mass–elite congruence in Argentina, by subgroup 290
Fig. 12.3 Differences in mass preferences, by social class 292
 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Indicators of average well-being and development

in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay 11
Table 1.2 Attitudinal measurement of malaise in representation 24
Table 1.3 Behavioral measurement of malaise in representation 26
Table 1.4 Normalization of scales 26
Table 2.1 Sign and significance level of associations between
discontent and protest (binary logistic regression models) 61
Table 3.1 Distrust of political institutions, 1990–2014 78
Table 3.2 Descriptive statistics: malaise in Chile, 2013 79
Table 3.3 Determinants of malaise in Chile: OLS regression coefficients.
Standard errors in parenthesis 82
Table 3.4 Measurement of variables used 87
Table 3.5 Descriptive statistics 89
Table 4.1 Mean confidence in institutions 109
Table 5.1 Voter turnout in Chile, 1964–2012 124
Table 7.1 Summary of variables 173
Table 7.2 Logistic regression: factors related with attitudes
toward democracy 174
Table 7.3 Malaise with and support for democracy 176
Table 7.4 Attitude toward democracy and support, satisfaction,
and opinion about the parties’ role (Pearson correlation
coefficients)177
Table 7.5 Determinants of social protest, logistic regression
coefficients (Coefficient of significance in brackets)179
Table 7.6 Will you vote in the primaries in June? 180
Table 8.1 Summary of collective and dyadic indices of congruence 200
Table 8.2 Satisfaction with democracy, citizens and legislators (%) 201

xvii
xviii List of Tables

Table 8.3 Preferences as regards government action, citizens

and legislators (%) 201
Table 8.4 Government as guaranteeing order/freedom, citizens
and legislators (%) 202
Table 8.5 Agreement with statement “there can be democracy
without parties”, voters and legislators by political block (%) 203
Table 8.6 Evaluation of poverty in past five years, voters
and legislators by political block (%) 204
Table 8.7 Perception of country’s future economic situation,
voters and legislators by political block (%) 204
Table 8.8 Variables used in public opinion survey by dimension,
indicator and question number 207
Table 9.1 Electoral support by blocks, 1971–2014 (% of valid votes) 216
Table 10.1 Social movements in Argentina since the
transition to democracy 238
Table 10.2 Distribution of types of demands in social protests,
1984–2007241
Table 10.3 Types of demands and principal conflicts, 2007 242
Table 10.4 Political participation by participation in protests 247
Table 10.5 Interest in politics by participation in protests 248
Table 10.6 Ideology by participation in protests 249
Table 11.1 Party preferences, Argentina, 2013 260
Table 11.2 Trust in actors and institutions, Argentina, 2013
(“A lot” plus “Quite a lot”) 263
Table 11.3 Logistic regression: D1 disaffection 274
Table 11.4 Logistic regression: D2 disapproval 274
Table 11.5 Logistic regression: D3a distrust of government 275
Table 11.6 Logistic regression: D3b distrust of parties 276
Table 11.7 Logistic regression: D3c distrust of chamber of deputies 276
Table 11.8 Logistic regression: D3d distrust of municipal government 277
Table 11.9 Logistic regression: E1 democracy is best regime 277
Table 11.10 Logistic regression: E2 satisfaction with democracy 278
Table 12.1 Mass–elite congruence in Argentina 288
 List of Diagrams

Diagram 1.1 The classic idea of political representation according

to Perrin and McFarland 19
Diagram 1.2 Malaise in representation: attitudes and behavior 23
Diagram 1.3 Simple locations of malaise in representation 27
Diagram 1.4 Complex locations of malaise in representation 28
Diagram 7.1 Citizens’ attitudes toward democracy 168

xix
 CHAPTER 1

Malaise in Representation: Attitudes, Beliefs,

Behaviors, and Causalities

Alfredo Joignant, Mauricio Morales, and Claudio Fuentes

Introduction
What is malaise in representation? It is a diffuse and sometimes confused
feeling that ordinary citizens can have about the way they are represented
and governed. Rather than using malaise with representation (which
would imply significant awareness of and reflection about the experience),
we prefer to talk about malaise in representation in order to convey the
idea of a certain discomfort with the practical experience of feeling rep-
resented (or not). This is the subject of this book and it calls for answers
to a series of questions. How different is this malaise in representation
from a crisis of representation? What causes it? Is it really determined by
countries’ level of development or does it simply reflect citizens’ percep-
tions of inequality or injustice? Is it a feeling of anger with the democratic
system in general or more specifically with parties and governments? What
concrete expressions of malaise can be measured through opinion surveys
and in terms of social mobilization?

We would like to thank Kevin Díaz for his valuable help in organizing the
graphics used in this chapter.

A. Joignant (*) • M. Morales • C. Fuentes

Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile

© The Author(s) 2017 1

A. Joignant et al. (eds.), Malaise in Representation in Latin
American Countries, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59955-1_1
2 A. JOIGNANT ET AL.

In the literature of the social sciences and, particularly, political science,

it has become almost a cliché to talk about a “crisis of representation”
without the terms of this diagnosis necessarily being clear. In studies of the
crisis of representation in Latin America, the tendency has been to focus
on countries where the party system has collapsed and, therefore, to view
a crisis of representation as a necessary and logically prior condition for
its collapse. Less attention has been paid to those countries whose party
system has not collapsed but where there are nonetheless clear symptoms
that “something is not right with democracy”. How should we interpret
criticism of democracy in apparently stable societies? How can we explain
malaise in countries without the economic and institutional conditions
that typically precede a crisis of representation or a crisis of the regime?
What we see in these Latin American countries is probably similar to
what we saw in Greece and some East European countries in 2015. In
other words, they are democracies which are gradually achieving con-
solidation but where there remains a feeling of malaise with the way the
regime operates. It would, therefore, not be surprising to find cases of
democracy that are prototypical for comparative politics but toward which
citizens feel disaffected and, in some situations, resort to protests and
social mobilization.
It is far more common for crises of representation to go hand in hand
with economic crises and to be found in states incapable of providing basic
public goods and services. But what happens in democracies where stable
party systems coexist with negative citizen perceptions of institutions and,
even, citizens who are distanced from the political parties? Can stable elec-
toral competition (low volatility) coexist with citizens who feel little alle-
giance to the parties? Can we talk about a “crisis of representation” when
a democracy’s “objective” signals point to the regime’s stability?
Some Latin American states are capable of providing basic public goods
and services and have low electoral volatility. In other words, they have
long-standing parties that have been able to survive even severe economic
crises and the breakdown of democracy and we also find a high level of
programmatic congruence between parties and voters. In such cases, can
we talk about a crisis of representation? In our opinion, we cannot. What
we see in these countries is a prior stage that does not necessarily lead to
what could culminate (under certain conditions that would need to be
specified) in a crisis of representation. In these cases, we are talking about
malaise with democracy, reflected in citizens’ perceptions of the political
regime but not necessarily in objective indicators of party competition. In
 MALAISE IN REPRESENTATION: ATTITUDES, BELIEFS, BEHAVIORS... 3

