It has become more and more frequent to hear people speculating about the alignment of extremist and radical positions that cause political polarization in Cuban society if we assume this from a transnational perspective. I have perceived this concern not only in digital media and informal gatherings but also in academic contexts. At the most recent congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), for example, two panels on Cuba discussed the “conditions for the rise of the extreme right” and the “conservative right, antagonisms and socio-political perspectives for the future,” respectively. In addition to the formulations “extreme right” and “conservative right,” the titles of the papers included expressions such as “reactive and conservative extremism,” “media polarization,” “emergence of a radical right in the Cuban public space,” and “extremist discourse.”
The existence of polarizing discourses and radical attitudes in a wide segment of Cuban society is a fact. One just has to look at the comments on social networks or digital media to find opinionated fans of Trump, Bolsonaro, Bukele, and Milei, who argue uncritically and fiercely with worshipers of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and their respective legacies. On the other hand, some empirical studies[1] on the political opinions and behaviors of recently arrived immigrants in Florida (which, in a certain sense, can serve as a proxy of the attitudes of a part of the residents on the island) show that they are dominated by antipathy for the Cuban government that tends to bring them closer to the Republican Party and the figure of Donald Trump.[2]
A quick Google search with the words “Cuba” and “polarization” yields hundreds of results that abound on the idea of the emergence of a process of radicalization and highlight the importance that the issue has gained. Among the interesting hypotheses about the causes of polarization and its idiosyncrasy,[3] some attribute it to the effect of the economic crisis on the deepening of inequalities in access to material resources, and to the precariousness of daily life. Others, to the segregation, repression, and criminalization of dissidents, and the violence exercised by the Cuban government against them. Some others speak of radicalization processes that produce ideological dogmatism and incite violence. Most blame disinformation and the proliferation of false news in digital social networks, and in the case of emigrants, the influence of the host community and its impact on the political socialization processes of newcomers.
In the face of all these interpretations, what I am interested in discussing here is whether the current Cuban context is indeed a scenario of extremism and ideological and political polarization arising from the confrontation between radical ideological positions. Since the issue is not exclusive to Cuba and Cubans, but has become a regular topic of political analysis in Latin America and other regions of the world (so much so that FundéuRAE chose polarization as its word of the year in Spanish 2023), I think it wise to propose two categories from sociology and political science to address these processes outside the endogamy that usually characterizes Cuban studies and that may reveal some similarities with the international scenario: negative identities and affective polarization.
Political polarization is a political science concept defined in the context of democratic systems of government that refers to the centripetal alignment of parties on the left-right axis, an alignment that leaves the center empty and strengthens the extremes. A politically polarized society contributes to the emergence of processes of erosion of democracy because it divides public opinion and the party system (and other political actors) into two extremes with irreconcilable programmatic and ideological positions, which are often anchored and intertwined with deeply rooted ethnic, religious, territorial or class cleavages. I do not believe this is the case in Cuba, where there is a single-party system with state control of the public sphere.
The characterization of political polarization as a process where “elites” (government and opposition), media, and digital communities participate equally and confront each other divided into two camps,[4] not only suffers from a problem of equivalence[5] and “incommensurability”[6] but does not take into account the limits of the concept to apply it to the Cuban context. Since any consideration of politics has to start from the plurality and competition for power (or the influence on its distribution) produced by a hierarchical system of status and roles, in the absence of partisan competition and institutions that channel social plurality into the political sphere and in a public sphere controlled by the State, where the media and “public opinion” only express one position, there are not two opposing poles in the same space and, therefore, one cannot speak of political polarization in the strict sense. From this perspective, the government and the media it controls do not constitute one extreme and the opposition and the independent media another, but rather their actions and discourses circulate in different spaces, hierarchically delimited and with a very unequal capacity to influence public opinion.
That is why, in my opinion. it seems more convenient to characterize the Cuban situation in terms of affective polarization. Unlike the previous one, affective polarization is not based on values, ideologies, programs, and proposals, but on emotions, feelings, and attitudes, from which emerge not only opposing positions but also intense animosity, tension, and confrontation between two groups. Instead of disagreements over partisan controversies, this type of polarization produces hostility, distrust, and hatred. It is amplified by digital social networks that function as communities of belonging and battle spaces, in which algorithms create echo chambers and ideological bubbles where, rather than deliberate, people seek to reaffirm their beliefs and annihilate those of others.
The concept of affective polarization describes a phenomenon that does not occur in the realm of political elites but among ordinary people, the mass public that participates in a broad social conversation in non-institutional channels. Therefore, this type of polarization is not contained in the political sphere or electoral behavior but reaches the spheres of everyday life, friendship, family, and even couple relationships.
