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non-violent methods: th epan offsets the palo, to a greater degree in cacical than in military/authoritarian 'regimes'; indeed, caciques are almost invariably civilian, though, as I shall note, often well-versed in gunplay. Caciquismo, on balance, is more consensual — perhaps even 'hegemonic', in the Gramscian sense — than bureaucratic authoritarianism. 66 We have noted the existence of'good' caciques; a good cacique is 'someone who knows how to get on with people'. 67 As a result, caciques are often more fondly remembered than military despots: the latter may be appreciated (by the right) for saving the country; but, with some exceptions perhaps Guatemala's Ubico? — they lack the populist, patrimonial, don de mando which characterizes the (successful) cacique; they are, in a sense, all stick and no carrot. Compare, for example, Porfirio Díaz and Victoriano Huerta: Díaz, the gran cacique of the Porfiriato, always stirred mixed feelings and, recently, has benefited from charitable revisionist portrayals, including the telenovela Vuelo del Aguila. Huerta, the counter-revolutionary military tyrant of 1913—14, was cordially hated and has never been historiographically rehabilitated. 68 And I would not anticipate record viewing figures for a telenovela — perhaps 'Pasos del Chacal '? — offering a sympathetic version of Huerta's sanguinary career. It follows that caciquista regimes are more durable than military ones; they are more flexible, less 'exceptional'. The regime of the institutional revolution in Mexico, we might recall, lasted 71 years — longer than the 'bureaucratic-authoritarian' regimes of the Argentine, Brazilian and Chilean military put together. Caciques (unlike caudillos) operate at all levels of the political hierarchy. (I shall present a typology later, embracing five levels: national, state, regional, municipal and local.) But they are usually strongly associated with a particular territory, of which they are often - some would say invariably — natives.69 While the 'municipal 66 Calvo and Bartra, 'Estructura de poder', p. in . Of course, 'bureaucratic authoritarianism' is an ideal type; in practice, it may represent a bundle of political practices, caciquismo and clientelism included. Frances Hagopian, 'Traditional politics against state transformation', in Joel S. Migdal, Atul Kohli and Vivienne Shue (eds.), State Power and Social Forces (Cambridge, 1994), pp.3 7-64, convincingly argues that 'traditional' forms - including coronelismo - underpinned, resisted and to a degree subverted Brazilian 'bureaucratic authoritarianism'. I suspect this is more true of Brazil than of Argentina or Chile; and, of course, Brazilian military rule was, to a degree, more consensual. 67 Romanucci-Ross, Conflict, Violence, and Morality, p. 130. 68 Michael C. Meyer, Huerta: A Political Portrait (Lincoln, NE, 1972), is a scholarly study, but its revisonist thrust is not persuasive. 69 Cornelius, Politics and the Migrant Poor, p. 142. Even caciques who had a sectoral base - such as a sindicato - usually had a geographical base which went with it (e.g., La Quina of the oil workers union had Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas); and the same seems to be true of the numerous petty caciques who 'represent' informal workers, such as trash-combers and street-vendors, e.g., in Tepito, Mexico City: see John C. Cross, Informal Politics. Street Vendors and the State in Mexico City (Stanford, 1998). Of course, the larger the organization, the less any specific geographical base is likely to count: Fidel Velázquez, long-time leader of the CTM, did not depend on a specific community or zone.
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caudillo' is an oxymoron, the 'national cacique' is simply unusual and, among the great universe of caciques, rare. The national cacique — such as Diaz or Calles - is