these countries, there may, in other words, be a high level of distrust of

institutions and disapproval of the government and the parties may lack
deep social roots but this does not necessarily imply a crisis of representa-
tion. Or, at least, there is no objective evidence this is the case.
This book examines malaise with democracy in three middle-income
Latin American countries—Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay—seeking to
take a step back and study citizens’ perceptions of some aspects of democ-
racy that suggest malaise but not necessarily a crisis of representation. We
believe that some of our findings could well be applicable to European
countries with similar levels of per capita income.

Theory of Malaise and Case Studies

In the mid-1970s, the report of Crozier et al. (1975) for the Trilateral
Commission already warned that mounting pressure for participation and
demands posed a threat to governability in Western democracies. Despite
early rebuttal of the report’s conclusions, the idea of a crisis of repre-
sentation has always been present in the literature (e.g., in the book of
Mainwaring et al. 2006), albeit based on more sophisticated arguments.
This crisis, if it existed, would be reflected in different types of misalign-
ment between supply and demand for political goods, between the func-
tion of governments and Congresses of providing well-being and their
citizens’ subjective experience of satisfaction, between public policies and
their results, between governments’ provision of a safety net and people’s
feeling of protection, and between problems and solutions. But that is
not the whole story. If a crisis of representation as such existed, without
adjectives, the implicit assumption is that it would have been preceded
by a certain state of equilibrium. And that state of equilibrium could well
coexist with perceptions and predispositions that are unfavorable toward
democracy or, at least, critical of its representatives.
It is this ambiguous and, in some authors, catastrophic view that this
book examines, seeking to combine conceptual precision with empirical
analysis strategies. This is the purpose for which this joint book was con-
ceived and why a decision was taken to focus on three countries which are
comparable as regards development and well-being. The result was that
we worked with three middle-income countries (Argentina, Chile, and
Uruguay1) or, in other words, three societies whose political ­development
(particularly in the case of Chile) the comparative literature consid-
ers exceptional within Latin America and even models to be imitated.
4 A. JOIGNANT ET AL.

Argentina, with its early industrialization and history of political instabil-

ity, serves as a case that, albeit comparable in terms of well-being, departs
somewhat from the logic of an exception that is associated with Chile and
Uruguay.
There can be little doubt about the distinctive nature of these three
democratic regimes. They are comparatively (along with Costa Rica)
Latin America’s most successful cases of “social policy regimes” (Huber
and Stephens 2010).2 Chile’s and Uruguay’s party systems have the
highest levels of ideological cohesion (Hawkins and Morgenstern 2010,
p. 154; Morales 2014b) and both are “high-quality democracies”
(Payne et al. 2003; Levine and Molina 2011; Mainwaring and Pérez-
Liñán 2013, p. 242). Moreover, all three countries have high indices
of political tolerance and support for democracy. However, despite the
similarities between Uruguay and Chile, their levels of malaise are, as
we will show below, practically the inverse of each other. Chile is at the
top of the ranking and Uruguay at the lower end while Argentina, with
much more evident social and economic problems, is in an intermediate
position.
Based on this information, it is difficult to view Chile as one of the
“Swiss” democracies of the South.3 Since the end of the past decade,
identification with political parties has declined in Chile and distrust
of institutions has increased (Morales 2008, 2014b). When ­measuring
trust in institutions, for example, Chile consistently appears in last
place. While, in Uruguay, trust in parties reaches almost 15 percent and,
in Argentina, 13 percent, it drops to scarcely 5 percent in Chile (Fig.
1.1). In other words, its citizens’ perceptions are at odds with the top
places Chile takes in rankings of transparency and quality of democracy.
What we find is a gap between the objective evidence of aggregate data
in international rankings and the subjective data produced by opinion
polls (Morales 2014a).
The decline in identification with political parties (except Uruguay:
Fig. 1.2), the relatively low indices of internal efficacy (particularly in
Argentina: Fig. 1.3), and the explosion of street demonstrations in Chile
in 2011 (Figs. 1.4 and 1.5) paint a picture of contrasts and complexities
as regards the way these three democracies and their societies function.
There are, however, also common denominators: presidential regimes
with institutionalized party systems (albeit to a lesser extent in Argentina)
and a majority preference for democracy over other forms of government
(although with marked contrasts: Fig. 1.6).
 MALAISE IN REPRESENTATION: ATTITUDES, BELIEFS, BEHAVIORS... 5

Argentina Chile Uruguay

41

36 % “QUITE A LOT+A LOT”

30
27
23
20
18 18 17 16
15
13

8 8
5

President of the Government Senate Chamber of Political parties

Republic Deputies

Fig. 1.1 Trust in political institutions in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay (Source:
UDP-IDRC Survey 2013)

There are, therefore, certain inconsistencies between what is under-

stood “objectively” as democracy and perceptions and predispositions as
regards some dimensions of this political regime. The idea that high levels
of abstention and disinterest in politics can coexist with stable democra-
cies is, it seems, not preposterous after all. In the short term, democracy
can, in other words, survive and reproduce itself without the need to show
programmatically deep-rooted preferences. Caution is, however, called for
in the case of the medium and long term. The gaps and trends we identify
in the three case studies could be mere snapshots or representations of
reality at a specific point in time, although we believe the data is telling us
about the medium-term dynamics. In Chile, for example, there has been
a gradual but sustained decline in citizens’ trust in institutions since the
restoration of democracy, a process that, in other words, dates back at least
15 years. In Uruguay, on the other hand, perceptions of democracy have
not been so ostensibly damaged as in Chile, despite the severe economic
crises it has faced. Similarly, Argentina has experienced very important
political and social crises (1989 and 2001) but these have not substantially
affected citizens’ perceptions of democracy.
How then can we plausibly explain a certain passion for democ-
racy (as reflected in answers to survey questions about support for the
6 A. JOIGNANT ET AL.