Affective polarization is instituted through negative political identities, characterized by definitions of the self in contrast to other(s).[7] From this primary distinction, people know better what or who they are against than what or whom they are for, and this knowledge conditions their behavior (who they vote for or campaign for, who they protest against, what they disseminate, and how they converse in digital networks). Since it is an identity, its capacity to guide behavior is much more powerful; it is not the same to have preferences different from those of other people as it is to be different. In this sense, negative identities do not refer to what people wish or consider fair or valuable, but about how their sense of self is constituted.[8]
From negative political identities, adhesions to figures or parties are not based on enthusiasm or acceptance of ideologies or government programs but are conditioned by what is farther away from what people reject or detest. These are the classic anti-positions that explain voting for Milei because one detests Peronism, or for Bolsonaro because one hates the PT. In these cases, what confers identity and a sense of belonging is to oppose.
Since these are forms of adhesion not mediated by judgment, they drive and explain affective polarization, as well as some of its characteristics. Negative political identities mold subjects who act more as warriors in combat against an enemy than as dialogical participants in the public sphere. That is, I not only vote for Milei, but I hate anyone who votes for Peronism. In this case, adversaries become enemies, and political disagreements are settled with hostility, fear, and distrust towards members of other groups, precisely because these disagreements are emotional rather than ideological.
In the case of Cuba, where the poles are delimited extraterritorially and transnationally, negative identities and affective polarization are defined based on a basic position: those who are for and those who are against the government and the CCP. From this fundamental division, we can understand all other confrontations and adhesions; Trumpism, Bolsonarism, Bukelism, Mileism, the positions in favor or against the embargo/blockade (both the way of naming it and the centrality of this issue in the analysis of the Cuban reality), the international alignments (pro-Palestine/pro-Israel, pro-Ukraine/pro-Russia), etc.
The scenarios of affective polarization help to understand that in the definitions of positions and preferences, the issues of parties and public policies are not important and that the “left-right” division does not incorporate major disputes on moral issues of great actuality in the public debate of our time (abortion, legalization of drugs, homoparental adoption).[9] The configuration of negative identities explains the absence of reasoning and discussions about the contradictions between the radical discourses that are supported and one’s interests; so it is increasingly common to see the same person defending Trump’s candidacy while trying to get the parole or paying a coyote to enter more irregular immigrants to the USA, or anti-imperialist advocates of decoloniality justifying the invasion of Ukraine. None of the above can be easily inscribed in the classic definitions of left and right, conservatism and liberalism.
What we see today are not thoughtful and rational defenses of political or moral issues but unreasoned opinions based on fanaticism and refractory to arguments, debate, and controversy. The current polarization of the Cuban scenario is more closely related to this negativity than to a real positive identification with political projects, whether right or left (what ever that means) and it is that same negativity that explains the growing attraction to figures and speeches with radical or extreme positions.
Although my intention here is not to make a moral assessment of polarization but to reflect on some concepts that help us to study and understand it, I cannot fail to warn that, despite having a very bad press, not all polarization is harmful. In fact, political polarization has shown to have some virtues, such as promoting struggles for the defense of democracy in autocratic contexts and democratic erosion, since it can mobilize groups that are usually apathetic or distant from politics and lead certain parties to reformulate their offers to win new voters. Unfortunately, the polarization of certain segments of Cuban society today does not seem to be of this type; what we see is an emotional confrontation between enemies who fight each other with a binary and stigmatizing language and logic as a substitute for ideas. This type of polarization does not contribute to the formation of citizens committed to responsible and institutional political participation the country is in dire need of.
Notes:
[1] Cf. Cuban Research Institute: FIU Cuba Poll, Florida International University, Miami, 2022.
[2] Cf. Guillermo J. Grenier: “The March of Thousands: Some Considerations on the Incorporation of New Cuban Americans into the South Florida Political Culture”, OnCuba News, May 9, 2023.
[3] Given the nature of this space, I will not dwell on the details of each hypothesis or quote their authors, because what I intend to do is to take some of them as a starting point to develop my argument.
[4] An approach adopted, for example, by the Observatory on Political Extremism of the digital platform La Joven Cuba.
[5] I will not dwell on the problem of equivalences because Hilda Landrove has already discussed it exhaustively in the Cuban online Rialta Magazine.
[6] I use this word in a metaphorical sense that does not allude to its Kuhnian reference (related to Thomas Kuhn’s theory) but to the simple mathematical definition referring to the absence of a common unit of measurement between two variables, which makes it impossible to relate different magnitudes with the same measurement.
[7] “We trace the origins of affective polarization to the power of partisanship as a social identity and explain the factors that intensify partisan animus. We also explore the consequences of affective polarization, highlighting how partisan affect influences attitudes and behaviors well outside the political sphere.” (Iyengar, S.; Y. Lelkes; M. Levendusky; N. Malhotra; and S.J. Westwood: “The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States,” Annual Review of Political Science, n. 22, 2019, pp. 129-146.)
[8] Cf. Jonathan R. Cohen: “Negative Identity and Conflict,” Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, vol. 35, n. 5, 2020, pp. 737-752.
[9] With the exception perhaps of debates impacting the LGBTIQ+ community (it is worth remembering that identities are multiple and activated according to context).
