Ecuador: Correa's Plebiscitary Presidency

Abstract

With the election of Rafael Correa in 2006, Ecuador joined the ranks of Latin American countries that have taken the "Left Turn" in national politics. Correa views his presidency as an opportunity to effect profound political change by convoking a constituent assembly to write a new constitution. In the course of campaigning for the constituent assembly, Correa constructed a powerful hyper-plebiscitary presidency—a mode of governance marked by the president’s recurrent appeals to public opinion and special elections that enhances the legitimacy of the executive at the expense of congress. Using the informal and formal powers of his office, Correa was able to govern "over the heads" of existing institutions and greatly debilitate what remained of the political opposition.

Ecuador: Una década de correísmo

“…A continuación, pasaremos a analizar los sucesos relacionados con estos dos ámbitos. sanciones arbitrarias (Conaghan 2008(Conaghan , 2016. Durante 2016 continuaron los casos de intervención en medios privados, como el allanamiento e incautación de la estación televisiva Ecotel TV (en la provincia de Loja) y el juicio por la venta del canal de televisión Teleamazonas (LatinNews 2016, 22 de agosto).…”

Taking Control of the Public Sphere by Manipulating Civil Society: The Citizen Revolution in Ecuador

“…The traditional definitions of 'citizenship', from the liberal tradition or the republican perspective, were not the sources of the new definition of this concept. Rather, the term came from a new category based in a plebiscitary ascription to the regime (Conaghan, 2008). In fact, to be a citizen becomes synonymous with being a voter.…”

“…Nevertheless, Rafael Correa's control of Ecuadorian civil society has received sparse attention in the academic literature. Notably however, several studies focus on related topics, including: the populist nature of Correa's political project, characterized by the subjection of the political institutions under the authority of the leader (De la Torre, 2007Torre, , 2008Torre, , 2013aTorre, , 2013bOrtiz Lemos, 2008;Montúfar, 2013); the attacks to the political party system, in order to support a hegemonic political movement (Freidenberg, 2009); the creation of a plebiscitary model of democracy that has prioritized the electoral process over civil participation (Conaghan, 2008); and the conflictive relationship between the Citizen Revolution and the traditional social movements (Becker, 2012;Martinez, 2009;and Tuaza, 2012). These studies are accurate, but the works neither defined civil society as a core element of the public sphere in Ecuador, nor showed, in a specific way, the diverse institutional and normative strategies that Correa used to control social organizations.…”

“…According to a plebiscitary strategy (Conaghan, 2008), the government thesis prevailed over the critical civil groups.…”

Explicando la corrupción judicial en las cortes intermedias e inferiores de Chile, Perú y Ecuador

“…Ese momento es correlativo con la vigencia de una nueva Constitución Política y fundamentalmente con el aparecimiento de un proceso político con rasgos hegemónicos (BasabeSerrano et al, 2010). En tal escenario, en el que el personalismo y la polarización han diezmado la distribución del poder político De la Torre, 2010;Conaghan, 2008), se podría conjeturar que la corrupción judicial ha ganado terreno. De hecho, recientes trabajos sobre el caso ecuatoriano presentan evidencia empírica que da cuenta de la mayor ductilidad del Poder Judicial frente a la orientación que se desea dar desde el Poder Ejecutivo a determinados casos judiciales en los que de por medio existen intereses políticos en j uego (Conaghan, 2012).…”