Dom. Rep. 63
61
Nicaragua 55
53
Belize 49
47
Paraguay 46
44
Surinam 41
39
Mexico 36
33
Canada 32
31
Brazil 30
30
Guyana 27
27
Costa Rica 26
26
Colombia 26
25
Ecuador 23
16
Bolivia 16
14
Guatemala 13
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Fig. 1.2 Sympathy for political parties (Source: LAPOP 2012)

democratic regime, liberal or contractualist principles,4 democratic ide-

als, or the choice between different political regimes) and expressions
of lack of trust in the institutions that are at the root of this passion
(from Congresses to parties)? If there can be no doubt about these
three countries’ option for democracy, how can we explain expressions
of an apathy which the literature refers to as “disaffection” and which
can take the form of abstention in elections, disinterest in conventional
politics, or what Castel would call a “disappointed relationship with the
citizenry” (Castel 2007, p. 59)? Norris is certainly right in drawing atten-
tion to the importance of “establishing what people understand when
they express support for democracy” (Norris 2011, p. 142; Doorenspleet
2010; Zeichmeister 2010, p. 97)5 particularly when very different cul-
 MALAISE IN REPRESENTATION: ATTITUDES, BELIEFS, BEHAVIORS... 7

United States 68
Canada 60
Venezuela 58
Trinidad & Tobago 57
Nicaragua 55
Belize 53
Surinam 53
Guyana 53
Chile 53
Uruguay 52
Dom. Rep. 51
Jamaica 50
Ecuador 48
Argentina 47
El Salvador 47
Mexico 47
Peru 46
Costa Rica 46
Panama 45
Bolivia 44
Colombia 43
Haiti 43
Guatemala 43
Honduras 41
Brazil 39
Paraguay 39
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Fig. 1.3 Internal efficacy in the countries of the Americas (“Internal efficacy” is
conventionally understood as individuals’ own perception of their capacities as
regards political matters in terms of giving them some understanding of politics
and permitting their participation. This definition is operationalized in public
opinion surveys through questions such as “You feel you have a good understand-
ing of the country’s most important political issues. To what extent do you agree
or disagree with this statement?”) (Source: LAPOP 2012)

tures and histories are involved. Assuming that the dilemma underlying
the question has been resolved, it is not clear that we can assert without
a theoretical basis or conceptual clarification that, despite the difficulties,
“surveys usually prove more successful” when they address “attitudes and
values instead of real behavior” (Norris et al. 2006, p. 281) because their
8 A. JOIGNANT ET AL.

8,000
6,935
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,116
1,773
2,000
1,000
0
2009 2010 2011

Fig. 1.4 Number of street demonstrations in Chile, 2009–2011 (Source:

Planning and Development Division, Carabineros de Chile, cited in Desarrollo
humano en Chile, 2012, p. 41)

2,400,000

2,100,000 2,027,376

1,800,000

1,500,000

1,200,000

900,000

600,000 534,632 513,448

300,000 232,959

0
2009 2010 2011 2012

Fig. 1.5 Number of people participating in marches in Chile, 2009–2012

(Source: Interior Ministry, in Sazo and Navia (publication pending))
 MALAISE IN REPRESENTATION: ATTITUDES, BELIEFS, BEHAVIORS... 9

100
90
80
74 72
70
60 55
50
40
30
20
10
0
Uruguay Argenna Chile

Fig. 1.6 Support for democracy in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Percentage
indicating that “Democracy is preferable to any other form of government”
(Source: UDP-IDRC Survey 2013)

reliability is greater than the difficulties of interpreting behavior (par-

ticularly when this is of a routine nature of the type “How often do you
talk about politics?”). Beyond the statistical confidence and certainties
offered by what Goody (1977) terms “graphic reason” and the intellec-
tion effects this produces (Desrosières 2000), how can we explain the fre-
quent ­discrepancies between the a­ ttitudes recorded by surveys—whatever
their causal direction with respect to the functioning of such or such a
democratic regime—and observed behavior that is not always in accor-
dance with the subjective equipment that supposedly underpins and pro-
vokes it? How can we account for the legitimacy of the political regimes,
institutions, and agents of these three middle-income countries in the
knowledge that this legitimacy is not necessarily or principally the result
of evaluation of the regime’s performance?
It is no accident that Weber (1995, p. 36) argues that “agents are
often motivated by opposing trends that fight against each other, that
‘we understand’ them all” but, at the same time, “we are not in a posi-
tion to appreciate, even approximately” the relative force of each one in
the “conflict of motives” of which individuals are captive. In other words,
although individuals can express the reasons that “move” them (which is
what surveys record), social circumstances and political contexts can and
often do blur the motives that are at the root of individual actions. We can,
10 A. JOIGNANT ET AL.

as a result, never be sure of our interpretation of what “moves” agents.6

Although it seems an exaggeration to argue that “in short, actions speak
louder than words” (Grafstein 1981, p. 463), it does not, therefore, seem
reasonable to put the full weight of explanation on attitudes and what
critical sociology refers to as subjective “leanings”.
For Dalton, for example, phenomena such as the dealignment of voters
with parties or of parties with the cleavages in which they had their origin,
the decline in election turnout in industrialized countries, and generalized
distrust of parliaments but also and very counter-intuitively the increase
of interest in politics in developed countries, where citizens are more edu-
cated and autonomous with respect to party brands, can all be seen as
indications of new channels “in the continuous history of the develop-
ment of democracy” (Dalton 2014, p. 275) and, in no case, represent a
“winter of democracy” (Papadopoulos 2013, p. 214). In this sense, it is
precisely because we do not observe mass attitudes of detachment from
democracy nor behavior that is contrary or hostile to it that we should
take serious note of the assertion of Norris that “the ideas of a democratic
crisis should be rejected as an over-simplification of more complex devel-
opments” (Norris 2011, p. 110).
As a preliminary conclusion, the apparent differences between subjec-
tive perceptions and “objective” indicators of the behavior of the institu-
tions of the democratic regimes of the countries studied here suggest that
(a) discrepancies between perceptions and indicators are not necessarily
a sign of a regime’s eventual collapse; (b) agents may have contradictory
perceptions—for example, rejection of parties accompanied by the per-
ception of their importance for democracy—that need to be taken into
account; and (c) we need to refine our measurement instruments since
we are perhaps not adequately capturing the dilemmas and contradictions
present in a society at a specific moment.

