The significance of Zapatismo for democracy: Panel: The quality of democracy: leaders, parties and citizens Convenor: Laura Tedesco

In this paper I explore the relationship between leadership and democracy by looking at (a) the role of Subcomandante Marcos’ anticaudillista leadership style for the development of indigenous democracy in the Zapatistas communities of Chiapas; (b) the impact of the principle of ‘command while obeying’ for a reconceptualisation of democracy in Latin America. My questions are: How does Marcos anti-caudillista leadership style -structured within traditional Mayan forms of governance based on ‘command while obeying’, facilitates the democratisation of the comunidades rebeldes in Chiapas? In what ways has this kind of leadership posed qualitative challenges to existing ideas of democracy and democratic politics in Latin America? I suggest that in order to answer these questions we are required to equipped ourselves with non Eurocentric and non Western understandings of democracy and indigenous resistance which are inevitably associated to the concept of buen vivir, to which ‘democracy’ is an essential component.