Social Inequality and Malaise

Although the countries we study have a middle level of income and well-­
being, they also suffer from important inequalities which could well be a
factor in malaise in representation. Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay—in
that order—rank in the United Nations Human Development Index as
the three top Latin American countries (with 0.82, 0.80, and 0.79 points,
respectively). Their GDP per capita is also very similar (Table 1.1). There
are, however, important differences as regards total government social
 MALAISE IN REPRESENTATION: ATTITUDES, BELIEFS, BEHAVIORS... 11

Table 1.1 Indicators of average well-being and development in Argentina, Chile,

and Uruguay
GDP per Government Poverty Gini Gini (Difference
capita (2013) social spending rate (2011) (Richest 2002–2012
US$ as % of GDP % quintile) Richest quintile)

Argentinaa 15,352 27.8 (2012) 5.7 43.6 −11.4

(2012)
Chile 15,784 15.6 (2010) 11.7 52.5 −2.6
(2011)
Uruguay 16,554 23.3 (2009) 6.7 34.8 −7.0
(2012)

Source: For GDP, ECLAC, national economic profile. For poverty rate and Gini index, Social Panorama
of Latin America 2013, ECLAC
a
For Argentina, only urban poverty rate

spending as a percentage of GDP (with Chile in third place, well below

the other two countries) and their poverty rates (where Chile is again in
third place, with double the rates of Argentina and Uruguay). These sta-
tistics must, of course, be treated with caution given the questions often
raised about the conceptualization and measurement of social indicators.
However, they do illustrate the efforts made by the state and the levels of
inequality found in these three countries.
In the case of income distribution, we see that the richest quintile
accounts for 34.8 percent of national income in Uruguay, 43.6 percent
in Argentina, and 52.5 percent in Chile. On comparing these figures
diachronically, we find that the most important reduction in inequality
between 2002 and 2012 was in Argentina, followed by Uruguay and
Chile. Chile has the most unequal income distribution of the three and the
fifth most unequal in Latin America while Uruguay has the least unequal
in the region.
Some authors have asserted that inequality (measured in terms of
income) is the most important variable in triggering malaise. The frus-
tration that can be caused by lack of access to well-being and consumer
goods would, under this view, generate the conditions for this malaise in
representation, which is diffuse in its target. This leads us to the argument
put forward over 50 years ago by T.H. Marshall under which inequality
could only acquire legitimacy through the expansion of universal social
rights and of citizenship. In this sense, an unequal society that does not
expand rights could generate conditions of “social malaise” (Marshall
Another random document with
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CHAPTER VIII
 HEALING OF HATE AND FEAR
hat dog," Ghond took up the story, "must have
lost his French master early in the war. Probably
the Germans had shot the man, and after that,
when he saw his master's home looted and the
barn set on fire, he went wild with terror and ran
away into the woods, where he lived hidden from
the sight of men under the thick thorn-bush,
spacious as a hut and dark as the interior of a tomb. Probably he
ventured out only at night in quest of food, and being a hunting dog
by heredity, all his savage qualities returned as he spent day after
day and night after night in the woods like an outlaw.
"When he came across me, he was surprised because I was not
afraid. I gave out no odour of fear. I must have been the first man in
months whose fear did not frighten him to attack.
"Of course he thought, like himself, I too was hungry and was
looking for food. So he led me to the German food depôt, and
through an underground passage he crawled into a vast provision
chamber—a very gold mine of food—and fetched some meat for me.
I drew the conclusion that there were a series of underground
chambers in which the Germans kept not only food, but also oil and
explosives, and I acted accordingly. Thank the Gods it turned out to
be correct. Let us change the subject.
"To tell you the truth I hate to talk about the war. Look, the sunset is
lighting the peaks of the Himalayas. The Everest burns like a
crucible of gold. Let us pray.

"'Lead me from the unreal to the Real,

From darkness into Light,
From sound into Silence.'"
After meditation was over, Ghond silently walked out of our house to
begin a journey from Calcutta to the Lamasery near Singalele. But
before I recount his adventure there I must tell the reader how
Ghond happened to be transferred from the battlefields of France to
our home.
The last part of February 1915 it became quite clear to the Bengal
Regiment that Gay-Neck would fly no more. Ghond, who had
brought him, was no soldier. With the exception of a tiger or a
leopard he had never killed anything in his life, and now that he too
was sick, they were both invalided back to India together. They
reached Calcutta in March. I could not believe my eyes when I saw
them. Ghond looked as frightened as Gay-Neck and both of them
appeared very sick.
Ghond, after he had delivered my pigeon to me, explained a few
matters, before he departed to the Himalayas. "I need to be healed
of fear and hate. I saw too much killing of man by man. I was
invalided home for I am sick with a fell disease—sickness of fear,
and I must go alone to nature to be cured of my ill."
So he went up to Singalele to the Lamasery, there to be healed by
prayer and meditation. In the meantime I tried my utmost to cure
Gay-Neck. His wife and full-grown children failed to help him. His
children saw in him but a stranger, for he showed no care for them,
but his wife interested him intensely, though even she could not
make him fly. He refused steadily to do anything but hop a little, and
nothing would induce him to go up in the air. I had his wings and legs
examined by good pigeon doctors, who said that there was nothing
wrong with him. His bones and both of his wings were sound, yet he
would not fly. He refused even to open his right wing; and whenever
he was not running or hopping he developed the habit of standing on
one foot.
I would not have minded that, if he and his wife had not set about
nesting just then. Towards the middle of April when vacation for the
hot weather began, I received Ghond's letter. "Your Gay-Neck," he
informed me, "should not nest yet. If there are eggs, destroy them.
Do not let them hatch under any circumstances. A sick father like
Gay-Neck—diseased with fright—cannot but give the world poor and
sick baby pigeons. Bring him here. Before I close, I must say that I
am better. Bring Gay-Neck soon; the holy Lama wishes to see you
and him. Besides, all the five swifts have arrived this week from the
south; they will surely divert your pet bird."
I took Ghond's advice. I put Gay-Neck in one cage and his wife in
another, and set out for the north.
How different the hills were in the spring from the previous autumn.
Owing to the exigencies that had arisen, my parents had opened
their house in Dentam months earlier than usual. After settling down
there towards the last week of April, I took Gay-Neck along with me
and set out in the company of a Thibetan caravan of ponies for
Singalele, leaving his wife behind, so that if he were able to fly again
he would return to her—just the thing needed to cure him. She was
to be the drawing card. He might do it, Ghond had hoped, in order to
return and help her hatch the newly laid eggs, though the day after
our departure my parents destroyed the eggs; for we did not want
sick and degenerate children who would grow up to shame the name
of Gay-Neck.
I carried my bird on my shoulder, where he perched all day. During
the night we kept him safely locked up in his cage, which proved
beneficial to him. Twelve hours of mountain air and light improved
his body, yet not once did he make the effort to fly off my shoulder
and return to his mate to help her hatch the eggs.
The Himalayas in the spring are unique. The ground glittered with
white violets, interspersed with raspberries already ripening here and
there in the hot moist gorges where the ferns were spreading their
large arms as if to embrace the white hills lying like precious stones
on the indigo-blue throat of the sky. Sometimes we passed through
thick forests where stunted oaks, prodigious elms, deodars (cedars)
and chestnuts grew in such numbers that their branches shut out all
sunlight. Tree against tree, bough against bough, and roots
struggling with roots fought for light and life. Below them in arboreal
darkness many deer grazed on abundant tall grass and saplings,
only to be devoured in their turn by tigers, leopards and panthers.
Everywhere life grew in abundance, all the more intensifying the
struggle for existence among birds, beasts and plants. Such is the
self-contradictory nature of existence. Even insects were not free of
it.
When we emerged from the forest darkness and beheld the open
spaces, the hot tropical sunlight suddenly shot its diamond points of
fire into our helpless eyes. The golden tremble of dragonflies filled
the air; butterflies, sparrows, robins, grouse, parrots, papias (Indian
thrush), jays, and peacocks clamoured and courted from tree to tree
and peak to higher peak.
Now in the open space between tea gardens on one side of the road
and pine forests on our right, we strove and staggered up inclines
almost straight as knives. There the air was so rarefied that we could
hardly breathe. Sounds and echoes travelled very far: even a
whisper could not escape being overheard from a distance of yards,
and men and beasts alike became silent. Save for the clatter of their
hoofs the ponies as well as the men moved with a sense of
reverence for the solitude and stillness that shut down upon us. Here
the indigo-blue hollow of the sky remained untainted by clouds, and
untroubled by any movement save the sighing flight of cranes going
northwards, or the deep-toned plunge of an eagle into declivities
nearby. Everything was cold, keen, and quickening. Orchids burst
out almost overnight and opened their purple eyes upon us;
marigolds brimmed with morning dew, and in the lakes below, blue
and white lotuses opened their petals to the bees.
Now we were near Singalele. The Lamasery raised its head and
beckoned us from the hillside. Its wing-shaped roof and ancient walls
floated like a banner against the horizon. I was encouraged to
quicken my pace and another hour's time found me climbing the
steep pathway of the monastery.
What a relief it was to be there among men who lived above the
battle of our everyday life! It being noon, I went down with Ghond
through a forest of balsam to the spring in which we bathed
ourselves and gave Gay-Neck a thorough wash. After he had had
his dinner in his cage, Ghond and I went to the dining room where
the Lamas were waiting for us. The room looked like a colonnade of
ebony whose capitals were decorated with dragons of gold. The teak
wood beams, grown quite dark through many centuries, were carved
into broad clear lotus designs, delicate as jasmine but strong as
metal. On the floor of red sandstone, orange-robed monks were
seated in silent prayer, which was their grace before each meal.
Ghond and I waited at the entrance of the dining room until the
prayer was concluded with the chanting in unison, like the Gregorian
chant:

Budham mē sáránām
Dhārmám mē sáránām
Ōm Manī pádmē Ōm.

"In wisdom that is the Buddha is our refuge

In religion is our refuge
In the jewel of Truth (shining in the lotus of life) is our refuge."

Now I went forward and saluted the Abbot, whose grave face
wreathed with smiles as he blessed me. After I had saluted the rest
of the Lamas, Ghond and I took our seats at the table made up of a
series of small wooden stools; which came up to our chests as we
squatted on the floor. It was nice to sit on the cool floor after a very
hot day's journey. Our meal was of lentil soup, fried potatoes and
curried egg-plants. Since Ghond and I were vegetarians we did not
eat the eggs that were served at the table. Our drink consisted of hot
green tea.
After dinner, the Abbot invited Ghond and me to take our siesta in his
company, and we climbed with him up to the topmost cliff, which was
like an eagle's eyrie, over which grew a clump of firs, where we
found a hard bare cell, without a stick of furniture anywhere, which I
had never seen before. After we had seated ourselves there, the
holy man said, "Here in the monastery we have prayed to Infinite
Compassion twice every day for the healing of the nations of earth.
Yet the war goes on, infecting even birds and beasts with fear and
hate. Diseases of the emotions spread faster than the ills of the
body. Mankind is going to be so loaded with fear, hate, suspicion and
malice that it will take a whole generation before a new set of people
can be reared completely free from them."
Infinite sadness furrowed the Lama's hitherto unwrinkled brow, and
the corners of his mouth drooped from sheer fatigue. Though he
lived above the battle in his eagle's eyrie, he felt the burden of men's
sins more grievously than those who had plunged the world into war.
But he resumed smiling, "Let us discuss Gay-Neck and Ghond who
are with us. If you wish your pigeon to wing the serenity of the sky
again, you must meditate on infinite courage, as Ghond has been
doing for himself these many days."
"How, my Lord?" I asked eagerly. The Abbot's yellow face suffused
with colour; no doubt he was embarrassed by the directness of my
question and I felt ashamed. Directness, like hurry, is very sordid.
As if he knew my feeling, the Lama in order to put me at my ease
said: "Every dawn and sunset, seat Gay-Neck on your shoulder and
say to yourself: 'Infinite courage is in all life. Each being that lives
and breathes is a reservoir of infinite courage. May I be pure enough
to pour infinite courage into those whom I touch!' If you do that for a
while, one day your heart, mind and soul will become pure through
and through. That instant the power of your soul, now without fear,
without hate, without suspicion will enter the pigeon and make him
free. He who purifies himself to the greatest extent can put into the
world the greatest spiritual force. Do what I advise you twice a day.
All of our Lamas will help you. Let us see what comes of it!"
The Lama, after a moment's silence, continued: "You have been told
by Ghond, who knows animals better than any other man, that our
fear frightens others so that they attack us. Your pigeon is so
frightened that he thinks the whole sky is going to attack him. No leaf
tumbles without frightening him. Not a shadow falls without driving
panic into his soul. Yet what is causing him suffering is himself.
"At this very time the village below us—yes, you can see it over there
to the North-west—is suffering from the same trouble as Gay-Neck.
As it is the season for the animals to come north, all the frightened
inhabitants are going about with old matchlocks in order to kill wild
beasts, and behold, the beasts attack them now, though they never
did so before! Bisons come and eat up their crops, and leopards
steal their goats. Today news was brought here that a wild buffalo
has killed a man last night. Though I tell them to purge their minds of
fear through prayer and meditation, they will not do it."
"Why, O blessed Teacher," asked Ghond, "do you not permit me to
go and rid them of these beasts?"
"Not yet," replied the Lama. "Though you are healed of fear in your
waking moments, yet your dreams harbour the curse of fright. Let us
pray and meditate a few days longer and your soul will be purged of
all such dross. Then after you are healed, if the villagers below are
still hurt by the beasts, you may go and help them."
CHAPTER IX
 THE WISDOM OF THE LAMA
fter about the tenth day of strict and most
sincere meditation in the manner he had
prescribed, the Lama sent for Gay-Neck and
myself. So with the pigeon between my hands, I
climbed up to his cell. The Lama's face, generally
yellow, today looked brown and very powerful. A
strange poise and power shone in his almond-
shaped eyes. He took Gay-Neck in his hands, and said:

"May the north wind bring healing unto you,

May the south wind bring healing unto you,
May the winds of east and west pour healing into you.
Fear flees from you,
Hate flees from you,
And suspicion flees from you.
Courage like a rushing tide gallops through you;
Peace possesses your entire being,
And serenity and strength have become your two wings.
In your eyes shines courage;
Power and prowess dwell in your heart!
You are healed,
You are healed,
You are healed!
Peace, peace, peace."

We sat there meditating on those thoughts till the sun set, smiting
the Himalayan peaks into multicoloured flames. The valleys, the
hollows and the woods about us put on a mantle of purple glory.
Slowly Gay-Neck hopped down from the Lama's hands, walked out
to the entrance of the cell and looked at the sunset. He opened his
left wing, and waited. Then softly and ever so slowly he opened his
right wing, feather by feather, muscle by muscle, until at last it
spread out like a sail. Instead of doing anything theatrical such as
instantly flying off, he carefully shut his two wings as if they were two
precious but fragile fans. He too knew how to salute the sunset. With
the dignity of a priest he walked downstairs but hardly had he gone
out of sight than I heard—I fancied I heard—the flapping of his
wings. I was about to get up hastily and see what had really
happened, but the holy man put his hand on my shoulder and
restrained me while an inscrutable smile played on his lips.
The next morning I told Ghond what had happened. He replied tartly,
"Gay-Neck opened his wings to salute the setting sun, you say.
There is nothing surprising in that. Animals are religious though man
in his ignorance thinks they are not. I have seen monkeys, eagles,
pigeons, leopards and even mongoose adore the dawn and sunset."
"Can you show them to me?"
Ghond answered, "Yes. But not now; let us go and give Gay-Neck
his breakfast."
When we reached his cage we found its door open—and no pigeon
within. I was not surprised, for I had left the cage unlocked every
night that we had been at the Lamasery. But where had he gone?
We could not find him in the main building; so we went to the library.
There in a deserted outer cell we found some of his feathers, and
nearby Ghond detected a weasel's footsteps. That made us suspect
trouble. But if the weasel had attacked and killed him, there would be
blood on the floor. Then, whither had he fled? What had he done?
Where was he now? We wandered for an hour. Just as we had
decided to give up the search we heard him cooing, and there he
was on the roof of the library, talking to his old friends the Swifts,
who were clinging to their nest under the eaves. We could make out
their answer to his cooing. Mr. Swift said: "Cheep, cheep, cheep!" I
cried to Gay-Neck in joy, and I gave him his call to breakfast: Aya—á
—ay. He curved his neck and listened. Then as I called again he saw
me, and instantly flapped his wings loudly, then flew down and sat on
my wrist, cool as a cucumber. During the earliest dawn he must have
heard the priests' footsteps going up to their morning meditation, and
gotten out of his cage, then gone astray to the outer cell where no
doubt a young and inexpert weasel had attacked him. A veteran like
Gay-Neck could easily outwit the weasel by presenting him with a
few feathers only. While the young hopeful was looking for the
pigeon inside a lot of torn feathers, his would-be victim flew up into
the sky. There he found his old friend, Swift, flying to salute the rising
sun. And after they had performed their morning worship together,
they had come down for a friendly chat on the roof of the monastery
library.
That day very terrible news reached the Lamasery. A wild buffalo
had attacked the village that the Lama had spoken of the day before.
He had come there during the previous evening and killed two
people who were going home from a meeting of the village elders
that was held around the communal threshing floor. The villagers
had sent up a deputation to the Abbot to say a prayer for the
destruction of the beast and begging him to exorcise the soul out of
the brute. The holy man said that he would use means that would kill
the murderous buffalo in twenty-four hours. "Go home in peace, O
beloved ones of Infinite Compassion. Your prayers will be answered.
Do not venture out of doors after nightfall. Stay home and meditate
on peace and courage." Ghond, who was present, asked: "How long
has this fellow been pestering your village?" The entire deputation
affirmed that he had been coming every night for a week. He had
eaten up almost half of their spring crop. Again begging for strong
and effective incantation and exorcism to kill the buffalo, they went
down to their village.
After the deputation had left, the Lama said to Ghond, who was
standing by: "O, chosen one of victory, now that you are healed, go
forth to slay the murderer."
"But, my Lord!"
"Fear no more, Ghond. Your meditations have healed you. Now test
in the woods what you have acquired here by this means. In solitude
men gain power and poise which they must test in the multitude. Ere
the sun sets twice from now, you shall return victorious. As an
earnest of my perfect faith in your success, I request you to take this
boy and his pigeon with you. Surely I would not ask you to take a
boy of sixteen with you if I doubted your powers or the outcome of
your mission. Go, bring the murderer to justice."
That afternoon we set out for the jungle. I was overjoyed at the
prospect of spending at least one night in there again. What a
pleasure it was to go with Ghond and the pigeon, both whole and
well once more, in quest of a wild buffalo. Is there any boy on earth
who would not welcome such an opportunity?
So, thoroughly equipped with rope-ladders, a lassoo and knives, with
Gay-Neck on my shoulder, we set out. The British Government
forbids the use of fire-arms to the common people of India, and so
we carried no rifles.
About three in the afternoon we reached the village north-west of the
Lamasery. There, we took up the trail of the buffalo. We followed it
through dense woods and wide clearings. Here and there we
crossed a brook, or had to climb over mammoth fallen trees. It was
extraordinary how clear the buffalo's footprints were, and how heavy!
Ghond remarked: "He must have been frightened to death, for look
how heavily he has trodden here. Animals in their normal unafraid
state leave very little trace behind, but when frightened, they act as if
the terror of being killed weighed their bodies down. This fellow's
hoofs have made prodigious and clear marks wherever he went.
How frightened he must have been!"
At last we reached an impassable river. Its current, according to
Ghond, was sharp enough to break our legs had we stepped into it.
Strangely enough, the buffalo too had not dared to cross it. So we
followed his precedent, looking for more hoof-prints on the bank. In
twenty more minutes we found that they swerved off the stream bank
and disappeared into a thick jungle which looked black as a pit
although it was hardly five in the afternoon. This place could not
have been more than half an hour's run from the village, for a wild
buffalo of any age.
Ghond said: "Do you hear the song of the water?" After listening for
several minutes I heard the sound of water kissing the sedges and
other grass not far off with gurgling groaning sounds. We were about
twenty feet from a lake into which the river ran. "The murderous
buffalo is hiding—probably asleep somewhere between here and the
lagoon," cried Ghond. "Let us make our home on one of the twin
trees yonder. It is getting dark and I am sure he will be here soon.
We should not be found on the floor of the jungle when he turns up.
There is hardly a space of four feet between the trees!"
His last words struck me as curious. So I examined the space
between the trees. They were tall and massive, and between them
lay a piece of earth just broad enough to afford room for both of us
walking abreast of each other.
"Now I shall lay down my fear-soaked tunic half-way between these
Twins." Then Ghond proceeded to take from under his tunic a bundle
of old clothes which he had been wearing until today. He placed
them on the ground, then climbed one of the trees. After Ghond had
gone up, he swung down a rope ladder for me. I climbed up on it
with Gay-Neck fluttering and beating his wings on my shoulders in
order to keep his balance. Both of us safely reached the branch on
which Ghond was sitting, and since the evening was coming on
apace, we sat still for a while.
The first thing I noticed as the dusk fell was bird-life. Herons,
hornbills, grouse, pheasant, song-sparrows and emerald flocks of
parrots seemed to infest the forest. The drone of the bee, the cut-
cut-cut of the woodpecker and the shrill cry of the eagle far overhead
blended with the tearing crying noises of the mountain torrent and
the staccato laughter of the already waking hyenas.
The tree on which we made our home for the night was very tall. We
went further up in order to make sure that no leopard, or serpent,
was above us. After a close inspection we chose a couple of
branches between which we hung our rope ladder in the shape of a
strong hammock. Just as we had made ourselves secure on our
perch, Ghond pointed to the sky. I looked up at once. There floated
on wings of ruby a very large eagle. Though darkness was rising like
a flood from the floor of the jungle, in the spaces above the sky burnt
"like a pigeon's throat" and through it circled again and again that
solitary eagle who was no doubt, according to Ghond, performing his
worship of the setting sun. His presence had already had a stilling
effect on the birds and insects of the forest. Though he was far
above them, yet like a congregation of mute worshippers, they kept
silent while he, their King, flew backward and forward, and vaulted
before their God, the Father of Light, with the ecstasy of a
hierophant. Slowly the ruby fire ebbed from his wings. Now they
became purple sails fringed with sparks of gold. As if his adoration
was at last concluded, he rose higher and as an act of self-
immolation before his deity, flew towards the flaming peaks burning
with fire, and vanished in their splendour like a moth.
Below, a buffalo's bellowing unlocked the insect voices one by one,
tearing into shreds and tatters the stillness of the evening. An owl
hooted near by, making Gay-Neck snuggle closely to my heart under
my tunic. Suddenly the Himalayan Doël, a night bird, very much like
a nightingale, flung abroad its magic song. Like a silver flute blown
by a God, trill upon trill, cadenza upon cadenza, spilled its torrential
peace which rushed like rain down the boughs of the trees, dripping
over their rude barks to the floor of the jungle, then through their very
roots into the heart of the earth.
The enchantment of an early summer night in the Himalayas will
remain for ever indescribable. In fact it was so sweet and lonely that
I felt very sleepy. Ghond put an extra rope around me that held me
secure to the trunk of the tree. Then I put my head on his shoulder in
order to sleep comfortably. But before I did so, he told me of his plan.
"Those cast-off garments of mine are what I wore while my heart
was possessed of fear. They have a strange odour. If that brother-in-
law (idiot) of a buffalo gets their scent, he will come hither. He who is
frightened responds to the odour of fear. If he comes to investigate
my cast-off dress, we shall do what we can to him. I hope we can
lassoo and take him home tame as a heifer...." I did not hear the rest
of his words for I had fallen asleep.
I do not know how long I slept, but suddenly I was roused by a terrific
bellowing. When I opened my eyes Ghond, who was already awake,
undid the rope around me and pointed below. In the faint light of the
dawn at first I saw nothing, but I heard distinctly the groaning and
grunting of an angry beast. In the tropics the day breaks rapidly. I
looked down most intently. Now in the growing light of day I saw....
There could be no two opinions about what I saw. Yes, there was a
hillock of shining jet rubbing its dark side against the tree on which
we sat. It was about ten feet long, I surmised, though half of its bulk
was covered by the leaves and boughs of the trees. The beast
looked like a black opal coming out of a green furnace, such was the
glitter of the newly grown foliage under the morning sun. I thought,
the buffalo that in nature looks healthy and silken, in a Zoo is a
mangy creature with matted mane and dirty skin. Can those who see
bisons in captivity ever conceive how beautiful they can be? What a
pity that most young people instead of seeing one animal in nature—
which is worth a hundred in any Zoo—must derive their knowledge
of God's creatures from their appearance in prisons. If we cannot
perceive any right proportion of man's moral nature by looking at
prisoners in a jail, how do we manage to think that we know all about
an animal by gazing at him penned in a cage?
However, to return to that murderous buffalo at the foot of our tree.
Gay-Neck was freed from under my tunic and left to roam on the
tree, which Ghond and I descended by a number of branches like
the rungs of a ladder, till we reached a branch that was about two
feet above the buffalo. He did not see us. Ghond swiftly tied around
the tree trunk one end of the long lassoo. I noticed that the buffalo
was playing underneath by putting his horns now and then through a
tattered garment, what was left of Ghond's clothes. No doubt the
odour of man in them had attracted him. Though his horns were
clean, there were marks of fresh blood on his head. Apparently he
had gone to the village and killed another person during the night.
That roused Ghond. He whispered into my ear: "We shall get him
alive. You slip this lassoo over his horns from above." In a trice
Ghond had leaped off the branch near the rear of the buffalo. That
startled the beast. But he could not turn round, for close to his right
was a tree which I mentioned before, and to his left was the tree on
which I stood. He had to go back or forward between the twins in
order to get out from them, but before this happened I had flung the
lassoo over his head. The touch of the rope acted like electricity
upon him. He hastened backwards, in order to slip off the lassoo, so
fast that Ghond, had he not already gone around the next tree,
would have been trampled and cut to death by the sharp hoofs of the
beast. But now to my utter consternation, I noticed that instead of
gripping his two horns at the very root, I had succeeded in lassooing
only one of them. That instant I shrieked to Ghond in terror: "Beware!
only one of his horns is caught. The rope may slip off that one any
time. Run! Run up a tree."
But that intrepid hunter ignored my advice. Instead he stood facing
the enemy a short distance away from him. Then I saw the brute
lower his head and plunge forward. I shut my eyes in terror.
When I opened them again, I saw that the bull was tugging at the
rope that held him by the horn and kept him from butting into the tree
behind which Ghond stood. His monstrous bellowing filled the jungle
with a fearful racket. Echoes of it coursed one after another like
frightened shrieking children.
Since the bull had not yet succeeded in reaching him, Ghond drew
his razor-sharp dagger, about a foot and a half long and two inches
broad. He slowly slipped behind another tree to the right, then
vanished out of sight. The bull just ran straight at the spot where he
had seen Ghond last. Fortunately the rope was still clinging tightly to
his horn.
Here Ghond changed his tactics. He ran away in the opposite
direction, zig-zagging in between different trees. This he did to go
where his odour could not reach the bull blown down to him by the
wind. But though he was bewildered, yet the bull turned and
followed. He again saw the bundle of Ghond's clothes on the ground
under our tree. That maddened him. He sniffed, and then worried it
with his horns.
By now Ghond was down wind. Though I could not see him, I
surmised that he could tell by the odour where the bull was in case
the trees hid him from view. The beast bellowed again, as he put his
horns through Ghond's clothes, which raised a terrific tumult in the
trees all around. From nowhere came flocks of monkeys running
from branch to branch. Squirrels ran like rats from trees to the
jungle-floor, then back again. Swarms of birds, such as jays, herons
and parrots were flying about and shrieking in unison with crows,
owls and kites. Suddenly the bull charged again. I saw that Ghond
was standing there calmly facing him. If ever I saw a man calm as
calmness itself, it was Ghond. The bull's hind legs throbbed and
swept on like swords. Then something happened. He reared in the
air; no doubt it was the pull of the lassoo rope of which one end was
tied to our tree. He rose several feet above the ground, then fell.
That instant, like a dry twig, snapped by a child, his horn cracked
and flew up in the air. The breaking created an irresistible
momentum that flung him sideways on the ground. He almost rolled
over, his legs kicking the air violently. Instantly Ghond leaped forward
like a spark from the flint. Seeing him, the buffalo balanced himself
and sat on his haunches snorting. He almost succeeded in rising to
his feet, but Ghond struck near his shoulder with the dagger. Its
deadly edge dug deep and Ghond pressed on it with his entire
weight. A bellow like a volcanic eruption shook the jungle, and with it
a fountain of liquid ruby spurted up. Unable to bear the sight any
longer, I again shut my eyes.
In a few minutes when I came down from my perch, I found that the
buffalo had died of a hæmorrhage. It lay in a deep pool of blood. And
nearby sat Ghond on the ground, wiping himself from the stain of his
encounter. I knew that he wished to be left alone. So I went to the old
tree and called to Gay-Neck. He made no response. I went all the
way up to the topmost branch of the tree. But in vain—he was not
there.
When I came down, Ghond had cleansed himself. He pointed at the
sky. We beheld nature's scavengers. Kites below, and far above
them vultures flew. They had already learnt that someone had died
and they must clean up the jungle.
Ghond said: "We will find the pigeon in the monastery. He flew with
the rest of the birds doubtless. Let us depart hence soon." But before
starting homeward, I went to measure the dead buffalo to whom flies
had been swarming from every direction. He was ten feet and a half
in length; and his forelegs measured over three feet.
Our trudge back towards the monastery was made in silence which
was only broken when about noonday we had reached the stricken
village and informed its headman that their enemy was dead. He
was relieved to hear of it, though he was very sad because during
the previous evening the buffalo had killed his aged mother, who was
going to the village temple to her worship before sunset.
We were very hungry and walked fast, and soon we reached the
monastery. At once I made inquiries about my pigeon. Gay-Neck
was not there! It was terrible. But the old holy man said as we
chatted in his cell, "He is safe as are you, Ghond." After a pause of
several minutes he asked: "What is troubling your peace of mind?"
The old hunter thought out quietly what he was going to say.
"Nothing, my Lord, save this. I hate to kill anything. I wanted to catch
that bull alive and alas! I had to destroy him. When that horn of his
broke, and there was nothing between him and me, I had to put my
knife through a vital vein. I am so sorry I could not get him alive in
order to sell him to a zoo."
"O, you soul of commercialism!" I exclaimed. "I am not sorry that the
bull died. Better death than to be caged for the rest of his life in a
zoo. Real death is preferable to living death."
"If you had only slipped the lassoo over both horns!" Ghond retorted.
The holy one ejaculated: "Both of you should be concerned about
Gay-Neck, not about what is already dead."
Ghond said: "True. Let us search for him on the morrow."
But the holy one replied, "No. Return to Dentam, my son. Your family
is anxious about you. I hear their thoughts."
The next day we left for Dentam on a pair of ponies. By forced march
and changing ponies twice a day at different posts, we reached
Dentam in three days' time. As we were going up towards our house,
we encountered a very excited servant of my family. He said that
Gay-Neck had returned three days ago. But since we had not come
back with him my parents had begun to worry, and they had sent out
parties searching after us, alive or dead.
He and I almost ran up to the house. In another ten minutes my
mother's arms were around me, and Gay-Neck, with his feet on my
head, was fluttering his wings in order to balance himself.
I cannot begin to describe how overjoyed I was to hear that Gay-
Neck had flown at last. He had winged all the way from the
Lamasery to our home in Dentam. He had not faltered nor failed! "O,
thou soul of flight, thou pearl amongst pigeons," I exclaimed to
myself as Ghond and I accelerated our steps.
Thus ended our pilgrimage to Singalele. It healed both Gay-Neck
and Ghond of the disease of fear and hate that they had caught in
the battlefields. No labor would be in vain if it could heal a single soul
of these worst ills of life.
Instead of spinning out a sermon at the end of this story, let me say
this:
"Whatever we think and feel will colour what we say or do. He who
fears, even unconsciously, or has his least little dream tainted with
hate, will inevitably, sooner or later, translate these two qualities into
his action. Therefore, my brothers, live courage, breathe courage
and give courage. Think and feel love so that you will be able to pour
out of yourselves peace and serenity as naturally as a flower gives
forth fragrance.

"Peace be unto all!"